Is Silence Complicity?
I try not to get involved in this blog on highly polarizing current events, but I can no longer keep silent about the genocidal atrocities happening in Gaza and around the world in which innocent civilians of any sex and age (aren’t innocent men as worthy of life as women and children?) along with all traces of both their humanity and civilizations are systematically annihilated like inconsequential fodder for the fearful, hateful, purely pathological, greed-driven motives of others, reinforced by the gas-lit ineptitude of mainstream media, out-of-touch politicians complicit as long as their pockets are lined and infiltrated institutions masquerading as societally concerned, while undermining every right and liberty we possess. We are witnessing not only a genocide, but a global suicide that surpasses understanding. Therefore, I cannot keep silent. It is time to speak to healing our self-destruction.
An Inner Scream
I can no longer tolerate the pompous righteousness of the morally twisted who defend such atrocity. I am so thoroughly disgusted and sickened by the lies and justifications being used to prop up toxic egos, to propagate categorical brainwashing lies spending billions for destruction instead of creation. There is a colossal scream ripening within me and I promise it will break not only speakers, earbuds, and amplifiers but eardrums and blood vessels when I let it rip. Not my eardrums and blood vessels mind you, but those of the demons who are running wild on the face of this beautiful, beleaguered planet.
My scream is for the mothers mourning their dead or maimed children. It is for the innocent little child whose family, home and every belonging is lost to them forever. It is for the doctors whose patients’ lives they just miraculously saved despite a complete lack of anything he needed as he ducks once again from the bombs falling over his head. It’s for the thirsty one at the refugee camp who just wants one tiny sip of water, now more precious than gold. It’s for the lover of knowledge and critical thinking whose eyes burn with the ashes of his beloved university up in flames, all those treasured books lost. It’s for the worshipper of God whose beautiful temple built by his ancestors has been reduced to rubble. It’s for the journalist wanting to show the world a inconvenient reality but being silenced at every turn, relentlessly continuing even as his own family is murdered. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. My scream could shatter the earth herself.
But Words Are Useless
There are those who are approaching the crisis with diplomacy, attempting to give a platform for debate and discussion, but in my opinion, the time for ‘talking’ has long since past. Communication can no longer happen constructively on the level of concepts. In fact, doing so only entrenches the ego. Those of us with ears to still discern fact from fiction can’t possibly “listen” to the views of those who are completely mentally corrupt. It’s like listening to gibberish or worse…because it is quite literally poisonous to sanity. To those who are capable of listening without complete physiological rejection, who can hold space for such words, I humbly salute you and your gift.
Most would assume then that I am taking an extremist view and encouraging some kind of physical battle. Hardly. Has history taught us nothing? War solves nothing. It only ever costs and far, far more than it’s ever worth, which is why the profiteers of the war machine love it and do anything to ensure its necessity. No. I’m recommending a different approach…on a completely different dimension of reality. Neither am I advocating for more hatred or terror. This too, quite obviously, serves none but those who profit from such base feelings and actions.
Healing Our Self-Destruction
As I already alluded and as my title affirms, atrocity of any kind is self-destruction, the absolute antithesis of Divine Me Time. We are not separate organisms; we are all cells within one body. And at the moment, we are fighting a virulent cancer. The cancer would have us eternally dividing and polarizing, endlessly fighting and destroying. We can no longer afford to be caught up in surface appearances and paradigms that speak to what is readily becoming ancient history. Reality has already changed. It is up to us to catch up. So based on this understanding of oneness, those who are called to practice a spiritual activism can employ the following techniques.
Tonglen Meditation
I often cultivate compassion for the traumatized souls and the mentally ill who have become so self-obsessed and confused in their hearts and minds as to have no sense of soul, but my compassion is not to be mistaken for weakness. I can send love to the freakshow personalities and mouthpieces governing our world because on the ultimate level, I know they are also made of the same God-stuff as we all are, albeit completely unplugged and inherently dangerous.
I can find an inner mercy towards their lost souls and realize that it also my soul. They are playing out a role that I have cast out of myself into the world and it is up to me to bring it back in, acknowledge it, and integrate it so that they may be freed from the weighty duty to show it to me…however distorted the reflection. This is a form of tantra in the truest sense of the word (and not some sexualized, bastardized, western version of it) known as Tonglen in Buddhism.
This requires a recognition of the interconnectedness of all beings, one that transcends nationality, religion, history, politics and everything else. It is a path that requires self-inquiry, shadow work, mirror work, and Divine Me time. It requires feeling, truth-telling, sacrifice and trust. It requires courage and fortitude, and faith in an ultimate justice.
Daily Hygiene
This is also something I’ve recommended numerous times before…practicing of a daily spiritual hygiene whether that takes the form of some kind of meditation, prayer, chanting, movement practice, walk in nature…whatever is necessary to empty the person of all personhood as many times a day as possible or necessary to maintain a certain equanimity and clarity.
No point mincing words. We can no longer afford projection, blame, hatred, or emotional immaturity. We can no longer afford our delusions and fear-induced need to control. We wake up now or we continue to devolve and suffer greater and greater atrocity.