Most people don’t care whether we live or die unless our living or dying affects their lives. This is why some people can eat excessively whilst others die of starvation. If we look at something and think it is wrong we create discontent within our self. Discontent is not love. We cannot force another to love but without it there is nothing. To use force to stop the persecution of people by their government will not create love or compassion. The cause of all suffering is a belief which denies compassion. The compassion we show for others is the love we have for our self.
The only way we can experience love is to be compassionate towards others because the gratitude they feel when we remove their suffering is an ‘expression’ of ‘our own’ love. The compassion we show for others is the love we have for our self. To fight apathy, cruelty, indifference and insanity is to worship and feed those demons. To be compassionate, selfless and generous is to be both generous and divinely selfish. This is because it is me who benefits from gratitude felt towards me for my generosity and kindness. Gratitude is an expression of love.
Once we start to be generous and caring towards others our inspiration becomes divine and not selfish. Alternatively our selfishness creates a different effect fuelled by greed, passive intolerance and judgement. The effect of our selfishness and intolerance is not gratitude but the violent expression of what has been termed terrorist acts. Kidnapping, torture, bombing and burning alive are the effect of a cause which is ‘always’ a lack of compassion. We are each an unlimited creative soul and we are all equally responsible for the world we live in. Our imagination is creating it!
When we choose to love a few to the exclusion of all others we create separation, inequality and discontent. When we choose to value a few to the exclusion of all others we create separation, inequality and discontent. We are one so we cannot leave one behind and be wholly happy. We are each the terror victim, the starving child in the third world and the rape victim. But we are also the terrorist, the rapist, as well as the self-obsessed obese and greedy first world citizen who thinks our nationality gives us rights which ‘foreigners’ must not be given.
When mine is mine and yours is yours how can the poor escape poverty? We all exist within one mind divided by an infinite number of separate perspectives. We are not our body. We are not our religion or nationality. Religion like nationality is a man-made delusion that only exists as a concept. If we each put the happiness of others over our own happiness, then it is ‘not possible’ for a single one of us to starve or feel enmity towards another. When your happiness is mine and mine is yours we cannot rest in peace whilst another suffers.
When your happiness causes my unhappiness we cannot exist in harmony. Selfishness is caused by making happiness conditional upon getting or acquiring something that is ‘not shared’. Poverty only exists whilst we must each pay in order to live. There is no scarcity. The true cause of wealth is selfishness and greed. I must deprive others if I am to have more than they have. If my happiness is my possessions and wealth then this is what I must acquire to be happy. If we believe that another’s existence prevents our wealth it implies their continued existence is creating our poverty.
Whilst it never works the common solution for this state of affairs has always been violence and wars. War is ‘terrorism’. Terrorism is ‘war’. Governments define their ‘own’ violent human resources as ‘armed forces’ and the violent human resources of their enemy to be ‘terrorists’. If it suits an objective those terrorists can also be referred to as insurgents or rebels. Governments who fund terrorists for selfish gain cannot have lasting peace. If we ‘all’ share what we have how can one have less than another? To forgive is to give not take.
Other relevant articles –