Many of us humans have a genuine concern for the healing of not just our nation but of all the world’s nations. My passion and vision for human health and happiness has always extended beyond my office and to the world. I’ve always believed that when one person regains some aspect of what true health is (body, mind and emotional capacity) everybody has gained by the experience. These days there are concerns on the part of many people about issues such as nuclear war, starvation, cancer, and climate change to name just a few of the more pressing issues. There is anxiety that we are heading toward an early grave as a race. Yet in the midst of all this, growing numbers of people have a sense that something else is going on, that there is an element of integration at work.
Oneness is a fact. This is a concept that I first got in the late 60s and early 70s when the words, “All you need is love, and What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love,” was on the minds and in the hearts of many. Sometimes we have had difficulty as people facing one another and recognizing this. Perhaps in the broader sense, we can look out at the earth on which we live, into the solar system of which it is a part, and beyond, and have a real feeling of the fact of oneness, of inherent design. And because of that design, even though we can’t fully describe it, there is an awareness of direction, of purpose. Yet when we come in close with one another it’s often a little difficult to see how that works; there are such apparently enormous gulfs between people. Why is this?
I think it has to do with the habit of preoccupation with ourselves and the world around us. I mentioned the prevalent anxiety about the nuclear issue. Remember Detente? Those concerned about it were strenuously objecting to what was going on. They were overtly involved in the issue. In my personal experience, becoming preoccupied with something allows it to build and build and become a bigger issue than it would be otherwise. Our current preoccupation with Iran is another example. The differences, the gulfs, between us are emphasized because of our pre-occupation with them, because of our apprehensions, our fears, even our efforts at trying to produce agreements. Maybe we don’t have to struggle to be with one another. If oneness is a fact, let’s relax with that. Even if, because of past habits, we may not be all that skillful at interrelating with one another, if we relax about it, it will tend to happen.
Getting Along with Each Other
Getting along with each other has much to do with the right use of our minds and emotions. There has been, in this process of involvement with the world around us, the inclination to assume that what we think and feel must inevitably be accepted at face value. Is it really so? This question has very large implications. For example, the current political trials and tribulations of our current U.S. government. The polarization between Democrats and Republicans on such important policy issues as environmental pollution, immigration, food safety, election integrity and our relationships with foreign nations is astounding. We all have the right to say to our own minds and hearts, “Wait a minute. I’m in charge here, not you. Therefore, what in this situation would actually be most helpful?” This is the beginning of true diplomacy. It happens right at home. I think a lot of people are aware that their thinking and their emotions are rather like a herd of unruly horses – they tend to get out from under control and what results is most embarrassing. We all have the ability to choose and the ability to say, “Wait a minute. Let it come to rest, and I will see what it is I really should say, what it is I really should do, rather than being ruled by what I feel and perceive.”
We can begin to recognize that the facilities of mind, emotions, and body are there to tell us what is going on in the world around us. But because we see something with our physical eyes does not mean that we have to become involved in what we see. We have many kinds of perceptions coming to us that may be useful so that in our integrity we can express ourselves creatively and sensibly. That simple change of perspective, I feel, is at the base of the transformation of individual life and of the life of the world.
Shame and Blame
Shame and blame seem to be the order of the day and many people play into this nonsense. Do you understand that shame has been a prime shaper of our society? Why are people ashamed” Is it simply because their parents said to them, “You should be ashamed”? I think it has to do with a fundamental realization in a person that because thoughts, feelings and physical urges have tended to call the shots, the human experience has been less than the individual inherently knows it could be. There is the instinctive sense that fundamental greatness, fundamental magic resides in each person, and somehow that magnificence has been thwarted, has not been allowed out.
In our society, it is customary to blame others when problems arise. Someone else is always at fault for the stymied state in our own experience. How ridiculous really! What shows up is just the sense of frustration at one’s own impotence, due to the fact that these potentially wonderful capacities for expression and perception have been out from under control. If we can’t function in relationships with each other in a positive way, why say anything?
I don’t think there will be any sanity in the world until there are people, (leaders), who acknowledge this responsibility in their own lives. We all individually need to bring mind and emotions under control, so that we no longer allow mental and emotional impulses to call the shots. Then we can begin to have some room in consciousness to perceive what it is that life is already saying, what life is presenting to us. It may appear that we are shoved and pushed along the road of life; we don’t seem to know what’s really going on. I think that’s happening to humanity right now. Life moves! The order and design of life are at hand. Something is unfolding and we are ignorant, blind, in relationship to it until our organs of perception are settled enough to see what’s really there.
I have been keeping an eye on the current impeachment debate regarding President Trump. Because there has been such an emotional reaction to the president, what is going on is often misrepresented. “What are the Russians up to? Nothing, probably. Where will it get them? Nowhere, in all likelihood. So why are they doing it? Because they are Russians. It goes without saying that when Russia interferes with our elections, invades a neighbor state, or wages war in Syria, people in the west tend to assume that these furious actions must be part of a plan. To the western mind, trained by Greece, Rome, and the Reformation to believe in order and clarity, decisions like this are assumed to have a calculation behind them and a goal in view ahead. The western mind has probably got Russia wrong again. Another possible explanation of this series of events is that Russia does not know what to do. Consequently, the bear will most likely go back into hibernation again.
As long as we are fearful, greedy, ashamed, and feeling guilty of all these states of consciousness, we can’t really see clearly and we will continue to make mountains out of molehills. In those altered states, we are fighting with apparent bogeys, wrestling them down, and they may not even exist! Are our perceptive faculties too cloudy to see what is really going on? I would suggest that we come to rest within ourselves and tell our minds and emotions, “All right, just settle down, and let’s see what it is that life has in store for this occasion.” We can be sure it has plenty! If we can get to where we don’t have any axes to grind, and we don’t have any apprehensions to protect ourselves from, then we will discover what it is that life does have in store for us. This calm from within will lead us to our own sense of harmony with what life is doing. This is oneness.
It is a hopeless struggle to try and get along with each other without some recognition of the basic order of things, the fact that everything already fits together. Let’s let our hearts and our heads be clear so that we can see what it is that is underway. There is a Universal Intelligence that has created and is maintaining everything in the universe. We often have to be still to understand the order. Breath, relax, meditate, pray, walk in nature, practice yoga, calm yourself, clear yourself, feed yourself, and get adjusted. Resolve to these things and you will have a brand new experience. 2020 is a new year and a new decade. Resolve yourself to be in the present moment of life and experience all of what life has in store for you.
Peace,
- Dr. John Weisberg
Seaside Wellness Center
Jan 07, 2020 at 4:51 PM
Thanks Dr John for this very specific adjustment above atlas. wishing you and yours an open hearted beginning of this new year and decade. Glad to be sharing the planet with you!