Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Edward’s Diary Entry 78: How to apply "Self-Awareness" to yesterday's "World Days"?

OK, let’s answer the World Day entry from yesterday… What to do about these things?

       1) About controlling atmospheric explosions of nuclear weapons. Sit down and cross your legs for 10 minutes and concentrate on your breathing. Air flows in and air flows out. You follow your breathing, you don’t think, you don’t feel, you don’t repeat any peace mantras – they’re just words. Simply place your awareness on your breath, with eyes closed and your focus uplifted between your eyebrows. You are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, you are not a bunch of words protesting about nuclear weaponry. You sense your breathing, you may listen to your inner sounds, you may hear outer sounds but you do not classify or react to them. You are not a protester, a politician, a scientist or a construction worker. You are not a member of any religion, you have nothing to argue about with anyone – those are all thoughts that divide us. You have no feelings to make you react to ideas – human ideas just divide us. Everything flows naturally. You are at peace with yourself. The state of being at peace with yourself will help all our sentient beings to find peace in themselves, thanks to you maybe. This is how an individual helps to control atmospheric explosions of nuclear weapons.

2)   About controlling underground explosions of nuclear weapons. Sit down and cross your legs for 15 minutes and concentrate on your body. It is sitting on the floor. You sense your weight. You place your awareness in your face and work downwards, from the top of your head, going slowly and concentratedly sensing each part of your body from head to foot. After your shoulders and arms, come back to your breathing and follow it downwards and relax every part of your body down to your buttocks. Then follow each leg down to the foot. After this, sense the whole weight of your body as it rests on the floor. Then sense the floor under you and the Earth under it. If you are lucky enough to be sitting outside on the ground, so much the better. Don’t think, don’t feel, don’t repeat any peace mantras – they’re just words. And we don’t need more words. We need a sensation of soil, Earth, matter, bodily weight. The weight of a body, a body that will eventually lose its life and return to the Earth, in the form of dust and ashes, but at the right time – not when a nuclear explosion goes off. Sense your body, be in it. Realise its importance for life. The state of being at peace with your body will help all other sentient beings to find peace because of you. This is how an individual helps to control underground explosions of nuclear weapons. You think it sounds silly. But if one person does it, one person is fomenting a peaceful atmosphere. If a thousand people do it, the benefits are greater. If 10,000 people do it, and create peace within themselves, the world will start noticing it. If a whole spiritual nation of brothers and sisters numbering one million do it, the world will change. So it’s not a silly as it may look at first.

  3)  About overcoming divisive nationalistic thinking and becoming a world citizen. This you can do in a sitting posture, feet flat on the floor. It is an analytical exercise. You are a human being. You can think. But you must learn to think reasonably, logically and rationally, taking into account everything necessary that you can get from anywhere in today’s globalised world and social media. It goes something like this:
a.     The Universe as described by science is Infinite, or at least much larger than we can imagine.
b.     Amongst all the galaxies, the so-called Milky Way is just a tiny speck, although its stars cover the entire night sky that we can see from Earth.
c.     Within that Milky Way galaxy, we live in a tiny solar system, somewhere out near the edge, on the 3rd planet from our Sun, which for us is like the centre of the world and the powerhouse of everything we have around us. Without the Sun, there would be no life on Earth.
d.     Earth has its percentages of water, soil and air, in similar proportions to our actual bodies. Life came into being on this planet millions of years ago, and we humans are new arrivals. Modern man is only about 40,000 years old. Our modern “historic” world is 2,500 years old. Our technology-based civilisation (petroleum-based) is only about 150 years old. Our great-great grandparents rode horses instead of jumping in a car.     
e.     So there’s a speck in the Universe that’s our galaxy, a much smaller speck that’s our solar system, an even smaller speck that’s our planet, and you and I are just infinitesimal specks on a planet with 7.4 billion other specks.
f.      Yet from birth our heads are filled with ideas about OUR OWN IMPORTANCE, our own Sense of Self and our own Ego, and our personalities are nourished on the importance of concepts like “my daddy”, “my house”, “my friend”, “my school”, “my town”, “my country”, “my government”, “my religion”, “my God”, "my feelings...", "my pain...". This evolves into superficial Pavlovian impulses like “my daddy is better than your daddy”, “my town is nicer than your town”, “my country needs protection”, “my government is right”, “my God is the only God worth praying to”, “my ideas are sacred and yours are crap”. Hence division, anger, hatred and violence, of the deeply-seated, irrational, unconscious kind. There is no reasoning, there is no perspective if this is not analysed and controlled.
g.     So it’s time to find your perspective. Analyse your thinking. Review the REAL situation. Don’t justify anything, don’t make excuses for anything. Go the whole hog and see what your life situation is like. One person with divisive, non-inclusive thoughts in 7.4 billion means nothing. But 7.4 billion divisive-thinking human beings can never live in peace. It’s simply impossible. So inspect, review, analyse and find out how to be inclusive instead of exclusive. Accept all, stop fighting over thoughts and ideas. It’s out of all proportion to do that, and even today’s science gives you enough real information on the physical so that you can actually feel like a speck if you want, being humble, being accepting, being thankful for being alive, and getting things in a perspective that corresponds more with Reality.
h.     Realise that all divisive thinking, all human concepts, are just something you have heard about and read about in the past. Thinking is preterite, the past. Analysing thoughts with Self-Awareness, and applying reason is the present. So, live in the present. And good luck. When you realise, like Gary Davis did, that you share more things in common with other human beings than there are differences, you’re already a world citizen.

4)    About adoring SaintsThis is egoistic and stupid, if you're just on the receiving end. Saints may inspire you to do something, but putting up a photo of Mother Teresa in your bedroom is not going to help the world, although it may make you feel good. What’s the point? Teresa didn’t sit around wondering when God was going to show himself to her. She just saw helpless and needy people and went out and tried to comfort them. So to practise charity, put your hand into your pocket now. How many coins are there? Ten? OK, take out one tenth of the amount and put it into another pocket. Now take a walk in the street. You’re sure to see a needy person. Don’t even judge them. Don’t wonder what they’ll spend it on. Just give him or her a coin. You have just practised charity for today. Do it again tomorrow. Refine your technique as you go. You’ll eventually understand. Waiting to get something isn't the path. Giving is. 

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