Friends of CwG Discussion Board

I was having a discussion today about WW2 and Hitler and all that, and my friend asked me if I thought we had progressed as a people.

My answer was....Nope, I don't think so.

When I look at the amount of war and genocide still abroad in the world, I cannot think that we have moved ahead. This thought brought me to a few more, in trying to figure out why I thought that we hadn't progressed.

I think that we still think of each other as things and not as humans. We tend to only care about those people that we are attached to, and many times not even them. We seem to live in a world of self interest alone, and like many serial killers, we see others as only objects to facilitate our own pleasures.

This is a pretty harsh statement, I know, but I see so much of it going on.

We, as "normal" people, are generally caring individuals, until someone gets in the way of something that we want. Think of all the times you cursed the guy ahead of you in traffic for going too slow. Too slow for what? For you to get to the grocery store on time? For you to get to your beer? Or even to get to work on time? That person in front of you has now become, not a human, but an obstruction. And it is this kind of mentality that permeates our lives.

And yet another example of us reducing our friends and family to this state. When we start bitching at our wife/husband for not making us feel comfortable or for choosing the "wrong" thing at the grocery store. Anything that makes us angry so that we blame another person for the lack of our own comfort, or for the discomfort of having to do something ourselves. This also reduces another person to a tool for our own comfort, rather than the human being they are.

My buddy, related to me about a beggar that had been asking a priest for change at a bus stop he was at. The beggar got some money from the woman next to the priest and the priest didn't give him any money and the guy kept bugging the priest. My buddy then went on to say, that it had made him incredibly angry that the guy kept at the priest and made him want to beat the guy. Again, this is reducing a human being to the state of an annoyance, as if the beggar felt he had a choice to be pan handling. Instead of taking that anger and doing something "humane" with it, like helping out in a soup kitchen, he would rather kick the crap out of the guy. And we wonder why we have genocide? And this guy is a very good person that generally cares about most people, except maybe that guy.

We have been taught to stop thinking about others and think only of our own comfort. We have reduced the people in our lives to objects that must supply us with the comforts that we think we deserve. Stop and think about your relationships. Your girl or boyfriend. What is your expectation of them and why do you get angry with them for not supplying you with what you want or need? Our expectations of each other are high, and not many stop to think about why other people behave the way that they do, or are able to show compassion to another and wait for or allow communication and understanding. How is the world going to stop being the way it is being when we cannot come to understanding in our "smaller" relationships?

I feel, as long as this kind of thinking continues on our "small scale" the big things will never get taken care of.

How about you?

Drew

Ahhh Bone. Glad to have you. The devil in the design.

It surprises me that no one bit on this besides you, however. Not like it's bait, but wouldn't mind another's viewpoint, opinion or even a de-bait. However, I guess if I am "right".... (<----- now that is bait!)

Drew.

A century ago women didn't have the right to vote, much less hold office. Today in most of the world this is accepted and celebrated. Today a black man is President of the world's most powerful nation, where a century and a half ago he might have just been a slave. Five centuries ago power and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a few and the concept of human rights didn't exist.

I'm sorry the world doesn't change fast enough for you. Apparently you've forgotten that your mission coming into this world was to help make that change happen. Big things have changed, but there is tremendous inertia to maintain the status quo. Try being the change you want to see and see what happens.

why do so many consider bigger better?
its incredible.

if every man judges how things are so wrong in the world.
how on earth will anything change on the big scale

Everybody is doing exactly what they should be doing, performing exactly what is needed of them.

As long as that is not seen, whatever percieved as "wrong" in the world.... just continues.

When a man changes what he chooses to see.... he sees differently.

Is that so hard to grasp?

we agree

Well if you stop to really think about it the reason nothing has changed could be because we're all new to this. It's not like we're all born and have the chance to live for hundreds of years to learn and change. New people are born everyday and they are born not knowing, or understanding, the way things could be and so they spend their lives learning what it would take to make things better but this could take a lifetime in some instances. So by the time someone feels that they really understand their life is just about over. Then the whole thing is played out by the next generation and the next and so on ad infinitum.

It's one thing to read about history and judge what works and what doesn't but it's quite another thing to actually live the lesson and really absorb the implications of our behaviors. That's not something you pick up in a book and it can take a lifetime to "grok".

The topic was not about my opinion on how fast it is changing, but if I feel that we, as a people have progressed. There are many people that have affected "change" in the world. There are many people that have woken the world up to different ways of viewing things. All of this is admirable, but progress is not necessarily change, in this instance. Progression, as I am defining it here, is a move towards love an patience, not a change from fear and intolerance to fear and tolerance. This is not to say that many people are not doing that, they are. Nor is it to say that the progress is "too slow", it is as slow or as fast as it is. This diatribe is about something that I see that we are doing to one another and how it affects the decline of our worldly affairs and stops the inner progress that is being expressed in impatience and fear. Also, that it is not a BIG thing, but a very small one. So small, in fact, it seems to be beneath our notice. Or perhaps, on a personal level, it is so big, that we don't want to see it. Either way, it is as I see it. My askance is: is my observation awry?



Apparently you assume that I feel that I am here on some kind of mission, which I do not.



I am. And what happens is...you read this and you write me back.

I appreciate it!

Drew

Hello Jamielynn,

Always nice to see you.

I think that you are correct and I "grok" the notion. So, shouldn't we take some of the knowledge gleaned and really start teaching it to our children en mass? And perhaps stop putting it in such vague terms that people need to interpret it?

Teaching our children to be investigative and open minded would be a start, but, of course, the majority of us cannot afford to be able to be concerned about that. To them, surviving in this harsh wilderness is paramount. Who has time for personal growth when you have mouths to feed and not enough work.

The arguments go on and on and all are valid. So what are we to do?

Answer: What we are willing.

Thanxs

Drew.

Hi Drew, I think in general, people might have expected that hitler dies and it solves that problem, but whatever enabled the whole hitler experience didn‘t go anywhere, and if people don‘t even recognize that, how are they going to recognize progress.

I think that if we don’t our children are doomed and I don’t care what people want to teach them. They are not here to conform if you ask me.

I think we have progressed considerably and I don‘t think it can be stopped at this point, but if you are asking me if humans are capable to do another hitler thing… I think so, and I think people would be surprised at their own rationalization, it wouldn‘t look like a hitler thing to people anymore than it did when hitler was alive, but it could happen again because people still don‘t understand the experience and are not conscious of how a hitler thing happens. I call it the ‘hitler thing’, not out of disrespect or to somehow diminish what people experienced, but I call it that because this has happened before and it has happened since and still is happening in some places, and it will happen again if we don’t change course.

What do we do? I don’t know what do you think… To me it comes down to, who are you?

I could be wrong but I think maybe more and more people are waking up to the fact that we are not separate, and even hitler and jesus are not separate believe it or not, and that this good and evil is in everyone. And when we start to help people out of that lake of fire we condemned them to, as if it was going to solve everything; then this evil within us will be no more.

Yeah but what to do? I don’t know… It seems to be an individual thing, I am hopeful because it seems to be present in everyone, and I don’t think our children are born to this guilt and consciousness we call teaching. There’s really no other place to go and I think humanity has been here before, it is a crossroads. A huge one if you ask me, and no way to stop it; the children are already living a new world, this is a do or die at this point and there‘s no turning back.

It seems impossible but imo people are getting to this crossroads in their own way and it is not a coincidence, and to me that has huge implications. What will we choose? But choosing we will, because things are not meant to go on as if the world didn’t change.

Just my musings...

Just imagining but… What do you think would happen when millions all over the world prayed during hitler‘s time, lord they said, please deliver us from evil… please don’t let this hitler thing ever happen again. Basically people are saying this is not who I am, damnit!

Well I think that the lord would set out to do just that, but then you don’t like it, perhaps you rather have someone to blame in your worldview. But what if it’s too late, too many prayed and too many made a choice.

The masses tip things over, and the thing about choices is that you choose over and over again in your individual experience, and it is not just a one moment thing, and every moment you have that opportunity to choose again, it‘s called living it… freewill even… experience… awareness… I don’t know take your pick. Perhaps we have been struggling with what we are and who we are ever since the masses made that choice during hitler time, and that's why progress seems so slow.

But here we are again lead by our choices just the same, and the opportunity is presenting itself in people‘s lives, and the masses are making a choice tipping things over again. Imagination? Yeap… ehe

You have a good point, Tania.

And I hope that you are right, that the world is waking up. Yet I see the ignorance all around me all the time. I think that we are STRIVING to progress, I just don't feel that we have come as far as we like to think. And, perhaps I am incorrect in my view.

As I see it currently, however, as long as people are still getting angry with other people for not conforming to their expectations, whether those be religious or personal, then we are not as progressed as we would like to think. There is still very few people that can understand how to be patient and loving, or are willing to face the unpleasantness within themselves to become patient and loving with themselves and others.

Think of every time that you are frustrated and angry and then ask yourself what kind of emotional expectations you are having of either yourself or the other person that you are frustrated with. CWG illustrates this well:



and



There are many more instances of these references to expectation in CWG, but I don't just take a books word for it, I truly live it and see if it works, and ...it does.

So, in summation, as long as everyone keeps being emotionally dependent upon fulfillment of expectation, they will continue to create fear and anger and war. For all who expect are disappointed, and will try to shape the world to fit into their vision (or box, as I call it), whether by personal manipulation (getting angry or influencing a situation with behaviors that manipulate others to provide) or by force (fighting, wars and persecution). And as long as people choose to be this way, I feel that we have not progressed much, though we have changed our environment.

Cheers!

Drew

They say that when Jesus was talking to the disciples in their last super he mentioned some of what would happen, the desciples said no no that is not possible, and jesus told peter you will be the first to deny me, no no no not me he said… to which jesus replied, three times you will deny me.

What if I were to tell you that in the right conditions… and because you are missing the point…



You would be the first to violate your own judgment.