Hi Doc-
Motives arise from a desire for betterment - either positive reinforcement, to get a goody, or negative reinforcement, to remove a baddy. (Punishers are generally ineffective and can usually be ignored.) To be so blind that one sees only war and conflict, and the putative glory of conquest, may convince us to do stupid things, but in the end, even our stupid errors are still efforts toward improvement. That others use this blindness to convince people do kill themselves or others is just another way to gain their idea of betterment. Of course after several generations of conflict, that's most of what many people know, and if your only resources look like nails, then the natural response is to select tactics that look like a hammer.

I suggest that we have three specific needs to fill. The first is universal love, whether a person happens to be a child molester, suicide bomber, military aggressor or terrified disembodied spirit. The second is universal unity, accepting everyone and everything as part of the present manifestation of God. Third, is insight and wisdom, in the words of Marcus Aurelius, "To perceive things just as they are," even if we would prefer something else.

Were I to stand on your toes with one foot while kicking you in the shins with the other it would be very difficult to view me as a potentially decent human being, or to love me, or to enlighten me as to the karmic results of the situation.  That's the essence of the situation. People who are caught up in sensing hostility, rage, anger and fear, and who are trying to return a level of threat intended to make others back off, are unlikely to be loving, nurturant or wise, but that's still their basic need. In fact, it turns out that it takes more courage to be loving, acceptng and helpful than to toss rocks at those who bug us. I feel that most of these leaders lack that much courage because they are so fearful, and because the fear regenerates over and over as they attempt to "get tough" by making others fearful, so that they themselves have no idea what's happening to them.

It isn't a political problem, but the ancient problem of getting along with others. It began when another kid took our shovel in the sandbox, and continues until we finally are able to see our own faces in those pictures of  suicide bombers who threaten us. Only then will we be able to de-escalate this cycle of violence.

dave

Dear God, Shower the world with blessed rain, to wash away the tears of violence and fear,to refresh and lay love across our planet earth. Thankyou Father. amen

Kyo the clarity of your words has put the subject of hostility into perfect perspective with a master piece quality of writing. With deepest gratitude to you.

Dave and Matthew your insights are invaluable to my understanding of our human nature.  I do believe individual and world problems are caused by thinking about self instead of cosmoethics.

To quote Dave:
"Abandon their defensiveness. To them the sensation was one of threat."

To me this sums up human nature.  The insecurity within self not to abandon their defensive mechanisms and perceive outside interference or influence as a threat to self. Which is a selfish notion and goes against the grain of nature. Self cannot control or manipulate and expect a successful outcome.

This is why Jesus Christ told the people .. Surrender thy will unto God. 

May God guide our leaders and may the leaders listen with open hearts.

(First a technicality - the danger level is actually 27^2, because it's a surface, so engineering types won't bug me about my sloppy math. That's 314 @ 2000 lb bunker busters. Still not worth a war.)

Well, Matthew, in my estimation, the reason we've got this tiger by its tail is karmic.

The problem of karma is that our actions involve an entire situation, so that we are at the core of a vast network of causes and effects that radiate outward. I, as a hostile and aggressive actor am surrounded by others who attempt to live with me by making my aggression less dangerous (usually by a "If you hit me, I'll hit you back," kind of strategy) and at the same time, they espouse values quite similar to mine, to which I reciprocate in kind. Thus we work together in a sort of armed truce. It is irrational to suggest that I can simply turn away from this scene and embrace total love, unless I am willing to sacrifice myself totally, as Jesus did. Instead, the apropriate path is de-escalation by adopting mutual endeavors that everybody can share profitably, and which interfere with conflict.

For example, a commonwealth or  collectivity of some sort, that involves all nations, tends to reduce their tendencies to fight each other. Hence the UN has probably been useful in reducing the global danger level, just as was the League of Nations before it. And to the degree that nations alienate themselves from their neighbors, they become liable to squabbles, bad neighbors among nations, just as we see with individual people who are friendly, and those who are hostile.

The degree to which our escape from the karma of past actions can be accomplished is the degree to which we are each able to soak up the B*** S*** dumped on us by less astute people, and still respond to them in a loving manner, accepting them as part of our own nature, and with the realization that this is the best practice for all parties concerned, so that we all can get on with the basic business of living, which is to become more God-like.

The degree to which we perpetuate hostility is the degree to which we are unable to accept being the Dumpee, and respond by some kind of defensive or aggressive action, so that we become the Dumper. That provokes threat, so it's an imperfect solution, like patting the waves to quiet them. The LEAST perfect approach is to try to kill the people who are bothering us. The next worst thing is to try to rearrange their lives and households to be the way we would prefer them to be. However, for some reason, each of us always seems to feel that it's easier to rearrange Your life than the remove the problems with Mine.

The result of this karmic entanglement is that we must very slowly and carefully extricate ourselves, and in the process accept a full ration of the damage that we had previously caused others, which is why the radial network of negative emotions emerged in the first place. Like the Vedic spider that first spins its web, and later eats it up in order to spin a new web. This is rarely a comfortable realization, because it means that we must take total responsibility for our actions, regardless of what others have done to us. But isn't that what PUL is all about? And no matter how hard it is to envision that guy with the fire bomb in his hand, or with an explosive waistcoat, as part of God, we deny our own Godliness if we deny his. This might not be to our preferences, but it's the way things are, and only after we collectively accept that can we move onward to peace.

dave

mediastreamer wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2006 at 10:19am:


yea, I meet social workers all the time out there...cool peoples!