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Let’s End Genocide!

Posted December 14th, 2011 by Stanley in Sacred Service
In Reference to:
The Source of Genocide

We have had previous posts calling for us to actually DO something good and beautiful in the world in the name of integral. Why don’t we consider working towards the end of genocide? It was wonderful hearing Ken address this devastating problem. I have known that this is a problem but I had no idea exactly how huge and horrible this problem is. There have been over 100 million human beings murdered due to this, not to mention probably many more times this number who have been made to suffer! These are more lives lost than due to war.

 

I thought that Ken covered well the notion that helping people, especially religious and political leaders, grow from ethnocentric to worldcentric will help greatly. He also mentioned just how important shadow work can be. If Hitler and his counterparts had done some shadow work and realized they were projecting their own negative shadows onto innocent “other” groups perhaps over a hundred million lives could have been spared.

 

He mentioned, but I think downplayed, the notion that many people, especially postmodern people, do not want to acknowledge the reality of the existence of good versus bad or evil in our world.  We cannot and will not effectively address and solve what we refuse to acknowledge. I recall Robert Augustus Masters writing about the human tendency to do evil on one of his websites. I plan to find this, read it, and share it.

 

What are some steps we could take to at least point us in the right direction of working towards the solution of this devastating problem?  This is a real question and I would appreciate some ideas on this.

 

Some ideas I have are;

·        Help each other grow in our own levels of development. Our new guest G Campbell has been teaching us that a prerequisite to growth is first being accepted and being treated with dignity, respect, and compassion at the human level we are currently on. Thanks again C. However, if we are and have been abusing others on a regular and terrible basis the most compassionate thing might be to be called on and held accountable for what we have been doing.

·        Practice addressing the issue of good versus evil in our own community.

·        Perhaps at our next Integral Spiritual Experience a few caring people could join their hearts and minds together to set up a plan to make a significant impact on this heart breaking problem.

·        Offer our prayers for the souls of all persons murdered due to genocide and to their grieving loved ones they left behind.

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additional suggestions

Posted December 14th, 2011 by Layman Pascal

 

 Absolutely.  This is a massive, monstrous, ongoing human madness that should be pretty much the top of our list when it comes to practical engagement.  

Your list of suggestions includes

  • mutually-assisted & mutually-encouraged human growth which requires, as a preliminary, a stabilizing embrace of our current real situation coupled with an invocation of basic human dignity.
  • an open dialogue about good and evil
  • the use of mutual gatherings to establish a context in which loud calls and real plans can be made
  • the offering of prayers, intentions, and deep compassion.

We might also look at:

  • bio-psychology; shadow work needs to be supplemented by bodywork; the trauma & lack of feeling exhibited in genocides is enabled by bodies which cannot move freely in their emotional gestures, cannot breathe freely, cannot embrace each other or deeply enjoy human and natural pleasures; tense, stressed, rigid bodies cannot help but project their own disturbed sensations upon others
  • anything which encourages pre-frontal cortex development -- including the use of neurofeedback and other brain stimulating agents will help develop self-regulation, empathy, etc.  there may be devices and drugs which can assist in this
  • global military needs to be increased and improved so that it breaks out of the mold of inter-nation resource & ideology squabbles and starts to really enact broadly shared planetary policing which responds in proportion to the amount and intensity of the suffering; 
  • trying to locate and inter-link the "highest" individuals who inhabit current genocidal zones -- where are their wisest people?  what are they saying to everyone else?  do they feel supported?  are post-ethnocentric people talking to each other across ethnic battle lines?
  • trips. this may sound small but it isn't.  people need to actually go to these places and witness it first hand in order both to report back AND to activate the deep cellular activity of our compassion.  just hearing about how horrible it is cannot be enough.  many dimensions of energy and intelligence are missing until we see for ourselves.  

 

Layman Pascal

 

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