Syria of the Mind

Syria represents the quandary of what it is to be human amongst great diversity. Everyone knows what right action looks like in relation to the people of Syria. I cannot imagine right now what it must feel like to be an ordinary human in Syria right now. If I were, my ears would be pointed like a deer’s, hoping for the sound of help, for some respite; someone to stop the remorseless killing of my friends and neighbours. As a Syrian I imagine I must have some concept of the west as a place of great freedom, choice and humanity. But all around is silence.

And the immediate reason for this silence is obvious. Although all the nations that surround her and are kin to her, want to reach out a helping hand, no one dares because Russia backed by China says - hands off. Don’t you dare! The only reason from Putin’s point of view, for Western or Arab intervention in Syria is for imperialist political reasons. Putin of course, who is well in charge of Russia, now treats his own citizens not dissimilarly to the way Assad treats his people. It is just that there is a veneer of law in case anyone is looking and rather than killing his citizens, he throws them in jail. ‘You don’t care’, runs Putin’s refrain. This is not about humanity as you make out; it is about using your influence to our disadvantage. And unfortunately there is some truth there. The major powers don’t move generally without calculating the advantages and disadvantages on the world’s stage. In this our leaders don’t differ much from individuals. The standoff in Syria is not much different from a scene from a schoolyard with the playground bullies facing off against each other with their followers and sycophants all weighing up, where they will be safest, who it is best to follow. For schoolyard read any place where we interact with each other.

But since 9/11 there has been a change in global consciousness. Although the major powers still act much as they always have, there is now a growing body of people, who irrespective of what country they live in, want to be able to live an authentic life. The ‘Occupy’ movement, the ‘Arab Spring’, the growing restlessness of peoples generally, in almost every country in the world to live what can be seen as a life that realizes reasonable human aims, within a framework of stability and civil peace. The people in Syria, Egypt, Libya; all wanted that. So do the unemployed in the USA; so do the ‘demonstrators’ in Russia who are now being jailed for standing up for their principles, so did the rioting youth in England. There is a cult of privilege that sits like a lid over every county in the world. People are sick of the games politicians and multinationals play. What a relief it would be to have someone stand for office that you might honestly feel was really on the side of ‘people’, not vested interest.

With Syria; to protect their personal world power, Russia and China stand in the way of outside intervention. To call their bluff, might quite likely lead to war on an unprecedented scale! Or it may break the stalemate. To get it wrong might be disastrous. On the other hand to stand on the sidelines as the whole world is doing right now is in a sense to be cowed and intimidated by the classroom bully. Yet there are no boundaries around right and wrong. The battle taking place in the USA between the Republican and Democratic visions of life is not different from the battle raging around Syria. And there is not a goody and a baddy.

There is nothing wrong and everything right with the Republican vision of freedom, to make a go of life unrestrained and uninhibited by rules and regulations designed for fairness and equality. If fairness and equality means bringing us all down to an equal playing field how is this different from the utopian communist state that would make sure that we all have as equal outcome as possible no matter what effort we put in. And quite frankly I agree. And yet there is no utopian communist state.

OCCUPY HEART

Life is an inner journey, whether we see it as such or not. Our experience is of reacting to, or responding to, a physical world. We step down off the kerb, into the street, and step hurriedly back to avoid being hit by a bus we hadn't noticed, because our mind was elsewhere. It looks like a physical response to danger and it is. But it all took place inwardly. Our eyes have espied the image of the bus, and conveyed that information inwardly, extremely quickly, to the old brain stem which has evaluated the danger at a speed, much faster than we would be able to annunciate in words if asked, and sent a message to the muscles required for the task of moving us back to safety. The requisite muscles move us quickly to safety. We describe this action in physical terms because we have a major belief system in a physical world. All our activity is described in terms of how we were asked by a friend to do this and we have; we've seen a course on acupuncture in a magazine and decided to go. We ring the telephone number and talk to the reception and through physical speech arrange this new activity. We give our credit card details, reading the numbers off our card which our hands have extracted from our purse or wallet. This done, we feel thirsty, put the kettle on, grab a cup, some tea, and go to the fridge for milk, as we wait for the kettle to boil. All of this activity we feel comfortable in describing in physical terms. yet at each point along the way, at every miniscule moment of time, what is happening, all happens in our inner world. The only part that is physical; is our body responding to the intent of our various desires, choices and decisions as we inwardly instruct our bodies responses. It is a dance with the subtle world of thought and emotion. See it as a couple dancing; the physical responding to the gentle pressures of intent, which indicate to the physical, the direction of the dance. It is all in perfect harmony but nothing happens at the surface that does not arise from our inner intent. Our responses are our choices. Again, appreciate the depth of what is being spoken about. We have been sold a bill of goods and have believed it, because we assume truth when we hear it. If you tell me it is so, why should I not believe you and yet the depth of untruth is frightening. When Darwin said that the race went to the fittest, what he should have said is that the race goes to the one with the loudest voice and the greatest temerity. Take science herself. We are told that if we are not scientific, that what we are saying has no validity. Yet for a start the physical world is only a form, the energy for which lies within. And within that energy the potential to be something other - or nothing. What we see is not what we get. And today's proof is yesterday's erroneous perception. Our world is weighed down by fact. But the fact is all wrong. What appears to be is just that - an appearance. And the world worships this world of appearance and following the wisdom of scientific materialism, our world is made cold and clinical. It has become utilitarian and our education is not the education of human beings but the preparation of robot workers who follow the party line, who pay lip service to truth, and end up living a life of misery, unfulfilled, or someone else's version of my life. We are ruled by economics - food and shelter which are fundamental to any human life, by general agreement becomes a commodity subject to supply and demand. Those who are beforehand by universal agreement get to own what is there and those who are behind have to come cap in hand and purchase from someone whose only right of possession is that they claimed it for themselves and the others let them get away with it. Land and food go together. If you don't have land then you can't have food - unless you purchase it. Then you need money which comes into existence as a means of exchange between people. So I have to work to gain food and ultimately that elusive land. Fortunately the landowners know just the job for me and I can by chance do them a favour. I can work for them because they have land and if I work for them they can buy more land to put more factories on. And slowly my rural landscape, the trees, the rivers, the lakes, the plains are choked with all the factories producing all the goods that nobody needs - for the man. And then someone twigs to the fact that they can turn the means of exchange into a commodity too because if it can be turned into something that can be loaned - at interest - and maybe other fininglings can go on and suddenly money is the newest, best producer of wealth around. It is so good at producing wealth that the landowners, come factory owners, need no longer worry about producing anything. And if they do, if they do it in countries that haven't got their act together yet, and worked out all these neat ways of robbing from the community, they can increase their profit. The fact that you and I no longer have jobs is beside the point. The economy is booming - the measure of the difference between an aggressively developed country and a third world country is not whether those people for whom our governments, govern are happy, housed, able to feed themselves or anything so mundane. It is whether we have made as a country a greater gross product than last year. And with all that profit derived from all those financial packages that exist only for the profit someone may derive from it. And this is sort of where we are. And all the lies about supply-side economics and trickle down don't tax the rich because otherwise they won't even try to find jobs for us, and whatever are just nonsense. It is the language someone has invented so that everyone else thinks that our economic world is intelligent and justified. And it is all a game called make me rich never mind you. We have learned to disengage or objectify that which we don't consider ours. So myself, my wife, my children, my family, my friends denote a level of closeness moving away from me that I am attached too. I also am moe attached to my neighborhood, my city, my country, English speaking people than unfamiliar races or languages. What I have seen acquires a reality that the unseen never has. So if I have been in Delhi airport and can picture for instance a terrorist bomb attack it holds more meaning for me than something I have never seen. The writer Lawrence van der Post writing about his time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War 11 had great admiration for his captors. And he enjoyed great cameradie with them on many occasions but he said when they were about to do something they knew to be 'bad' try would totally avoid looking the prisoners in the eyes. And this is the truth. See me for whom I am and how can you harm me.