Month: August 2006

In the present time of history in the making, we, as human beings, are standing on the threshold of a fundamental shift in our evolution. In the main, up to now, our history has been shaped by the survival of the fittest, driven by greed and leading to the formation of empires. The G8 meeting in Gleneagles this week are all members of an exclusive club, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, USA and Canada. Except for the latter two, they are all countries with an empire past, although the USA is more of an empire present, and between them they control the worlds economy. Their riches have been built and are being maintained by an exploitation of the poor. The whole continent of Africa is a living manifestation of the greed of empires and the resulting poverty and corruption are the fruits of the seeds sown by these powerful nations. Its payback time. The shift is in the giving.

At the weekend a series of concerts were staged to highlight the awareness of the injustice of poverty and to bring this message to world leaders. MAKE POVERTY HISTORY. This can be done, by the simple act of giving, of doing something for someone else and not being motivated by vested self interest. The groundswell of feeling among us is strong, there is wisdom and justice in this feeling. We are growing up. Are these “leaders listening or are they buried in their imperialist pasts, wher power and riches are the property of the few.

We, the common man, are speaking. Justice and humanity will prevail. We care for each other. We have a dream.

Anybody who inflicts pain, suffering and death on anybody else does not deserve to be a human being. They exclude themselves from the freedom and peace loving people. They live on the edge, in the extremes, where violence, pain and death reside, a living hell of anger, hatred and revenge.

What you sow, so you reap. This applies also to the leaders of nations who go to war on false pretences and rain down death and destruction on innocent and guilty alike. To live and endure Baghdad in March 2003 was a nightmare experience experience, many times more horrific than what was visited on London yesterday. Some of the perpretators of these London outrages were probably recruited from people who empathised with the people who lived through the carnage of Iraq. Violence begets violence.

We can resist the extremists by uniting in dignity and courage, love and understanding, Muslims and Christians, British and Iraquis, and the rest of us, standing together as human beings.

Last week we witnessed a massive ceremony celebrating the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar. Great Britain won and proceeded to build and consolidate an empire which covered most of the planet. One of the greatest areas to suffer under this rule was Africa and the legacy of the exploitation of the land and its people lives and suffers on to this day.

Later that same week an event of much bigger signifigance took place, the live8 concerts which focussed on the plight of Africa and what needs to be done. Its payback time, time to put things right.

Nearly 1,000 years ago the Crusades were trying to “liberate the Holy Land from the infidel saracen. 1,000 years previous to that, a man of peace, a prophet whose message was love, was put to death by the followers of Abraham in that same land. In the intervening period another prophet, from the line of Abraham, delivered his message of the one true God and gave the world Islam.

Now in that region we have an 8m high wall dividing the people, who are still at war with each other. We are smart, sophisticated, evolved human beings, but it appears not. Have we have learned nothing? The last century, for all its great advances, was probably the darkest in human history. We had two world wars, with millions slain, the holocaust, and the atomic bombs. The beginning of the present century got off to a flyer with the horrific and very visual attacks on the USA and the shocking war in Iraq. The carnage continues. What hope for us?

Yes there is hope. We are at the beginning of a new renaissance. During the last one Gallileo pointed out our error in assuming, arrogantly, that the earth was at the centre of the universe. We learned a very valuable lesson. But it has not cured our arrogance. The new renaissance will show us our true place in this amazing evolving universe. It will be a humbling experience.

In our normal day to day life why is there such a lack of Wisdom? Is wisdom even a characteristic of human beings? Socrates was wise, Plato wrote about it and Aristotle interpreted it and by that stage it had all but evaporated. Wisdom does exist and it is something within that we can aspire to. Can it be imparted, one to another? All the wise ones, of whom there are painfully few, have endeavored to make us aware of its existence.

It is important to have faith in the nature of human beings, that wisdom does exist and that it is here for us to discover and illuminate the darkness that exists in day to day life.

Today the world has focussed on the funeral of a man, a Pope, a Pole, a Pontiff, the leader of one branch of Christianity, Catholics. Ther was something very human about this man, who was able to reach out from his “exalted place and touch the common people and be just one of us. The political leaders of every nation were there, as were the leaders of other religions. This is the legacy of a man who went out time and time again, visiting every country in the world, representing the faith in God, the belief that there is a creator and that there is more to life than this existence.

Today the world, in the grip of rampant materialism and global capitalism, paused for a while and believed there is more….

Let me give you an example of common sense, which seems to be a misnomer as it seems a very uncommon trait in our nature. Two years ago we were on the brink of starting a war against Iraq and there was a lot of disquiet about the motives for so doing. I joined up with one of the biggest demonstrations of opposition ever witnessed. I was part of a million strong throng of human beings gathered on the streets of London to voice the this feeling, shared on the same day by millions worldwide who were on the streets in other cities.

What united us was a common sense, a shared intelligence, that what we were being told as reasons for going to war, were in truth a tissue of deceipt perpetrated by the US regime, and backed surprisingly by a “labour government in Britain. As has so often been the case the war went ahead as planned, our opposition fruitless. But as time passed the lies we had been told became common knowledge. The fruits of this deceipt are being felt very painfully in Iraq today as well as the US and Britain.

In this age of global media coverage the common man is becoming more informed and with a little wise discrimination, common sense should become a lot more common.