Blog #180--Spiritual Tests Aplenty
The news keeps getting worse. Police are killing civilians with minimal provocation. Individuals are killing police. Protests against the killings are often infiltrated by provocateurs who cast the protests in a bad light, encouraging a strong response. Biased newscasts stir up people’s emotions, creating a reactive populace ready to explode at any moment.
Police are being armed to the teeth military-style, and there is minimal thought to keeping their advanced weapons in the closet where they can’t harm anyone. Some people stopped by the police for minor offenses are talking back or otherwise reacting negatively, which encourages extreme retaliation. It’s easy for some to imagine that police are motivated to force submission on the general population, at the expense of their civil rights. Regardless of motive, with every violent response by the citizenry, more extreme laws are created to eliminate freedoms, and more extreme weapons of destruction are manufactured and sold/given to police departments. The vicious cycle continues to escalate because fear is the primary motivator for both sides.
On an international scale, terrorists are blowing up civilians. Unmanned drones are blowing up civilians as well as terrorists, creating more terrorists. Both sides say they are merely retaliating but are actually part of a back-and-forth war that has continued more or less unabated since the beginning of time; there is plenty of blame to go around. Some terrorists are being brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers. Some military personnel’s emotions are being put on a knife’s edge so they will respond with extreme force. Similar brainwashing techniques are being used on both groups with relatively equal success.
What is missing is some rational thought. We are so busy taking sides and getting upset, we fail to see the bigger picture. This phenomenon is nothing new; revenge is a primary reason for all sides continuing to fight one another over time. Someone with credibility on both sides of a conflict and no personal agenda, if such an enlightened being exists, has not yet come forward to help them see a bigger picture and end their hostilities. Those who recognize the natural equality that exists between combatants are not given a voice.
A little logic might be helpful in times like this. For instance, we might ask how drones and robots that are used to kill “enemies” are any different than suicide bombers. How can one side claim the higher moral ground when both are doing the same things to each other? I know that comment will piss off a lot of people, but the fact is both are programmed to kill with impunity. One group is “alive” and the others are machines, but none are conscious. None are responsible for their actions since they’re merely fulfilling their programming. And the end result is the same: more death and destruction, followed by more revenge behavior.
For that matter, the sniper who shot five white police in Dallas recently during a Black Lives Matter rally was a sharpshooter trained by the U.S. military. He was a professional marksman with a background in using weapons to resolve conflicts. Was he operating out of instinct, continuing the role he was created to perform? We’ll never know whether he really understood the nature of his crime since a robot killed him at the scene.
We might also ask why certain behaviors continue to occur despite safeguards. For instance, police know people have smart phones that can take video and photos and are willing to use them. Some police even have car cameras and small cameras they wear around their necks to record their actions and those of suspects. Even then, they sometimes use violence in excess of the situation. Is there an ulterior motive to create more chaos and panic, or is it because they know they can misbehave with impunity since the legal system generally favors them, like children without consistent parenting? Miranda rights and other regulatory requirements may have seemed excessive and counterproductive at times, but there was less violence before they were minimized.
And what about terrorists and those who may or may not be called terrorists but are frustrated individuals or small groups that react to improve their survival chances? Isn’t it possible they might be more peaceful if they didn’t believe others were out to get them? Not all of them are paranoid; some truly are being sought for reasons other than criminality. Are they really all evil just because a few people in their group happen to misbehave at an extreme? Most police are not evil, and neither are most of the general public, regardless of their religion, race, gender or cultural background.
These questions and more must be asked if we are to grow spiritually. But we can’t seem to help ourselves. For all our talk about how we have free will and are making conscious choices to fight an endless war, that war may continue to escalate until weapons of mass destruction wipe out both sides of the conflict. If so, it may also destroy the environment sufficiently to make life impossible on Earth. We may think we can win a nuclear war, but everyone loses if multiple warheads spread radiation and dark clouds over the whole Earth. If the sun’s rays can’t reach the ground, life can’t survive.
Eventually, those who manipulate the general population from behind the scenes will make a monstrous mistake that exposes them for their cruelty. This will begin a reversal that, if life still exists, will allow a temporary peace to emerge over time. That’s how the world works. But we won’t be in control of that. As a group, we have proven over and over that our thoughts flow more quickly toward war than peace.
The one redeeming value of this complex and destructive narrative is that those of us seeking spiritual growth have a great opportunity to accept the situation and learn to forgive all those who are still caught up in the movie called “War.” We may not be able to change the narrative. We may even have to participate in the destruction despite our best efforts to avoid doing so. But we can simultaneously observe that our enemies are acting like we might if we were them in the same situation.
Are you willing to try an alternative? If so, there is rarely as great a time as this to learn and practice an important lesson: my enemy and I are one. Otherwise, expect to be part of an endless conflict of attack-and-respond, until “hell freezes over” as they say.
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