How does it stop?

Today is another witness to atrocity.  Do you ask ‘When will it end?’ A normal response to the fear the terrorist provokes.  That fear of course is what he wants.  We are all afraid. The terrorists are the most afraid of all of us because they live in the midst of terror every moment.  And the real horror of it all is that we brought it on ourselves.  Mankind did this. We built ourselves a world where dogma and symbols form characters.  We discovered the science behind how things work and the result has catastrophic as well as magnificent consequences. I do not mean the world should not progress – the opposite is true- we have to play catch up and understand the results of shared consciousness that media and education plug into.  We need to understand the limitations of knowledge as well as the powers it bestows.

Without being simple, one cannot be sensitive – to the trees, to the birds, to the mountains, to the wind, to all the things which are going on about us in the world; if one is not simple one cannot be sensitive to the inward intimation of things. Most of us live so superficially, on the upper level of our consciousness; there we try to be thoughtful or intelligent, which is synonymous with being religious; there we try to make our minds simple, through compulsion, through discipline. But that is not simplicity. When we force the upper mind to be simple, such compulsion only hardens the mind, does not make the mind supple, clear, quick. To be simple in the whole, total process of our consciousness is extremely arduous; because there must be no inward reservation, there must be an eagerness to find out, to inquire into the process of our being, which means to be awake to every intimation, to every hint; to be aware of our fears, of our hopes, and to investigate and to be free of them more and more and more. Only then, when the mind and the heart are really simple, not encrusted, are we able to solve the many problems that confront us.

J.Krishnamurti

So how we choose to use our intelligence becomes the task.  To remain open to debate and to points of view that seem at odds to our own. To consciously live our lives when we make our decisions of how to live, how to treat the planet, how to respond to acts of terrorism.  The amazing happenstance of living in a country that allows freedom of thought and expression is a privilege that I am very aware of.  I treasure it. 

Further reading    The First and Last Freedom

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