Once a young woman asked me,
“How does it feel to be a man?”
And I replied,“My dear,
I am not so sure.”Then she said,
“Well, aren’t you a man?”And this time I replied,
“I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,‘How does it feel to be a heart?’
For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere! “
In meditation lately I have been getting a lot of intuition about our world and its current state. Actually it was on an intuition that I started a 7 year research period of my life that culminated in me becoming a dervish 2 years ago. One thing I have notice which has big consequences in our collective inner and outer life is the fact that we forget we are human beings first. Before I am black or white, a man or a woman I am a human being. I feel that the fact that we don’t acknowledge this and argue so much about race, creed, is because being human has slowly become devoid of meaning over years.
I love science, [though after 2 degrees and 11 years in the field I am required to say that] and it has given us many great things medicine, air condition, air train, a sense of awe at the natural world. But as with everything we create, science has a shadow and here I am refer to the Shadow as Jung uses it a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. Each of us has a shadow, and for science what I see is the fact that we are always separating things, studying them in isolation. After a few hundred years later we are out of touch I feel with the rhythms of with the essence of the mystery of what it means to be human.
Because centuries of religious abuse and intolerance many find it easier to just do away with religion, which I feel is a real shame, because religion like any tool when used in the proper context with the right people at the right time has tremendous ramification for helping us integrate the inner and outer worlds we inhabit.
All in all my general feeling is that nothing will change or the better until we all take responsibility for the world as it is and I don’t know how much longer the world can wait. This is my thinking, since aviation and modern technology have taken away this concept of physical borders – in my great grandmothers time there was your village bounded by certain landmarks, out side of which was this sort of unknown place – so that there are ideological borders. We reduce and define ourselves by the ideologies we follow: I am American, I am a Democrat , I am Republican, I am a Buddhist, I am a feminist etc.
I remember during the Bush administration so many people crying out how he was destroying America. Now I hear during the Obama administration that he is destroying America. Which one is true? If in fact America has or is being destroyed American citizen destroyed it when we stood by and looked the other way when we saw abuses in our domestic and foreign policy, I think it is to easy to blame Bush or Obama or some elected official because it keeps us from confronting ourselves. I know myself better than anyone and most o the times I don’t know what I want or what it will take to change myself in many ways for the better I wonder do we really feel 1 person can decide what is best for a population of millions, or thousands or anyone outside of himself.
Just thoughts, and Im off to bed perhaps
To a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season. – TS Eliot
