The Human Connection

I managed to spend last Wednesday resting and dedicating my time thinking about life and how I fit in the world. It was a day of rest but this doesn’t mean that I spent the day doing nothing and lingering in bed. Indeed, when I spent time meditating or paying attention to all I did, I couldn’t help noticing that there were thoughts and feelings that emerged that weren’t so peaceful.

 

While we associate silence with peace and tranquility, a moment of silence can trigger an inner revolt that, at times, can bring to our awareness our best or our worse qualities. At least, this was my experience. It can get uncomfortable when you come face-to-face with all the bad things that seem to rise out of your mind. But, I think, it’s important for us to know that these thoughts that have accumulated inside are there. This prepares us when we are in a position to act.

 

I also realised that only a fool tries to deny his or her humanity. For all that we have accumulated in terms of knowledge and wisdom is inseparable from our being human. Not even hard science, which often claims to be objective, can escape the fact that even science cannot escape what I shall call the “human connection”. After all, we use our senses to interpret the world. Technology has permitted to access realities that we couldn’t access before due to our senses.

 

Technology that enables us to look at or listen to galaxies far away. Technology that enables us to study the microscopic and subatomic. Before, we would never imagined there could exist such realities so immense and so miniscule. Indeed, we would be excused for believing that such things didn’t exist at all. But, inasmuch as we progress in technology or scientific understanding, we remain bound to our humanity. The fact that we cannot escape our material being. The fact that whatever we produce remains limited by our body and mind.

 

Indeed, If you think about it, no area of human endeavour can escape this fact that whatever we have or build arises out of a complex relation between us and the world that is mediated through our body and mind. And, however efficient these might be in making sense of the world, they remain limited. Thus, if we hold on the idea that our reality is the only valid one, we risk misunderstanding what reality is. We fail to acknowledge that our view of the world is but one way of looking at things. However, the greatest danger is that in excluding other points of view, we also forget our basic humanity. And when that happens, we can expect  disaster for all of us.

 

So we create a politics preoccupied with votes and power, a science lacking respect for human dignity, an economy that puts money before ecology, a philosophy that condemns us to nihilism and a religion more preoccupied with rites and rituals than rekindling the human spirit.

 

This is what happens when we close ourselves to a restricted world view and one that denies our basic interdependence. It’s a world that by excluding our human connections to it, slowly conspires for our destruction.

 

Yes, this appears to be a rather gloomy post. However, I am convinced that even the most painful experiences have taught me something about who I am. I try to hold on to my commitment to grow as a human being every day. Yes, it’s sometimes good to stop what you’re doing for a while and really reflect on why you’re doing it. For, otherwise, you would be living without purpose and be unprepared when you are desperately seeking answers. When you’re in much need of hope and direction.

 

And, whoever we are, we need to remember that our life is only possible thanks to the contribution of so many people. I admit that I keep returning to that point. Forgive me for that but the more I think about it, this reality of my  human connection restores my hopes and faith that if we work together for a world that embraces the human spirit, we may be still in time to save lives and, ultimately,  our planet.

Reflections on a Waning Flame

It’s already 2 days since the world has celebrated Christmas. It’s also a few days to the festivities related to the new year. This year will be a year that some of us have heard before given its association with the Mayan prophecy foretelling a radical change in human history that should take place by the end of December 2012. There have been mixed reactions with the interpretations of this rediscovered Mayan prophecy based on the ancient Mayan calendar. But, in truth, we didn’t need a prophecy to come to the conclusion that our world and universe will not last forever. Yet, our fear and attachment to the material world is triggered whenever we sense a threat to our existence. It is a natural and human response.

I know this is a season when we should celebrate a rebirth. Whether it’s a Christian reading of a child who came here to spread the good news that there is hope or, else, take on such a theme in a context of more secular context. Although there are important differences between the religious and secular readings of Christmas, this season has been interpreted as an occasion of renewal and change, reconciliation and communion. Unfortunately, the motivations behind our actions during this season have been sometimes less than positive or peaceful - especially when religion, on the one hand, becomes a weapon onf control and submission and hate of religion becomes a new form of repressing the human need for spiritual fulfilment. It is sad but true that we tend to impose our world view on others because we are convinced that we are right and correct in the way we view the world and reality.

However, the experiences and reflections that have been the focus of my thoughts have opened to me a new reality. In the process, only recently I discover how much more there is still much more to learn. As I add entries to this blog exploring the nature of reality, I am constantly learning about the world and reality and am increasingly realising that I’ve still got much more to share over the next year. And whether December 2012 will be the end of the world, I feel there is a profound and important truth that I have to discover in order to put my mind at rest. For as I come face-to-face with parts of who I am which are difficult or uncomfortable to deal with, I understand that by escaping from them or avoiding them, I will not grow in my understanding of reality and of human experience.

I return to the title of this post and reflect on the dwindling flame on our home gas heater. As the flame slowly dies out, its heat eventually diminishes to the point when I can still the coldness that was in the room. While I start feeling cold again, I also become aware of the cold air that had been surrounding me all this time. With a certain sadness, I realise that eventually this is the future of all there is. An eventual decline of matter. A progressive stasis and immobility of all things that we know of. And yet, there is a strange hope that emerges out of this seeming despair. The possibility of change. But, what is different here, is that to bring about change, we are required to pay attention to he reality around s and be prepared to transcend our preconceptions about the world.