Credit: www.alamy.com
I’ve told the story a number of times, from Werner Erhard.
A man aboard a train looked out the right window and saw that the train was heading for disaster. He warned the other passengers.
All the passengers joined him on the right side of the train and looked. They conferred among themselves but no matter what they said, the train continued on, heading for disaster.
Then all decided to go over to the left side of the train and see what that brought. No matter; the train remained heading for disaster.
What did they need to do? What they needed to do, Werner suggested, was to stop the train, get out, and lay new track.
***
We’ve leaned to the left, leaned to the right, and it hasn’t helped. Now I submit that what we need to do is, as Werner suggested, dismount the train and lay new track.
Where our social institutions are corrupt, they need to be left behind. Where our governmental processes are corrupt, they need to be stopped.
We know that a flood of information is going to be forthcoming that will sweep many of the dark from their positions of control … unless they turn to the Light.
Our part in all this, I think, is to expand our experience of cleansing from just ourselves personally, as we’ve been doing in recent years, to cleansing ourselves socially.
Yes, I didn’t say cleansing others or even cleansing a pattern of behavior in others. I said a new level of cleansing ourselves. Cleansing ourselves at the level of our social beliefs.
That’s the new track to lay. And work upon ourselves will always be the area of new track I’ll be laying. Others can look at new track in other areas like government, technology, education, etc.
***
Let’s face it. It’s the degree of our cleansing that will create the path for others and dissipate some of the collective karma as well.
Gandhi asked us to be the change we wanted to see. That couldn’t be more true than for this generation.
If we all updated our social beliefs – now that we’ve eradicated so many of our personal vasanas and their products (conditioned behavior and the constructed self) – the rest, I think, will follow.
What new social beliefs might represent new track, not leading to disaster?
Let me get the discussion going, perhaps, by suggesting some examples that occur to me. These in turn will/may be superseded.
A New Social Contract
We acknowledge that:
(1) We live many lives, this just being one of them.
(2) The universal laws in general govern life, including our lives and the lives of our communities.
(3) We are all children of God and therefore brothers and sisters; ultimately, we are all One, without differentiation.
(4) We’re here to discover and realize our true identity as the undifferentiated God.
Based on these beliefs, we hold that:
(1) Human beings – who differ in history, color, religion, etc. – are equal before God and the law.
(2) Men and women, being equal, deserve equality of wage, working and living conditions, except where biological circumstances create exceptions that must be supported (eg., childbirth, early-childhood care).
(3) Humans share the globe with other species who are also deserving of fair treatment; that behooves us over time to find other food sources than meat.
(4) Everyone lives under the universal Law of Freewill and has the right to make their own choices and decisions, providing they don’t harm others.
(5) Human rights must be respected by all nations, as defined in international covenants and charters.
(6) War in all its forms is forbidden.
(7) While everyone defines their own vision of the New Earth, we suggest that what we’re aiming for, at its most general, is a world that works for everyone.
(Concluded in Part 2, below.)