Kerry BeachEven though I do not seek out whatever the big news is each day, I could not help but notice on Monday morning the story of the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US covert action in Pakistan. Between NPR and the MSN home page, it was the only story being reported and commented on. This focus was certainly understandable, given the background and notoriety of this person, and the efforts and expense that have been directed to his capture or killing for years.
Of course, most of the reactions reported by mainstream news media were of joy that this person was dead. There were a few voices warning that his followers may be emboldened to commit more acts of terrorism as revenge for his killing, but they were in the minority in the midst of the general celebration that a national objective had apparently been achieved.
Later during the day, I happened to log in to my Facebook page, and read the many comments that my various friends had posted regarding this news item. I was struck by the different viewpoints represented, covering an extreme spectrum of opinion regarding the act, the principles behind it, and the reputation of our government. It is the wide range of these opinions that leads me to comment here.
The opinions expressed by those postings generally fell into three categories.
Some were very glad that this person had finally been “taken out,” and expressed great thanks to our military and intelligence personnel. There were also comments to the effect that this act would be followed by a serious decline in the capabilities of the terrorist organization the deceased headed.
Another group of people expressed their belief that Bin Laden was actually killed nine years ago, referencing a few Internet links that apparently have reported this in the past. These folks believe that this is all part of an ongoing government cover up and manipulation of the populace in order to maintain power over us.
The third group of people essentially refused to celebrate the violent death of a human being, no matter whether that act appeared to result in a favorable situation for the world. Their points were, in many cases, that violence will never stop violence, and that the world needs to live from a point of love rather than a point of hate.
Obviously, these friends of mine are very opposed in their viewpoints, but they are in fact a reflection of the conflicting viewpoints held within our country and across the world. The only people missing from this survey are those who believe that the US is evil, and consider Bin Laden a hero.
All of my friends know, or should, that I believe in the Oneness of all humanity, and that I align most strongly with the belief that no killing is ever justified. However, it is important for all of us to recognize that these different opinions are based on each individual’s consciousness and beliefs at this time. In Oneness, we are called to love, honor and respect others in all things. We do not have to agree with them, but we must allow them to live according to their particular life path. We must also understand that each other person always does the best that they can based on where they are in their soul’s evolution.
It is absolutely true that continuing to commit violence will never stop violence. Gandhi and Dr. King both knew that, and constantly reminded their followers, and themselves, of that fact. However, a violent end was to be expected for Bin Laden given his life, and in fact, it has been reported that he had ordered his security people to kill him themselves rather than allow him to be captured by the US. His chosen path included martyrdom, in his view. He died in the manner that he chose and expected.
There was an interesting commentary about the Bin Laden killing, and about Bin Laden himself, on the Ask Theo Internet radio show on Tuesday morning. Theo is the collective voice of a group of archangels, channeled by Sheila Gillette, one of the hosts, who has been channeling Theo for over forty years. The subject of Tuesday’s show was Master Teachers, and a caller asked about Bin Laden’s purpose in this life. Theo’s answer was that, no matter what you may have thought about what this man did, he actually gave to all of us a great lesson on what happens when we do not allow the love that is the nature of our spirits to rule our lives (my summary and wording). It was a fascinating reminder for me that there is always some good in everything bad, no matter how horrible the act or event may seem. If you would like to listen to that particular Ask Theo show, or learn more about Theo, go to www.asktheo.com.
I can easily understand the feelings of both my friends who are joyful and my friends who are conspiracy theorists. Both are operating from fear: first, fear of terrorism and bad people in the world, and second, fear of our government and what is perceived as an elite group in control of our society. As I have spoken and written recently, fear is the basis for most of human behavior in our world. Fear, and the use of fear to control, has been at the center of our dominator cultures since ancient times, and fear is very much in evidence today throughout our world. Neither of these groups can truly be blamed for their feelings and opinions, knowing where they are coming from.
Fortunately, the third group of opinions is powerful testimony that a new belief is rising, not only throughout our country, but our entire world. More and more people everywhere are becoming more conscious and aware of their spiritual basis in love, their connection to God and all of God’s creation. These people are choosing to recognize and live in Oneness. Many believe, as do I, that this is part of a spiritual awakening on the Earth, in which the population is transforming into beings who understand their true nature as eternal spirits. As this transformation continues, many more will begin to question what they have believed, lose their fear, and realize that the way we have done things for so long must change fundamentally. This process will not be as fast as any of us would like, but it is happening, and will proceed until mankind on Earth stands in a completely new light, as highly evolved beings living in love and cooperation.
If you are amongst those who are rejoicing in a feeling of revenge fulfilled, I pray that you will take a moment to understand that this action did not and can not restore all those who died in the terrorist acts sponsored by Bin Laden. It is my sincere desire that you connect with your soul, and realize that you could easily have been in his place in different life circumstances (and in fact were in some other life, although I realize that may be very hard for you to believe). Seek the feeling of compassion, and find forgiveness in your heart for a spirit who is also one of God’s creations, and loved by God just as much as you are.
If you see conspiracy in our government, our media and other institutions of our life, I pray that you will stop a moment and truly ask what you would have become if you had been raised in the fear that others will control you unless you control them first. I hope you come to realize that you are also operating from that same fear. You have convinced yourself that you failed to understand and get the upper hand, and you are now the victim. I pray that your soul, with God’s help, will come to realize that you are the master of your life’s creation, and that with love, you need fear nothing, especially your own brothers and sisters in God. I have no doubt that fearful men and women have done terrible things in our past, and that some continue to do these acts of control, but we may never know fully how much of these suspicions have any basis in truth, or are simply the result of our creative imaginations. In the end, as we learn to live from love and banish fear, those who may have committed terrible acts of dishonesty and deception, of death, hate and revenge, will come to understand what they have done and seek your forgiveness. I pray that you will find forgiveness easy and appropriate, and realize that you too have walked their path somewhere in time.
To my friends who are opening to their birthright of love for all, I remind you to be gentle and loving with everyone, even those whose thoughts, feelings and actions are annoying to you, or even abhorrent. These, too, are your brothers and sisters, and our world must include them all. Give them love, and help them to grow to awareness with you.
Everything that happens does so for a reason, whether we see the reason or not. There is good somewhere in every act or occurrence, and every minute of every day has the power to teach us, and to uplift us to our highest good, if only we have the senses to perceive, and only if we perceive with our hearts. Peace and love be with you all, and with the spirit that was Osama.
Excellent summation! Thank you for sharing your insight.
Namaste,
Julia
Well articulated, Kerry. You seem to have the relatively rare ability to strike that balance of viewpoints that comes from taking a much “Bigger Picture” perspective on all things in Life. THANKS for sharing your thoughts…and THANKS for volunteering with Humanity’s Team!
All the best of love from San Francisco to Charlotte,
Chip
Hi bud,
Very nice article. I think there are a couple things to consider here…
I agree that revenge comes from hate. Justice, however, does not. One can argue whether or UBL’s killing was one or the other
, but if Justice I have zero problem with it. If Justice was defined as his capture vs his killing, I’d also be fine with that.
I also agree that if the whole world approached things in the manner of this movement (and yes one should lead by example), then we’d all be better off. However, the reality today is we have a large number of people (for reasons valid or not) that want us dead. We have had people in the past via political movements, such as the Nazis, that have wanted to destroy others and replace them with their own groups.
My questions to this Oneness movement are:
What is the proper response?
Do we try over and over to show love to these types of people, and only if that fails do we resort to violence / self-defense?
Do we never, ever resort to violence?
Or some other position?
My personal view is we should always try diplomacy to its extreme end…but failing that, having people on the other side of the table that will never adhere to the ideals presented here, self-preservation should trump all.
For example, if someone attempts to rob me and invades my home, hiding and calling 911 would be my first step and would hope the police would show up and scare them away.
However, if they try to come after me or my family, they will be removed from this world quickly…Idealism about how they shouldn’t be doing this, or that they should be showing me love / I should show them love kinda goes out the window if I’m faced with my own death or the death of those I love.
Thoughts?
~Andrew
Andrew, dear friend,
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on the questions naturally raised by my article.
The belief of Oneness is based on the belief that all of us, and all of life, are created by God, even the bad actors, and the belief that God loves all God’s creations absolutely. Oneness calls us to see ourselves in every other person, even someone who is doing something that we personally abhor. That does not mean that we have to condone their actions, and it also does not mean that society cannot set reasonable limits on behavior.
In a society based on Oneness, it is likely that the response to serious crime would be to remove the person responsible from the society for a time, i.e., imprisonment. However, in such a society, because we would see ourselves in that person, we would be much more committed to providing an incarceration that would seriously protect and work very hard to rehabilitate that person so that he or she could ultimately be accepted as a member of the society that is not a threat. That is certainly how you or I would want to be treated if we made such a serious mistake. Sadly, it is well documented that our current prison systems are more likely to reinforce criminal belief, and therefore criminal behavior upon release, in many respects just making the problem worse.
Another attribute of a society based on Oneness is that such a society should be able to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, poverty and hopelessness, which is the major breeding ground for violence and anti-social behavior in our current society.
The belief in Oneness is usually accompanied by a corresponding belief that each of us is an eternal spirit, and death is only a passage from physical life back to the spirit realm. On eis always whole as a spirit, held in a realm of absolute love, and a threat of any kind is impossible. These physical life experiences we engage in are, in terms of true reality, just a massive illusion designed to help us understand what we really are by experiencing both what we are and what we are not. The latter could not be accomplished in the spirit realm, since nothing bad or non-serving can happen there. Many authors have said, and I agree with this, that a physical being who fully understood this would simply choose to allow an attacker to kill his physical body and let him go back to the spirit world rather than ever attack the threat with violence. While I said I agree that such might probably be the case for a highly evolved being, I cannot tell you for certain that I would not defend myself if I were physically attacked, and I certainly would not condemn anyone else for defending themselves if they honestly believe they have no alternative.
It is one thing to theorize about a highly-evolved society, and quite another to live through a transition from where we are now, which Neal Donald Walsch has characterized as our adolescence as a species, to becoming a highly-evolved society. I believe that God truly does love each of us unconditionally, and truly does understand that we are all at this point children, with much to learn. I know in my heart that nothing any of us do here matters in the eternal sense, and that we have all been very bad people at some point in our eternal existence, so that we can grow to understand clearly that such actions do not come from love, and do not serve us.
Two things I do believe strongly – violence never truly solves the problem of violence, and the concept of justice must grow to a more loving expression by losing its current base of revenge. The only way to end violence and truly have peace on earth is for all people to find peace in their own heart. When each person looks on all others as a member of their own spiritual family, thoughts of revenge for mistakes will not occur, and justice can be served with love.
Again, thank you so much for furthering this discussion. My love to you, and to all who read this!
Kerry
Very interesting. Thank you!
A couple thoughts come to mind (or course lol)…
1. What do you do with people who can never be rehabilitated? Detain them indefinately to protect society?
2. I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point of large numbers of people chosing their own demise over another who is attacking them. The instinct of self-preservation is too high and appears to be ingrained into all the genes of all species on the planet. In other words, I don’t see a lot of folks “pulling an Obi-Wan” and letting Darth Vader kill them since they anticipate something better after…mainly because spirituality and the belief in any form of religion is on a massive decline in “educated” societies. It is only on the rise in ones less educated and in poverty. Unless absolute proof vs faith can show life (and a better life) after death, I don’t see this catching on
.
3. IMHO, Oneness needs to be *very* careful that their philosophy is not politicized. The danger of this message is that like any religion / philosophy is it can be perverted into something dangerous to others not a part of said religion.
In particular, the Oneness movement could be abused to justify the removal of individual Liberty and replace it with *political* Collectivism. Respect for other people (plural) must be first based on others as individuals. In short, I see this philosophy as being co-opted by the Left to justify Socialism or Communism, while the Right will attempt to link this with these political systems, even if such a link doesn’t exist.
It also should not be used to justify a global form of government. Even if the intention from the outset was a good one, the end result of large central systems and planning is usually loss of freedom, and not trying to raise the bar for everyone by growing the pie (i.e. the rich get richer but the poor also get richer), but the redistribution from the top to the bottom.
We can see this now with the co-opting of the environmental movement to justify the transfer of trillions of dollars from the few to the many, with *zero* benefit to the environment…the only ones benefiting are those that are controlling said transfer and often the money transfered never makes it to the common people but in the pockets of those in favor of these this movement of cash
.
As long as this movement is about each person respecting other persons (singular), I can see its long-term success. If it gets into grouping people into collections, we all need to be careful it isn’t abused.
Thoughts? Am I being too paranoid?
~Andrew
Andrew,
As always, you ask great questions!
There is always the possibility that a particular individual would not be able to accept conforming to the requirements of a society in terms of criminal behavior. I believe that a society based on love and Oneness would, in that instance, keep that person confined. However, such a society would never create a confinement that was in any way inhumane. I cannot speculate on the specifics of confinement in a highly-evolved society, but I believe that the confined person would be given loving treatment, and that the society would never give up on the possibility of rehabilitation.
Many have theorized that, in a highly evolved society, there would be much less criminal or anti-social behavior and that greater resource would be available and would be allocated to the rehabilitation of those who needed it.
I agree that it would be a highly conscious individual who would choose to die rather than defend himself, but I see no reason not to reach for that state, as an individual and as a society.
I must lovingly disagree with your comment regarding the decline of spirituality. Religions are experiencing a decline in their power precisely because religions are man-made institutions, and most have become more about controlling their adherents and maintaining their institution than truly serving the needs of their followers. Spirituality is a personal phenomenon. Each person decides for themselves what they believe, what their personal answers are to the ageless and timeless questions asked by all beings: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?
The primary problem with current religions is that they are stuck on old traditions, and do not want to consider new ideas. They do not want to admit that their doctrine might actually be incorrect in some aspects. Oneness does not seek to supplant or replace religion. Oneness accepts each person’s choices while encouraging each person to live from a place of love, honor and respect for all others. Many of today’s religions have messages of love in their doctrine, and what will occur over time, as we move to a more loving individual philosophy, is that these institutions will be forced to examine their beliefs and teaching to match the beliefs of their adherents.
Oneness is based on the recognition of each individual as a unique creation of God. Oneness holds the individual’s right to live according to his or her own agenda as sacred. Our movement of Oneness at Humanity’s Team and other organizations which have similar aims has no purpose or agenda other than simply to awaken people everywhere to their own majesty and power as children of God. We believe that a society of loving people will make choices in all aspects of life that will provide a high quality of life to all while preserving each person’s right to, as is still written in our nation’s founding documents, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Are you being too paranoid? Perhaps a little, but I believe your view reflects the view of many others in our world. The key message that I try to deliver, along with many others with write and speak about spirituality and the problems of our world, is that we must look to our beliefs if we wish to change the path our world is on. We have already proven clearly that what we have been doing for centuries does not work to the benefit of all, much less even the majority of people. It is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot continue living as we have, unless we are truly willing to risk the extermination of our species through our own greed and corruption. Behaviors come from beliefs; the only way we can truly and lastingly change our collective behavior is to change our beliefs, beginning with ourselves.
It’s wonderful to have this dialogue with you, and I look forward to continuing our discussion in person whenever we can arrange it. Until then, my love to you, old friend!
Kerry