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Many of us say leave creating to god or God or the God, but man does create, man has constructed all but nature. Man has created the world where he lives and works. He has created this way of thinking that has led us to the edge of destruction. It is we who have created these out-of-control governments that lust only for power. It is we who have let our societies turn their backs on the people. We have a long history on this planet of oppression and one person or group telling others how they must live. Religion has pitted one sect against another, neighbor against neighbor. We fear what is different and shun it. Life for most people of the world revolves around a narrow --sometimes extremely narrow-- view of the world, this allows them to ignore the suffering, the humiliations and the hopelessness of others. We do not stop to think how our actions will affect other people, we have forgotten the commons and taken up an “every man for himself” way of thinking. This “greed is good” approach has led us away from our teachings, whether it is the Bible, the Koran, or other holy books. When you begin to look outside yourself, a new way of thinking will follow. It is time we come together to work on shared goals and values. Until we envision a future together we will be doomed to continue making the same mistakes over and over. We must take responsibility for our and our children’s future.
We must use knowledge and critical thinking to understand and solve problems in human terms. We have created and are creating young consumers who can’t add without a calculator or figure what percentage a third is. They are taught to take everything on faith no matter how outlandish or improbable. We trust that our leaders will make the “right” decisions and that they have our best interests in mind, when no such mechanism or plan exists. We leave it to our elected officials to have our vision. We can trust in these manmade powers that be, or move to the commons and use our democracy to make choices that benefit all instead of the few. We must see that if we work together towards a common understanding and goals, we can make a new construct that is healthy and life sustaining.
We seem to think we can operate outside the bounds of nature and win, that we can control all that we see. We think that what we didn’t create is here to serve us. We think that the minerals and the oil and the trees and the water and the air are all just ours, we think that we can do as we please with no regard for consequences. The earth can only absorb so much, then it will begin its mechanism to deal with it. We may not like the result. In fact it has been compensating all along, soon a major shift will be inevitable. We must drop our myths and throw out our preconceived notions. We must have vision beyond ourselves, to see not only what is but what could be. The Buddhist principle of starting each encounter anew with no leftover baggage or withheld anger is a lesson we might all think about applying. I’m sure this principle can be found in all faiths, it is a universal teaching. We must accept our differences and forget the past. The self and its desire to get even can be all-consuming. There is no revenge, only self destruction. Communication and diplomacy, whether on a personal or a national level, is required in order to have a vibrant society that nourishes all its people.
So what have we created? Everything, we have created all the good and all that is bad. All the weapons that kill. All the medicines that save. All the drugs that addict. All the companies that pollute. All that are clean. We are us, they are us, and we are all together, even George Bush. We must all begin to look deep into ourselves to find our own blindness, to uncover the prejudices that lie beneath. Only then can we go out into the world and build what needs to be built and tear down what has been built on shaky ground. We must be open to new ideas and different ways of thinking. We can harness the power of the sun and clean the atmosphere, feed all the people and create economies if the will is there. We can create whatever we want. All it takes is some vision.
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