Putting the horse before the cart

Dave Pollard just posted another well thought out and researched argument about some of the world's problems and and how to fix them. On the face of it most of our problems seem very complex. I think that no matter how well we analyse or rationalise our problems to come up with a set of perceived causes, the real underlying cause is invariable much simpler and always an expression of some form of fear.

We can surely see by now that trying to fix the world's problems through campaigning, politics or good deeds simply doesn't work. We see it time and time again and yet we still insist on trying to use the same old tools. Just when we think we've solved a problem somewhere, it pops up in another time and place. We keep trying to use bandades to fix the cancer in our society and despair when the problem surfaces elsewhere. Healing only happens at the cause. Until we can find a way to raise people consciousness - to cure them of the 'human condition', the fear & suffering in peoples minds - then the symptoms (all the trouble, loss and suffering we see) are just going to keep reappearing.

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."    Albert Einstein

It's ironic that in our good intentions to highlight whats wrong we can end up being part of the problem. Have you ever noticed that whatever you focus on we tend to get more of?  Last week my sister circulated an e-mail highlighting a situation in France where pets are being used as live 'bait' on shark fishing trips for the gratification of some people. The email, sent to us to raise awareness and sign a petition to stop the practice, was sent to many of our family members and contained a photograph of a dog in great despair with a six inch hook through it's nose. Believe me, to most people the look in the dogs eyes and it's obvious distress would be very upsetting. Those photos just added to the distress in the world - and that distress is going to get expressed somehow. See the problem?  Our good intentions can often add to the pool of collective fear (I'm using fear as a general term here - i.e. sorrow, anger, frustration, guilt, despair etc) that will be reflected in 'our world'.

So first we must find a way to raise our own level of consciousness to be able to see what is really happening and break the cycle of guilt and suffering that gets past down through generations instead of just perpetuating it. We need to see clearly where the cause lies - to put the horse before the cart, so to speak.  And as a teacher of mine once told me, "The problem Smith is sat on the chair".  Until we learn how to fix the madness in our minds, the madness in the world has to continue - as an effect it can do no other.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do whatever is appropriate when needed or asked.  I'm just saying that to be really effective, and only permanent solutions are really effective, we need to learn how to be a force for good, to heal the cause of whatever problem we meet. Fear can only be dissolved by its opposite and that requires raising our own and others level of consciousness. Trying to fix the problem on the level of the problem is just shifting it elsewhere, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  It's like trying to redecorate Plato's Cave instead of looking at the chains that we think bind us and seeing that we are free to walk out into the sunlight.

It is so easy to look out at the world and despair, thinking ourselves powerless.  But we all have the ability to look deeper, see cause and effect as it really is, and in that recognition know that we can just as easily create a heaven as a hell.  This is one of the things I'd like to look at in this weblog - hopefully to help each other solve our problems permanently, at the cause; to perhaps shed a little light on how we can harness natural laws and the power of this life force that we all a part of - in order to create a life, a society and organisations that reflects our true, authentic nature.