From Bad to War

Spiritual surgery for a terminal condition.

Someone wants to fight. Apparently, they think it’s worth going to war to protect…what? Ideology? Profits? God?

Whatever the reason, the guys with the weapons are about to unleash chaos on a scale hitherto unimagined. All the tensions and violence that have been accumulating for about 80 years are going to explode in a flash. Yes, we’ve had invasions and oppressions in the meantime, but now the big one is poised to break out.

The American Empire is falling, and when empires fall bad things happen. The U.S. spends more on weapons than everyone else put together, and that’s been true more or less since the end of the previous world war. The U.S. wants to beat everyone — Russia, China, all the smaller states of Central and Latin America — and they don’t mind destroying the world, if that’s what it takes to win.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the state of Israel is central to the conflict. I don’t believe that the U.S. is putting its entire military machine on the line because it loves the Jews. I think that, in ways we have been prevented from understanding, Israel is the linchpin of the Empire, and must be protected at all costs. Proximity to oil is a probable reason. Or maybe the global network of Zionists provides services to the Empire that cannot be done without. Or perhaps the Christian Evangelicals are angling for Armageddon, as foretold in the Holy Books.

In any case, Israel may be the flashpoint that sets off the global explosion. From the look of things, it’s a short timeline.

Mystical Disease

Where does this leave the mystics among us, who believe that all things are one thing and all minds are one mind? Why are we, in our eternal mystic communion, going about things this way? What can be the “purpose” of global conflagration that would justify our indulgence in it, in full knowledge of the suffering and destruction it will cause?

The best I can come up with is a kind of “cauterization,” which is

a medical practice or technique of burning a part of a body to remove or close off a part of it. It destroys some tissue in an attempt to mitigate bleeding and damage, remove an undesired growth, or minimize other potential medical harm, such as infections when antibiotics are unavailable. ~Wikipedia

I think humans are suffering from spiritual gangrene, and our only hope is to burn out the diseased tissue. It is painful and destructive, but it may allow the patient to live. In this case, I don’t expect the human species to survive, but perhaps our loving, gracious nature may be preserved against the ravages of blindness, ignorance, and cruelty.

To pursue the metaphor a bit further: Gangrene is described as

a dangerous and potentially fatal condition that happens when the blood flow to a large area of tissue is cut off. This causes the tissue to break down and die. ‘Dry gangrene’ occurs when the blood supply to tissue is cut off. ‘Wet gangrene’ occurs if bacteria invade this tissue. ~Johns Hopkins Medicine

Our supply of love has been cut off. That which sustains and noursishes us has been strangled somewhere upstream, leaving us empty and alone. We have been infected with greed and hubris which grow like a tumor, replacing the harmonious order of nature with a machine for exploitation and control. Our spiritual body is dying — rotting on the inside — and only radical surgery offers a chance that we might be saved.

Cosmic Surgery

But who among us is the surgeon who can perform this brutal and necessary operation? Who has the skill and the discernment to distinguish healthy tissue from sick, and to perform the excision that may restore us? I think not any human. I think we must look to a higher power.

I believe that there is a hierarchy within the unity of supreme spirit. There are beings — people — bigger than us, with a scope of understanding greater than ours, as our understanding is greater than, for example, cats and dogs. I believe we pass our lives within their purview, tended and cared for, provided with the necessities of life and guided into the ways of goodness.

These putative beings are, of course, “the gods,” familiar to uncounted generations. There is voluminous literature about their nature, behaviour, and intentions toward us. Not in every case are they beneficient! Indeed, in some traditions the behavior of the gods is jealous, capricious, and cruel.

But as I believe that “Thou Art That,” so I believe that “We Are They.” We will spend our time on higher levels of understanding, just as we are here now. We rise and fall in the great spiral of being, according to our actions and our desire. If the gods are cruel, it is because we are cruel. If they treat us with tenderness, it is because we are tender.

Whatever level of experience we currently occupy, we are possessed of the freedom and responsibility which are the fundamental qualities of awareness. The choices we make are real, and affect everything within our sphere of influence. Our decision to live in love restores the circulation we need for our spirit to be healthy. Our devotion to truth is the sharp edge that can cut out our sickness.

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Photo by Jeff Kingma on Unsplash.