I have a dream...

As we mark 50 years since Martin Luther King made his famous “I have a dream…” speech, the terrible events within the world today remind me of something else King said, in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture December 11th 1964.

He observed that ‘the richer we have become materially the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.’ He called this our moral and spiritual ‘lag’. We live, he said, in two realms:

"The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live."

Our problem today, he said, is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. He warned that we would put ourselves in peril if the former, the internal, does not grow apace of the external material realm. ‘When the ‘without’ of man’s nature subjugates the ‘within’, dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.’ The result, he cautioned, is racial injustice, poverty and war, that will only be alleviated if we balance our moral progress with our scientific progress and learn the practical art of living in harmony in a ‘worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation.’

Carl Jung had already observed this in 1957 when he wrote: ‘As at the beginning of the Christian era, so again today, we are faced with the problem of the general moral backwardness which has failed to keep pace with our scientific, technical and social progress.’ (1)

This week Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that we have “lost the plot” in our society, due to our increasingly secular lives. 

Religion and ethics were once closely intertwined, but the influence of religion has declined in so many lives,with potentially devastating consequences.

The Dalai Lama in 2000 warned of a ‘mounting confusion with respect to the problem of how best we are to conduct ourselves in life...(and) morality becomes a matter of individual preference.’(2)

Nietzsche called this an impending ‘total eclipse of all values.’(3) Atheist as he himself was, his observation, he claimed, was entirely objective: we need a God and the moral codes inherent in that belief to curb our otherwise unpleasant behavioral traits. Whether or not we claim a particular faith as our spiritual guide and source of hope, the deep healing need that is within each and every one of us transcends all boundaries of faith or creed. I believe that we need to reach that need and heal our hearts before we can hope to heal our world. How, I wonder, can we do this? And can a faith help?

Adapted from Chapter 3 The Hope of Faith from Healing this Wounded Earth…

1. From The Collected Works of C G Jung, 1970 pp304-305 as quoted in Claire Dunn Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul An Illustrated Biography, London: Continuum, 2000, p.199

2. .His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Ancient Wisdom Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium (London: Abacus, Time Warner Books UK, 2000), p. 11.

3.  Friedrich Nietzsche, used a few times through his literature, for example spoken by the madman in The Gay Science (Philosophical Classics) Friedrich Nietzsche with Thomas Common (Translator)(New York: Dover Publications, 2006).

Protecting our children from internet porn - and our personal responsibilities

Surely most parents are concerned at what their children may be able to access on the Internet? 

But it seems that we may be moving towards an Internet where parents have to opt in to "adult content" to receive it, when they sign up for a broadband contract, otherwise it will be blocked. The situation is complicated and varies from country to country, and in the US from State to State. But this is what the UK government want to do. At the moment they have the reverse situation - it is up to parents to block what their children can access on the Internet, otherwise everything is available. But it seems that 4 out of 10 parents are not protecting their children from this content - therefore, the argument goes, it is better to have an "opt in" system instead.
Then we have the inevitable debates about who should hold the responsibility here and people start grumbling about "nanny states."

In an ideal world, individuals should take personal responsibility - of course they should. But it seems they don't. And as I know from discussions around my own first book, which urges us all to take responsibility for this world before it is too late, people don't seem very good at taking that responsibility for what is "right." What is more they don't like receiving any advice, however well meant, on what perhaps they should be doing; how they should be behaving.

So it seems we need the State to protect us from ourselves. Is that right? Overzealous legislation can be dangerous in itself. It can take away from us our individual sense of ethical, spiritual and social responsibility.

We have personal responsibilities towards ourselves, towards each other, towards our communities, our nations and ultimately to our living planet earth Gaia. And of course legislation fails to address our underlying behavioral problems, our selfishness and aggression, our greed and our envy, the seemingly prevalent albeit petty dishonesty among so many of us. Such behavior can cause even the normally law-abiding citizens among us to sometimes ignore the rules and regulations. Simple examples are the widely disregarded restrictions on speeding and the use of a hand held cellular while driving. Such behavior is obviously selfish. It exposes our fellow road users, pedestrians, cyclists, horses, pets, wild life and other vehicles to mortal danger. Why do we do it? Would we change our driving behavior if we knew that every other user on the roads around us was a cherished friend or relation? Of course we would! At least I hope we would! If we always drove with consideration and care and indeed love for every other person sharing the road with us, traffic regulations would not be needed at all. How totally unrealistic given human nature!

 ‘What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility,’ said President Obama in his inauguration speech, ‘a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. 

Viktor Frankl observed that ‘Being human means being conscious and being responsible.’ He was writing about the very core of our being, our human conscience, and our personal integrity.

The state of being responsible is to be ‘liable to be called to account,’ or to render satisfaction, or to be answerable to someone for something. Isn't it now time for each and every one of us to realize that we must bear our own share of responsibility in the shaping of our world, and then turn that realization into action?

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama emphasized that responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. 


The next day in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture he elaborated on the theme: "The realisation that we are all basically the same human beings, who seek happiness and try to avoid suffering, is very helpful in developing a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood; a warm feeling of love and compassion for others. This, in turn, is essential if we are to survive in this ever shrinking world we live in. For if we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, without caring about the needs of others, we not only may end up harming others but also ourselves. This fact has become very clear during the course of this century. We know that to wage a nuclear war today, for example, would be a form of suicide; or that by polluting the air or the oceans, in order to achieve some short-term benefit, we are destroying the very basis for our survival. As interdependents, therefore, we have no other choice than to develop what I call a sense of universal responsibility."

 And what about the people who create the porn? 

American eco-poet and Zen Buddhist Gary Snyder once wrote that no matter whom we are and what we do in our lives, we need to

‘Find [our] place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.’ 

So let's do it!

Trial by Trolls - is there hope for our world?

Isn't it time that each and every one of us started bearing our own share of responsibility in the shaping of our world?

I know that it's 23 years since His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama gave his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1989, but what he said has as much relevance today as then. He emphasized that responsibility doesn't only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. The next day in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture he elaborated on the theme:

"The realisation that we are all basically the same human beings, who seek happiness and try to avoid suffering, is very helpful in developing a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood;
a warm feeling of love and compassion for others.
This, in turn, is essential if we are to survive in this ever shrinking world we live in. For if we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, without caring about the needs of others, we not only may end up harming others but also ourselves. This fact has become very clear during the course of this century. We know that to wage a nuclear war today, for example, would be a form of suicide; or that by polluting the air or the oceans, in order to achieve some short-term benefit, we are destroying the very basis for our survival. As interdependents, therefore, we have no other choice than to develop what I call a sense of universal responsibility."

Where are we 23 years later? Not in a very good place from where I'm sitting.

I read a piece in yesterday's Sunday Times about "The Torment of Trial by Trolls." For the uninitiated a "troll" is technically someone who deliberately disrupts online commentary with assaults on other contributors or by repeatedly taking threads away from the topic. But as the article points out it has become shorthand for all kinds of internet abuse. First we had road rage. Now it seems that many people are prepared to be abusive, obscene, insulting, mocking, bullying, and so on towards other people when they can hide behind the anonymity and distance of Twitter and Facebook and other social media. What is going on here? Why do we abuse strangers so freely?
Have all these people really nothing better to do with their time than abuse strangers? It seems that some of these trolls are perfectly decent people when met face to face.

Where is that " warm feeling of love and compassion for others" within this kind of beahviour? Is there hope for our world? What about empathy for our fellow beings? And what about the Golden Rule? Treating our neighbors as ourselves?
And not only should we confine the scope of our responsibilities to our own home patch. It is a matter of global justice that we have equal concern for the conditions in which our brothers and sisters live in poor parts of the world.
In December 2001 a Statement was issued by 110 Nobel Laureates on the one-hundredth anniversary of the launch of the Nobel Prize. It included a plea for us all to reassess our global obligations to one another. Again it's eleven years ago but it seems we don't learn anything with the passage of time. This is what those Laureates said:
"The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate, and manifestly unjust. It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If, then, we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor."

Eleven years later has much changed? It is a fact that we have the technology and productive resources to eliminate worldwide misery, poverty and injustice. Consider the power of the internet in the Arab Spring, in mobilizing the Occupy Movement.

And it seems that all many of us can do is waste precious moments, hours, days, weeks of our lives in abusive behaviour against our fellow brethren whilst hiding behind the anonymity of that same technology!

Sometimes I feel real despair, ashamed to be a part of the same human race.
Can anyone offer any words of hope?

Educating our children

Most of our young people are wonderful! But we seem to be failing far too many of them. Every time I read about those disaffected youth who are setting fire to old established family businesses, getting into drink and drugs in a big way, spending all day glued to TV's and computer games, I ponder where we are going wrong, and inevitably I always come back to education.
I visited Herm a few years ago, a very small Channel Island ‘community’ where life of necessity is simple. I watched the children playing outside, gloriously free and dirty and happy, using what nature has given them, the trees and bushes and grass and flowers, and their own abilities to run and hide and shout and climb trees, to be themselves. There was not an adult in sight. And I recalled the vision held by Alastair McIntosh in his wonderfully inspirational book Soil and Soul for a spiritually rich and holistic education. He imagines a life-long curriculum of organic food and biodiversity, energy alternatives and respect for all, healing skills incorporating not only the most advanced scientific advances but also the spiritual healing principles, of poetry and story. There would be the study of conflict resolution and how to eliminate the causes of war. And the kids would have fun and play in tree houses.
The Dalai Lama stresses that education ‘constitutes one of our most powerful weapons in our quest to bring about a better, more peaceful, world.’ (1)He emphasizes the need to open children’s eyes to the needs and rights of others, so that their actions have a universal dimension, and they develop their ‘natural feelings of empathy so that they come to have a sense of responsibility towards others.’ He reminds us that traditionally it has been assumed that ethical and human values would be taught through a child’s religious upbringing rather than in mainstream state education. With the declining influence of religion and faith in family life this vital part of a child’s education has become neglected. The Dalai Lama proffers three guidelines for the education of our children. First, he says, we need to awaken their consciousness to basic human values by showing them how these are relevant to their future survival, rather than presenting them as solely an ethical or faith issue. Then we must teach them how to discuss and debate, to understand the value of dialogue rather than violence for resolving conflict. Finally there is the urgent need to teach children that differences of race, faith, culture, while important to preserve, are nevertheless secondary to the equal rights of us all from whatever background to be happy. And of course this is best done in the security of a close loving family unit.
The Global Justice Movement describes the purpose of education as to ‘teach people how to become life-long learners and virtuous human beings, with the capacity to adapt to change, to become masters of technology and builders of civilization through their ‘leisure work,’ and to pursue the highest spiritual values.’
Alastair McIntosh’s wish list is long but the spiritual message is clear. Such an education is about ‘building of community as right relationship between soil, soul and society, powered by the passion of the heart, steered by the reason of the head, and then applied by the skilled technique of the hand.’

Regrettably the purpose of education as seen in most of our traditional schools is to train people for jobs, rather than to be the rounded and spiritually grounded citizens of tomorrow. As a result the system becomes shackled by the needs of exams and syllabuses and league tables. May it come to pass sooner rather than later that many more of our schools come to be judged not only on their position in academic league tables but on how successfully they turn out well rounded, happy, respectful, empathic and spiritual citizens.

(1) His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ancient Wisdom Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium (London: Abacus, Time Warner Books UK, 2000), p.192.

Love and Compassion and Responsibility in a shrinking world

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama emphasized that responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually.
The next day in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture he elaborated on the theme:

“The realisation that we are all basically the same human beings, who seek happiness and try to avoid suffering, is very helpful in developing a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood; a warm feeling of love and compassion for others. This, in turn, is essential if we are to survive in this ever shrinking world we live in. For if we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, without caring about the needs of others, we not only may end up harming others but also ourselves. This fact has become very clear during the course of this century. We know that to wage a nuclear war today, for example, would be a form of suicide; or that by polluting the air or the oceans, in order to achieve some short-term benefit, we are destroying the very basis for our survival. As interdependents, therefore, we have no other choice than to develop what I call a sense of universal responsibility.”

Most importantly, we cannot confine the scope of our responsibilities to our own country. It is a matter of global justice that we have equal concern for the conditions in which our brothers and sisters live in poor parts of the world. In December 2001 a Statement was issued by 110 Nobel Laureates on the one-hundredth anniversary of the launch of the Nobel Prize. It included a plea for us all to reassess our global obligations to one another:

“The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate, and manifestly unjust. It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If, then, we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor.”

We may need courage to take a stand, and we have to ensure that we are properly informed before making decisions. But surely it is now time that each and every one of us realized that we must bear our own share of responsibility in the shaping of our world, and then turn that realization into action.
Some debate whether war or climate change poses the greater threat to humanity. As expressed above, the two are in some ways linked. It is an unarguable fact that we have the technology and productive resources to eliminate worldwide misery, poverty and injustice howsoever caused. And we can thus remove some of the threats to peace and stability in many parts of the world.

A Non Violence Classic

We have recently seen some wonderful examples of the power of non violence - for example the successful liberation of Egypt from the Mubarak regime. I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, all of whom have preached justice by non violent means.
I subscribe to the Christian magazine Sojourners, Faith in Action for Social Justice, and in the July edition just received have had my attention drawn by a letter from a Tom Ewell of Clinton Washington, to The Power of Non Violence,  written by Richard Gregg in 1934, after the author had spent four years with Gandhi running up to the campaign for Indian independence.
I have found an inexpensive second hand copy, the revised 1959 edition that includes a foreword by Martin Luther King, and look forward to reading it - and will write a review in due course. I am sure, as Tom says, that this has enormous relevance today as all those years ago.

Climate Change Denial 2

These are my further thoughts on the post yesterday on Climate Change Denial, prompted by the comment left by "anonymous." He is right in one respect. To some people science has become their new religion, which then becomes unquestionably right and has no room for other viewpoints. But this refers to scientific reductionism, a perpetuation of the view that eventually everything in nature will be described and explained scientifically and there can be no other explanations “outside the box.”

The Dalai Lama has warned us about this; that we should not ‘overlook the limitations of science. In replacing religion as the final source of knowledge in popular estimation, science begins to look a bit like another religion itself. With this comes a similar danger on 

the part of some of its adherents to blind faith in its principles, and, correspondingly, to intolerance of alternate views.’ I agree that this spawns those who are as fervent and aggressive in their scientific beliefs as the religious fundamentalists.

But there can be no comparison between the ignorant illiterate masses who were within the influence of the priests of old, and the literate well educated, indeed often overly opinionated people of today who are mostly quite capable, scientist background or otherwise, of reading and understanding the essence of the reports of the IPCC on climate change. These reports are based on the research of very many well-qualified scientists worldwide, whose work is subject to the rigorous peer reviews that are a part of all new scientific research. 

We should respect and try to understand, but this is not a question of reverence. And yes science has its limitations, not only within the IPCC reports. Science cannot explain everything, and increasingly many scientists understand this. Science can and does ignore another dimension, another way of knowing, that is somewhere between (or above?) the two extreme mental poles of objectivity and subjectivity, language based or sensory based, analytic or holistic, rational or intuitive, science or religion, left hand or right hand brain if you like. 

Perhaps this is where wisdom comes into its own and is most needed.
Iain McGilchrist in his wonderful book The Master and His Emissary shows how it seems that the former objective end of the mental polarity is suppressing the subjective element, with huge implications for our future on this planet. We need a balance between the way our different brain hemispheres relate and act, a harmony between science and spirituality that has been lost, particularly by those with the new scientific reductionist faith.

We need joint tools and joint actions to heal the breach, for science to dialogue with spirituality to redress the balance.

Professor Clarke suggested that perhaps the very real threat of Climate Change becomes an opportunity to heal that problem within society; the problem that is the disjunction between these different ways of knowing, which poses a greater risk to society than Climate Change itself. 

And we should heed the work and words of  The Elders, who have wisdom beyond anything most of us can conjure.

The End of Faith?

In his book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris calls in the epilogue for the abolition of religion. This is not a hopeless dream, he believes, and says that an “utter revolution in our thinking” could be achieved in a generation if parents and teachers simply gave honest answers to the questions of children. Really?!
I think Harris may be conveniently forgetting that the rules and customs of ancestral religions still give meaning, purpose and spiritual nourishment to most of the seven billion people on the Earth today. 84% of the world’s population have a faith or religion, often with deeply held convictions, and of the remaining 16% one half claim to be theistic even if not religious. And only a tiny minority are involved in illegal acts in the name of religion. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has reminded us that in spite of what Harris and other angry atheists say, humankind does not need religion to perpetrate ghastly crimes against its own kith and kin. And it is also widely accepted that spiritual nourishment is necessary for human flourishing, within or without a religious faith.
So with these facts and statistics how could religion possibly be abolished?
Today Christian men, women and children throughout the world will be going to church. The UK media love to say that churchgoers are declining in numbers but overall this is simply not true. Since the turn of the millennium across 42 Church of England cathedrals in the UK, numbers attending services have steadily grown by a total of 37%, around 4% on average each year, and 7% just in the last year. Perhaps it is just unfortunate that the secular materialism of the West has the cultural initiative.

Nevertheless it is true that total congregations today, even though on the increase, are still a shadow of the numbers flocking to church even 100 years ago. And this causes a problem with moral values. Religion and ethics were once closely intertwined, but since the influence of religion has declined in so many lives, there is, warns the Dalai Lama, ‘mounting confusion with respect to the problem of how best we are to conduct ourselves in life…morality becomes a matter of individual preference.’(1) Nietzsche called this an impending ‘total eclipse of all values.’

(2) Atheist as he himself was, his observation, he claimed, was entirely objective: we need a God and the moral codes inherent in that belief to curb our otherwise unpleasant behavioral traits.
Is that right?

And there is another issue – that of so-called “progress.” ‘As at the beginning of the Christian era, so again today,’ wrote Carl Jung (3) in 1957, ‘we are faced with the problem of the general moral backwardness which has failed to keep pace with our scientific, technical and social progress.’ Martin Luther King called this our moral and spiritual ‘lag’. He observed that ‘the richer we have become materially the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.’ We live, he said, in two realms:

“The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.”

He warned that we would put ourselves in peril if the former, the internal, does not grow apace of the external material realm. ‘When the ‘without’ of man’s nature subjugates the ‘within’, dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.’ The result, he cautioned, is racial injustice, poverty and war, that will only be alleviated if we balance our moral progress with our scientific progress and learn the practical art of living in harmony in a ‘worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation.’ (4)
And how do we achieve that?
A question I will continue to explore in the weeks and months ahead. All (constructive and polite) comments welcome.



1. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, 2000, Ancient Wisdom Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium (London: Abacus, Time Warner Books UK, 2000), p. 11.
2. Friedrich Nietzsche, used a few times through his literature, for example spoken by the madman in The Gay Science (Philosophical Classics) Friedrich Nietzsche with Thomas Common (Translator)(New York: Dover Publications, 2006).
3. From The Collected Works of C G Jung, 1970 pp304-305 as quoted in Claire Dunn: Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul An Illustrated Biography, London: Continuum, 2000, pp. 149, 199.
4. Martin Luther King, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture December 11 1964

The World is not "Out There"

"If we are interested in the evolution of consciousness and culture, one habit that we need to break is the tendency to speak about the world as if it exists "out there." ...We are not separate from the world process. In our own small way, we're all contributing to where we're going..."

Do read the full quote  from Andrew Cohen, one of his weekly Enlightenment quotes.

We all affect the way the world, and mankind, is going - by our individual behaviours, actions, even thoughts and words. And we all have individual and collective responsibilities to steer ourselves towards a positive, better future rather than steering mankind towards one that will be very uncertain and dangerous for all.

As the Dalai Lama has said:

“Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on.”

Educating our Children

Following the reviews on Amazon.com of Prince Charles' wonderful book Harmony, I came upon one reviewer's comments that took me back to something I have written about elsewhere; What future do we have if we do not recognize the need for a holistic education for our children?

I visited Herm a year or so ago. It is a very small Channel Island ‘community’ off the coast of North France, where life of necessity is simple. I watched the children playing outside, gloriously free and dirty and happy, using what nature has given them, the trees and bushes and grass and flowers, and their own abilities to run and hide and shout and climb trees, to be themselves. There was not an adult in sight. And I recalled the vision held by Alastair McIntosh, in his wonderful book Soil and Soul,for a spiritually rich and holistic education. He imagines a life-long curriculum of organic food and biodiversity, energy alternatives and respect for all, healing skills incorporating not only the most advanced scientific advances but also the spiritual healing principles, of poetry and story. There would be the study of conflict resolution and how to eliminate the causes of war. And the kids would have fun and play in tree houses.
McIntosh’s wish list is long but the spiritual message is clear. Such an education is about ‘building of community as right relationship between soil, soul and society, powered by the passion of the heart, steered by the reason of the head, and then applied by the skilled technique of the hand.’
The Global Justice Movement describes the purpose of education as to ‘teach people how to become life-long learners and virtuous human beings, with the capacity to adapt to change, to become masters of technology and builders of civilization through their ‘leisure work,’ and to pursue the highest spiritual values.’
The Dalai Lama stresses that education ‘constitutes one of our most powerful weapons in our quest to bring about a better, more peaceful, world.’He emphasizes the need to open children’s eyes to the needs and rights of others, so that their actions have a universal dimension, and they develop their ‘natural feelings of empathy so that they come to have a sense of responsibility towards others.’ He reminds us that traditionally it has been assumed that ethical and human values would be taught through a child’s religious upbringing rather than in mainstream state education. With the declining influence of religion and faith in family life this vital part of a child’s education has become neglected. The Dalai Lama proffers three guidelines for the education of our children. First, he says, we need to awaken their consciousness to basic human values by showing them how these are relevant to their future survival, rather than presenting them as solely an ethical or faith issue. Then we must teach them how to discuss and debate, to understand the value of dialogue rather than violence for resolving conflict. Finally there is the urgent need to teach children that differences of race, faith, culture, while important to preserve, are nevertheless secondary to the equal rights of us all from whatever background to be happy. And of course this is best done in the security of a close loving family unit.
Regrettably the purpose of education as seen in most of our traditional schools is to train people for jobs, rather than to be the rounded and spiritually grounded citizens of tomorrow. As a result the system becomes shackled by the needs of exams and syllabuses and league tables. May it come to pass sooner rather than later that many more of our schools come to be judged not only on their position in academic league tables but on how successfully they turn out well rounded, happy, respectful, empathic and spiritual citizens.

Spirit, the Me Millenium and Scientific Reductionism

Yesterday I wrote that spirituality rather than materialism is something that should infuse our lives at all times. But spirituality and the sense of spirit or soul is compromised by two modern phenomena.

First is our narcissistic obsession with personal growth and success measured in terms of material rather than spiritual wealth, and with little or no concern for the needs of society as a whole.

This is most obvious in the self-help, self- development and ‘How to Succeed’ genre of book that are so popular today, and that too often fuel what has been dubbed by many as the new egocentric ‘Me-Millennium.’

Secondly, those who would yearn for a more spiritual approach to our lives and the world’s problems also have to fight scientific reductionism. Whilst deeper scientific understanding is important, and we have made wonderful discoveries and advances in our knowledge, this does not mean that we have to lose sight of the transcendent or spiritual dimension of human life, with its own healing significance.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously warned of the dangers of losing our faith, our religion and our soul to rationalism, scientific thought and to Darwinism, when he predicted the total eclipse of all values by the 21st century. This loss, he predicted, would be the cause of the awful wars that we did indeed experience, and continue to do so.

The Dalai Lama also warns that "we are apt to overlook the limitations of science. In replacing religion as the final source of knowledge in popular estimation, science begins to look a bit like another religion itself. With this comes a similar danger on the part of some of its adherents to blind faith in its principles, and, correspondingly, to intolerance of alternate views."

Certain best selling authors spring to mind here!?

The End of Faith; Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.

I wrote on 31 July about Sam Harris' book, The End of Faith; Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. I have now finished it and find its conclusions unsatisfactory. Another time I will write a more detailed review but for today it is late and I am tired so I will just make one or two points!

I mentioned before how I disliked and questioned his assumption about the link between wars and religion. I also have to take issue with his basic assumption, made very early in the book, and perpetuated throughout, that the sacred texts are nothing but myth and should be dismissed as such in the same way as the Greek myths. "...most of the people in this world," he writes, believe that the Creator of the universe has written a book." ... "Whatever their imagined source," he goes on to say, "the doctrines of modern religions are no more tenable than ...those cast upon the scrap heap of mythology millennia ago; for there is no more evidence to justify a belief in the literal existence of Yahweh and Satan than there was to keep Zeus perched upon his mountain throne or Poseidon churning the seas."
Continually trashing the Holy Bible as fairy tale does little to enhance his credibility, as he thereby ignores the vast theological and archeological knowledge underpinning its writings and its historical truths. I would recommend that he reads some of the many good books available on the subject. He could start with John Bartlett's The Bible; Faith and Evidence, A Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Biblical History.

Interestingly, Harris does understand the need for and existence of, a human spirituality, but he is adamant that this can and indeed must be developed without faith. He senses, he says, that the problem is hopeless, but that if parents and teachers in a single generation simply answered their children's questions honestly, there could be an utter revolution in our thinking, faith and religion would disappear in that generation and the world would be saved.

If that is the only way to save our world, as Harris seems to think, then I really believe the situation is hopeless. I really cannot believe that our faiths and our religions can be abolished so easily. They have a great deal more substance than Harris would like to think. And one cannot abolish deeply held beliefs so easily.

Instead I think we need to do all we can to foster true religious pluralism. The Dalai Lama in his book, Ancient Wisdom, Modern World (Ethics for the New Millennium), finds the idea of a world parliament of religions very appealing.

Harris suggests a world government - how else, he asks, "will a war between the USA and China become as unlikely as a war between Texas and Vermont?" But his vision is devoid of religion and it just will never work.

Healing Imperatives for a Fractured World

Ripples of Hope – Healing Imperatives for a Fractured World
‘Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’
Robert Kennedy Speech 7 June 1966 Cape Town
I am a child of the fifties. In those early post war years we had freedom to play outdoors all day with our friends, with minimal adult supervision. We cycled or walked or bussed to school in all weathers, often alone. We had little money and we lived simply. But we were happy. Changes since then to our material "well being" have been immense. But they seem to have come at an extreme cost. Material wealth does not apparently bring us happiness, peace and contentment. 50 years on we now live in a culture where "success" seems to be based on celebrity status and wealth. We buy too much, we own too much, we hoard too much, we throw away too much and we do not recycle enough. The material possessions of others often create envy and greed, and this fuels its own social problems. We have ethnic and racial problems, terror, violence, public disorder, crime waves, the ‘yob culture’ on our streets, binge drinking, metal detectors in schools to combat knife crime and terrorist attacks in our Western European cities. We feel the need for gated roads and secured driveways. Many of these problems were unheard of, even unimaginable, in my own childhood and youth.
And whilst we live in this material splendour, real poverty is rife. 1 billion in the world live on less than the international poverty level of $1 per day. More than 850 million of the world’s 6.55 billion population starve. These statistics are an affront to our humanity. The injustices of the rich/poor divide bring discontent and envy, particularly with the globalisation of information. Poverty brings disease and lack of education, which itself perpetuates that poverty. Lack of resources also increases vulnerability to natural disasters that in the developed nations we are broadly speaking better able to handle. Inadequate and poor quality housing exacerbates the impact of floods, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. And how many of these are linked to man’s own arrogant interference with the planet?
We have a love affair with our car, our house, and our material possessions. And we all love a bargain. So much so that many of us are unwilling to pay the premium for fairly traded and fairly priced organic or local goods. We love our sanitised, standardised, pre-packaged meat and perfectly blemish free fruit and vegetables. But when we chase the cheapest mass-produced goods we are at the same time casting aside any ethical considerations regarding the production of those goods. We really do not want to think about the possibly sweat-shop conditions of the labourers, the unrealistically low wages that may have been paid, the cruelty inflicted on helpless animals, that our purchasing behaviour may be promoting.
My generation remembers the Cold War, with the Suez crisis of 1956/57 and the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962. We recall the sense of euphoria when the Berlin Wall, symbol of the Cold War since 1961, was dismantled in 1989, marking the end of European communism. We hailed a New Era and a new and peaceful world. How wrong we were!
In his Acceptance Speech following receipt of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize the 14th Dalai Lama remarked: ‘As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.’ Sadly his prediction looks unpromising as we start the new millennium. We now live in a more perilous world than we could possibly have foreseen as children of the fifties.
Nick Clegg recently observed, with reference to Britain under the Labour Government in November 2006, that: ‘If legislation was a guarantee of greater public safety, this country would be the safest nation on earth.’ It seems that throughout the developed world Governing and regulatory bodies try to combat every ill of society as it arises by what can only be interpreted as knee-jerk legislation.
Small businesses find it difficult to keep up to date with the continual red tape handed out to them. Private investors have to be protected with an overly complex Financial Service Act and Money Laundering regulations for the simplest of transactions. Schools and hospitals struggle to cope with more tests and targets and league tables. In fact life is becoming far too complex and stressful for us all.
Over zealous legislation not only stresses us. It also takes away our individual sense of ethical, spiritual and social responsibility. And we do have personal responsibilities; towards ourselves, towards each other, towards our communities, our nations and ultimately to our living planet earth Gaia. And of course legislation fails to address our underlying behavioural problems, our selfishness and aggression, our greed and our envy, the seemingly prevalent albeit petty dishonesty amongst so many of us, fuelled by attitudes displayed in popular "soaps" on the TV and in films. Even the normally law - abiding citizens amongst us sometimes ignore the rules and regulations. Simple examples are the widely disregarded restrictions on speeding and the use of hand held mobile phones whilst driving. Such behaviour is obviously selfish. It exposes our fellow road users, pedestrians, cyclists, horses, pets, wild life and other vehicles to mortal danger. Why do we do it? Would we change our driving behaviour if we knew that every other user on the roads around us was a cherished friend or relation or even pet? Of course we would! If we always drove with consideration and care and indeed love for every other person sharing the road with us, traffic regulations would not be needed at all!
It seems clear to me that lasting and real solutions to the many and seemingly intractable problems of the 21st century world in which we live will not be found in Government interventions and interference. The world’s many fractures will not be healed in that way. Positive change must come from within our own hearts, through a healing of our own wounds and our own behaviour. To achieve that we have to rediscover our own spirituality, recognise with new eyes the spiritual in all our material experiences, whether at work or at leisure, and feel that spiritual awakening in our own individual consciences.
This is a healing imperative for our world. ‘There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,’ wrote Henry David Thoreau. We all have to start striking at those roots.
This has been précised from my book in progress "Ripples of Hope – How to Heal our Fractured World," that explores how healing our own behaviour rather than relying on Government interventions is the real key to solving the world’s problems of climate change and violence that threaten our very existence. For more see www.eleanorstoneham.com