As It Is ~ WORLD VIEWS
How big is your world?
By this, I do not mean the Planet Earth on which we
all live and spin through Space. I mean your mental
and spiritual horizons: How far do they extend, and
how many people and things do they encompass?
By study, observation, and reflection, we
may broaden our horizons, mentally, just by traveling,
and coming into contact with, and living among, people
of different nationalities, races, and cultures. Today,
more than ever before, with jet travel within the
reach of most people in the developed world, our opportunities
for such broadening of the mind are immense.
Until recently, because of the centuries
of Western colonization of countries in other parts
of the world, Western influence was predominant. But,
might there not be a turning of the tide, as other
countries complete the assimilation of Western culture,
and begin to export their own cultural influences
to the West? Will the West?can the West?remain as
it is, impervious to and unchanged by other cultural
influences? To do so, it would have to make a very
determined stand, which in itself would mean recognizing
other influences, and thus being influenced. Even
during war, there is exchange.
The fact that English has become the main
international language makes of it a conduit for the
infiltration of non-Western ideas; in opening up the
world, the West has opened itself up to many things
of other cultures that might otherwise have remained
restricted to those cultures; because of it, for just
one example, the literature—both religious and
secular—of other cultures has been made available
to the English speaking world, without ordinary people
needing to learn the languages it was originally written
in. Is this not a great advantage? (It also greatly
diminishes any excuses that we might make for not
knowing about other religions and cultures, and for
ignorantly thinking that our religion and culture
is and must be the best merely because it is ours).
Moreover, with an international language like English,
we can go more or less anywhere, and stand a good
chance of finding someone with whom we can speak English.
We all have world views?that is, ways of
looking at and considering the world?but while some
of us have broad and wide world views, the world views
of others are narrow and cramped. Many years ago,
I worked in a factory in England with people whose
views of foreigners were appallingly narrow and prejudiced;
none of them, at that time, had traveled abroad, and
some of them had not been very far from their home
town, and this was probably the reason for their small
mindedness; if they had been abroad they might have
understood, while there, that they were foreigners
too; on the other hand, though, they might not have
done this and continued to think of the people in
those lands as foreigners and themselves as not. It
is hard for some people to open their eyes and minds.
When I began to travel in other countries,
and live with people of different nationalities, races,
and religions, I came to see that, though there are,
of course, differences between people, the things
we have in common?the similarities, the humanness
in us all?far outweigh the differences; had I not
been able to see this, my mind would never have permitted
me to travel so freely, and live with so many people
other than those of my own nationality and race. As
it is, for many years, I have given blood regularly,
in whatever country I happen to be in when it's time
to give again. My blood probably flows now in the
veins of people of many different nationalities and
races; hopefully, those who received the blood I donated
didn't object to receiving the blood of a 'foreigner.
My world view has expanded, and I do not think in
terms of just one country, or one nationality, and
although I do recognize that there are various skin-colors
in the world, we are all members of the human race.
The time is hopefully near when people will no longer
be required to state their race in answer to questions
on forms for immigration purposes or such like, or
could write with immunity: Human.
Of course, my understanding of Dharma?as
far as that extends?has helped me tremendously with
this, for it reveals how 'all beings are friends in
suffering'?and not just human beings, either, but
all beings, from the tiniest to the greatest. This
is a stupendous thing to contemplate. In fact, because
it is so all embracing, excluding nothing and nobody,
it is the most complete world view imaginable; but
to live by it is quite another thing. For most of
us it is, and will remain for a very long time, an
ideal and not an actuality?an ideal to work towards,
like a tiny spark of light in a dark night. A Buddha
is someone who has realized that ideal, and has made
it His own, someone who has left behind the narrow
idea of self and, identifying Himself with all, has
become one with all.
Compare and contrast this with the world
view of Thomas Aquinas, one of the main theological
pillars of the Catholic Church, who is regarded as
a saint. He stated (but we must realize that it was
his own subjective opinion, and might even call it
his own delusion): "Next to contemplating God,
the greatest pleasure of the blessed ones in Heaven
will be to watch the tortures of those burning in
Hell." And an earlier Church Father, Augustine
of Hippo (also called 'Saint'), after his conversion
and baptism into Christianity, wrote: "Wondrous
depth of Thy words, whose surface, behold! is before
us, inviting to little ones; yet are they a wondrous
depth, O my god, a wondrous depth! It is awful to
look therein; yes ... an awfulness of honor, and a
trembling of love. Thine enemies thereof [referring
to pagans, or non-Christians], I hate vehemently;
oh, that Thou wouldst slay them with Thy two-edged
sword that they might no longer be enemies to it;
for so do I love to have them slain!" This was
written by a follower of someone who prayed for the
forgiveness of his enemies even while He was hanging
on the cross!
On the other hand, the greatest Christian
of them all—Francis of Assisi—prayed thus:
"LORD, make me an instrument of Thy
Peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where
there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt faith;
where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness,
light; and where there is sadness, joy.
"O DIVINE MASTER grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood,
as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it
is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that
we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born
to Eternal Life".
Whether we are followers of the Christian
religion or not, we cannot fail to admire the magnanimity?the
Dharma?of this.
In spite of the prevalence of war, the exploitation
of the poor by the rich (or of some of the poor by
some of the rich, not all), in spite of famine and
man-made conditions that result in the death-by-starvation
and disease of millions, in spite of religious fanaticism
and its concomitant excesses like terrorism and 'holy
war', we are, I am sure, making progress and moving
in the right direction, even if only slowly, painfully,
and unsteadily. The picture is not completely bleak.
The United Nations Organization, although it is bureaucratically
top-heavy and largely effete, with its officials getting
huge salaries for doing very little, is a product
of our times, and we should see it in a positive light
despite all its deficiencies. For, just as it arose
from the ruins of The League of Nations, if it collapses,
in turn, something else will arise, phoenix-like,
from its ashes, and will hopefully be better able
to deal with the problems that will exist then, as
now. We soon forget the past, and find it hard to
imagine what the world was like without such an international
body, (before which legitimate complaints could be
brought with some hope of redress), when empires were
won by the sword and the gun, and retained by the
winners for as long as they could, and when international
opinion counted for little, and could be safely flouted.
The cynics in our midst will say that nothing much
has changed, and that international opinion still
counts for little. But it counted for far less before,
and half a loaf is always better than none.
We should not be too starry eyed, and expect
all problems to be resolved immediately merely because
there is such a body as the U. N., for the problems
it must deal with are not created by controllable
and programmable machines, but by governments and
states composed of people who are imperfect, and the
U. N. itself is made up of the same imperfect species.
Therefore, we must be prepared to stumble along, make
mistakes and sacrifices, and suffer, as we have done
for as long as man has been man. But it would help
if we could get rid of the debilitating idea that
man is a degenerate creature, a sinner who went wrong
a long time ago, and has suffered as a result ever
since. ("Human history is not a decline from
primeval perfection, as in Genesis, but a slow and
painful ascent."*) If we did, we would take heart
from the incredible success we have had so far, in
the face of terrible obstacles, and face the future
with greater fortitude.
Although Man is capable of boundless stupidity
and evil, at the same time he is also capable of great
goodness and wisdom, and we must not forget this,
as it is our greatest treasure; if we ignore it, we
might easily give up in despair and despondency. And
it is the task of those who have perceived it to help
others to discover it in themselves, difficult and
thankless though this task often is.
We are all participants in the great drama
of human history and unfoldment, not merely spectators.
But to participate consciously requires interest,
love, the ability to stand back and look at things
in perspective, and see beyond the narrow confines
and concerns of self. And an understanding of the
past is essential for an understanding of the present
and a vision of the future; for the present is the
sum total of everything that has gone before and this,
in turn, conditions the future. Therefore, pause awhile,
and without haste for yet more progress, look back,
and review the vast panorama of history, flinching
not from the savagery, crime, and bloodshed, for these
are ineradicable parts of it all, and remind us where
we have been, and how. They will also hold many lessons
for us, and help us see what things we should try
to avoid. Although it is said that history repeats
itself, and mankind remakes the mistakes of the past,
it must not necessarily be so; history stands there,
gone but still here, ready for us to extract knowledge
and wisdom from its experience. It is because we learn
and benefit so much from the past that we do not need
to 'invent the wheel' in every generation, but merely
take up where others left off.
Scattered throughout the pages of history
are countless figures from whom we can draw inspiration
for our own living?sages, saints, heroes, statesmen,
philosophers, inventors, discoverers, artists, poets,
scientists and others who, though long dead, still
live for us in the things they left behind. Through
the records that remain of their teachings, ideas,
and discoveries, we still have contact with them,
though their bones might have turned to dust. Looking
back, therefore, and perceiving these benefactors
of humanity standing out like beacons against the
backdrop of the far more numerous indifferent, thoughtless,
or stupid people that populate and overpopulate every
age, we experience a great surge of admiration and
gratitude, and a determination to contribute a little
of one's own to the further unfoldment of man's collective
fortunes. And so, with the past lovers of humanity
behind us, reminding us, and spurring us on, we turn
again to face the future, with courage and love.
If we begin to think about our identity,
our inquiry will lead us, before long, to the realization
that who and what we are is intimately bound up with,
and connected to others who, likewise, are parts of
something greater than us and they; indeed we will
not have gone far before it dawns on us that, as separate
individuals, complete and sufficient in ourselves,
we simply do not exist. Our world view then must necessarily
expand, in order for us to perceive how we fit into
the overall picture. In a logical sequence, love,
compassion, and morality follow on from understanding
life as it is.
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*From "The Lessons of History,"
by Will Durant.
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