Of course some people are far more willing to break down boundaries in their thinking. There are people who will happily explore phenomena such as crop circles and UFOs. Other people will say that is a bit much, but they are willing to learn about discoveries in science which can be explained logically.
And then there are the people who simply close their minds, because they are too afraid to discover anything that may question their beliefs. This is quite OK if it only affects the individuals.
But when it affects other people, I often wonder about intelligent people and their motives.
I recently came across such an example where someone told me that a woman was “bad news”. I knew the woman in question and have only ever seen kindness and goodness in her. Of course I am aware that people have different views and experiences, and I asked what the judgement of “bad news” was based on.
The answer was “because my dad does not like her. She does not work.”
I happened to know that the woman was self-employed and not dependent on anyone.
Did this judgement come from someone with a petty grudge and a lack of judgement? No. It came from a man with a senior position in a large company, someone with advanced academic qualifications.
Did he ever speak to the woman to get to know her and form his own judgement? No. Why not? Because his dad taught him that “you stay away from people like that”.
This man is so stuck in his own moral judgement of anyone who is different from him, that he will do anything to defend his position, even if his actions are irrational. He is a perfect employee – despite his intelligence and achievements, he is a competent follower and will probably remain one for the other half of his life.
I wonder what he would say when he discovers that I am self-employed.
Please leave a comment if you feel inspired.
Love and Light
Elsabe
PS: I am a professional transition coach.
I help individuals and businesses to achieve
their personal and commercial objectives.
What is the one thing which is consuming all
your energy at the moment?
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How many things do you believe because someone else tells you that it is true?
Let me give you an example. When you are a child, you trust people and do not question what your parents tell you. As you gain life experience, your parents are there to guide you and teach you how to interpret your experiences.
What do your parents base their teachings on? Of course on their own experiences.
I remember about twenty-five years ago bar codes were introduced in South Africa.
There were people who said that these bar codes were a sign that the world was getting out of hand, and some people were even adamant that the bar codes were “the sign of the devil”.
At the time I knew very little about retail management and logistics and computers. However, I was curious enough to find out what the reasons behind using bar codes were. I quickly made up my mind that they are practical, that it is a logical step forward, and that the devil will not catch me if I eat anything that was marked with a barcode.
I am sure you can think of many examples where you were confronted with a set of facts and discovered that they were actually a myth.
Did you feel angry at your parents or other role models when you discovered that they gave you false information? Did you recognise the information as their version of the truth, which differs from your version of the truth? Or did you reject the opportunity to ask any questions and hold on to what your parents or role model taught you?
I have learned that there are people who are so comfortable with holding on to what others think, that they will go to irrational lengths to defend their beliefs.
To be continued.
Please leave a comment if you feel inspired.
Love and Light
Elsabe
PS: I am a professional transition coach.
I help individuals and businesses to achieve
their personal and commercial objectives.
What is the one thing which is consuming all
your energy at the moment?
There has been much conflict in the Anglican Church over the past few years about accepting gay clerics. I cannot understand why and how one’s sexual organs and how you choose to use them are of so much concern to the church. Surely the church is about faith and what happens in your heart and mind?
Anyway, a proposed solution is to settle for two styles of Anglicans – those who accept gay people and those who do not accept gay people. Then the church’s agenda does not need to be questioned. The point is that the number of bodies should keep growing, because for every person who gets disillusioned and leaves, there should at least be a replacement.
The Hindu faith also designed a compromise. In the Hindu faith there is no Christmas celebration, which meant no Christmas presents at a time when most other religions exchanged presents.
However, in 1985 a five-day festival named Pancha Ganapati was created by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami along with elders of various Hindu groups. During the festival of Pancha Ganapti Hindus create and decorate a shrine in the main living room of the home.
The focus of the shrine is a statue of Lord Ganesha. Each day the children of the home dress the statue in a different colour. This is a very recent appendage to the ancient Hindu faith, but why not?
Problem solved, and people can get and give presents like the rest of the world – and the retailers are rubbing their hands at the prospect of all the new customers.
Compromise is such a mighty tool that it can even change a person’s race. In Judaism a child’s race, and by default their faith, is determined by the mother’s race, and by default her faith.
When a Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman, the woman can “become” Jewish by going through a programme of accepting the Jewish faith. Problem solved – and let’s not talk too much about the racial classification and rock the boat. What is important is that the man is retained, and the woman expands the faith by bearing children of the correct “race”.
Speaking of Judaism – I heard a lovely story the other day about compromise on an individual level. A Jewish merchant visited some old (Christian) friends and business colleagues on his rounds. He happened to arrive at a time where the family were ready to have their supper, and with typical hospitality they invited their guest to share.
But then the hostess started apologising because the meal included pork sausages and she wanted to be hospitable but did not want to offend her guest. The Jewish merchant solved the problem by laughingly saying “But Ruby, must you give it a name?” as he took his seat at the table. Good for him!
Please leave a comment if you feel inspired.
Love and Light
Elsabe
PS: I am a professional transition coach.
I help individuals and businesses to achieve
their personal and commercial objectives.
What is the one thing which is consuming all
your energy at the moment?
No, I have not suddenly been converted and become a church goer.
I don’t know if you have noticed how organised religion keeps compromising in an effort to keep people in the church. I am not referring to one specific religion either.
If you are part of the religion, these compromises are probably the most logical thing to do. However, looking in from the outside, sometimes I can only shake my head.
I remember many years ago, in the 70’s, the furore that women caused in my congregation by actually going to church with a bare head. The rule was that a woman had to cover her head when entering a church, but a man had to take his hat off. Why? What is wrong with a woman’s hair? And why the different treatment for men and women? But the church could not stop the trend and had to change the rule. Today women go to church without hats.
Recently my partner and I went into the cathedral in Cologne, and he was instructed by a stern-faced cleric to remove his golf cap. I was tempted to take that same golf cap and put it on my head, just to see whether I would also be challenged. And would God have noticed that any of His/Her rules were broken? Whose rule is it anyway?
I was still a church-goer when the Christian church in my culture had their big soul-searching about allowing woman preachers. This was at a time when feminism was the rage, and of course the church kicked against this new trend.
The solution was to allow woman preachers to be trained (this required two university degrees and was quite expensive) and then to use them in “soft” positions namely working in old age homes or with children. This way they could be sidelined and were not able to “do too much damage”.
Of course right-minded women ignored such nonsense and chose different careers, and the church got its way while appearing to adapt.
This strategy of compromise is still being used.
To be continued.
Please leave a comment if you feel inspired.
Love and Light
Elsabe
PS: I am a professional transition coach.
I help individuals and businesses to achieve
their personal and commercial objectives.
What is the one thing which is consuming all
your energy at the moment?
Visit http://www.elsabesmit.com for a FREE
problem identification audit.
In 1963, Ronnie Biggs was one of a gang that stole millions of pounds from a mail train between Glasgow and London. He was caught and sentenced to prison. A year into his prison service, he escaped and fled to France where he underwent plastic surgery.
From there he fled to Australia where his family joined him. They lived there for about three years. During that time he received an anonymous letter indicating that Interpol was on his trail, and he moved with his family from Adelaide to Melbourne. I wonder who wrote that letter and why?
In 1969 the police were closing in on him, and he escaped to Brazil.
In 1974 he was discovered in Brazil, but he was not extradited to England. There were two reasons for this. England had no extradition agreement with Brazil, and by this time Ronnie Biggs had a Brazilian girlfriend who was pregnant. Brazilian law did not allow for the parent of a Brazilian child to be extradited.
During his stay in Brazil, the Biggs family had various sources of income, including barbeques where tourists could meet him and hear his story of the train robbery, and sales of items such as coffee cups and t-shirts. Ronnie Biggs was apparently not allowed to work because of his legal status in Brazil.
Imagine not being able to work from 1970 to 2001, and not having an income apart from what his family earned on the basis of his fame. For me that would have been quite a punishment.
In 2001 Ronnie decided to return to England, knowing that he would go to prison again. He had various health problems, and had applied for parole on different occasions over the years.
In July 2009 Ronnie was considered for parole again, and his case was turned down by the Home Secretary because he was “wholly repentant”. Apparently the parole board stated that apart from his age (he is 80 now and has been treated for pneumonia and a broken hip since January 2009), there is no indication that he would not return to his old lifestyle.
At the time there were various press releases about him slipping in and out of consciousness and being unable to speak. I wondered how he would have to express any repentance to satisfy the Home Secretary. Of course he has been released on parole recently.
I also wondered again about the need for society to punish people. Of course when you rob a train and assault the train driver, you should take responsibility for toe consequences of your deeds. It is only fair that a person should be given a reasonable sentence by the legal system if their actions require that.
But here you have an eighty-year-old man, in ill health, who might not see Christmas this year. He had been on the run from the law for half of his life. He had no freedom of movement, and the only way he could return to his country of birth was to willingly go to prison again.
I am just wondering what one achieves in such a situation by self-righteously insisting that he serves the rest of his prison sentence. Somehow the sums do not add up. In a way he served his entire sentence, even though he was not in prison in England.
On paper he had a specific number of years left to serve, and he had to go through specific motions to have those years reduced.
By another count he served the entire sentence and provided entertainment to many people with his audacity, and lived his own blueprint.
Dr Joe Vitale, in his book Zero Limits, describes a Hawaiian healing process called ho’oponopono. The therapist that made this healing process famous was put in charge of a ward of criminally insane patients. This was a ward where psychologists quit on a monthly basis and staff either called in sick very often, or simply quit their jobs.
This therapist never saw any of the patients. He simply went through their files every day, and then looked within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. The therapist then repeated “I am sorry, I love you”. As he learnt to love the parts of himself that he earlier did not want to acknowledge, the patients improved significantly. Some patients were released, others were taken off heavy medication, and others were allowed to move around without shackles.
This method of therapy was so successful that eventually there were more (happy) staff members than patients, and today that ward is closed. This is not an urban legend. It was confirmed by the therapist, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, who is the co-author of the book.
What if we do not try to find existential or practical or morally right answers to any of the questions raised in this article? What if we simply try this method of ho’oponopono to love ourselves, rather than take part in the debate about issues that we can never resolve by debate?
Is ho’oponopono the ultimate combination of justice and mercy?
And if that sounds like a pipe dream, have you heard about the hugging judge? Lee Shapiro was a retired judge, living in San Francisco. He was a very popular speaker at conferences, where he delivered his message of unconditional love.
At a conference he was challenged by the media to prove his message. The first challenge was simply to approach any person in the street and offer a hug. When that proved easy, he was told to approach a meter maid who was having a hard time with an offender. She gratefully accepted his hug, to the chagrin of the media team.
The team then decided to set him a real challenge. When a bus stopped, they told him to approach the six foot two, 230 pounds, mean, tough bus driver and offer him a hug. Lee did this. The bus driver accepted the hug and continued with his task. This left the media team speechless.
Lee was then taken to a home for the disabled. He was not comfortable with this, because he had never hugged people that were terminally ill, severely retarded or quadriplegic. But he believed in his message, and hugged people that he otherwise would never have noticed or approached. There was one particularly disabled man that was drooling on his bib. This man was a real challenge for Lee, but he bent down and hugged the man.
The next moment the man began to squeal and the other patients clanged items together to express their joy. When Lee turned to the medical staff for an explanation, he found that they were all crying. The reason was that it was the first time in 23 years that this man had smiled.
It seems possible, or even probable, that we can heal the world by healing the part of ourselves that created the part of the world that needs healing. Justice always has consequences. The one consequence that we tend to overlook when we demand justice is the effect that any just action will have on ourselves. Of course this approach of offering justice with love will not satisfy the public demand that is often based on an eye for an eye. People have been conditioned for thousands of years to demand retribution. However, it is possible to swing the pendulum to demand love, and if it takes another thousand years to do this, it will be a job well done.
The closure of Guantanamo Bay has been heralded by some, and questioned by others. The inmates of Guantanamo Bay have been accused of horrendous crimes against humanity and tortured for these crimes. Is torture justified when it is done on behalf of a government, but not justified when the opposition to the government become the torturers? A terrorist and a freedom fighter are defined by one’s perspective.
It is interesting to see how many of the opponents of Guantanamo Bay are now unwilling to accept the prisoners that will be released from the camp. Is this really a matter of “we only look after our own”, or is it a matter of “not in my back yard, even if it is my own”? On what grounds could the countries that protested against the imprisonment and torture of people now refuse to provide refuge to those same prisoners?
This reminds us of the legal action against Nazi war criminals. Yes, atrocities were committed by these people. But how just is retributive action now when it is taken against a sickly octogenarian who must be uprooted from the country where he has lived for over 50 years so that he can die in prison? Where is the mercy in that? Surely those people have had to live with their consciences all these years.
People have donated money to World Vision, only to discover that more than $1 million of the donations never reached Liberia because of fraud. Is it such a good idea to give money to charitable organisations, especially when the donations are solicited by means of expensive television ads and uniquely labelled free pens to sign the donation slips with? Or should we actually support these international charities knowing that some of the money they receive does make a difference? How much worse off would the recipients of this charity be if there was no charity?
In May the Iranian government blocked access to Facebook. In June the Chinese government banned Hotmail, Twitter and Flickr on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. There will be people in China that applaud this move because they understand the immense damage that the media can do when they get hold of a story and blow it out of proportion – we see that al the time with a celebrity culture in the Western world.
There will similarly be people that will object to their freedom of thought and free speech being taken away from them. Is there ever a reason that is good enough to prevent people from accessing information so that they can read and decide for themselves what is right?
The Justice card in tarot reminds us that whenever we look for justice, we should be aware of the consequences. We should open our hearts to our fellow human beings and understand that we are Love above all. Justice can never be applied without mercy.
Is it possible that Love alone can provide answers to all these issues?
Justice or mercy? The more emotional the issue, the more divided the opinions. We often encounter issues that tempt us to decide: should we insist on justice, knowing that justice always have consequences? Should we show mercy and always try and understand the other side of the coin? Or should public opinion be the determining factor?
In the past weeks a number of these emotional issues have been in the headlines.
In May Burma’s military regime jailed and charged the pro-democracy opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, because a man swam across a lake to her house. She is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest and faces a possible five years in prison. She has been confined to her house for 13 of the past 19 years. Is that not a form of imprisonment as well? So the fuss is not about her being in prison. It is about her exchanging one kind of prison for another without having any say in the matter because she stands for democracy. And where is the justice in punishing her for the actions of another person?
But could there possibly be another side to this argument? She will probably be charged under the Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of the Subversive Elements law in Burma. There are people in Burma that do not want complete democracy. There is a culture in Burma that suits the Burmese people, and they regard democracy as subversive and as a threat to their culture. Are they entitled to take such a stance? Surely they have freedom to choose against democracy as much as they have freedom to choose for democracy? If democracy works in one country, how can we assume that it will work in every other country?
South Africa, a country that is known for its hospitality and ubuntu (love for your neighbour) is in the news for having no mercy for their neighbours.
Many Zimbabwean citizens have entered South Africa illegally. The health system in Zimbabwe has collapsed completely, and there is hardly any food for the citizens. On the other hand, South Africa has only just entered a recession, and conditions in general are far better than in Zimbabwe.
The overloaded health system in South Africa is already under pressure because of the high incidence of HIV/AIDS and the population growth.
South Africa has less than 7 doctors per 10 000 people whereas the UK has around 21, the United States around 24 and many European countries more than 30. More than 60% of medical doctors who choose to stay in the country, serve less than 20% of the population.
Now South Africa is being criticised for failing to provide health services to Zimbabwean citizens that are illegally in South Africa. These people are unable to pay for their food, let alone any medical service. Should the South African government provide for Zimbabweans who are suffering because of an insane dictatorship, or should they look after their own tax-paying citizens first and ignore the plight of these old, frail illegal immigrants?
[2]
The closure of Guantanamo Bay has been heralded by some, and questioned by others. The inmates of Guantanamo Bay have been accused of horrendous crimes against humanity and tortured for these crimes. Is torture justified when it is done on behalf of a government, but not justified when the opposition to the government become the torturers? A terrorist and a freedom fighter are defined by one’s perspective.
It is interesting to see how many of the opponents of Guantanamo Bay are now unwilling to accept the prisoners that will be released from the camp. Is this really a matter of “we only look after our own”, or is it a matter of “not in my back yard, even if it is my own”? On what grounds could the countries that protested against the imprisonment and torture of people now refuse to provide refuge to those same prisoners?
This reminds us of the legal action against Nazi war criminals. Yes, atrocities were committed by these people. But how just is retributive action now when it is taken against a sickly octogenarian who must be uprooted from the country where he has lived for over 50 years so that he can die in prison? Where is the mercy in that? Surely those people have had to live with their consciences all these years.
People have donated money to World Vision, only to discover that more than $1 million of the donations never reached Liberia because of fraud. Is it such a good idea to give money to charitable organisations, especially when the donations are solicited by means of expensive television ads and uniquely labelled free pens to sign the donation slips with? Or should we actually support these international charities knowing that some of the money they receive does make a difference? How much worse off would the recipients of this charity be if there was no charity?
In May the Iranian government blocked access to Facebook. In June the Chinese government banned Hotmail, Twitter and Flickr on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. There will be people in China that applaud this move because they understand the immense damage that the media can do when they get hold of a story and blow it out of proportion – we see that al the time with a celebrity culture in the Western world.
There will similarly be people that will object to their freedom of thought and free speech being taken away from them. Is there ever a reason that is good enough to prevent people from accessing information so that they can read and decide for themselves what is right?
The Justice card in tarot reminds us that whenever we look for justice, we should be aware of the consequences. We should open our hearts to our fellow human beings and understand that we are Love above all. Justice can never be applied without mercy.
Is it possible that Love alone can provide answers to all these issues?
To be continued.
First printed in The If Journal volume 124
Of course I can say but I did not ask any soldier to go and die for me, and I do not believe in war. All that is true, but still one-dimensional.
This reminds me of a company that I once worked for where there was a company-wide celebration, complete with balloons, computer games during work hours, lollipops in company colours (yes, this was for adults, and you would not believe how seriously they took it all). And then someone commented on how ridiculous all that may have looked to outsiders, and one person piped up and said “but think of the effort we put into ordering those balloons and lollipops – you are really ungrateful and make us feel bad after all our hard work.” Really? Shame.
What the email brought home to me was the contrast between Michael Jackson and the soldiers.
What did the soldiers do? They fought and killed. Their actions were entirely centred in the base chakra, which governs fight or flight. Our base instincts relate to self-protection and preservation of the self.
We may try to justify our actions at that level by saying “but I do it for you”, but that does not ring true. The sacral chakra does relate to relationships, but it is not about fighting against the world to have a relationship.
The base chakra is about exploring the self, and the sacral chakra is about exploring the self in relation to others. When you use violence against one person, you do not do it to protect another person. As long as you feel the need to use violence, your focus is on the self and on self-preservation.
When you move up to the sacral chakra, you in fact become less destructive and more co-operative. Saying that you voluntarily kill people to protect others does not mean you have moved from the base chakra to the sacral chakra, just like singing in the shower does not make you an opera star.
What did Michael Jackson do? He sang, danced and entertained. He touched the hearts of millions of people in many different ways. He loved and was loved. He gave of himself, even when he was in pain, because he wanted to make people feel happy. Michael Jackson worked from the heart chakra. He touched people’s lives because people wanted to be touched.
I would not go as far as saying he was an angel or without fault – if he was, he might not even have bothered to incarnate. But if you look at his entire life, and if you really feel that you are in a position to judge, you would probably find that the good in his life weighed far more than the bad. And if you compare the sales of his records in the year before he died to the sales in the year after his death, it will show that he is still touching people’s lives.
Why does the American Congress have a moment of silence for Michael Jackson but not for the soldiers? Why did millions of people crash the Google website when news of Michael Jackson’s death leaked out, but the newspapers come up with politics and crocodile tears every time a soldier dies?
Could it be because humanity chooses to function from the heart chakra rather than from the base chakra?
I have been bothered about the fuss over the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan for a long time, but could not quite put my finger on the reason for feeling bothered about it.
Was my concern about the fact that people died? Not really. People die, and that is a law of nature. People choose to die in many different ways, and that is destiny.
Was my concern about soldiers dying in a war? No. This was more sadness about the choices that these soldiers made. But then they planned the blueprints for their lives before they came into this world. They had reasons to plan dying in a war. We have to respect their choices, even if we do not understand them.
Was my concern about soldiers dying far from home? No again. Where a person dies far from loved ones, the focus should really be on the loved ones, because they are left with questions and grief. The soldier is gone and taken care of in another dimension.
I was also more irritated than concerned about the fuss in the press regarding the number of soldiers that have died recently. For goodness sake, if you go to war there is a very good chance that you may kill or get killed. So why on earth do people get so excited about the number of people that got killed because of a lack of equipment? If the equipment was available, they would probably have been killed by their own equipment.
And why do people get upset about soldiers getting killed in a war? This does not mean injustice or foul play. They did not attend a tea party, they went to war, and people die in wars. And if more people die on my side than on your side, is it suddenly unfair, like when you buy a hotel in Monopoly because I have run out of money? War is not a game, it is real and real blood flows. I want to say to the body-counters: grow up!
I realised this week what was bothering me about this whole war business and the fuss about the soldiers who died. One of these forward-me-to-ten-people-or-you-will-get-rabies emails were sent to me. For a change I did not simply delete it, because it hit me that this is the reason for feeling disturbed about the soldier deaths.
The email was allegedly written by a soldier in Iraq. The author describes the way Americans are mourning Michael Jackson, even with a moment of silence in Congress. His argument is that Michael Jackson was just an entertainer. OK, not just an entertainer, because he was hugely successful as an entertainer worldwide. But still, he was an entertainer who did not “give his life”, and therefore people should have given far less attention to his death.
On the other hand, the author argues, soldiers give their lives “so that others may live” and therefore we should all be so grateful to them and have a moment of silence for every soldier who dies.
To be continued
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