If you are a human being born in this era, you are born with a lot more responsibilities than were required in the past. You don’t have the luxury to hide behind the politics of belonging to your groups. You are the chief executive officer of your life, with a cell phone in your hand that connects you directly to humanity. You can’t claim ignorance about what is going on in the world. This knowledge means you possess a great deal of information and are much more responsible than our ancestors were.
You need to know that equal human rights and the status of being the chief executive of your life go hand in hand. If you don’t want anyone telling you how to think, you must give others the same rights. This awareness can put you in a situation where you are seeking equal human rights but not granting them to others who think differently. Always remember rule number one of spirituality: “Don’t do to anyone what you don’t like done to yourself.” If we all honestly follow this rule as individuals, there would be a lot of inner peace, which can help achieve the elusive world peace as well.
Not only is it a matter of individual responsibility, but it’s also our collective responsibility. Understanding spirituality versus the politics of belonging to our respective groups is a personal responsibility.
If you don’t know how far you are willing to go to the extreme, don’t go to the extreme. Don’t live the way the community you have agreed to follow unless it conforms to the dream you have chosen for your life. Your life, as an individual, is directly between you and God. The proof is that your group can’t save you from illnesses, can’t provide you oxygen, nor can it keep you alive. So choose God and humanity over the politics of belonging to your groups. If your community could save you from all this, then and only then, could you be willing to kill and die for it. Otherwise, seek something bigger than that, and that is God himself.
Your community groups may have ingrained into your mind that they are followers of God and may have told you that they are directly related in some way. Ask them to prove this to you. If you are doing God’s will, would you do anything whatever the community leaders want done? I think not. There is not one religion or any governing system out there that is not political. For example, the Buddhists, who preach to be the most peaceful monks, are killing Rohingya Muslims. Is this what their God asks them to do?
The world has hundreds of societies at different levels of awareness in different areas of life. Some may be good with science and technology but poor in spiritual aspects of sociology. Some may have a great understanding of spirituality but be poor in science and technology. You don’t need to put each other’s knowledge down but should complement each other for being human beings.
It may not look like it, but we are all one organism. We are just like the coral reef at the bottom of the ocean. Regardless of the differences in colors, we all live and die the same way. If one gets hurt and feels the same way, so does the other, thus the same organism.
If something is endangering us in any way, it’s not God-related. It’s our politics of belonging to our groups that is hurting us the most. Even though they may claim they can provide some things for us, our groups can’t provide security from mortality. They are even unable to control the social crimes committed against individuals by the belonging group itself or by its own people. Most of the killings and human rights violations are committed by the belonging groups, not by the bogeyman they are trying to scare you with.
In this era, we have bigger fish to fry. We need to worry about global warming and related problems. We need to understand the ramifications of following our belonging group in the things we are asked to do and how they can affect our lives. We must learn how to set our differences aside and work together as humanity or as an organism. God meant for humanity to constantly evolve to understand the abilities and importance of the human individual. Since we are God’s working hands, our ignorance is not only degrading to human individuals but to God as well. If we keep creating boundaries for political refugees, how are we going to deal with climate or environmental issues that are related to refugees? If we need a bigger heart now, we may need a heart of gold in the future. We will need to be spiritual to deal with the problems that humanity is going to face as the climate turns things upside down. Governments, like Trump’s, will have to learn not only the real science of climate but also all about spirituality.
As an individual, do you have inner peace? If not, it is time to reflect to achieve it. A mortal life without peace lacks the wisdom of living a temporary life. A person with inner peace is able to reflect peace outward and all around themselves. When this inner peace is shared with the surrounding environment, it can spread like an infection, in a good way, especially today through the internet and then onto all of humanity.
The United Nations and its infrastructure are already there, but it has a veto power to block progress. Its veto system is robbing many people and countries of democratic values. Humanity can’t do justice to everyone, nor can it come together under one umbrella as humanity. If a few groups of people can deny justice to certain groups of humanity with the power to veto things they do not like, then, as a whole world, we shall always be divided.
If we as individuals can learn to live with each other on one planet as home, we can learn to deal with real issues such as human survival instead of extinction with nuclear weapons. Our political systems are in the business of sanctions. Through the United Nations, we enforce sanctions against certain nations. All it does is make the human individual suffer. We seem to think it is to make the group bow down to pressure, but it doesn’t work other than to spread the sufferings of the human individual. This often strengthens the resolve of individuals to stick with the politics of the group they follow. If we spread the idea that free education for the world’s populations will enhance individuals, and with this newfound knowledge, they can move forward in a positive manner to make life better for all humankind. Education for all is the key if individuals learn to self-regulate.
If individual suffering is related to the politics of the groups we belong to, the individual should be aware of it. If the individual is not educated, it should be the responsibility of the United Nations to spread education for free. This free knowledge can help people understand the need to belong to humanity as a whole. The United Nations has failed against the politics of belonging because of the biased policies of the veto system. If individuals are educated with equal human rights and a sense of justice, it can bring changes from the bottom up instead of the top down.
The democracy-preaching nations should look deep into their policies and see if they are really preaching democracy. Look at the United Nations—is it effective democracy? The United States of America went to Iraq, disregarding the will of the United Nations, which had voted not to send troops to Iraq. The United Nations can be an impotent organization when it comes to real democratic values, but using the veto system is not democratic. We need to have educated human beings run the show, but working against individuals’ human rights and causes. Instead of preventing wars, the United Nations is political regardless of education, so the knowledge of the politics of belonging should be critically examined. That is why, regardless of the level of education, people are still identifying themselves as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Black, White, Brown, Yellow, Red, Indian, Pakistani, American, Canadian, Gay, Straight, or any other gender-based identity. A human being is what we are before all the above categories of people.
We need education that brings individuals to think above and beyond the politics of belonging to a group of human beings. It is already happening; just look into the melting pot societies. For example, people can learn to live together under the umbrella of one government regardless of color, gender, nation, or religion. So why is this happening? They understand that humanity is one organism.
If our good and bad are related to God and the Devil, it is actually related to human beings using politics to hide their good and bad actions behind God and the Devil. This makes the human individual insignificant. This insignificance is not created by God. It is related to the politics of belonging to our groups, and yes, it is not just running into our communities; it goes all the way up to nationalism and our religions as well. We need to know the real reason why each and every one of us is capable of using free will, regardless of our level of education. The importance of the individual having free will is a wisdom of God himself. Before making choices, we all need to know the personal responsibilities we acquired when we were blessed with free will.
All the best of spirituality needs physicality to be effective, so the importance of the human individual can’t be underestimated. It is the end of the year 2017, so let’s learn to be important from now on and let us own our actions as individuals instead of hiding behind God and the Devil. We must do this not only individually but as groups so we can become peaceful human individuals and humanity as well.