You may or may not have noticed the new world order is already here. What the allies fought against in WWII was imported to the U.S. and into world view in a mask of Capitalism, Patriotism and the U.S.A. as World Super Power. What distinguishes friends from enemies now is a matter of view, and it has always been this way.
War is in us. This is a war we have created in our hearts, and is a war we promote through how we live our lives. The notions of good and bad, right and wrong, saintly and evil are all concepts of mind, constituents of consciousness.
What dominates us all is the reality of interdependence. We inter-are with all life, all elements of the cosmos are a part of us. When one of us is sick and despaired we are all affected by that illness. When one country goes to war with another country, that war is felt across the planet. It is not only human beings that are affected by war; all living beings (animals, plants and minerals) are affected by war. Violence, anger and hatred do not have the nature to win. Where there is violence, anger, and hatred someone or something loses. When one person or thing loses, everyone and everything loses.
The next great super power in the world will be the consciousness of love, peace and beauty—it already is. Love is the only power that unites. Love is inclusive, and accepts everyone. What goes on in each of our hearts is the conflict of the millennium. This conflict is the choice between perpetual suffering, and the liberation from suffering.
One of the most challenging occurrences for me was when my stepfather went to prison for sexually assaulting me. It was, of course, a crime that many thought deserved punishment. And at the time, he threatened to take our lives, and harassed many people who worked to convict him. The perplexing thing about the trial is that the trial wasn’t about whether or not my stepfather did do the things I said he did to me, it was about who was negligent.
My stepfather’s defense tried to prove that my mother was negligent, and therefore my stepfather was innocent. And in someway it was true. Mom did have the responsibility of caring for me, preventing harm coming to me, regardless of whether she knew that something was happening to me or not. The prosecuting attorney representing me in the case then tried to convince the court, through my mother’s testimony that she was a battered wife, was not able to care for me, and entrusted me in the care of my stepfather who made it seem through his continued threats toward her in their marriage that she was to blame for everything, and that he was more trustworthy to care for me than was she.
I also saw that mom and my former stepfather had grown up in a society in which violence (physical, emotional or other) against women and children was not a crime. Battering of women was all too common even after WWII. Into my mother’s generation there were no laws determining public persecution for a husband who beat or raped his wife, and a father or mother who beat their children. What defined appropriate and inappropriate in families changed as my parents’ generation fought for woman’s rights, and as their generation had children and started families of their own. But still the challenges and the violence continued.
I had the choice not to send my stepfather to prison, and not to testify. But I chose to testify because he threatened our lives and he was liable to do it again with another family. (He already was romantically involved with a woman who had a three-year old son who lived down the street from us while my mother and he were still married, through the trial and continued the relationship while he was in prison). My conviction and my mission in offering a testimony were to “save other children from experiencing what I experienced.”
The prosecutor told me that my testimony would help other children, because it would help legislators in the state, and in the country to better protect children, and to safeguard them in the event that they had to go to trial. My testimony was one of the last in the state in which children were allowed to testify in an open courtroom.
The day I spoke in trial, the courtroom was filled with a jury, the judge, court hands, lawyers, my family, my stepfather and his family and other people I didn’t even know. I was twelve years old. Even though I had to testify I didn’t really want my stepfather to go to prison. I loved him. We had a lot of struggles with each other, but he had entered my life, and he was one of the people I was closest to at the time. His assaults, no matter how ugly and painful they were, felt like love to me.
I didn’t get the full response to my inner convictions (that I loved him) until he was convicted and we attended the hearing for his sentencing. He walked into the room, filled by only a dozen or so family members of both sides, wearing a neon orange prison suit and chains around his arms and legs. Word had seeped out from inmates to guards at the county jail where he was detained that he planned to escape. A large group of his friends planned to ambush the guards as they transported him from the county jail to the courthouse for sentencing. The sentencing was moved to the jail in order to prevent the ambush. And the mob of his friends were resolved to stand outside in the lobby and watch the sentencing on a live T.V. monitor.
What convicted him? Was it me? Was it the courts? Was it the jury? Did he convict himself? Or was it the collective—everyone who participated in the trial, both the defense and the prosecution, and the collective view of our society?
I can’t be for sure what happened in my stepfather’s mind the day he was convicted and the day he was sentenced for his crimes. His name is Greg. He is a human being. He is not a monster. He has a heart just like the rest of us. He has anger, pride and thoughts of violence. He has blame, guilt and shame. He even has joy, happiness and the ability to listen deeply to relieve suffering somewhere in his consciousness.
What dominates society is a lack of responsibility for the “freedoms” we would like to impose onto others. Freedom, true freedom can only be with responsibility, to become responsible for our thoughts, our words, our actions, and to transform unskillful states of mind and nurture states of mind that promote forgiveness, deep listening, understanding and reconciliation. Love unites. Love is the only power that wins. Where there is love there is community, there is togetherness, there is life, there is peace and there is beauty.
I don’t believe the war on terror or any wars will end unless the conflict in one’s heart is reconciled. This is a war between views, a war with our true nature and an illusory concept of self. Peace happens when love is visible with the naked eye. Peace happens when there is a release from sorrows, from arrogance, and from the views of right and wrong, good and bad, saintly and evil.
A president cannot save the people of a country, of the planet or of the world alone. It takes all of us, each individual working as a collective to transform the violence, hatred and anger in our very own life and to become a vehicle of liberation and peace. Most important is to listen deeply to oneself, to take time out, to turn off the T.V., the radio, the computer, and conversations. To be there, both body and mind together. To become free right where you are as you are.
When you are free, present in your body and mind, then you are better able to listen deeply to the cries of those who are in need, and that may very well be yourself, the ways you suffer and create suffering. When you are free you are free from the grips of anxiety, depression and despair. And you have surrendered your heart to becoming more aware of the hardships you have created by your views, and the hardships others have created by their views.
The next world super power is love, and it is already here.
©2008 Brian Kimmel
