This is the third in a 4-part series of commentaries on the Connecticut events, and the larger implications of them.
In Part II of this series I made the statement that there is no end to life, and no revenge or punishment (Who would That Which Is punish? Itself? There is nothing else in existence but Itself). There is also no such thing as Right and Wrong, and for the same reason. That Which Is is always That Which Is, and there is nothing else except That Which Is. In other words, nothing stands outside of The All. Nothing stands outside of God.
Because this is true, in Ultimate Reality the conditions of “rightness” and “wrongness” do not exist. There is only what works and what does not work, given what it is that any individual aspect of The One is trying to do. There is no judgment in this matter, there is only the individual assessment of every sentient being as to whether a particular activity, choice, decision, or behavior is producing what that sentient being (or species) intends, wishes and chooses to create.
Applied to the event at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and the shooting events that have occurred since then (there have been 117 gun deaths in the week following the shooting in Connecticut, according to the Twitter feed @GunDeaths) — we see that our present social system is not working.
Actually, nothing is working. Not one of our systems. Not our political systems, not our economic systems, not our ecological systems, not our educational systems, not our social systems, and not our spiritual systems. None of them have produced the outcomes for which we have been yearning. In fact, it’s worse. They have all produced exactly the opposite.
This tells me that the problem in our world today is systemic. It has to do with more than simply our actions. The problem in the world today is not a behavioral problem, it’s a spiritual problem.
One’s behavior and one’s spirituality are not the same thing, of course. The first — hopefully — springs from the second. So if we reflect deeply on the school shooting in Connecticut we see that there is something amiss here that has to do with much more than just the unstable, imbalanced mind of a single individual.
After something as horrific as Sandy Hook, many (especially the NRA) want to say: “Terrible as it is, it is just the out-picturing of one twisted, distorted individual. There’s nothing you can do about that — expect maybe, arm everyone else in the country.”
The National Rifle Association actually has just released a statement at a press conference in Washington saying that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” and calling for an armed guard to be stationed at every school in America. This, it says, is the solution to gun violence in schools.
The NRA spokesperson said nothing about the solution to gun violence in America away from schools; about gun violence in general. It is too bad he did not, because, as reported by the Internet site Gawker, “While the NRA Was on TV Talking About the Need for More Guns Some Guy Was Walking Up and Down a Road in Pennsylvania Shooting People.”
It’s true. According to a report in the Altoona Mirror: Four people are dead—including the shooter—and three state troopers were injured this morning in a shooting incident in Frankstown Township, Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio said. The gunman and two other men and a woman are all dead, Consiglio said.
And so we are faced with the supreme irony: National Rifle Association CEO and executive VP Wayne LaPierre is telling us more guns are needed out there, not less, just moments after — unbeknownst to him — more innocent people two states away were shot by a man running around with a gun.
The challenge here: We just don’t get it. We just don’t get that the problem is not guns. And the problem is not violence. And the problem is not our mental health system. The problem is not a physical problem, it is a spiritual problem. It has to do with what we hold to be true, about ourselves and our world.
Let me give you another example. The online news source Common Dreams reported on Dec. 21 that “We just passed the 333rd consecutive month of global temperatures above the 20th-century average. Climate scientists now say it’s growing worse faster than any of them predicted even a few years ago.”
How is it possible that such a thing is occurring, and nobody in the corridors of real power on this planet is doing anything about it? Further, how is it possible that millions of regular people living their regular lives in the world are not making those in the corridors of power do something about it?
Simple. The “regular people” are not yet affected by it. At least, not enough of them. It is projected that in 20-30 years half the world’s people will be suffering a water shortage. Then there will be some voices raised. Yet what good will that do? Voices are being raised right now about half the world’s people suffering a food shortage. Over 400 children die of starvation every day on Earth. Is the power elite doing anything about it?
Does it matter that there was another killing of a group of innocent people just before that NRA press conference? Or that there have been 117 gun deaths across America since Sandy Hook? Will those in the corridors of power do anything about that?
Not likely. Not unless and until there is a huge shift in our collective consciousness, a huge altering of our collective spiritual reality. Presently, most of the humans on Earth do not believe the first message of Conversations with God, a four-word announcement that, if embraced and placed into social, political, and economic policy, would change the world overnight. That message: We Are All One.
If we implemented this policy this very day, much of what is predicted to become part of our dire future will never happen. If this idea were adopted and embraced as a functioning reality by humanity, much of what is going on right now would never occur again.
But until enough people “get” that what is happening to anyone is happening to everyone, there will never be sufficient energy behind any effort to reform our way of being and our way of living on this planet such that Life Itself suddenly (and at last) begins to make sense.
That’s why I founded Humanity’s Team, a global spiritual activist organization devoted to placing one message before the world — We Are All One — and producing one outcome in our collective experience: a life worthy of a highly evolved species.
There is a way to bring an end to not just the violence in our schools, but the violence in our homes, on our streets, in our politics, the violence that we perpetrate through our global economics, and yes, the psychological, emotional, and even physical violence that too often emerge from those practicing our religions.
We don’t even have to search for that way. We don’t even have to try to figure it out. One way, at least, has been given to us, articulated for us, spelled out as clearly as can be, in the Conversations with God series of books. This may not be the only way. It may not even be a better way. But it is one way that we know can be no worse than what we are doing now (to position it as safely as possible), and that certainly stands a chance of proving itself to be very effective at uplifting our collective life experience.
It is important, I think, that we begin to at least open discussions about this. We need to have conversations ABOUT conversations WITH God. Each of us can engage in this process, creating a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a vengeful, violent, and vindictive God, and releasing our species from a global doctrine that creates separation and vicious competition, replacing it, finally, with an ethos of unity and cooperation, understanding and compassion, generosity and love.
This is what it will take to shake the corridors of power. Words are more powerful than any weapon. It was Victor Hugo who famously said: All the armies of the world cannot stop an idea whose time has come. Let’s do what it will take. Join me in this project of Humanity’s Team. In the final installment of this series, I will explain more of what that could “look like.” Stay tuned.