Looking at Loss

Loss, particularly resulting from death, but also loss by physical separation, can be almost impossible for some of us to bear. The knowledge of two things can make it easier to bear I believe: 1) Knowledge that life is eternal, that the human personality and consciousness survives the change we call death. As one poet said, “We do not die, we cannot die; we only change our state of life.” 2) Knowledge that all life is part of all other life through the connecting silver chord of spirit. As Alexander Pope put it, “All are but parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul.”

Thus when we lose a loved one through death, they have not disappeared completely, they have merely moved into the next room. Their love for us is as great as ever and they will be waiting for us when the time comes for us also to take that final transition from earthly life. Where our loved one moves away but remains on Earth, we will continue to be linked together because love knows no boundaries, physical or otherwise. We are always linked through that love, which is of the spirit and not merely of the flesh. To those who love completely, there can never be separation, minds and souls link across the miles.

The verses that follow look at loss and the sadness that follows, in differing ways and I believe, can be a source of great comfort and certainty at times of sadness and inner emptiness. I hope you will find the same and feel able to pass some or all onto friends and loved ones in need.

In love and friendship,

Lionel


A Thousand Winds
Do not stand by my grave and weep,
for I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond’s glint on snow.

I am sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle Autumn’s rain.
When you awaken
in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush.

Of quiet birds in circle flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.


Always in Your Heart

Hush now, please don’t cry
There comes a time when we all die
Just take heed now that I’m at peace
And from my pain I have release.

I will always be watching over you
Our love will always be held true
Don’t you weep now, don’t you mourn
For my heart will then be torn.

Just remember the good times we shared
Knowing that we always cared
I’ve not gone away, we’ll never part
As I will always be in your heart.

Welcome Home

When I am gone, release me, let me go
I have so many things to see and do.
You mustn’t tie yourselves to me with tears,
just be happy that we had some years.
I gave you my love, you can only guess
how much you gave to me in happiness.
I thank you for the love you each have shown,
but now it’s time I traveled on alone.
Do grieve a while for me if you must
then let your grief be comforted by trust.
It’s only for a while that we must part,
so keep our memories within your hearts.
I won’t be far away, for life goes on.
So if you need me, call and I will come.
Though you can’t see or touch me I’ll be near,
and if you listen with your heart you will hear,
All of my love around so soft and dear.
When you must come this way alone,
I’ll greet you with a smile and say
“Welcome Home”.


When I Must Leave You

When I must leave you
for a little while
Please do not grieve
and shed wild tears
And hug your sorrow to you
through the years
But start out bravely
with a gallant smile;
And for my sake and
in my name live on
and do all things the same,
Feed not your loneliness
on empty days,
But fill each waking hour
in useful ways,
Reach out your hand
in comfort and in cheer
And I in turn
will comfort you
and hold you near;
And never,
never be afraid to die,
For I am waiting
for you in the sky!

HEAVEN

What image does this word conjure up for you? Is it some place so beautiful that to capture it even in your imagination seems impossible? Is it how you describe a feeling of great, almost overwhelming happiness? Is it the place to which you believe we go to after our death, provided we have lived a good life? Is it a place of idleness, a reward for a good life, where people sit around playing on golden harps and watching the angels and archangels? Is it how you have been brought up to describe the spiritual world where we all pass to on our deaths? Perhaps you are one of those who believe that no such place exists.

Whether any of these descriptions or none describes your idea of heaven, it is a word that is almost as commonly used in the English language as the word love. Popular music abounds with both words and many people describe their feelings of joy or happiness as ‘heavenly’. Why should this be I wonder? Here we have a word with obvious mystic connotations that many use and which means different things to different people. Its use reminds me very much of the way we associate certain colours with certain emotions; red for anger, green for envy, yellow for cowardice, pink for love and good health, etc. All these associations, like those linked to ‘heaven’ go back to the infancy of humanity; a time when we were a great deal more innocent and spiritually aware than we appear to be today. The word itself may have changed with different societies and different religions but for instance, the emotional associations of Nirvana and of Heaven are indistinguishable to those who accept one or the other.

I believe these early associations of words with mystical states are not accidental and should be taken seriously for they are important and it would be misguided of us to assume that because a word’s associations are ancient they are therefore invalid. In the infancy of humanity we needed to use our finer senses much more than we do today, just to ensure survival. Without that ‘sixth sense’ that warned us of impending danger, how would early man have survived living among so many carnivorous animals? More importantly in many ways, are the methods our ancestors used to determine the healing properties of plants and herbs. They did not rely upon a system of ‘trial and error’ but were much more precise than that. They anticipated Dr Bach of the famous ‘Bach Flower Remedies’ by many millennia. If you recall, Dr Bach urged his students to go out in the very early morning and “feel” the energy of the plants and herbs; thus would they be able to determine not only which ones were healing plants but also which illnesses they would be most effective in treating.

There is no accident that among ancient tribes, those skilled in the healing arts became known in our language as ‘witch doctors’. Although the word ‘witch’ has been given dark, even evil meanings by amongst others, Shakespeare, King James 1 of England and the Christian church, it is not one which is wholly deserved. A witch is merely one who possesses psychic abilities beyond the normal and is therefore able to detect those subtle energies used in communications between the spiritual world and those of us here on Earth; and who understand the vital role of the mind in spiritual matters. Unfortunately some practised the darker side of their arts and consequently fear in the minds of ordinary people and some not so ordinary like King James, branded all psychically gifted souls with this stigma, even though many abhor the darker side. Add ‘psychically gifted’ to ‘healer’ and you produce witch doctor! No more; no less.

So it is with ‘heaven’. The early seers and psychics were made aware from the spiritual world of the existence of the world of spirits which welcomed all earthly people when they died and were told what a beautiful, idyllic and loving place it was. They coined the word heaven to describe it and because it seemed way above the mundane world of humanity, they became convinced this place called heaven was high above the Earth. Consequently, the skies became the heavens also. What they were unable to understand from their communications was that heaven was also a world of the mind. We now know the spiritual world, or heaven to some, is exactly that; a mental world, where the mind is king. Therefore when mystics speak of creating heaven on earth they are not suggesting that the earth will one day become a purely spiritual world. What they are saying is that heaven, (and hell if it comes to that) is a state of mind, rather than an actual physical location. The mind is so powerful that such states appear to the individual as physical locations, even though they are not. Therefore if we wish to create heaven on earth, we need to create the right mental and spiritual conditions here, either personally or much more preferably, amongst the entire human community.

This helps to explain why when we are ‘on top of the world,’ feeling totally free, joyful and happy, we describe the feeling as heavenly. That is exactly what heaven is, no matter where you may be located when you experience it. It may be a passage in a wonderful piece of music, finding your true vocation, the achievement of a hard-worked-for ambition or aim, falling in love, the birth of your first baby, a verse in a poem, a wonderful sunset, a rainbow, or other mighty work of nature. Any of these things and others, can give you that feeling of ‘heaven’. Such feelings “often”, to paraphrase Wordsworth, “lie too deep for words,” but what is certain is that once experienced, it is something we never forget. Hold onto that feeling once you have experienced it, for it is very special, though but a pale imitation of the spiritual heavens.

The ‘heavenly spheres,’ for there are many parts of the spiritual world that can be described as heaven, are places of ineffable love and beauty where no evil exists to mar our joy. Be sure they exist and also be sure that creating a heaven here on Earth is up to each one of us.

TODAY

As I cycled along the sea front here in Rio this morning and experienced the magic of sun and sand and waves – the sea and sky such a perfect blue and the sand gleaming gold in the sunlight - I wondered. I wondered why it is that we human beings are so rarely satisfied with our lot. We inhabit this beautiful world, albeit for a limited time, but all too often we turn our faces away from the beauty in order to focus on what? How best to accumulate more things? How best to arrange things so that we outsmart a competitor – sometimes not in the fairest way either. How best to obtain more power or influence over other people? How best to accumulate more wealth with the least effort? What is going to happen to me tomorrow or next week or next year?

Why is it that only in our moments of relaxation can we seem to appreciate the full beauty of the world around us? Even more so, why do we find it so difficult to appreciate the beauty in the people around us? I cannot help thinking that if we spent a great deal more of our time in appreciating what we have, what God has given us, and less time worrying, envying others or desiring more and more, we would be infinitely happier and more contented. There is so much to appreciate; there is so much to marvel at; there is so much to thank God for.

As I cycled slowly along taking in the beauty of everything around me, I was particularly struck by the happy smiles and laughter of the people on the beach; people of all sorts and sizes, poor, wealthy and everything in between. People who had come to the beach to relax and enjoy themselves and that enjoyment showed in their smiles and their laughter; people who know all that beauty and all that opportunity for clean, innocent fun is provided free. Of course the local council have to keep the beach clean and tidy and we all contribute to the cost of that, but it and the sea and the sunshine are totally free.

In such surroundings we are able to forget all our cares; all those disagreements and differences of opinion with family and colleagues; all the worries about what may or may not happen tomorrow. Somehow they seem to assume a much less important role in our lives. This is as it is supposed to be. Today is what is important, for only today can we actively influence our lives. Yesterday is gone beyond recall and pining for it or wishing we could experience it again so as to avoid certain mistakes we made, won’t bring it back. Tomorrow is yet to be and only by what we do and think today, can we determine the shape and texture of it, at least partially. The Sanskrit scholar, Kalidasa puts it so much better than I can:

"Look to this day, for it is life, the very life of life. For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and tomorrow a vision of hope”

Our lives and where we live are gifts and whether here or in the spiritual world, we should treasure them always. If we are engaged in the more serious aspects of life or enjoying times of relaxation, it matters not. What is important is to give thanks by making the best possible use of those gifts. George Bernard Shaw had a most inspirational way of looking at this when he wrote:

“Life is no brief candle to me It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible...handing it on to future generations.”
It is interesting that Shaw lived well into his nineties!

What about the people with whom we share this wonderful experience of life? I don’t just mean our families and friends but everyone? Do we really pay enough attention to them? Are we interested enough in them to discover a little about what brought them to the point in life at which they find themselves? This is not being nosy or invading their privacy, I am talking about listening. We are often so full of the implications of what is happening to us, we pay little or no attention to what others are telling us about themselves. We can hardly wait to move the conversation around to ourselves – not always of course but can you honestly say this never happens to you? Unless we really listen to other people it is quite impossible to understand them. The truly incredible thing about individual life is that there are teeming millions of us but each one is different. Each one chose to come to Earth and live this life; each one has undergone trials and joys that have helped make them what they are; each one is a child of God, no matter how far they may have strayed from His light; each one deserves our respect, our love and our understanding.

To give those things does not involve condoning any ill they may have done; it is the one sure way to ease our own passage through life because what we give we also receive and receive one-hundred fold.

Today is special; let us resolve to make every day just as special.

FEAR

I suppose one of the most often repeated political utterances is that of Franklyn Roosevelt, who said in his first inaugural address during the great depression, “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” What a perceptive statement that is. Of all human emotions, I guess nothing is more paralysing than fear, particularly its more extreme brother, terror.

Many is the tyrant who has blatantly used the weapon of terror, in the form of torture, in order to impose his will upon unwilling people. During the Second World War, Hitler’s blitzkrieg was meant to terrorise the British people into surrender. Today terrorism has become the chosen weapon of all extremists, whose political and religious philosophy and arguments are so unconvincing, few if any are willing to give them credence. The final part of that sentence contains the clue to why terror has become the weapon of choice of these wicked and unscrupulous people. Most people have the good sense to ignore the crazy utterances of these extremists, so they set about making everyone sit up and take notice in other ways. What better than to take advantage of television’s myopic love affair with violence? Any act of violence, the more extreme the better, is guaranteed to be headlines in all the world’s TV stations. As if the violence itself and its effect on the people involved, is not bad enough, TV broadcasters must needs repeat and analyse each act of terror endlessly until people are in danger of becoming inured to violence completely.

I know the arguments used by the media that they are only reporting what happened and they refuse to countenance the fact that undoubtedly they are being blatantly manipulated by terrorists to extend the effect of the terror as widely as possible. If we could find a way to isolate these unscrupulous terrorists from publicity, without which they would cease to recruit followers and or financial backing, we would be doing the cause of ordinary, law abiding people the greatest possible service. If one tenth of the money and effort was put into achieving this aim as is put into reporting each act of terror in lurid detail, a solution would soon be found. This is only one part of the problem however.

Terrorist organisations can only exist where there is a strong feeling of injustice among people at being unable to counteract the actions of others vis a vis their country, religion, philosophy, etc, etc. Of course the terrorist organisations exaggerate the injustice for their own ends but without its existence in the first place there would be nothing to work on. For such conditions to be created, someone or some country must, for its own selfish reasons, have taken action that has created the sense of injustice. It is an unfortunate fact that usually when action is taken that exploits the weakness or defencelessness of another person or people, the aggressors never analyse all the implications of their actions in advance. They only closely examine the immediate impact on themselves and how likely they will be to achieve their main objective, which takes no account of its impact upon others.

Much of the action taken against other countries in the last twenty years unfortunately has its basis in the developed world’s unquenchable thirst for oil.


If we accept this argument, it follows that at least some of the origins of international terrorism are centred on the fact that those of us whose political masters are inclined to take aggressive action have been unwilling or unable to do anything to prevent it. It is a perfect illustration of the working out in practice of John Donne’s claim that “no man is an island, entire unto himself.” It is impossible for any action to be taken in isolation. Everything we do, say or think, as individuals or nations, has an impact upon the rest of humanity.

Vested interest is often behind international action and once again, as I have pointed out in other blogs, the lust for power and money is the trigger. Power is an alluring goddess. She trails the prospect of the enormous benefit power can be to further the betterment of your fellow human beings. She blinds you to the subtle ways in which power corrupts its wielder. Lord Acton in 1887 described this brilliantly: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." No-one has bettered this definition of the dangers inherent in power. It follows therefore that we in democracies should be extremely careful about the power we cede to our rulers. We should also recognise the dangers inherent in secrecy. Those wishing to cause trouble in order to further their own vested interest, never work in the open. Like the housebreaker, they prefer to work in the dark. Controlling such activity has become increasingly difficult with the advent of multi-national companies but we must accept the challenge it poses or things can only get worse.

Returning to our opening theme, how do we protect ourselves from the debilitating effects of fear? By returning to basics. The deepest fear that besets human beings is the fear of death. No loss is considered more terrible than the loss of one’s physical life. Yet, whilst understandable in view of the way modern humanity has developed philosophically and politically, how foolish it is in the light of the knowledge that our real life is of the spirit. Not one of us can ever die as an individual with our own distinct personality and consciousness. We are eternal and indeed some claim that we even return to Earth many times. By accepting this reality as the basis of our lives; by recognising our interdependence upon one another; by accepting that every selfish act and every abuse of power diminishes the whole of humanity; by putting our own individual house in order before criticising the shortcomings of others; by trying harder to follow the Biblical advice, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you,” we could transform the world.

Such advice is not easy to follow but if we at least try harder each day to love even those we do not like, we could find it becomes a habit and just think of the benefits that could flow from that!

“I Know I am Right!”

How often have you heard this said? Indeed, how often have you used the same words yourself? And when you look back, were you always right? I doubt it very much. Sometimes yes but more often than you would expect you discover that, at best, you were only partly right. I wonder why this should be. After all we had the facts at our disposal and we felt very strongly at the time that our feelings as a result were right. Are there lessons to be learned from this? What might they be?

If you look back over such incidents in your own life, you will find I am sure that some other person did not agree with your assessment of the situation and became upset and maybe was hurt at your insistence that you were right. Was it worth it? I mean causing an upset to a friend or a loved one merely because you felt so strongly that your point of view was the right one. If your answer, with the benefit of hindsight, is “no it was not worth it,” then the lesson to be learned is opinion is not worth causing pain to another or falling out over. We can only show that lesson has been learned however when we are faced with similar circumstances but on this occasion we keep our own counsel or give advice in a more constructive way.

Secondly, were we in possession of all the facts? At the time I am sure we felt we were but again, hindsight may show differently. We were in possession of such facts as were known to us but at the time it is difficult or impossible to be sure they are all the relevant ones. There may well have been hidden factors or contributory actions by others about which we knew nothing; there may have been provocative action by third parties who thought they stood to gain by stirring things up. So many possibilities occur that any insistence that this or that view is the right one is fraught with the probability of error. Here we come to the nub of the matter. When we utter these words, we are rarely just giving our opinion but in reality expect the person concerned to follow our advice or where we are speaking about ourselves we are trying to justify a decision we may be in doubt about. The tone of voice that usually accompanies the words is evidence of this. It is one thing to give one’s honest opinion when asked for it but quite another to insist gratuitously when no such request has been made. I suspect the words are used more frequently in the latter than the former circumstances.

Next we must ask ourselves, who knows what is right? This applies in every field of human activity and the pages of history are filled with mistakes made by those who were convinced at the time of the rightness of their actions. I refer you to the story of the Chinese farmer and his son who ran their farm with the aid of a single horse and all the consequences that flowed as a result of the horse running away one day. I won’t repeat the entire story as I used it in an earlier blog. Remember, the answer of the farmer whenever anyone commiserated with him on his losses or congratulated him on his good fortune, was always the same? “Who knows what is right, who knows what is wrong?”

No, anytime we seek to influence the actions or thoughts of others by saying “I know I am right,” we must be extremely cautious, for in reality we are trying to exercise control are we not? Control over others is one of the most dangerous tendencies that human beings possess and one we all need to guard against. Many tyrannies have come into being due to the excessive exercise of this tendency. Next time you are in a position to give your opinion on the rightness or wrongness of another’s words, actions or intentions, try to give your opinion in a way that makes it completely clear the decision is theirs to take and you will not be upset if they ignore your point of view. Rather say something like, “Don’t you think it would be best to do this or that”, rather than “I know I am right!”

“What the Eye Doesn’t see . . .”

What a convenient expression for those wishing to excuse themselves for taking an action or thinking something of which others may not approve or they themselves are ashamed. In the vast majority of cases of course, such are fairly innocent, in the category of ‘little white lies’. Despite the implication in the words, nobody really gets hurt or suffers. However, sometimes the action or thought is very serious and others do get hurt; that is why I intend to take a closer look at the sentiment itself.

For me it immediately makes me think about personal responsibility. The British Spiritualists have a principle that originally stated: “Personal responsibility, with compensation and retribution here and hereafter, for all good and evil deeds done on Earth.” It has since been abridged to “Personal Responsibility” and thereby seems to have lost some of its implications in my view. Be that as it may, the full wording is what is important to consider when exploring the subject matter of this blog. The implication in the title is that if nobody is consciously aware of an action being taken or a thought being formed, there can be no harm in it.

The fact is of course that one person is always aware of it. The perpetrator! You may feel that is obvious but really it doesn’t count. After all, if the perpetrator takes the view that everything is fine as long as nobody knows, he or she is hardly going to be concerned that they themselves are aware of it. Let us examine this point closer. The perpetrator believes personal morality is only important when a third party is made aware of their unwholesome thought or action. Otherwise, they can do or especially think, exactly what they like. Whether the person concerned is aware of it or not, the effects on them personally are important, to which many a psychiatrist will happily attest. Many people suffer severe mental problems as a result of actions and sometimes thoughts they have buried deep in their psyche. Such people can become very ill as a consequence. (The ‘retribution here’ of the Spiritualist principle quoted?)

Of course some people are so ‘thick skinned’ as we say, they appear able to carry out these things without any apparent adverse effects, short term or long term. How are they subjected to the principle? To learn this it is necessary to move on to the ‘hereafter’. Accept it or not; like it or not; each one of us is an eternal spirit being and we cannot die whatever we may think. Oh, our physical body dies but the spirit or soul and the mind which is an integral part of it does not. When we leave our physical body behind on so called death, each one of us passes initially to a spiritual realm known as the Etheric World. This world is an exact duplicate of the Earth itself, and I do mean exact, in every respect. Here, once we have become aware of the change that has taken place in us and sometimes this can take a long time for those absolutely convinced that death equals oblivion, we prepare ourselves for onward transition to a sphere in the spiritual world whose light most closely resembles the light we ourselves generate. What determines the light we generate?

The answer to that question is the life we lived on Earth. How did we relate to others? Did we try hard to be compassionate and understanding? Were we completely selfish? Did we try to love others, even those we did not like? Did we only love our families? How often did we place the interests or needs of others ahead of our own? Did we try hard to stifle unworthy thoughts? If we became aware that we had erred, did we try to make amends? Each one of us undoubtedly will be a mixture of all these things. Most of us are neither very good nor very bad. In the etheric world we will be able to see the light given out by others and can compare it with our own. As part of the process of learning how to make our own light brighter, we undergo a life review. We actually look back over our own lives but are able to see some of our acts and thoughts through the eyes of those who were affected by them. In looking back we naturally make personal judgements of ourselves. You are your own judge; there is no “Almighty” sitting in judgement upon you, except in so far as we are each part of the “Almighty”.

As a result of this ‘life review’ we may decide we need immediately to set about making up to certain people for how our thoughts or actions affected them. Should we decide this, we will be given wise counsel by our Spirit Guides whose love and concern for us is total and who remain with us after death as well as before. In some instances we may be able to take remedial action from the etheric world but in others we will be advised that we first have to go to our allotted sphere. That is the sphere our personal light best fits us for. Our life after that will be a process of learning many of the mysteries of the spirit and not just atoning for our errors. As we learn, our light will grow brighter until it is bright enough for the next sphere and so on.

For the person who has deliberately harmed others and has lived a selfish, materialistic life without much justification for doing so, their light will be dim and they will be allocated to a similarly dim or dark spirit sphere. There life will be far from comfortable and the effort needed to move to a brighter sphere will be considerable, including the need to atone personally to those they injured whilst on Earth. Many people who find themselves in darker spheres are initially resentful and are not prepared to make any effort to move upwards. Eventually however, often assisted by loving souls who visit them from brighter spheres at great pain to themselves, they shake themselves free of their resentment and start working at self-improvement. No-one, no matter how evil they may be considered by us, is ever abandoned. The opportunity for redemption through love and commitment is always available.

Perhaps you can see from the foregoing that even those who appear to escape ‘Scott free’ from bad deeds on Earth do not escape at all. The price they must pay may be delayed in time but it will be nonetheless appropriate to their actions and thoughts. I have concentrated here on the effect of bad thoughts and actions but do not forget the principle quoted speaks not only of retribution but also of compensation. I believe all of us will be amazed when we partake in our own ‘life review’ and realise just how much we have helped others in little ways that seemed unimportant to us at the time. When we see them through the eyes of the recipient however, we will often be astonished at the difference our small act of kindness made to their lives.

May your God go with you.

We Need to Change

Without wishing to sound like a latter day “luddite”, I do wonder if modern humanity has not become too clever for its own good. Our ingenuity seems to have outstripped our moral and spiritual understanding. With the advent of efficient electronic communication and the internet, we have seen the rise and rise of the multi-national company and the increasing distancing of the providers from their consumers. We have seen the advent of laws that allow seed companies to produce plants that cannot produce seeds that germinate, so farmers in developing countries can no longer save their own seeds.

The most recent example is also perhaps the most distressing. It is the collapse of the international banking system as a consequence of greed, ingenuousness and sheer criminality. Clever individuals within the international financial system invented pieces of paper that were worthless but they managed to persuade many gullible and greedy investors and equally greedy financial advisers that they were the best thing since sliced bread. The pieces paper defied all the experience and best practices of international banking built up over generations but because, I suspect, very few wanted to lose face by crying ‘foul’, the self-destructive sale of them grew and grew. Eventually the system could no longer support the mountains of debt that underpinned these ridiculous pieces of paper.

We all know the result. Many well known businesses, including giants of the financial world, went out of business. Governments were left with no alternative than to underwrite the losses in order to save what was left of the reputation of international finance, as well as trying to reduce the impact on the people of the enormous increase in unemployment and drop in property prices resulting from the collapse. When governments decide to underwrite losses on such a scale the implications for everyone but especially ordinary people are enormous. Taxes increase, government spending on the social infrastructure has to be ruthlessly trimmed back and young and old especially, find it increasingly difficult to find work and/or to support themselves. I regret to say that despite all the fine words and hand-wringing that has taken place since the collapse, exactly the same thing is likely to happen again once economies begin to recover and a new generation of financial ‘experts’ have taken over.

Is there no way to avoid such a scenario? Indeed there is but it requires changes that cannot be imposed by government decree or financial regulation. The reasons behind this catastrophic collapse of international finance were not so much a failure of financial regulation as a failure of morality. A failure made easier because of the way in which people in general have been progressively removed from the financial and other markets. No longer are there small local stock exchanges in local cities, where the share buyer’s broker could meet stock and share sellers bound by an unwritten code of honour. Instead we have vast international exchanges in a few cities world-wide. The excuse for such centralisation? Computerisation of course; the same computerisation that makes it virtually impossible for you and I to speak direct to another human being when calling the local bank, telephone company or electricity supplier.

By our ingenuity we invented the computer and have exploited it brilliantly but have failed to see that in the process we are dehumanising our society! We began, with the industrial revolution, to separate humanity from nature and now we are separating ourselves from one another. One of the main benefits of living our earthly lives is to learn to work and live together. It is not an easy thing to do, as it necessitates us trying to understand and make allowances for each individual if we are to make life work in any tolerable way. Instead what have we done? Look at the local road into town every morning and see how many people are driving to work in their own individual transport, usually unaccompanied. Indeed with the increase in computerisation, many people don’t even drive to work; they work from their own living room. I am not criticising people for wanting to own motor cars with all the convenience and comfort resulting from ownership. Neither am I against people working from home instead of adding to atmospheric pollution by driving to the local town or city.

It is an unfortunate fact that our ingenuity has quite unintentionally, begun an inexorable process of making life on earth less tolerable, not more so as was hoped. We need to take a step back and begin using that same ingenuity to work out how we can bring people and the natural world back into harmonious relationship once more. When Alexander Pope wrote those immortal words “All are but parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul,” he was summarising the human experience far more accurately than anyone before or since. Our progressive failure to recognise the truth of his words will eventually make this Earth completely inhospitable to human life if we continue to do nothing about it. The staggering increase in stress, cancer, hypertension and obesity are the direct results of the direction our ingenuity has taken us. We MUST find an alternative.

If we begin by accepting the basic cause of our problems, it is possible to design a way of living that can combine the benefits of modern science and technology (the products of human ingenuity) with an awareness of humanity’s dual existence both as spirit and physical being. To recognise the need to devote at least as much time and effort to our spiritual and mental needs as we do our physical, would lead us on an entirely different and far more worthwhile and enjoyable path of life. We ignore the dangers of our myopic concentration on materialism at our peril. Life is meant to be lived in the knowledge of our spiritual inheritance and the fact that our mind is part of that eternal spirit and does not die along with the physical body. To deny these basic facts is to court disaster, a disaster that is busy unfolding itself even as our technical ingenuity increases. It is not too late to change but each one of us has to take that decision independently, it cannot be dictated by government decree. For most of us here on earth now, the harm has been done and we are damaged as a result. However for those recently born or still to be born it is not too late. Let us unite in designing our lives to help them, even if we ourselves continue to pay the price of our refusal to see the danger signals earlier.