Posted by on Nov 20, 2008 in Questioning Guide | 0 comments

Have you ever taken some time to read about poverty or liberty? Have you ever seen a movie about India, Africa or other countries where poverty is famine and liberty can only be inner because they are trapped in a structure of power and control?

Liberty is an inner thing, why do we always want to develop it outside of ourself, and out of our control? When liberty is out of our control it becomes: the need to become powerful over others to give them what “we think” they need.

That is just what is happening in those regions of famine. We think we know what they need. There is something terribly stinky here because we place our conditioning in their own context…

Have we ever really asked them what they need after giving them the help for a proper nurishment? Why do the people who so famously help eradicate famine do it in exchange of their faith (as a type of colonization)? Why do they help in the name of a certain “faith” or commercial goal? Who do we want to place in their ways of life who we expected them to be? Is everything purely goal oriented? Why? Where is that goal orientation leading us as a society?

Why do we want to change those who are not like us?

Well, let’s imagine we are there for a little bit. Imagine the people starving, people who don’t have the nurishment to think about stuff we could, but then imagine the contradiction:

People laughing because their happiness does not depend on their shopping sprees, people hard working for a dime, and yet do it.

Why do these people do this? Could it be because their values and ideas are different from ours?

What does it mean to be rich? Is richness inner or exterior?

What has happened… that the world seems to be gone mad?

Why hasn't the condition of famine been erradicated?

Famine is a social and economic crisis that is commonly accompanied by widespread malnutrition, starvation, epidemic and increased mortality. Although many famines coincide with national or regional shortages of food, famine has also occurred amid plenty or on account of acts of economic or military policy that have deprived certain populations of sufficient food to ensure survival. Historically, famines have occurred because of drought, crop failure, and pestilence, and because of man-made causes such as war or misguided economic policies.

During the 20th century, an estimated 70 million people died from famines across the world, of whom fully 30 million died during the famine of 1958-61 in China. The other most terrible famines of the century included the 1942-1945 disaster in Bengal, famines in China in 1928 and 1942, and a sequence of man-made famines in the Soviet Union, including the Holodomor, Stalin’s famine inflicted on in 1932-33. The last great famines of the 20th century were the disaster in Cambodia in the 1970s, the Ethiopian famine of 1983-85 and the North Korean famine of the 1990s” 1

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The contradiction: People who have less than us appreciate what they have because it is scarce, people who have a lot don’t see the privilage it is to have it. Why?

My question is…. Have you ever appreciated the country you live in? The kind of privilege you have every day because you can eat almost whatever you can if you have saved enough money to buy it and we have the liberty to do so?

It could be a chocolate or a cookie. Many people are not as fortunate. If we took some time to admire our reality, our country, and our people… Perhaps, our reality could become peaceful and fulfilled.

One of the reasons we live with violence and self-depreciation is the lack of compassion and love toward others and oneself. I am not talking about egoism. Egoism is the lack of love toward oneself and others.

Why? If I really love myself I could see that love makes me feel “wow”, and so loving others makes me feel so happy and fulfilled.

Egoism brings sadness, loneliness, and bitterness. Why? Others is us. How is that possible? If we could stop our inner dilalogue for just a little, and take time to admire our surroundings we could see there is no difference between what I eat and who I am.

Plain physics? I eat an apple. The apple becomes me or do I become the apple?

Better yet, I don’t become an apple and the apple doesn’t become me because we are already the universe. Are we sensible enough to see that or have we lost it?

How can we find it? Think it by yourself. I may be wrong!

1 Old entry of Wikipedia about Famine.