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To a thinking person, it is quite clear that
human beings have collectively
contributed more problems to the earth than
any other species. If the earth were to
consider the cost of having humankind on
its surface, she would hardly view as positive,
the poisoning of water and air, the mining of
land, the wiping out of species, or even the
large scale technological projects that
humans are so proud of. Apart from
wreaking all this havoc on the environment,
man has not been kind to mankind itself. The
killing and maiming of other humans, the
denial of simple life support to children, are
part of one large movement. All noble
intentions, however laudable, cannot be
distinguished from the unintended
devastation that is caused in their wake. The
devastation is clearly not only against nature
and other creatures; it is also visible in the
conflicts between groups and nations, in the
relationships between human beings.
We find today that even close
relationships do not support a blossoming;
we do not know what to say to our children.
Can one offer to the young a sense of hope,
or only a basketful of problems that we have
not been able to solve? What can be more
tragic than a parent who cannot offer his child
a healthy, cheerful tomorrow with a full
heart? Future generations may mock at any
love that we wish to speak of.
Why is the ground beneath our feet so
shaky? Why is there no sense of solidity,
firmness? Is there anything that anyone can
do? Is there a place to begin? Is there any
wisdom at all that we can draw upon? Is there
anything we can learn from people who lived
on this earth aeons ago and from our
forefathers? It is obvious that for any solidity
in the ground beneath our feet we have to
find footholds that will not slip or slide. We
will need to look carefully for purchase, for
any remaining solidity. We may also need to
learn the art of walking together on shaky
ground.
For the ground to be solid, it must be
based on reality. But what happens when
our world is built on individualistic ideas
rather than on ground realities and a need
for the common good? We can see whole
nations, cities, corporations and enterprises
being built on principles that are exclusive
and excluding. Totalitarian regimes have
given way to different models of control,
seemingly fairer. And yet we find that
indigenous people in every land continue to
be denied rights to live on their traditional
lands and are easily displaced. In India, 330 millions have been displaced after 38
independence for the sake of large
modernizing projects. Where is the fairness
and whose purposes are met through these
enterprises? National interests and those of
corporate functioning cannot be separated
any longer. It is significant that Nike – a profit driven,
multinational enterprise – is now
tying up with the UN – a non-profit,
international body!
It is quite clear that the dominant
discourse about how mankind must move
ahead is getting exclusive and excluding.
Whole segments of society are not included,
and therefore there is an us and a them. The
right to sell cigarettes, to run nuclear plants
and to have child pornography on the net
has become more important
than recognizing the person
next to us and listening to his
voice. The media is more
attractive with its compact,
precise, polished messages
than the fumbling articulation
of mere mortals. Human beings are feeling
ashamed to speak unless they can do it in a
polished manner. We are hard-pressed to
find food for conversation, and we revert to
brief telephonic exchanges or the Internet
chat rooms under a cloak of anonymity. The
flow of events is reducing verbal
communications to brief questions and
briefer answers.
We have been sold the belief that to
every question there is but one answer and
that there is a best answer. We cannot argue
with this belief. For there is no space to
explore, to widen the question, to
understand, to really find out the parameters
of the ‘rightness’ that is being talked about.
Conversation has broken down and
therefore it is not surprising that we stand
helpless and mute. It is also not surprising
that there is little dialogue, a back and forth
movement that sharpens one’s gaze and
clarifies the question. This is the ultimate
triumph of the dominant paradigm: its
magnificent, powerful, visible artefacts
demonstrate its rightness, desirability and
invincibility; the air around us is filled with
the presence of its word, sound and images,
and its strident voice extinguishing dialogue,
eliminating any clear examination of reality.
When faced with a
problem we may yield or we
may resist and fight. Perhaps
we need do neither. Perhaps
we simply need to reclaim
our right to examine and
understand life in ways that
are different from the voice of the paradigm.
It is time to see that we can all be participants
in a dialogue, an ongoing conversation. By
remaining mute and not being able to express
our views, we are impoverishing the dialogue.
Starting to say one’s piece, starting to say that
which is different from the mainstream, is
the beginning. It may not have an effect. That
is relatively unimportant. Saying one’s piece
makes one a participant in a different
dialogue, which is buried beneath the words.
The kind of inner questions that might arise
in this subliminal dialogue are: what do I do
Starting to say one’s
piece, starting to say
that which is different
from the mainstream,
is the beginning.
if I am opposed or if I am ridiculed? What
do I do if there is another view? Is there
any resolution which may be other than
my view as opposed to another’s? Is my
truth limited? Is the paradigm limited?
What shall I base my actions, my participation
on?
There were three young men who went to a
Sufi master for instruction. He took them out in
the garden and asked them to observe his actions.
He picked up a stick and knocked off all the
flowers above a certain height. Asked to interpret,
the first student said, ‘When one comes to the
teachings one undergoes a levelling.’ The second
student said, ‘Things which appear important
may not really be so.’ The third student said, ‘A
dead thing can do injury to a living thing.’ The
teacher said, ‘Each of you is right. None of you
has the complete picture. Putting together all
that you have said also does not make the
complete picture.’
Dialogue and participation seem to
demand that, as one speaks, one must be
aware of the fact that one’s view is
incomplete. Rather than becoming
tongue-tied, this obvious limitation can be
viewed as an invitation for other incomplete
views to be expressed. We need to set aside
the myth of the ultimate truth, the complete
answer, the most superior position. We need
to separate the goodness inherent in
participation, from the rightness of an
answer. An awareness of the fact that,
however profound one’s utterances, it does
not make the complete picture, sets one
free to stay open, awaiting a deeper
understanding. The need to agree or disagree
is taken away.
It is often said that for a deep or
meaningful conversation, the numbers need
to be small, even one to one. One wonders if
in taking this view we are in danger of losing
the richness of other possibilities. While one
to one conversations permit opportunities
to be directly challenged, to encounter
another and oneself in an inescapable way,
they also present the dangers of one view
pitted against another, or of slipping into a
hierarchical teacher-taught mode. The
opportunities to respond quickly and with
urgency may appear to be important, but the
same opportunity may make a deeper
consideration of what has been said difficult.
One wonders if more important than
speaking, is the exercising of one’s brain and
deeply considering what is being said. In a
larger dialogue there is this greater
opportunity to listen, and therefore a
possibility of wider reflection. However,
the danger here is of some voices being
louder and others conveniently lapsing into
silence.
One wonders if it is possible for human
beings to speak with each other, being aware
of the limitation of individual thinking, and
hence eager to listen to others. We need to
protect and nurture every individual’s
freedom to state exactly what he feels,
especially views contrary to or different from
one’s own. At this point one may be skeptical,
and wonder how anything will get done. Our
urgent natures will feel that decisions and 40
action will take too much time. But can we
so easily give up the attempt at dialogue, put
away the challenge of creating a truly
pluralistic sane society? If sanity hasn¡¯t come
out of domination, obvious or subtle, it must
be clear that we need to search for another
way. And this may emerge out of a real
dialogue.
Talking together will create a ground of
a different kind beneath our feet. We will
begin to understand the world and its many
facets through the experiences of others.
We will find ourselves living in a watchful
mode, willing to change and move.
Unfortunately today we continue to live
protecting our domains. Instead of kings and
emperors protecting their
dominions, we have a differently
distributed dominion on the
earth today - the ' haves' guard
their territories from the 'havenots',
who have been reduced
to the status of marauders on the edges of
civilization. Equality, egalitarianism, access to
benefits, etc., are terms that apply only within
one's domains. Speaking about these is easy
to people who already favourably positioned.
Extending these principles to the rest is
difficult. There are barriers that we will need
to overcome as individuals, to enable a
dialogue to happen around us and to
participate in it. Some of these are:
- shyness and timidity may stop one from
voicing a view or a proposition different
from one that is gaining strength.
- we may easily accept an affirmation,
one's own or another's.
- we may take affront in the face of an
opposing view or consideration.
- we may be unwilling to move from a
position taken or a view already
expressed.
If we wish to offer future generations
anything other than empty rhetoric, we need
to begin somewhere as individuals. We need
to step out, leave the bastions of security,
and risk speaking our minds against the 'voice
of the paradigm'. We must understand that
this is the only way for our collective inner
health and for a truly inclusive society, a
society that is learning and not merely
advertising. Living as part
of such a society lays on our
shoulders a responsibility
to find a 'wholly different
way of living', in the words
of Krishnamurti. If we do
not, we are, willy-nilly, a part of the dominant
paradigm, and are stakeholders in the
distributed dominion of the world.
With distributed apathy and sloth we
are damming the flow of freshness. Every
time I feel my opinion or insight is superior
to another's, I am adding a little stone to the
dam, or keeping one in place. It is strange
that in man's history, he has always, despite
material and literary progress, managed to
ingeniously keep the thread of dominion
alive. But maybe we are unwitting participants
in this drama, sometimes quite against our
will.
Talking together brings to the fore one
of the greatest challenges. To listen to another
I need to be open. To be open means
completely suspending my view or idea. Is
this at all possible if I think that my view is
good or the best? I also do not listen when I
feel that another¡¯s statement is an intrusion
or a disturbance to my main agenda.
There was a young boy who wanted to say
something to his father. The father was reading a
book. He closed the book, with his finger at the
place where he wanted to continue. The little boy
said, 'I want you to listen to
me without the finger in the
book.'
Is awareness of
limitation then a
cornerstone for human
dialogue? Does openness
mean learning how to get
the finger out of the book? Is it not important
to doubt what I feel strongly, so that there is
space, space for other views, even if they are
difficult views? Can one learn to speak in
such a way that there is space for others to
join in rather than a closing up?
Also does openness demand from
individuals the capacity to abandon all the
knowledge one has? Education must surely
offer the capacity to find out. And to find out
one needs to be empty. So education and the
educator need to be concerned with
'emptying' and not only with the 'grasping'
of an idea, a thought, a description. Educated
as we are to form conclusions and hold
opinions, we become closed to listening, to
receiving what another says, to joining in
collaboratively.
Can we be concerned that our highest
responsibility is to live intelligently, which
means, in simple terms, learning from the
mistakes of the past and finding
a new way ahead? Can we help
each other stay awake? What
does it mean to be watchful to
see that another person stays
awake? Does it mean constantly
inviting ourselves and others to
go beyond the stated, beyond
conclusions? Refusing to become narrow,
keeping the dialogue open to wider
questions, seems vital. Is there a way of
relating to all this and not falling prey to
dependence or superiority?
These are not easy matters for us to act
upon. However, if we do not move, we will
stay within the circle, the circle of exploitative
distributed dominion.
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