Dear Ramj,

Do you think it's possible to be leading a spiritual life in spite of filling the mind with a lot of the negativities of our current world? 

Ram: No, I don’t. The whole point of a spiritual life is to cultivate a quiet balanced mind and then take that balanced happy mind into the world where it can work its magic. If you believe that the sorry state of the world is responsible for your emotional turmoil, then you need to think more deeply about what the world is…and who you are.

But before you do that you need to inquire into your sources of information about the world. Without going into it in depth, the truth is that what most people call ‘the world’ is just their subjective reactions to what they pick up through the media. But is the media a fair and impartial source of information? It is not. Are your negative reactions always justified by the facts? They are not. The fact that stories of violence and doom outnumber the stories of sweetness and light is attributable to one sad fact: misery sells. It is not a statement about the actual condition of the world. The simple good things in life, which always balance the negative, are not news. The people who control the media only feed us what they want. Their agenda is not always clear but it serves their interests not to give fair and balanced information. But if you ignore the media and carefully observe what is going on around you, you will find that there is at least as much goodness as there is evil, probably more. Nonetheless, the media’s bias toward the negative is not all bad as it generates the feeling in people that things need to be done to correct the situation.

Spiritual science says that the world is how it is for a reason, that, strange as it may seem, both the positive and the negative forces are serving a higher power. It is easy to understand how the positive forces could be the work of God but how do the negative forces, the pain and suffering, serve? They serve to motivate you to purify your mind. If it weren’t for this threat of war, would you have renewed your vow to live a more spiritual life? So the ‘threat’ serves a useful purpose. Look at how much good is coming out of the sex scandal in the Catholic Church. Here is an evil that has been going on for a long time and now the forces of light are fighting it…and winning. Look at the situation in Sri Lanka…the Tamil Tigers, one of the most vicious terrorist organizations in the world who cynically recruit children and train them to be suicide bombers, now sitting down meekly with the Government to iron out a political settlement to a problem that has been festering for twenty years. I could fill many books with the goodness that is happening all the time in the world, not just from an analysis of the big picture but from my own life as well. If you look for the good news it is always there. If you look for bad news that is all you will see.

The second point is: the big picture is not really up to you, except indirectly. When you understand this you stop disturbing yourself unnecessarily with the state of the world and get on with the business of cleaning up the conflicting, selfish, angry parts of your own mind. If you sit around in a big negative funk all day because the world is going to hell you are just helping it along. Your negativity gets into the people you come in contact with and they pass it on to others and it just goes on and on.

Alicia: Do you think there is really anything that one can do to help the planet outside of prayer and making peace in the world around one?

Ram: Sure. If you have strong convictions you should act on them. But you should do it with a calm happy mind. You should not use the idea of injustice to allow yourself to be angry. A few years ago I spent six weeks in a Palestinian town in the occupied territories just outside Jerusalem in the house of a remarkable French nun who was part of the international peace movement and who supported several young Palestinian college students. She was doing ‘good’ work but she was a very angry woman; she hated injustice. And because of her strong hatred nothing really worked the way she wanted it to work. She always alienated the people she needed to reach out to. She made them feel that they were ‘wrong’ and she was ‘right.’ And, of course, this just set up more opposition. And this made her angrier.

I kept out of it completely, just worked on my writing and dodged the odd Israeli bullet that came whizzing past the veranda where I lived. I was always peaceful and cheerful and kept the boys laughing. My view is that there is nothing more predictable and boring than conflict and I don’t indulge in it…except very very occasionally…and then for a good reason. One day, quite unexpectedly, she poured out her torment and looked to me for a response. I told her that her idea was good but that the way she was implementing it was wrong, that she was just adding to the bad energy…in the name of justice…that she was trying to heal. That if she wanted her peace center to work she had to be peaceful herself, a beacon in the dark. I wasn’t sure how she took what I had to say…she was a very conservative woman…but I could see that she was thinking about it. A few days before I left she came to me and said, “You are right. I am quitting this work and returning to the monastery to work on myself.” I was completely surprised because generally ‘cause’ people are very inflexible and stubborn and rarely, if ever, question who they are; they find it much easier to blame the world for their own shortcomings. It was a tribute to her character that she could hear my message and act on it.

Alicia: Are activities like leafleting and attending anti-war meetings helping?  My friend said that she read that Bush modifies some of his plans because of the grassroots anti-war movement.  I hope so.  I don't want to be focusing too much on something that won't help. 

Ram: Yes, they help. If you look at Bush’s style, he talks big but in the end he comes around and follows public opinion pretty much.

Alicia: Thanks for sending me the emails last summer with Mary and Thomas.  I have found them very helpful to just identify my judgments as mind stuff as you suggested. It really helped me last week.

You’re quite welcome.

Much love to you,

Ram