© Can't Believe Eyes / YouTubeA lion carries of the unborn calf of a recently killed buffalo to be eaten. This is nature. And if you refuse to see it, how can you hope to see what's really going on in countries like Syria and Iraq?
But 'failure to understand reality', now that one really describes the average human being (and in particular some of the above average ones). Granted, there are degrees of such faulty comprehension, and true schizophrenics are obviously on the extreme end of the spectrum, but it's all the same condition. So it's not surprising that a more rational and objective analysis of schizophrenia defines it as social illness rather than strictly genetic or physical, i.e. it is the result of the toxic influence of our wonderful, modern social mores and 'norms' on a person's mind, body and soul. Schizophrenics may be extreme cases, but we're all affected.
Is there any essential difference between a schizophrenic who believes something because voices told them to, and an entire nation of people believing that the US invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy because their government told them to? In both cases, the person/people are being manipulated by a bogus, manipulative authority. The only important distinction I can think of is that in the first case a single person's life is negatively affected, in the second, millions of lives are not only negatively affected, but destroyed.
So I'd argue that everyone is 'schizophrenic' to one degree or another, and anyone who disagrees should go see a shrink. But a specific example of people's maladaptation to truth or reality was brought to my attention when reading a story on RT.com about a wonderful recent event at Kruger national park: a lion ate a buffalo. Not impressed? Well the 'highlight' of this event for observers (and half the internet) is the fact that the lion tore open the (female) buffalo's stomach and pulled out its unborn fetus and carried it off to a few other lions who all ate it.
As it burrows its head in the bloody cavities of the dead animal it can be seen pulling out a fleshy object.Presumably, people go on safari to places like Kruger national park to see the 'wonders' of nature in all its awesome (usually censored) 'glory'. But is nature really awesome? Most people think it is, but it really depends on what you mean by the word and how much of nature you actually look at. The problem is that most people mean it in a good way: lots of the reverential, admiring wonder and awe, and none of the revulsion or fear. The brochures that offer such holiday experiences tend not to advertise the chance to see a baby buffalo untimely ripped from its mother's womb. And I wouldn't be surprised if many of the viewers of such an act are totally unprepared for it, expecting a taste of sanitized nature: lion and buffalo getting along like some Disney cartoon.
'What is it?' the man watching wonders, 'It looks like a bit of stomach.'
Then suddenly, as the big cat makes off with its find, the woman gasps in shock, 'It's a baby!' she cries.
'That was pregnant, it got the baby out,' she says in disgust, 'Oh my goodness, gross.'
But such acts are the nature of nature (at this level anyway). Look under any rock in your back garden, and you'll see something eating something else. Lift the roof on any human dwelling, and you'll see the same thing, and I don't just mean breakfast, lunch or dinner. There are more ways to 'eat' or 'consume' than via our digestive tracts. And that should be enough to inspire real awe. After all, the word comes from the Old English ege, meaning "terror and dread". Laura Knight-Jadczyk described an experience of this sort in volume 2 of her Wave Series:
Taking my first breath in the new reality, I made a conscious choice to limit my participation in this deception foisted on mankind. I consciously decided that ... I was no longer going to lie to myself about reality at all.But people can't even make that fundamental choice, because people refuse to accept reality. They delude themselves about things large and small, and they do it all the time. They tell themselves that nature is awesome in a good way, and they then go about selectively viewing nature and editing out the unsavory parts and the core truth: that nature in this world, including us, is all about consuming something else, whether it wants to be consumed or not. Most times, that 'something else' does not want to be consumed. In fact, I'm pretty sure that every time, it does not. Every time, the object of another's hungry advances will try to get away as fast as possible, or fight. We humans, however, with all our technological wonders, have mastered the 'high' art of corralling those others in enclosures from which there is no chance of escape, so that they can be consumed at our pleasure and so that certain individuals can make a profit. But often, those 'others' also include our fellow human beings, and those 'certain individuals' grow disgustingly rich.
When I looked at a flower I was going to remember the decay and death in the soil from which the flower drew its nourishment. When I looked at a cat or a dog, I was going to remember the fleas and parasites and killing and eating of other creatures that goes on all the time in the animal world. When I looked at a beautiful and peaceful lake, I was going to remember the loads of disease-causing organisms multiplying prolifically beneath the shining, mirrored surface.
Sounds pretty bizarre, yes? But it had a strange effect.
Because I was no longer lying to myself about anything that existed, least of all myself, my nature, my being, I was free to choose what to manifest in every instant. Knowing that all of these shadows existed within me, in my very DNA, my flesh, my evolved self; knowing that I had experienced many lifetimes dealing death and destruction on my own, or suffering the same at the hands of others, I was free to choose. And further, I knew that the choice was free! ... There was no longer any blame for anything. It was just what is. This is nature. This is God. And God has two faces: Good and Evil. We can love them both, but we can choose which face we manifest, while always loving unconditionally both faces.
Intra-species Predators
No, I'm not saying that there are human farms set up by some 'elite' faction (with the exception of Dick Cheney), but when you look at the wars waged by the USA and allies in recent decades, it's hard not to draw a parallel with the human farming, abuse and slaughter of animals. Take Syria for example: 26 million people were penned into that country, prevented from leaving by the 'international community' by way of restricting visa applications, and then hoards of human predators were unleashed on them and hundreds of thousands of innocents were slaughtered. Those that managed to escape and reach the hallowed ground of the EU are now being thrown back into the slaughter pen.
So my question is: do the people responsible for this kind of calculated carnage get energized or 'fed' in some way by such brutality against other humans? If the CEO of Raytheon (for example) received a bigger bonus because he sold more weapons to the US military that were used to bomb civilians in Syria (or Iraq, or Afghanistan or Libya...), and with that bonus he bought more caviar, is he being fed, if indirectly, by the slaughter of human beings? What about all of the military grunts who got a monthly paycheck for conducting 'shock and awe' on the Iraqi people?
This is, of course, to say nothing of the enjoyment that many individuals seem to derive from the 'simple' fact of torturing and killing those less powerful than them. I have no hard evidence, of course, that Western politicians and military personnel actually enjoy planning the invasion of another country and the mass murder of its citizens, but you have to admit, the frequency and enthusiasm with which such types have gone about that exact process, and the efforts they invest in manipulating their constituents into letting them do it, suggests that they really do get something out it.
So my point is this: if we are unable to stomach the rather mundane truth about nature (and our own nature in particular) - that it is based on the indiscriminate physical consumption of one being by another - how can we ever expect to handle the idea that there are other ways to 'feed' than through physical consumption, and that such 'feeding' goes on all the time among the human population of this planet? If we fail to grasp reality on the most basic level available to us - nature - then we're unlikely to grasp that reality where it has the greatest potential to affect us, and our future: in our personal and social interactions.
Likewise, the self-evident truth that some human beings are akin to intra-species predators and prey on other humans beings in the form of regular slaughterfests dressed up as 'freedom and democracy' will be inaccessible to us. One internaut tweeted about the 'Kruger incident':
As always, Joe. Thanks again for what you do, and how you do it.