24. THE BEAST IN MAN

Reading about and watching the images of the hurricane's sweep through New Orleans, I'm reminded of William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

Citizens of the most advanced, 'civilised', wealthiest and most powerful nation on this planet, degenerated into beasts. All Hell broke loose and released its dark and dangerous denizens who were previously ordinary folks going about their daily grind.

The human mammals living on Mother Earth's organic body - for 'Mother' is an organism - are far from being an evolved species. A huge number are still stuck on the bottom-most rung of the evolutionary ladder.

All around the globe, we see acts of extreme violence and destruction - by human mammals on their fellow mammals and their environments. This has gone on for centuries but if one thinks back to just the last 10 years, one recalls how creatively the forces of evil manifest itself.

9/11 was planned over a period of time and executed with precision. At my doorstep, in Indonesia, some 8 years back, when the country was thrown into upheaval, ordinary and young Indonesian mammals went on a stampede and looted, beheaded, raped their fellow Indonesians who not too long ago, were their neighbours and friendly neighbourhood grocers. The victims were chiefly Indonesian Chinese, Indonesian Christians or of a certain ethnic tribe.
 
Any excuse is a good excuse for mob violence - in a large unruly, anonymous group, one gets away with murder. Its a form of catharsis - for those who do not have the freedom to express themselves due to religious, cultural, social and family conditioning.

Watching the mobs on TV in Iraq, the Gaza, New Orleans, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, more recently, South Thailand, Paris and Sydney, one sees wolf and hyena packs attacking, drawing blood, chopping off limbs.........the beast in the human mammal is hard at work in a feeding frenzy.

Thought forms are creative - as a man thinks, so he becomes. It takes lots of thinking to plan and execute a war plan, likewise, to think up different creative methods to destroy, torture and break the spirits of the 'enemies'. WMD, chemical and biological weapons, land mines, originated from the fertile, imaginative minds of the human mammals. In times of war, whole nations are involved......hundreds and thousands of human mammals are contributing their energies - chiefly negative.

In some castles in the UK and Europe, on display in the dungeons and catacombs, are handmade wooden contraptions used for different styles of torture. In Vietnam, the war museum has exhibits showing how the war was won by tiger traps and narrow underground tunnels. As the human mammal thinks, designs and plans, his hands manifest and bring to life those thought forms.

The human mammal has the freedom of choice and free will to invent something - anything - after which, it's up to him to use his inventions for good or evil purposes - to save and heal or to destroy and maim. As one scans the globe, the choices made have gone terribly and horribly wrong.

In post 'Living the Teachings', I've jotted down my observations. I'm convinced that unevolved souls living in perpetual darkness life after life, will continue to reincarnate in bodies and minds that don't function any more - such souls are trapped in their body prisons in which they're unable to express themselves, to experience life and learn its lessons in order to attain freedom from the cycle of births and deaths.......for physical life in this manifested world is a school for the soul.... with each rebirth, the grade.

Still others will reincarnate in some war-torn or famine ravaged lands or some God-forsaken corner where existence is just a living hell.

Physical life in this material, manifested world is Hell and we are born into Hell to work out our karmas. Hitler and Pol Pot were each a Satan during their tenure, their underlings were their demons, devils, call them whatever, (Orcs even!)  and there, we have corners of Hell. There are many examples all over the world throughout history and till today, different pockets of the globe are playing out the cruel, destructive, ignorant acts of unevolved souls.

 
Incidentally, as I see it, the Orcs, in the Lord of the Rings - 2 Towers, forging their weapons of war in the bowels of the Earth, is an allegory of the above. The Orcs were once Elfs who went down the slippery road to damnation due to choices made.

The Thinker 1880:The Thinker is one of Rodin’s most famous sculptures which captures so well the human struggle to understand. Rodin wrote that the Thinker was conceived when he was designing the Gates of Hell. The Thinker was to be Dante who was contemplating the poem and characters from the Divine Comedy. Later, he decided that the man should be naked, seated on a rock, his fist against his teeth, thinking. He is trying to understand, to think so very hard that he will be able to go from dreamer to creator. Note the man’s unrefined facial features, but deeply felt emotion.


I THINK, THEREFORE I AM - DESCARTES