We Are The Terrorists

There is a necessary reckoning, a collective grappling and grief, which accompanies the assassination of a powerful public figure like Ms. Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan.

And when a public figure is especially polarizing, as Ms. Bhutto was, it can be difficult to sort out the complex emotions that arise in the wake of an event such as this.

In the tender middle of every tragedy, however, is a profound opportunity for personal and collective evolution, a moment when all defenses are laid bare and essential questions rise to the fore. To see Bhutto's death as an isolated act of cruelty by an evil group of terrorists, distant and separate from each of us, would be to miss a profound teaching moment.

We are all terrorists. Before you dismiss this out of hand, please take a closer look. The terrorist inside you wages acts of aggression on those you believe to oppress you. The dictator inside you declares martial law when it suits you. The suicide bomber martyrs you and wounds others in your attempts to be heard and to be right.

Global events are a mirror of aggressions taking place on a daily basis within each of us. This poses necessary and immediate questions: Who am I terrorizing? What part of myself or others am I assassinating?

It is our instinctual nature to polarize the world (and ourselves) into good and evil and then attempt to eradicate all evil from view - through repression and denial or through aggression and violence. Until we reconcile the violent parts of ourselves that we have dispelled into the shadow, we will continue to play out violent scenes on the world stage.

We have denied and discarded the unsavory bits of ourselves for so long, that we can no longer clearly see how we're creating our troubled world. By definition, it is not easy to see that which is in the shadow. It is outside of our peripheral vision. It is our blind spot, the Achilles heal of the individual and of humanity. What we despise or deny we push deep into the dark recesses of the psyche, hoping it will be forever hidden there. But instead, contorted into all manner of gruesome expression that we no longer recognize as our own shadow, we confront these twisted and alienated bits of self over and over until they are reintegrated. Ms. Bhutto's death is a painful illustration of our collective shadow.

Our small daily acts of aggression may seem like nothing compared to the brutal assassination of a revered public figure. But the collective consciousness is an assimilation of each of us. As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. As long as we perpetuate the fracturing and fragmentation of disallowed parts of ourselves, stuffing our emotions and perpetuating a sense of shame and worthlessness even on a small scale, we will continue to create terrorists.

Why? Because operating from this fractured consciousness, we don't have the wisdom or the capacity to create a world that fosters wholeness. If we are not whole, we cannot know or create a world that is whole. As such, there will always be disenfranchised, forgotten and expendable parts. Those expendable parts and expendable people will rise up to terrorize us.

In order to heal this schism, we must reconcile with the shadow. It will require us to collect up all the forgotten, orphaned, disowned, disgusting and estranged parts of ourselves...and bring them back home. All that we have denied and disdained must be held with equal love. Only then can we transmute the lower nature into higher forms. Integration of the poles of our experience is the path toward wholeness.

We are all necessary in this collective healing process since "the only true battle is the one that rages inside" of us, says my friend Valerie Andrewlevich in her poem below. This battle requires a new kind of weapon: a fierce love and tireless compassion for ourselves and everyone around us. Valerie's poem inspired me this week. I thought I would share it with you and as a humble offering to Ms. Bhutto and those who loved her.

The One True Battle (by Valerie Andrewlevich)

At the end of her epic,
She stands on the mountaintop
In her bare feet
Feels the cool hard rock
And the warm soft moss

Her spear in hand,
She reflects on her journey
Crossing the seven seas,
Vanquishing her enemies,
Encounters with dragons,
Affairs with tormented lovers.

She bows her head.
Gives a little nod in gratitude
For all this.

Then, all this begins to fade and melt away.

It is quiet,
Save for the soft wind blowing in the billowing trees
And the bird that calls through the thicket.

She realizes the only true battle is the one that rages inside her.

And that this will require a new kind of weapon.

She must cultivate deep, abiding love and compassion.

She lifts her head, turns her gaze to the horizon.

It is the beginning of a new kind of tale.

Come back for more from Stacey Lawson every Monday in 2008.

Comments

[jeskiley]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I don't think our shadows have anything to do with Mrs. Bhutto's death, and I'm as symbolically inclined as they get. The junk hiding in the periphery has more to do with the fact that murder is a natural part of the process in neighboring companies, um countries. We haven't quite figured out how to protest effectively. Say all you want about the corruption and crime in our own government...we don't go about murdering each other in the quest for achieving our vision. Deadly sins and noble truths, you can't deny.

[stellanoir]

I couldn't agree with you more.

Right after 9/11, I crafted a piece wherein I posited that the first law of energetics suggests that conflict does not occur in the absence of mutually shared culpability. Ideally, conflict only occurs in order to raise consciousness and that (insert valley girl speak here) "good guys and bad guys are like. . . totally low dimensional." It was remarkably well received in some circles.

Then like most of us, I've had to endure the grueling unenlightened ramblings of our fearful leader's "evil doers" and "axis of evil" idiocy and bellicosity. His acute blindness to his shadow is really quite astonishing, especially when he repeatedly says, "they will be brought to justice" as if he even grasps what that could possibly be beyond murder, incarceration, and/or torture.

So I often wonder about what imbalance in each and every one of us created such an eventuality of extreme "misleadership" and sanctioned sadism. Restitution and reparations anyone. . .?

On other sites I've written often about how I marvel over the level of vitriol and hatred spewed at this administration. Although I too loathe the policies that have eroded much of what was for the most part, inherently fair and good about our nation, I can't help but pity the ultimate karmic plight of petty tyrants.

Furthermore, I can't help but wonder if that vitriol and hatred is a tonic for those in power upon which they thrive, and whether it's only ultimately energetically sustained them in their positions for a longer period of time.

Love and compassion are truly the transcendent antidotes for such things but it sure is a challenge to persuade those who are wedded to intractable dualism of that truth.

Are you aware of this site. . .?

http://www.zerolimits.info/

It's really quite uplifting IMHO.

Thank you for your contributions and Happy Soon to be Gregorian New Year to you and yours.

[JimReed]

"By definition, it is not easy to see that which is in the shadow. It is outside of our peripheral vision."

Not easy, but if you spend a lifetime looking you might make some progress. The United States of America responded to the problem of teen sex and cross border illegal abortion by making abortion legal. Christianity responded by becoming political, and the Republicans responded by offering promises for votes. The rich used their positions to direct the national conversation and convinced us if they became more rich they would trickle on us. The world's population became too large to satisfy whithout painful concessions, so it was decided to temporarily set aside issues of poverty and the environment and lock down control for the good of conservative values. WOT was the easiest way to accomplish this. If it doesn't work it might reduce the population to a more managable level, and then issues of poverty and environment will be easier.

You can look at your own sins, but until you can see outside your peripheral vision you will never see the problem. That is why we need huffingtonpost.