I am listening to a Syrian refugee talk about her situation having reached the island of Kos. She is alone with her son; her wish is to give him a good life where he will live in freedom and receive an education.
She says she hasn’t showered for two months and she has one other set of clothes to alternate with while somehow cleaning the dirty set. She has made this journey for her son. She is feeling very bleak in this situation (living in a tent empty except for one cover which is for her son at night) but she also clings to hope of a better life. She wants to live in Norway as she has heard they look after children well there. At the end of the interview we are told she has reached Germany.
I am sitting with tears wetting my cheeks; like many others I am finding it only too easy to empathise. I could be one of those. I imagine myself leaving my home with just one change of clothes, holding on fast to a hope that others will be kind to me and understand my plight.
My heart aches as I recognise this universal quest for freedom from the tyranny of brutish and ignorant behaviour. Such negative and life destroying measures occur everywhere however; they are sourced from that demon called ENVY. This demon works along very simple lines; I see you have something which I don’t have so I will make you feel very very bad by attacking your peace of mind in every way I can so that I can then feel better/ stronger/more powerful than you. This kind of thinking is present at all levels, from an individual to a political or religious system.
To be schmaltzy, a kind heart along with clear thinking is what makes the world a good place to inhabit.
“Only when the brain has cleansed itself of its conditioning, greed, envy, ambition, then only it can comprehend that which is complete.
Love is this completeness.”
[Krishnamurti “Notebook”]
