Abandonment

This is an interesting blog. We were contacted by a listener who wanted us to talk about abandonment in terms of being excluded from a group. In her case this was religious group. Having grown up in a Jehovah Witness family she decided that it did not work for her and she decided to leave the church. The result for her, as often happens is that once you leave the faith you are also then abandoned and often ostracised by the entire group or faith.

Years ago I had my own brush with the Moonies, or Unification Church. Their claim was that their leader, the reverend Sung Young Moon, was the second Messiah. They had written their own book of the word that was inspired by God that they saw as the New, New Testament called The Divine Principle. The punch line was that Mr Moon was the second coming predicted in the old New Testament. Having met Mr Moon in the flesh I felt that anyone less like a Messiah I had yet to meet. Saying that I have never met a messiah so who am I to judge.

Anyway, I decided that it was time to go, not such an easy thing to do. I was told by those that I had arrived with that it was the Devil in my soul that stopped me seeing the divinity of Mr Moon. They stayed and I left. In leaving I was no longer one of ‘Us’ and was now one of ‘Them’, the heathen non believers. Like our listener I was then abandoned.

Why have we been abandoned?
It is all down to core beliefs. People gather together in groups that are similar. The groups may be sport, racial, sexual, religious, political, socio-economic, academic, ethnic, the list goes on. When we create a culture of ‘us and them’ we loose the magic variety that is creation. We limit our experience and our knowledge, we become confined and inward looking. Most negatively we create prejudice in our unfounded beliefs in what ‘they’ are like because they are different to ‘us’.

When all is one there is nothing to abandon
What attracted me to Ayurvedic and Sankhya philosophy is that there is no ‘us and them’ because all of creation is one thing. It is as though the entire universe of creation is a gigantic jigsaw and that every idea or philosophy that there ever is, is simply just another piece in the jigsaw, another part of the picture.

If you are truly my family and if I see strangers as family that we have yet to get to know then we are approaching the one-ness that is creation. The divisions of ‘us and them and need to build walls, actual or metaphorical to keep them out leads to never ending conflict, pain and suffering. If the whole picture is of the oneness of creation do we also include all sentient beings as ‘us’.”

Peter Singer, author of ‘Animal Liberation’ said, If I could make everyone in the world see one film,
I’d make them see EARTHLINGS.”

EARTHLINGS is a 2005 American documentary film about humankind’s total dependence on animals for economic purposes. Presented in five chapters (pets, food, clothing, entertainment and scientific research) the film is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, featuring music by Moby, and was written, produced and directed by Shaun Monson.
http://www.nationearth.com/earthlings-1/

If you can bear to watch Earthlings it might expand your ideas about abandonment.

Be happy and look after each other

Sean x

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