ChogyamTrungpaRinpoch

1939-1987

A soul-less being has no empathy for others. Lose your empathy, and you've lost your soul.

My use of the word “empathy” here goes deeper than the concept of mere pity, as pity has a condescending connotation.

Empathizing with another does not, however, mean being a sucker; one can practice “tough-love” while being empathetic, as one would practice tough-love on onesself.

Empathy, according to my dictionary, is a complete understanding, so intimate that the feelings, thoughts, and motives of one are readily comprehended by another. I believe we are all connected at a spiritual level, but lose sight of that as we fall from spiritually by a loss of empathy; a spiritually we can regain with a growing empathy for others.

The private International Monetary/Banking, that has long had a strangle hold on our country, through its control of intelligence agencies,“our” federal government, and the mass media tries to eradicate our empathetic impulses with their movies, mores, and morals, that desensitize us to violence, torture, and killing. Their television shows and video games start their desensitization of our youth before our children reach their teens, all by design, none by happenstance.

It’s a covert war for our souls, wherein we can witness - or even perform - horrendous deeds without any objection from what was once our conscience.

There is, however, a "greater divide" in empathy, forming amongst mankind, and it is often war that triggers that divide.

War is not a gentlemanly dual between nobles, satiated with honor, it’s a license for the cowardly to commit a hundred million atrocities.

An infantry soldier’s life in combat is hard and dangerous; and everything irritates combat soldiers, from their sergeants, to their platoon leaders, to their fellow soldiers. In such a frame of mind, blowing away an innocent civilian comes rather easy at times.

And once a combat soldier kills a defenseless non-combatant, he either likes it or feels remorse. If he likes it, he kills more non-combatants, many more. If he feels remorse, he's still likely to kill more non-combatants to anesthetized or deaden his feelings of moral anguish for having initially killed an innocent human being. In either case, such wanton killing is encouraged by "command intention," from above, for a variety of reasons; but mainly, it's done to spread the contagion of universal madness: a soulless world without empathy.

And once a soldier kills enough old women and children, he has no more empathy for life; he’d shoot a stray dog for kicks.

And soon, the mad soldier’s reality becomes a consensus reality that transmits to other soldiers; then the contagion spreads throughout the Middle East, and even hops broad oceans, and non-combat zones become insane themselves by a lack of empathy.

In such mad societies, Israeli citizens justify burning alive Palestinian children, while US republicans still support Bush's torture and murder of about two million innocents. Many democrats simply overlook President Obama's expanded wars and tortures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, and thus forfeit their souls. Now those same people will justify or even deny all other governmental crimes as they are heavily invested in them emotionally, with their lack of empathy.

A lack of empathy blinds human beings to justice, liberty, decency, and personal discernment, rendering them soulless - a major reason for all wars – as such soulless beings are easily enslaved. You see they are already enslaved.

The spirit of liberty is reflected by how well we respect the rights of others: Let no being ever be tortured, no matter the screaming justifications for abuse from the dark hellions headed toward oblivion.

J. Speer-Williams

jsw4@mac.com

March 10, 2010