No Human Enemies
The following is from a talk given at the Allies to Muslims Workshop, on Zoom, in November 2020.
We can say with complete confidence that there are no inherent conflicts among humans. And we can say that there are no human enemies. It can be hard to take on [realize] the significance of this. It is a revolutionary thought.
This idea, that there are no human enemies, can change our understanding of the past and everything about the future.
We know that no human is the enemy of another human. We know that all of us humans are on the same side, that we have the same interests, that the way all humans naturally feel about each other (in the absence of distress) is love.
The whole concept of “enemy” is a lie. It’s a fabrication. It’s fiction.
Humans are not each other’s enemies.
All the problems that we are facing in the world—poverty, wars, racism, other oppression, destruction of the environment—are caused by distress patterns installed on humans. They are not caused by any so-called enemy.
But it is in the (patterned) interest of those in power, those who would continue to oppress and exploit us, for us to believe these problems are caused by our enemies. They tell us we have enemies. They manipulate our distresses so we believe we have enemies and will work alongside the oppressors to wipe them out [destroy them]. This is essential to the workings of an oppressive, exploitative society. Unfortunately, our early distresses set us up [predispose us] to be manipulated in this way.
We know that humans are vulnerable to emotional hurts. From thousands of years of getting hurt and not having access to discharge, we carry huge loads of distress, some of which we have pinned on others. Often we mistakenly believe the feelings and messages of the distress and blame others for our difficult situations. We need good counseling to help us work on the early hurts, and drain the confusion, so we can see the reality of the situation.
Most of us are unable to fight the battles in our minds (against the recordings left by distress), so we try to fight them in the present, believing they are about the present. Supported by the messages we get in our societies, we mistakenly designate some people as our enemies.
Anyplace in our minds where we feel another human is separate from us, or an enemy, or inferior to us—anyplace where we write someone off [dismiss someone as worthless]—is distress.
In our early life, every one of us was forced to accept separation from others and then accept that some people are enemies. We fought against this but eventually gave up and accepted it.
We can work on the separation as the mechanism by which we are manipulated into believing there are “others” and enemies.
We have a splendid opportunity to eliminate the distress that was installed on our minds to make us feel separate from others and agree to being antagonistic toward them, agree that there are human enemies.
The real problems are the social conditions, the lack of access to the discharge process, and a perspective that is not aligned with reality.
We have the opportunity to oppose the idea of enemies. We can oppose irrationality in the present. None of us want to be trapped in the past. We want to use our brilliant thinking to come up with [create] flexible, intelligent solutions so that no group of people is targeted for destruction.
Let’s clarify our perspective, that there are no enemies, and think of how to spread it in the world.
In your mini-sessions, work on your earliest memories connected to enemies. Who were you told were your enemies? Who told you that? How did it feel to be told that your people have enemies?
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members
(Present Time 202, January 2021)