Taking Care of the Whole (person, community)

Dear readers,

Here is an excerpt from a proposal prepared for the Reverence for Life University initiative in Jamaica - the 4th "R" initiative.

As Wallace D. Wattles so clearly stated, in The Science of Getting Rich (1910),

“Those who do not quite fill their present places are dead weight upon society, government, commerce, and industry; they must be carried along by others at a great expense.” (Wattles 1910).

An analogy for an individual that then could extend to communities, nations and the world might be that if a person was to only take care of half of his body (if that could be done): to literally not feed it, bath it or take any efforts to assist it to be a healthy partner to the other half of his body. One can easily imagine how healthy or happy that person might be, dragging around a half dead body.

This may seem to be a ridiculous analogy because there is no way that a person could only sustain half his body. However, is the analogy that ridiculous? If we extend the analogy to the world only about ½ of the world’s population has access to clean water. That would seem to be the most basic human right, but one half of our “body” or “collective being” is not getting the most basic needs fulfilled. Now, if we take this hypothetical situation and extend it to any other “body” that exists in the human condition – a community, a nation, the world, wouldn’t the actions of leaving behind and not caring for a significant portion of the system denigrate the whole?

Throughout human history we can see that this has been the case. Take the civil war in the United States, what was the result of the two halves of the nation fighting – tremendous strife and suffering. An endless number of examples could be cited. And currently, if one looks from this perspective across the globe, one can easily observe this “ailing body” syndrome. Dis-ease (allegorically used) is rife, poverty and human blight are ubiquitous, and extremely denigrated environmental conditions exist in every corner of the globe.

The solution to this dilemma seems to evade us. Yet as one looks in another place, in the lives of some awakened people, there seems to be great harmony, peace, prosperity and abundance. Is the solution so elusive and difficult that only a few can utilize and implement it? No! And this truth is well established in literature and spiritual traditions that has come to us throughout the ages. The solution is clearly stated in Wattles’s book, to move from the
competitive to the creative, or to awaken.

Now the challenge appears to be to identify why “the masses” are not able to grasp or get access to the tools by which to improve their condition. We believe Wattles addresses this in his book somewhat indirectly. The word “Rich” appears to rankle people, or maybe more accurately causes fear. Wattles is specifically referring to money in his book, but is also addressing the idea of abundant living in the form of “improved lives”.

All the Best! - Andy