The Sheep Strike Again

When I wrote in the last post about the tendency of us humans to follow each other like sheep, I didn't know that such a typical, though potentially tragic, example would present itself a few days later.

What has happened is that the BBC, the public broadcasting corporation here in the UK, has refused to broadcast an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (the DEC, an association of thirteen British charities) for contributions to humanitarian aid to Gaza. It cites two reasons for this extraordinary decision:

1) Concerns that the aid would be unable to get through to where it is needed, an argument which has already been dismissed as nonsense by the British government.

2) The BBC would apparently run the risk of 'reducing public confidence in its impartiality' if it carried the appeal.

The BBC's decision has already been attacked by senior government politicians, religious leaders, and senior members of its own staff, who have pointed out that this is a humanitarian issue, not a political one. It is not about which side is right or wrong in the conflict. It is about saving lives.

But in spite of all this, at the time of writing, the BBC has refused to change its decision.

Now, you might argue that this is the very opposite of sheep-like behavior. The BBC is resolutely staying in its field, in spite of the fact that everybody else is heading through the fence. But we have to look a little more deeply at what is going on here.

In recent months, the BBC has been subjected to persistent criticism by what might best be described as those of a conservative disposition here in the UK, exemplified most vociferously - and some might say ludicrously - by the Jonathan Ross affair, which I described in an earlier post. In the wake of this incident, in which 35,000 people were persuaded by the conservative newspaper the Daily Mail to complain about a radio program which most of them hadn't heard, the BBC has become extremely wary and sensitive to criticism. Staff report that a 'risk averse' culture has developed in the organization. You can imagine senior managers studying the latest edition of the Daily Mail before making programming decisions.

Add to this the fact that a particular area in which complaints have been made in recent weeks is the BBC's supposedly pro-Palestinian bias in its Gaza coverage (a so-called 'bias' which has somehow passed me by) and you can start to see why the decision to say 'no' to the DEC appeal might have been made. Further add in that the decision to reject the appeal was made on the same day that Jonathan Ross returned from his three month ban in the wake of October's scandal - to the accompaniment of howls of protest from the Daily Mail - and the whole thing starts to have a kind of surreal logic to it. The BBC is so busy watching its back - 'coming from fear' as we put it - that it is starting to make bizarre, sheep-like decisions. This would be almost funny if it wasn't so potentially tragic. The BBC's decision is likely to lead to a shortfall of millions of pounds worth of aid in Gaza. People are going to suffer because of it.

The Gaza-Ross connection may seem a ludicrous one, but I am not the only one to make it. Marina Hyde at the Guardian expands on the theory in this excellent article. She even brings in Chaos Theory, the butterfly wings behind this particular phenomenon being those lewd phone calls which were made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand all those months ago. She writes: 'what seemed like good sport in a slow news week in October may compound the most unimaginable suffering in January'. Grotesquely, people in Gaza may die because of a message left on an answerphone in England.

Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Am I getting into conspiracy theories instead of spirituality? Or am I going to combine the two and start writing about seven foot lizards like David Icke? Well, no please, that is not my intention. I'm not trying to get you hooked into this drama I'm describing. I'm not trying to get your blood pressure up. It's just that, well, there are waves of energy around at the moment. We see one in America, the wonderful tide which has swept Obama into power - and I suppose I feel a bit bad that a wave which seems to me to be a lot less wholesome, which is rooted in fear and anger rather than love, seems to be holding sway in my own country. Perhaps I am exaggerating the situation, but I have always seen the BBC as a benevolent force, a force for truth, and if this great tide of so-called 'opinion', with the Daily Mail as Chief Sheep, has led it to make such a ludicrous, foolhardy, and potentially tragic decision as this, then what's going to happen next?

Recently, on this blog, my favorite spiritual Rottweiler, Sue Ann Edwards has been taking me to task for encouraging people to use intention to influence world events. To be honest, this sort of thing isn't the principal focus of The Secret Of Life, my primary interest being our own personal development, but Lynne McTaggart's Intention Experiment and Marianne Williamson's recent blog post both appealed to me as being worthy of your attention. Sue Ann, however, believes that this sort of thing is all attempted mind control and is counter-productive. If you have a bit of time to spare, you can read our discussion here. I'm partially persuaded by Sue Ann's arguments but I personally feel that it's not about whether we should do intention experiments and the like but exactly how we do them that's important. I hope to discuss this in more detail in a future post - when I've recovered from Sue Ann's recent mauling! - but as another favorite blogger of mine, Grace from The Wild Pomegranate puts it: 'love is never the wrong answer'. And perhaps that is what we should focus on whatever we do: whether we're looking at world events or going within ourselves to confront our deepest fears, if we're coming from love, we are on the right track.

Like I say, there are waves around at the moment. It's not up to me to start another one, but if we all feel free to be ourselves, to follow our wisdom, follow our hearts, then perhaps some of the madness will fall away.

So with this in mind, I ask you to consider complaining to the BBC about their refusal to carry the DEC broadcast (even if you don't live in the UK, you may still be one of their 'customers', using the BBC's broadcasts or their web site), donating to the DEC's Gaza appeal (or to your own local charities who are working in that area) or using the Ho'opnopono techniques I've described here to 'clean' the issues I've been writing about in this post. I've mentioned Ho'oponopono in particular here because it's not about trying to control anyone else - it's all about healing the parts of ourselves which have contributed to the events we see in the world.

But of course, you won't do any of these things just because I say so. You will only do what your own inner wisdom, your heart, tells you to do. I didn't have to tell you that, did I? You knew it already.

Comments

[Monica Who]

Greetings! I was very pleased to discover your blog today. Your posts are well written and your blog's design is professional and user-friendly. I wanted to let you know that I've subscribed and will be including you in my weekly blog feature, The Saturday Blogs Review. You will find your review and link at http://www.monicawho.com/psychicblog.html on February 7, 2009. Keep up the great work!

[People in the Sun]

I haven't seen any of the BBC coverage, so I can't comment about that, but I did see an Israeli comedy show skit making fun of the supposedly leftist BBC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWcAawkvM0

So without seeing the actual coverage, I have to guess that you're right, and that the BBC has been criticized until it caved in.

[Liara Covert]

Human beings are not always meant to explain or understand the gestures or resistence of other human beings. If a situation evokes negative emotions, then you could decide to learn not to give away your inner power or inner peace.

[Simon]

Thank you very much for your encouragement, Monica. I'm glad you like my blog!

[Simon]

Thanks for your comment, People. It's interesting to see this perspective. We don't get BBC Worldwide TV here in Britain but speaking for the BBC reports on Gaza that I've seen, I can't remember one that didn't also mention the danger the Israelis themselves have been under. Certainly, the emphasis has been on the suffering of the Palestinians, but it seems to me that this has been in proportion to events on the ground.

In the end, I suspect (or perhaps it is *hope*) that all the publicity about the BBC's rejection of the DEC appeal may have brought in as many donations as if the appeal had actually been broadcast.

[Simon]

I'm working on not getting caught up in the drama of life, Liara. As you can tell from this post, I am sometimes more successful than others! It is one thing to accept 'negative' events in one's own life, but it is sometimes harder to accept what happens to others, especially when it is so extreme.

Is it indeed even desirable not to react to injustice? On the one hand, I am aware that such reactions only lead to further injustices and stoke the flames of conflicts such as that in the Middle East. Indeed, they are the very stuff of such conflict. On the other hand, not to react at all seems aloof: semi-detached from humanity.

I think the ideal is feel the emotion, take action, and so release the emotion, so that the whole thing is like watching a dark cloud scurrying by across the sun. From where I am right now, that seems like a difficult act to manage. But when we are in touch with that inner power of which you speak, Liara, it is effortless.

Many thanks for your comment.

[gypsy-heart]

I am not familiar with the BBC coverage either.

I do know that I agree with what Grace said. Also, I am really trying to put into practice Liara's suggestion. :)

Thank you for another interesting and insightful post.

[Simon]

Thanks gypsy-heart - Yes, Grace and Liara both do cut through to the simplicity of things, don't they? My blog has been getting very complicated recently! I've enjoyed the discussions, but the mind can get too caught up in it all...

[Grace]

SIMON! My brother in Conspiracy! :) I just wrote about my own theories this morning, before coming here. GMTA, huh? (Great Minds Think Alike! LOL)

Hey...thanks for mentioning me here :)

Oh, Simon...thank GOD that we still have other forms of media and communication to fall back on. Sometimes I feel like our blogs are a bit like the Drums of the native Americans of long ago....we'll just have to do our best to get the word out on our own!

[Simon]

Hi Grace - And I was over there commenting on your blog while you were over here! Great minds again... It's interesting that according to a quick Google last night, the item you wrote about on your blog (re. personal information on electronic chips in the big new US economic bill) seemed to be highlighted by various blogs but not by any 'mainstream' news sites. So either it's a hoax (which I suspect it isn't) or the news media have missed something which may mean a lot more to the public at large than they realize. Keep on sounding those drums...

[Liara Covert]

Simon, when you feel compelled to react and judge, it can be helpful to consider how certain people respond to pain, suffering and hardship. Consider the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Gandhi and other people who evolves to become alert and yet non-reactive. Admittedly, this requires a level of mental discipline and self-control. However, to view your own emotional reaction from an observer perspective is meaningful too. This is another opportunity to gain insight into yourself. Some people believe this is the point.

[Ribbon]

I like your blog.

Best wishes & I hope that you are well :-)

[Simon]

Thanks Liara. I guess my observing is coming on nicely. The non-reacting is taking a little more time!

Eckhart Tolle describes observing the beginnings of emotions as they coming into being so that they never actually develop. I guess that's how it was for Gandhi et al. While MSI (who who taught a form of meditation called Ascension) was said to register emotions on his face literally like clouds of light and darkness darting across the sky: angry then calm, happy then calm again, each emotion lasting for only moments. It seems to me that the most important thing is not to let our emotions get 'stuck'. That is when they cause the most damage. The Middle east is a hotbed of 'stuck' emotions.

[Simon]

Hi Ribbon - Thanks for dropping by and for taking the trouble to leave a comment. I'm delighted you like my blog. Best wishes to you too!

[Monica Who]

Your blog is fantastic! I wrote a review for you at http://www.monicawho.com/psychicblog.html and I would be happy to submit my review to any directories you're listed at. Keep up the great work!

Monica Who

[AngelBaby]

Awesome. I think in all of our enlightenment we forget that we do have feelings and that is what makes us human. We do need to feel our emotions, they are what guide us to what we need in our lives and to keep us on track. Emotions are energy in motion. If we decide to stop feeling we stop moving.

Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby

[Simon]

Many thanks for your kind words and for your review, Monica!

[Simon]

Hi Angelbaby - Thanks for your comment! As you point out, emotions have their purpose. They can often provide an impulse to action, as is the case with this post. When things are proceeding 'properly', it is all be about motion: 'energy in motion', as you say. It's when the motion stops but the emotions stick around that they become a problem.

[Grace]

Hey, SImon!

You're right. The issue of chipping people isn't very 'newsworthy'. Here is the manufacturers own website for some more info. http://www.verichipcorp.com/
And one of the links I provided was a youtube of an actually nightly news report of the chipping of our soldiers :)

CONGRATS on getting your blog reviewed! Woo Whoo! I'll have to go check it out!

[Simon]

Hi Grace - Yes, it's the old story. The latest celebrity scandal on page one. The invasion of brain-eating aliens from the planet Zorg on page 53.

[AngelBaby]

I forgot to tell you congratulations on your blog review. Wow!

I have something for you on my site.

Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby

[Simon]

Thanks Angelbaby - I'll be round there!

[Sue Ann Edwards]

"Bow-wow".
"Love is never a wrong answer"...how about looking at this statement in depth?
First of all, there is the Judgment, the very IDEA of "wrongness". And this is simply an expression of coming from a polarized or dualistic state of awareness, where there can be an imagined state of "right or wrong". So the perspective and statement is OFF and QUESTIONABLE to begin with. We cannot Realize nor Recognize Unity Awareness coming from polarized states.
Next, is the "love" sentiment. If this sentiment is tinged with the slightest whiff of Judgment or Fear, then it is NOT "Love".
It would DEFINITELY help matters a great deal if we realized that what many of us are calling "love", isn't Love at all. It's NEED. Need is NOT Love; it is a LACK of it. While many of us keep trying to wave a flag of "love", we're only being deluded by our own ignorance and self deceit
What I keep saying is that the emotions we are feeling do not have anything to do with "love" in the 1st place. They are ALL tied to FEAR and Judgments. This is part of our self deceit and is the biggest obstacle to our evolutionary development at this time. Simply because we have a LOT of ego issues and self image issues tied to being 'loving', when we don't even know what "Love" IS, for the most part.
The 'love' that is most often talked about, especially by us 'women', is an expression of our inner weakness, not inner strength. It is FEAR based and totally focused on preservation of our forms and not SPIRIT oriented. Just simply expressions of being emotionally insecure and unstable.
Unconditional Love is exactly that, UNCONDITIONAL. And if we think that to be challenging, then I share that Unconditional Acceptance and Unconditional Tolerance are even MORE challenging to ground, integrate and anchor.
A few years ago, the City of San Francisco voted to make begging and pandering illegal. Now what the voters expressed (and sowed), was being LACKING in: Understanding, Acceptance, Tolerance and Compassion. Now the area is "ground zero" for the mortgage meltdown, 1000's of families are now homeless.
You see how the Universe answered this call of LACK in character by providing the circumstances and conditions where opportunities to develop these qualities of character are being provided?
The phrase "releasing ourselves from all attachments" MEANS letting go of all our emotional attachments to CONDITIONS, as in, regardless of any conditions, whether those conditions are 'ugly' or 'pretty'.
It's easy to 'Love' and Accept what is 'good' and 'pretty'. Now how about learning how to expand our limits in substance and quality of character by Loving and Accepting what is horrid and ugly?
For it is our CONTINUED Response TO what we call "horrid" or "ugly" or "evil" or "bad", that is calling 'it' into Creation. Whatever we Judge, is what we call into creation to experience more of.
If we would 'see' no evil, only ignorance, there would literally be no evil. Ignorance can be corrected, while 'evil' by definition, cannot.
I keep saying that all our airy fairy "love light and sunshine" stuff, is an expression of how lacking and inept we are in our emotional coping skills. "I am Love & Light" renditions that are utterly fraudulent.
The purpose of "Love and Light" is to Illuminate the 'Darkness', not condemn it or be afraid of it. Everyone wants to be seen as "good" and of the "light", when it is being able to claim being 'evil' and 'bad' that actually reveals "the Light."
Yes, I'd heard about the BBC's decision. And I chuckled. Of course, I'm an old goat and not a sheep. I do not consider the decision either 'good' nor 'bad'. It simply Is.
It IS an expression. In this particular case, an expression of how bankrupt some of us are in terms in inner substance.
Unconditional support for Israel has been a 'given' for decades in both our nations. There are still people alive today that fear 'God' if they do not support "Jews". I *know* because I've actually met them. "The Bible says, Jews are God's chosen people. We must not harm God's chosen people or we will go to hell."
All *this* stuff is coming up and out right now, so we can get a good look at it. Maybe sheep will choose a "ewe" turn because of it and not put so much trust in 'authorities'?"

[Simon]

Thanks for this, Sue Ann. It seems to tie in well with my latest post, 'Equanimity', which should be up and running very soon.

[Sue Ann Edwards]

I've thought about how I can convey it, what I keep trying to share. It's what I mean when I say we imagine it to be 'love' but it's not. No, it's not wrong but it's also not loving, nor being loved.

As best as I know how to convey it, it's like this...

If I'm standing on my head, then down is up, and left is right. We may think left is right and down is up, but it's simply our perception of it.

When I stand up, then I see that what I called 'up' is really down. And what I thought was 'right', wasn't.

When you keep pointing 'up', I see magnification and amplification of 'down'.

And that's what I keep trying to say about what most of us have been taught Love Is and is all about. "Love" when we think of ourselves as just 'human' is a horse of a different color then is Spiritual Love, which recognizes us as Spiritual Beings, all caught up in experiencing what it is to be a human, too. We CAN'T see ourselves or any other, as any kind of helpless victim AND recognize/realize our Divine heritage at the same time.

If what we had been and have been expressing was "Love", then we wouldn't be seeing all the effects of its lack. But it's not "Love". And that's why actions based upon it have had no effects as if it were. It takes BEAUTY to tame our BEAST. Beauty has the POWER & STRENGTH of VIRTUE and that is what makes Beauty EFFECTIVE.

We have to have made it into an erect position before we really *know* up from down and right from left.

The BBC's action and attitude towards Hamas? Well...maybe that attitude has something to do with why Hamas acts and feels the way they do? How long do we expect people to be treated with a lack of respect and consideration before they get really pissed and desperate to even be heard? Like Timothy McVey, why was he silenced so quickly?

But we have to get off our 'righteous' asses, in order to see the causes of all the effects we have set into motion.

How long has it been since you watched the movie "V for Vendetta"?

I like "V" but wouldn't put up with his victim song for long. I'd point out that it was the circumstances and conditions that he expereinced that made him into the man of caliber and substance of character that he was. Like a fine sword, in admiration of the fineness and the quality of the blade, who would I be to question its making?

Well...spiritualizing a human being is much like the same process that refines dross into gold. That takes a lump of metal and fashions a fine blade.

And what human 'love' is all about, is protecting us from undergoing the process of spiritualization. "Don't hurt or disturb the lump". Like inviting Spirit into our house, desiring change but saying "don't mess up anything or change anything around".

[Simon]

Hi Sue Ann - I seem to spend so much time (apparently) arguing with you, but really I usually pretty much agree and can see the wisdom of the main thrust of what you are saying, yet I often disagree with some of the details. So it is here. So do I just nod and say 'yes, thank you' or do I get picky? I'm not always sure! But perhaps if I get back to you, I'll learn some more...

So then, I can certainly see that a lot of what we think of as love - especially romantic love - has actually little or nothing to do with love. As you say, it's all about need. Yet I think there *is* genuine love in the world: people genuinely caring for each other, sometimes in spite of 'conditions' which might erode anything less than the genuine article. It seems to me that the reason we still see the effects of lack of love in the world is because in spite of this love, there is rather more about of other emotions: anger, hate, fear etc etc...

I understand your misgivings about our attempts to send such love as we can summon up out into the world - honestly, I do - but what are we going to be sending out otherwise, and is that any better?

And why are we so intent on trying to 'fix' the world, even though people have been trying for years without success? Because most of us can't really see any alternative. *Some* of us have some kind of understanding of the need to work on ourselves, that we can only change the world by changing what is going on within, but even those of us who know that tend to lose touch with it from time to time. And it really comes back to what was said to Hercules. "Not yet... for this has not been proved". So it is with us. The things you say have *not* been proved, not to us. They resonate with me enough for me to try to follow them, but they are not yet my reality. So on the basis of this unproven theory, am I going to ignore the suffering of others? What if that theory is wrong? Look at the callous things people do in the name of other 'beliefs'? Am I going to join them?

So for the time being, I am balanced between two paths, working on the world without and the world within. That's not going to change today. It may change tomorrow. But all the time we *argue* about it, I feel it's really distracting me from what I am really interested in talking with you about, which is how to make progress on working within!

[SletleRax]

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