Global Corona vaccine tragedy. Wars. Climate change, carbon tax. Fake news.
Corporate fascism. Rise of AI. Hunger. Loneliness. Epidemic of stress... and
many more things causing disturbance and a feeling of being helpless and lost
amongst many.
The face of hunger in Canada is real, the numbers are here. Year 2023:
Number of Visits - There was a total of 1,935,911 visits to food banks across Canada in March 2023 – up 32%.
Children - 33% of food banks users in Canada are children, while only representing 20% of the population.
Singles - 43.8% of food banks users in Canada are single adult households, while representing 29.3% of the population.
Seniors - Seniors represent 8% of Canadian food banks users, with the rate of increase far out-pacing other age groups.
Social Assistance - 42.4% of Canadian food banks users are on social assistance or disability-related supports as their main source of income.
Employed - 1 in 6 of those accessing food banks in Canada are employed.
I don't know if the world as it is now, is just a beginning or an end. This is
my observation. It is so difficult not getting involved in appearance... it is
a hard thing to swallow. When I start thinking about our word at present time
I try to remember...
I AM THAT by Maharaj Nisargadatta
Questioner: Every morning I pick up the newspaper and read with dismay that
the world's sorrows -- poverty, hatred and wars -- continue unabated. My
questions are concerning the fact of sorrow, the cause, the remedy. Don't
brush me off saying that it is Buddhism! Don't label me. Your insistence on
causelessness removes all hope of the world ever changing.
Maharaj: You are confused, because you believe that you are in the world, not
the world in you. Who came first -- you or your parents? You imagine that you
were born at a certain time and place, that you have a father and a mother, a
body and a name. This is your sin and your calamity! Surely you can change
your world if you work at it. By all means, work. Who stops you? I have never
discouraged you. Causes or no causes, you have made this world and you can
change it.
Q: A causeless world is entirely beyond my control.
M: On the contrary, a world of which you are the only source and ground is
fully within your power to change. What is created can be always dissolved and
re-created. All will happen as you want it, provided you really want it.
Q: All I want to know is how to deal with the world's sorrows.
M: You have created them out of your own desires and fears, you deal with
them. All is due to your having forgotten your own being. Having given reality
to the picture on the screen, you love its people and suffer for them and seek
to save them. It is just not so. You must begin with yourself. There is no
other way. Work, of course. There is no harm in working.
Q: Your universe seems to contain every possible experience. The individual
traces a line through it and experiences pleasant and unpleasant states. This
gives rise to questioning and seeking, which broaden the outlook and enable
the individual to go beyond his narrow and self-created world limited and
self-centered. This personal world can be changed -- in time. The universe is
timeless
and perfect.
M: To take appearance for reality is a grievous sin and the cause of all
calamities. You are the all- pervading, eternal and infinitely creative
awareness -- consciousness. All else is local and temporary. Don't forget what
you are. In the meantime work to your heart's content. Work and knowledge
should go hand in hand.
Q: My own feeling is that my spiritual development is not in my hands. Making
one's own plans and carrying them out leads no where. I just run in circles
round myself. When God considers the fruit to be ripe, He will pluck it and
eat it. Whichever fruit seems green to Him will remain on the world's tree for
another day.
M: You think God knows you? Even the world He does not know.
Q: Yours is a different God. Mine is different. Mine is merciful. He suffers
along with us.
M: You pray to save one, while thousands die. And if all stop dying, there
will be no space on earth
Q: I am not afraid of death. My concern is with sorrow and suffering. My God
is a simple God and rather helpless. He has no power to compel us to be wise.
He can only stand and wait.
M: If you and your God are both helpless, does it not imply that the world is
accidental? And if it is. the only thing you can do is to go beyond it.
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