The Work

These are very hard times for People of Conscience

And for People of Vision.

We see our World and our nation state

on the brink of a great trouble.

Our political house is in disarray.

Millions upon millions now vote against their best interests.

Millions upon millions believe in the sanctity of the unborn

While they sanction the rightous military death of the living.

People of Conscience and People of Vision

See a World headed for Middle Eastern Oil

In the name of our most beloved of principles.

We hear Freedom and Justice used as slogans for War

Instead of the principles that will bring us real Peace.

We see the moral high ground of the American Soul

Washing away in the wastewaters of the Corporate Corpus.

People of Conscience know.

We know that Tax relief for the wealthy

is a tax on the young and on the unborn.

We know that clean air and healthy forests

do not come from polluters and loggers.

We know that the poor and the disadvantaged

will become more poor and more disadvantaged.

We know that lies are not truth.

that black is not white,

And that Truth will out.

And we know that there is Work to do.

A lot of work to do.

We must work in our communities and with our neighbors.

We must work with our friends and with those who are not.

For the only true way to defeat an enemy

Is to make him your ally.

We must work together and create new forms of social contract

that unleash our potential, our hope, and our dreams.

And we must work on ourselves,

For we must become the change we want the world to become.

Most of us are held by the idea that by discovering some single cause for man's suffering, conflict, and confusion, we shall be able to solve the many problems of life. It has become the fashion to say, "Cure the economic evils, then man's happiness and fulfillment are assured," or, "Accept some religious or philosophical idea, then peace and happiness can be made universal."

In search of single causes we not only encourage specialists but also develop experts who are ever ready to create and expound logical systems in which the thoughtless man is entrapped. You see exclusive systems or ideas for the salvation of man taking form everywhere throughout the world. We are so easily entrapped in them, thinking that this seemingly logical simplicity of single causes will help us to remove misery and confusion.

A man who gives himself over to these specialists and to the single cause finds only greater confusion and misery. He becomes a tool in the hands of experts or a willing slave of those who can readily expound the logical simplicity of a single cause.

If you deeply examine man's suffering and confusion, you will see without any doubt whatsoever that there are many causes, some complex, some simple, which we must understand thoroughly before we can free ourselves from conflict and suffering. If we desire to understand the many causes and their disturbances, we must treat life as a whole, not split it up into the mental and emotional, the economic and religious, or into heredity and environment.

For this reason we cannot hand ourselves over to specialists, who naturally are trained to be exclusive and to be concentrated in their narrow divisions. It is essential not to do this; nevertheless, unconsciously we give ourselves over to another to be guided, to be told what to do, thinking that the religious or economic expert, because of his special knowledge and achievements, can direct our individual lives. Most specialists are so trained that they cannot take a comprehensive view of life; and because we adjust our lives, our actions, to the dictates of experts, we merely create greater confusion and sorrow.

So, realizing that we cannot be slaves to experts, to teachers, to philosophers, to those people who say they have found God and who seemingly make life very simple, we should beware of them. We should seek simplicity, but in that very search we should be aware of the many illusions and delusions. J. Krishnamurti

When the Father dies,

The Son becomes a Man