If you want to know the untold history of the U.S.A., then a good place to start is with the history of US imperialism in Asia from the mid-19th century until today. Not only will that reveal the history of the criminality of US foreign policy, but it will also reveal the true nature of U.S. capitalism, imperialism, fascism and U.S. wars of aggression: past, present and future.
For centuries the U.S. has preached that it believes in democracy, freedom and self-determination, but its actions towards other countries speak louder than words. Internationally the U.S. is a predator and a bully. It subjugates small countries, corrupts them by backing right-wing dictators, and enables death squads to commit mass murder of all suspected dissidents. During the First Cold War leftists, anti-colonialists, nationalists and intellectuals were called “communists” and imprisoned, tortured and executed. Now they are called “terrorists”.
The foreign policy interests of the U.S. are to promote the neocolonial interests of U.S. corporations, and to project the financial and military power of the U.S. internationally. If the U.S. cannot bully a head of state into collaborating then it backs a military coup d’etat, stirs up internal violence with divide and conquer strategies, and covertly uses mercenaries to start civil wars. If all else fails it will find a pretext or a false flag to invade and overthrow an unfriendly government.
Off-Guardian
Missing from the geopolitical, economic and religious debate is an understanding of human nature. This leads to interpretation of our human problems in terms of the former categories, instead of in human terms. If a problem cannot be framed correctly, then how can it be solved? Most human problems begin with the mind. If human thinking creates our problems, then human thinking is going to have to stop doing that. Using the same tool to solve the problems as the one that creates the problems, is problematic, to say the least. The wheel of revenge and acquisition never stops turning. First of all, we should frame the problem correctly.
ReplyDeleteLook around the planet. No one knows (at least in Western thinking) how mind comes to exist; how consciousness IS - or its extent throughout Nature? Why, in humans, there is a sense of individuality and an ‘I’ exists? And yet personality warfare rages within the species, carried as we are, as if on an ocean of warring energies. There are vague theories about atoms rubbing together; a personified God creating new souls at each birth, preordained as elite or dammed; a heaven or star from which we fell like so much fairy dust; metempsychoses; and the doctrine of a universal soul, each personality being strung like a bead on one thread of its fabric, the essential monad travelling through all of the kingdoms in Nature. In other words – global ignorance – which should at least presage a little humility.
Perhaps extant in the ‘I’ of a simple peasant farmer, but not in the ‘I’ of someone who rules a whole country, commands a deadly army and arsenal of weapons that could end life as we know it on earth. It’s what goes on in the minds of these people that defines what happens to the rest of us – and this because we do not assert our will. I think we do not assert our will because we do not see plainly Life’s choices before us. Hence we should make this as clear as possible to ourselves and if true, to everyone.
With mind comes consciousness and with consciousness comes choice. Within human nature dwells two natures, diametrically opposed. Do you not find them in yourself? If mind and the ‘I’ are captured by the lower nature, then the consciousness is caught up in a whirlpool of emotion and ideology, spiralling down into the materiality, selfishness and passions of the animal depths, from which we struggle to evolve and free ourselves. We left the jungle in order to become ‘civilised’. But greed still rules our world. If mind and the ‘I’ aspire to the higher nature, then the consciousness spirals upward and out, redeeming the soil of our animality and bursting forth into the light and creativity of all that is noble in the human heart and mind. The Self of a human being becomes evident and its light dawns. The heart opens and it is clearly seen, that consciousness too, evolves. There are two wolves that dwell within every human being – all depends on which one we feed. This inner duality sub stands everything happening in the personality life. The world is the surface battleground. People get caught up in the issues, but not the deeper reality; and as grains when transformed make the loaf, the nations are us. Look in the mirror and look out at the world and acknowledge. Human history is the struggle to become conscious; to align ourselves with our higher nature and forego the lower. Life is very simple.
This reality should be the headline subject of our human ‘News’ story – taught in every school, background to every human action. Humans are intelligent beings, evolved enough to dream up any material support system, any political and economic system they like. Its generosity will ever, reflect the inner battle that spills out into the world.
Nature dictates that these two wolves will fight for control over us and that the outcome is dependent on which one we choose. Let ‘I’s who rule this world justify their actions on the basis of this choice. The real human strength is in choice. And if you don’t assert your sovereign Will, how else will the loaf change?
I hope one day we eventually evolve into an enlightened species.
DeleteFrom the Eastern viewpoint, history is not linear with "progress" as the driving force as the West supposes.
ReplyDeleteEarly Greek thought (philosophy) can be read in terms of the Eastern POV. Plato refers to a succession of ages, golden, silver, bronze and iron. In the Eastern view this repeats and are also sub-cycles on this pattern in the longer cycles. So there are periods of enlightenment which then degrade down to moronic and demonic. Then the cycle begins again as the nadir of an iron age is replace by the apex of a new golden age.
How does the iron age get replaced by a golden age. Through a "phase transition" that eliminates the dross through destruction, so that the new can emerge.
IN the Vedic system of cycles of time — the four yugas — the unit is the length of the shortest, Kali Yuga or the iron age in the system above. The unit of the long cycle is 425,000 solar years. The next cycle is 2x425,000, and so on to the last at 4x.
I was just reading something interesting about recent findings on cycles by Martin Armstrong, whose take is based on study of cycles. Read him since I am interested in cycles, too.
The Complexity & Fractal Nature of Nature/
They have determined that there is an approximate 405,000-year cycle in the shape of the Earth’s orbit that shifts from almost perfectly circular to slightly elliptical. There are complex interactions between the planets Venus and Jupiter, which then distort the orbit of the Earth even more. Scientists have been able to trace this back to about 50 million years. Because there are so many variables, it all becomes very difficult to extend their research further back in time.
The Precession of the Equinox really works out to be 25,800 years, which is three times 8.6. This frequency comes from something and that is most likely nature. I would bet that instead of a 405,000-year cycle, it is probably 430,000 years.
Coincidence perhaps.
In Eastern systems, the 25,800 year cycle based on precession is also related to the sub-cycles within longer cycles.
I would bet that instead of a 405,000-year cycle, it [Precession of the Equinoxes] is probably 430,000 years.
ReplyDeleteRight! It is interesting to read and never lose sight of the modern view on planetary cycles; but also interesting for me at least, to wander off into the journey of the monad through cycles of globes, rounds and races, in the volumes of Blavatsky and the Tibetan; the physical body of man therein, evolving on astral and etheric globes, a colossal pre-tertiary giant some 18,000,000 years ago, before being quickened by the gift of atma-buddhi-manas and descending to the fourth globe of the round, the physical earth; the apes descendant from the ‘unlawful’ conjoining of these. Kali Yuga here is assigned 4,320,000 years and over each Yuga preside a Manu, and over the Maha-Yuga; behind the scenes those who work consciously with evolution and not against it. From such a vantage point the world today is but a dream; science picking resolutely at the frayed edges of the material fabric; the political, economic and religious life, theatre in expression, imperfect reality in essence. All is energy. But this leads us off the pages of the modern mind-set and precludes what can be done now, practically, today; and what can be understood and experienced.
The human heart understands peace, as soon as it feels it; and it carries the person straight to a place inside, where the Self can be known. ‘What you are looking for is already inside of you’– that is the promise of peace. We already are an enlightened species, if we would just open our eyes. This knowledge-of-self will fulfil you where nothing else in this existence is able. It will eventually yield to you, your essence. That in itself is momentous. Consciousness of the self makes opaque the personality life. This, backed up by experience, not words. Strangely, it will make of you a better engineer or architect or priest or Buddhist monk or retiree (I have seen this), because you will do things with a better focus. It is a key.
I see very practically in this world, despite the cycles, even in Kali Yuga when the personality of man is incredibly distracted, self-knowledge is possible - self-knowledge can be and is being taught; a focus is possible and therefore peace is possible. The cycles can wait awhile .... they have been around forever and won’t mind a bit.
Correction. Above I wrote 425,000 from memory, which is incorrect. The correct figure is 432,000 years for Kali yuga in the Vedic system of reckoning time.
ReplyDelete1. Kali yuga - 432,000 (solar) years
2. Dwapara yuga = 2 Kali yugas - 864,000 years
3. Treta yuga = 3 Kali yugas - 1,296,000 years
4. Sat yuga = 44 Kali yugas - 1,728,000 years
Maha yuga = Cycle of the four yugas (Chatur yuga) = 10 Kali yugas - 4, 320,000 years
Manvantara = 71 Maha yugas (plus a few additional years) = 306,720,000 years
14 Manvantaras = 1 kalpa (1 day of Brahma)
2 Kalpas = 1 day + 1 Brahma night
360 days of Brahma = 1 Brahma varsha
The looong cycle.
OOps! Apologies, as I read the wrong line for Kali Yuga as Tom points out!
ReplyDeleteBlavatsky too assigns 432,000 years to Kali Yuga, beginning 1887 and the rest of Tom's figures align. If interested scroll down to [[Vol. 2, Page]] 68 THE SECRET DOCTRINE here: Chronology of the Brahmins