Why live in a self-organizing community?
Tom Osher
February 26 at 2:03 PM
There may be many reasons people choose to live in community, I would like to tell you why I choose to live this way. Honestly, it seems easier to live as an individual, couple, or family outside of a community. I choose to live in a community for spiritual and personal growth, for the infinite possibilities that a community makes available, and the joy of cooperation, collaboration, and belonging.
To live in community one should know that one serves oneself best by serving others, that is, by serving the community. By having a strong commitment to the community, one is continually cultivating the identity of "we" as opposed to "me". And this "we" which is identifying oneself with the community, needs to spread beyond the community, to include the whole human family, as this is the paradigm of the future if humanity is to overcome the blocks and obstacles that keep us in our current dystopia and path towards extinction.
Living in a materialistic world where everything has a price, everything is commercialized, where "profit is the bottom line" has the effect of reducing life to a very shallow, minimalistic level that creates a deeply superficial culture, the opposite of what one might sometime find amongst indigenous people untainted by civilization. Even spirituality is commercialized and one may find people who have all the trappings of wisdom and spirituality, false, because real spirituality, in this view, is to deepen one's humanity. It has to do with how one relates to others and to all of nature, to be grounded, humble, to be deeply caring, and to be devoted to life and the welfare of all beings, while perhaps maintaining and upbeat, light-hearted attitude.
The smug, arrogant, seemingly self-assured, "wise", often dangerous people who find themselves in positions of power seem to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. These people are usually gifted in one or many areas and what happens is that it "goes to their head". They identify with their gifts and lose all semblance of humility when they are unable to discern the difference between the absolute and the relative. On the relative level they may have many gifts and are thereby "superior" to the majority. But on the absolute level, which is the fundament, the ground of being, everyone is of equal value, and this supercedes the relative. Their egotism overrides their "humanity", sometimes to a level of psychopathy where they are willing to kill others to achieve their ends. The best example is their willingness to wage war, which is a euphemism for mass murder and monumental destruction. These are the people who become our "leaders".
To be humble, has mistakenly taken on the meaning of meek, weak, and insecure, head bent down, eyes averted. This is not humility. Humility is to know that no one is better or has more intrinsic value than anyone else on the scale of the absolute. This is the place where many people get lost and see themselves as higher or better than others and this is what leads to their ultimate downfall, the consequence being a life without depth, a life which is forever unsatisfied, that can never achieve "joy", but only passing pleasures.
To live in community, one must cultivate humility, as it can always be deepened. People with an "entitled" attitude cannot be in communities as they will only cause dissention and could be instrumental in the demise of their community.
When I speak of "human", I am not using it as indication of a species, I use it to mean that to be "human" in the highest sense of the word, it is to realize our potential as creatures with a certain degree of consciousness, that gives us the possibility of having compassion, empathy, courage, authenticity, humor, and personal integrity. Being cruel, violent, exploitative, predatory, dishonest, arrogant, these are traits of those who have not discovered who they really are or how to be "human". They are lost in their illusions and it is for those of us who have attained a degree of humanness to find a way to help them in a non-patronizing manner. This can be very challenging.
Many of these people are trapped in vicious conditioned cycles of behavior because of childhood trauma. In this way they are like robots or zombies, such that they can be triggered to respond automatically, in a dissonant, incompatible manner that they cannot control, and that inevitably damages relationships. And these traumas can affect someone their entire life. That is why a community needs to have a way to help people resolve trauma, since it is so pandemic due to the toxic cultures most of us have had to experience. But it is not an easy thing to resolve or remove. Our community, Chambalabamba, really hasn't discovered an effective way to deal with trauma and I am still looking for help in this area.
If one is on a "spiritual path", that is, becoming more "human", it is important to live in a community because by serving the community on a daily basis, one is cultivating "oneness", that is, dispelling the illusion of separation. To see the illusion of "self", the belief that the substantive part of ourselves and /or our personal attributes is who we are, rather than understanding that really perhaps, who we are has nothing to do with us being a body with consciousness or our abilities and knowledge, but that who we really are is the embodiment of love and that self-realization is to know this and to live this and to recognize that "all is one", that all life is sacred, and needs to be cared for, loved, and respected.
Imagine the sun is radiating love to all of us, each and every day and that life is all about reciprocity, receiving and giving. The fresh air, the pure water, the magic soil, from which all plantlife grows, and the life force that animates us are all loving gifts that we receive every moment of every day. By living in and for the community one is cultivating this understanding that perhaps begins in the head towards a deeper heart realization, to give from love, is to receive.
source
There may be many reasons people choose to live in community, I would like to tell you why I choose to live this way. Honestly, it seems easier to live as an individual, couple, or family outside of a community. I choose to live in a community for spiritual and personal growth, for the infinite possibilities that a community makes available, and the joy of cooperation, collaboration, and belonging.
To live in community one should know that one serves oneself best by serving others, that is, by serving the community. By having a strong commitment to the community, one is continually cultivating the identity of "we" as opposed to "me". And this "we" which is identifying oneself with the community, needs to spread beyond the community, to include the whole human family, as this is the paradigm of the future if humanity is to overcome the blocks and obstacles that keep us in our current dystopia and path towards extinction.
Living in a materialistic world where everything has a price, everything is commercialized, where "profit is the bottom line" has the effect of reducing life to a very shallow, minimalistic level that creates a deeply superficial culture, the opposite of what one might sometime find amongst indigenous people untainted by civilization. Even spirituality is commercialized and one may find people who have all the trappings of wisdom and spirituality, false, because real spirituality, in this view, is to deepen one's humanity. It has to do with how one relates to others and to all of nature, to be grounded, humble, to be deeply caring, and to be devoted to life and the welfare of all beings, while perhaps maintaining and upbeat, light-hearted attitude.
The smug, arrogant, seemingly self-assured, "wise", often dangerous people who find themselves in positions of power seem to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. These people are usually gifted in one or many areas and what happens is that it "goes to their head". They identify with their gifts and lose all semblance of humility when they are unable to discern the difference between the absolute and the relative. On the relative level they may have many gifts and are thereby "superior" to the majority. But on the absolute level, which is the fundament, the ground of being, everyone is of equal value, and this supercedes the relative. Their egotism overrides their "humanity", sometimes to a level of psychopathy where they are willing to kill others to achieve their ends. The best example is their willingness to wage war, which is a euphemism for mass murder and monumental destruction. These are the people who become our "leaders".
To be humble, has mistakenly taken on the meaning of meek, weak, and insecure, head bent down, eyes averted. This is not humility. Humility is to know that no one is better or has more intrinsic value than anyone else on the scale of the absolute. This is the place where many people get lost and see themselves as higher or better than others and this is what leads to their ultimate downfall, the consequence being a life without depth, a life which is forever unsatisfied, that can never achieve "joy", but only passing pleasures.
To live in community, one must cultivate humility, as it can always be deepened. People with an "entitled" attitude cannot be in communities as they will only cause dissention and could be instrumental in the demise of their community.
When I speak of "human", I am not using it as indication of a species, I use it to mean that to be "human" in the highest sense of the word, it is to realize our potential as creatures with a certain degree of consciousness, that gives us the possibility of having compassion, empathy, courage, authenticity, humor, and personal integrity. Being cruel, violent, exploitative, predatory, dishonest, arrogant, these are traits of those who have not discovered who they really are or how to be "human". They are lost in their illusions and it is for those of us who have attained a degree of humanness to find a way to help them in a non-patronizing manner. This can be very challenging.
If one is on a "spiritual path", that is, becoming more "human", it is important to live in a community because by serving the community on a daily basis, one is cultivating "oneness", that is, dispelling the illusion of separation. To see the illusion of "self", the belief that the substantive part of ourselves and /or our personal attributes is who we are, rather than understanding that really perhaps, who we are has nothing to do with us being a body with consciousness or our abilities and knowledge, but that who we really are is the embodiment of love and that self-realization is to know this and to live this and to recognize that "all is one", that all life is sacred, and needs to be cared for, loved, and respected.
Imagine the sun is radiating love to all of us, each and every day and that life is all about reciprocity, receiving and giving. The fresh air, the pure water, the magic soil, from which all plantlife grows, and the life force that animates us are all loving gifts that we receive every moment of every day. By living in and for the community one is cultivating this understanding that perhaps begins in the head towards a deeper heart realization, to give from love, is to receive.
source
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