The awareness game goes to war.
Posted by John on October 17, 2001 at 22:17:47:

In Reply to: Give a stinger . . . posted by John on October 17, 2001 at 06:59:35:

Things, bodies, and sounds (such as words) enter our space and have *impact*. So it happens in the simple engagements that take place in our own
livingrooms and offices, and so it happens on a larger scale in war.

This is a basic everyday observation in the awareness game. Things, bodies, and words enter our space and have impact. And our bodies *react to
this*! We react emotionally; we react with a lot of thinking about it; we react with selfish desires to have what we want of it right away; and we act-
out the characteristic patterns of our personality types like knee-jerk reactions. Things in our space have impact, and "our Self arises."

A letter arrives in the office of a powerful and much-loved Senator. A thing enters the space up on Capitol Hill. It contains a few choice stinging
words and a little bit of anthrax. The news of this gets around, and it has impact. Within a short time, the United States House of Representatives—
this is such a stunning event!—is taking an unscheduled recess, and they are running back to their home States for a week. It is a reaction to the
impact of a thing that has come into their space.

In terms of human behavior, that is, the raw observeable phenomenology of human behavior, this is no different than the Afghan people running in
fear for the borders from the bombs that are impacting their cities there.

Imagine all the sheer power of all those bombs that are being dropped in Afghanistan. And imagine the relative daintiness of a stamped envelope, a
sheet of paper with writing on it, and a pinch of fine powder. Do you see what I mean? One has untold billions of times more weight, density, volume
than the other. But in terms of power in manipulating people's bodies to move across the surface of this earth, each of these two weapons of war
have the same effect.

Just look at the untold numbers of Americans whose bodies are running in fear (and also anxiety) over this relatively modest "anthrax campaign" that
the terrorists have waged so far. New York's Governor has vacated his office. Look mindfully and see how *haggard* so many of these people look
now when they appear on television! Television announcers, too! The publishing house of the three biggest tabloids in America is moving its whole
operation to another location. There is chaos in the Postal Service. People are standing in long lines trying to buy Cipro to store away (it costs more
than a thousand dollars for the 60-day regimen that is recommended for those who actually get the disease). Lots and lots of shoulders are elevated
about an inch. And lots and lots of arms and legs are trembling with nervousness, too.

Everything the terrorists do is very consistent. The terrorists' game plan is winning by striking fear (and the collosal, reverberating effects that that
has on people, governments, international relations, markets, etc., etc. The game plan of the coalition of governments against terrorism is to control
land and capture prisoners. Look how simple the "army" of the terrorists is, the simple tools they use, and the way they adopt their tools *from our
society* and use them against us in their attacks. It's almost unfair, in a way, that for each of us to seek to obtain our respective military objectives, we,
on our side, must mount such a huge and complicated and expensive war machine, compared to the simple, inexpensive war machine that they have
contrived for their purposes.

Things, bodies, and words in our space have impact, and our bodies react. Bombs can strike terror. And words can strike terror. And in these
collosal events of the day, it appears that words may have nearly as much impact as the bombs, and maybe more.

I wonder who's winning this war? The perpetrators of September 11th, there in Afghanistan, who are facing starvation this winter if they aren't hit
by the bombs, or invaded and killed or captured? Or the surviving American victims of the Twin Towers collapse, who, in the midst of our great
national mourning, are losing jobs by the tens of thousands every day, with a government that's spending like there's no tomorrow, in a collapsing
economy of mass layoffs and bankruptcies, that has gone back into debt and is too shaky to be commented on objectively (during the war emergency)
in the press? I suppose Americans are the winners, so far, after all, if they are survivors, if they aren't actually getting hit by a cannon shell, or don't
inhale a hit of anthrax, even though it looks like untold suffering may be coming for us in this country if we keep on stubbornly in the direction we are
headed.

I think we can safely say, at this point, that if that September 11th stinger could have *not been done that day*, the whole world would be much better
off for it, and particularly Americans and Afghans. If you're gonna give a stinger, you're gonna get a stinger back! We've paid. Now they'll have to
pay. I suppose then we'll have to pay again. But, for the moment, we may be ahead. I guess it's worth a patriotic cheer. And then we'd better duck
again, for cover.

The answer to these kinds of problems in the world is for *somebody* to take a stand at some point, and do the opposite of a stinger—when their
turn for retribution comes up—which is, of course, to love . . . to wake up and get centered, and, on purpose, find the wherewithal to love. But who's
gonna listen to that idea? Over the long course of human history, it doesn't seem like hardly anyone has ever tried.

When I said the timing for it seemed kind of bad, I didn't mean to imply that the Israelis are "to blame" for the car-bombing of that terrorist leader the
other day. That didn't happen in a vacuum, but in a continuum of stingers back and forth. I think they got the guy who directed the discotech suicide
bombing where so many Israeli kids got killed and maimed at a dance. I can well understand how they wanted to kill him . . . and hurry up about it . .
. before peace would be declared and they would lose their chance to do that. Anyway, the terrorists, in taking credit for assassinating the Israeli
Cabinet figure, didn't do it for that assassination the other day, anyway. They said they did it for the assassination of their own group's leader over a
month before. So these people can hardly keep up with it, as the stingers keep going back and forth.

And that poor old fellow who died in the hall of that Jerusalem hotel was not just a random victim. Perhaps the most ultra-conservative voice in all
Israel, his actual political agenda was to keep their troops around all of the Israeli settlements that they have gone on building in Palestine, and . . . get
this . . . *kick the Palestinians out of the Gaza strip*, deporting them to other countries.

That, I daresay, is an ultra conservative. So the death-stingers go back and forth with interesting precision. These kinds of assassination attacks are
not indescriminate killings for striking fear among the people, like the suicide missions and the rocket attacks by helicopter gunships. They are targeted
at *the most * extreme conservative and *the most* extreme radical human beings that are living in that part of the world. And they get 'em!

The point I see in this, is that these deadly stingers that are given out by such extremists, manage eventually—in real life—to find their way all the way
back to kill *them*! That's the way it really does happen in everyday life—an interesting aspect of the awareness game observation "give a stinger, get
a stinger back."

I wonder if what we are looking at here has something to do with the Eastern observation of "karma." Rakesh? Others? Any comments on that?

Meanwhile, I'm formulating responses to you, Deirdre and Bruce, and optimistically. One day at a time. I took "a sick day" off today, but I'm still in
here right now plugging, and my morale is high. ;-)

Love y'all,

Coach

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