The Brotherhood
by Ethan Indigo Smith via bluey - Opednews Sunday, Mar 24 2013, 3:07am
international / prose / post

The value of all that you know and all that you've been taught can quickly be outweighed and forgotten by your belief in and support of man made national, racial, religious and cultural institutions. All wars root themselves in a bed of belief in and support for existing institutions and in the hatred of stigmatized individuals within varying alternative institutions. All zealotry and loyalty begins in the feeling of being involved in an institutional family. People are convinced that they are part of an institutional family, an institution that presents itself as immortal.

In Tibet and the region, Buddhist lamas are known to reincarnate and return to their monasteries variously proving they are toddler reincarnates, the Dalai Lama is also discovered through various reincarnation tests.

To the profoundly compassionate Buddhists, heritage and family lineage is unimportant next to the compassionate brotherhood at the monastery or wherever. Seeking to solve suffering with compassion is much more important than any other community, more important than your family, your friends, your neighborhood, your state, your country and whatever institution you might put before compassion.

The Buddha posited love into four parts; love of self, love of others, love for the happiness of others and love for all beings in equanimity. You cannot love others without love of self and you cannot love at the higher level unless you love at the level preceding it. Loving compassion is true wisdom and the brotherhood of man is the only family one should be loyal to. All else is tribal impulses played by controlling institutions. The institutional apparatuses and apparitions which seek to inspire your support are bogus. There is only the brotherhood of man.

You can see the disturbances caused by people within themselves and outside of themselves when their love is covered up by beliefs in alternatives to the brotherhood of man. Some people hate themselves, most people hate other people and many people hate the happiness of others and some people just hate everything. Loving compassion elevates all whereas hatred of others, used by institutions, degrades everyone.

Our love, which can be equated to childlike innocence, gets covered up by traditions and training mechanisms, often through instigations and feelings of guilt. We do not lose our love it simply gets covered up by ignorance. We tend to think of ignorance as a lack of knowledge, however, ignorance stems from being full of incorrect ideas and misguided beliefs. Ignorance is usually full not empty. Let go of your pride for your family and country and whatever institution gained your loyalty and share love for humanity. Calculate which stage of love your heart stops at and push forward through the installed ignorance with a flaming sword of a peaceful warrior.

In Tibet and India the flaming sword signifies the weapon of the mind, yielded by the heart. The flaming sword cuts through layers of ignorance, through the training and institutionally supportive traditions layered on us. The flaming sword cuts away the extraneous and superfluous ignorance preventing us from loving ourselves, others, the happiness of others and all things equally. Let go of your beliefs and false pride, grab your flaming sword of discrimination and be a peaceful warrior. If not now, when? Cease deceiving yourself and playing make believe.

© 2013 OpEdNews

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Brotherhood-by-Ethan-Indigo-Smith-130323-73.html