The Most Important Thing
What is the most important thing?
In philosophy or LoveWisdom, the answers to our biggest questions are momentous. But they cannot be confined in a test tube, cannot be conveyed in terms of argument or analysis.
We can all plainly sense the catastrophe unfolding around us: Temperatures continue to rise, pollution levels increase, inequality intensifies, structural oppression persists, species go extinct, ecologies collapse. What is the most important thing for us to know, to do, to realize, in order to heal all of this, to heal ourselves and our world? How can we actually help the world, and not make things worse?
What if there is a fundamental error we keep making, in all our activity—culturally and individually—that makes all our attempts to help ourselves or the world into something that ironically furthers the pattern of insanity that threatens to collapse the conditions of life as we know it?
This is ultimately an experimental question, a spiritual-experimental question. The laboratory of LoveWisdom is our mind, our heart, our body, and our world (which means nature and culture). The work of art is this very life, hear and now, on this miraculous planet, in this mysterious Cosmos. We have to run the experiment; we have to create the work of art. We have to find out who we are, what we love, what it means to love, and how we can realize love’s fullest potential.
Because it carries us to our true nature, and to the true nature of wisdom, love, and beauty, LoveWisdom presents grave threats to structures of power and oppression. Those structures sense that danger, and thus keep us cut off from the traditions of LoveWisdom from around the world.
For instance, when Britain still controlled India, the British colonial government banned Gandhi’s translation of Plato’s Apology, an ancient work about the trial of the philosopher Socrates. Gandhi applied what he learned from Socrates and the philosophical traditions of India to transform his life and his nation, and ultimately to overturn oppression. Martin Luther King cited both Socrates and Gandhi as inspirations for his life and his work of love and liberation. These days, however, Plato’s Apology is taught in the tamest ways possible, so that our wildness remains caged. And yet . . . that potential remains, that potential to wake up to wildness and wonder, to wisdom, love, and beauty.
The work of LoveWisdom is essentially about this waking up, what it means practically speaking, and how we can actually accomplish it. Because we do need to wake up . . . the whole world is caught in a philosophical crisis (not a political or economic crisis, but a philosophical/spiritual crisis). We know how serious the problems are. We won’t solve them without LoveWisdom.
That this work is inherently philosophical means it must be grounded in hard evidence and careful experiment, experiment that reconnects us to the transformative and healing potentials of LoveWisdom that we need to bring back to our everyday lives. Taking up this kind of work means here and now to respond to that ancient call of LoveWisdom, the call to enter the Heart of Wonder, to enter our lives more fully than we even know is possible, so we can discover the most important thing to each of us personally, and to learn how to love it, for the sake of everyone.
At the same time that we discover a most important thing for each of us individually, there is a related most important thing we all face collectively. How can we most effectively address the problems we face on a global scale, problems that get focused onto our local ecologies and our personal lives?
This video lays out the problem, and highlights the essence of our most important challenge. Watch at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxBiDTJfgmo
And if you enjoy this video, consider watching this shorter, elegant film made by Melanie Challenger and Chad Hodgson: vimeo.com/548356741
They do a wonderful job challenging the duality we make between ourselves and Nature. We must begin to arrive at the nonduality of Mind and Nature, Nature and Culture.
You can find out more about Melanie’s work here: melaniechallenger.com
And director Chad Hodgson’s site is here: chadhodgsondop.com
You may also consider watching a video made by my dear friend Tara Coyote. Tara’s film makes a sensitive connection between her body and the body of the great Earth, between her suffering and the suffering of all beings. On the path of LoveWisdom, the personal becomes impersonal, and the impersonal becomes personal. We begin to take the well-being of mountains and rivers personally, and we begin to relate to the ego in a sort of impersonal way—caring, but non-attached. You can also visit Tara’s website, where she shares her courageous confrontation with cancer, and her journey to healing. Tara has helped and inspired many people, and she’s a dear friend. Visit her site to learn more about her ecological interests and the things she has learned from working with horses, spending time in nature, receiving medicines from the Earth and Her beings, and inquiring into the ecological realities of our life together.
https://www.cancerwarrioress.com/resources-earth