Love & Kindness to all!

Love and kindness to all!

Imagine how different life would be if we could all live by this simple mantra?

No matter where you look today there is conflict of some kind.  Countries competing for domination, ethnic groups hating each other, people with different religious beliefs at war, gender violence, child abuse …the list goes on.

Our planet is enduring battle on every front.  From pollution and waste, destruction of natural habitats for financial gain, toxicity is everywhere plus we are also destroying ourselves.  Our bodies, our brains, our longevity with the chemicals and toxins we expose ourselves to….. even our ability to love is at risk.

I ask you…how can we say that we ‘love’ when we can be biased against anyone else?

Surely ‘love’ is all encompassing?

Love is not something to be selective about…is it?  I love you but not you….

I would like to suggest that we make love and kindness something we challenge ourselves with every single day.

Let’s do a kindness for someone today without expecting anything in return.

Let’s make it a secret.  Don’t let them know where the kindness came from.

Watch their joy!

If we all saw each other through the eyes of love we would live in a very different world.

My challenge with all encompassing love comes from conditioning and beliefs…what are yours?

As you know I am South African and we have a lot of obstacles here, in South Africa, ahead of us.

25 years after apartheid was abolished nothing much has changed, it has merely reversed to large degree.

I will honestly admit that this subject is something of a challenge for me (and maybe you too).  I was born into an era of segregation and racism.  It was an environment that I was given, I didn’t choose it, but that is no excuse for anything further moving forward.

By the same token, someone born in the same era but on the ‘other side’ of the segregation and racism, too had no choice back then, but they too DO have a choice now!

From here on out life, actions, reactions and beliefs are nothing but choices that we get to make.

It’s what we do with these choices, actions, reactions that will make a difference.

In a conversation recently with an Australian who lives, and loves here in South Africa, myself and a friend who is also South African, it was made clear to me how terribly divided we all are. The weird, crazy ideas that we have about each other, whether it be based on colour, ethnicity, language, history or any of a myriad other things.

These are all based on conditioning that we received growing up.  It could have been from the family, friends, a teacher, a religious leader or something as random as a marketing campaign of some sort.

We probably have beliefs based on nothing more than what happened to who, sometime hundreds of years ago with no solid proven base to be of value to anyone, here and now.

I mean, really! it’s ridiculous where our beliefs come from.

For example… several of my ancestors, in England during the 1500’s were beheaded by King Henry VIII for speaking out of turn..(true story) but do I hate the English for it?  My paternal grandfather died in a German concentration camp during the Second World War, do I hate the Germans for the atrocities they probably did to him?

We all have history that is violent in some way or other.

Vasco da Gama first rounded the Cape of South Africa in 1497…. it was the beginning of South African/European/Native history.

What we DO have to hold onto is the fact, and reality, that we are ourselves, here, now not our ancestors or someone else’s past.

And we need to be the change we want to see in the world.

I didn’t do anything to anyone!  I had no say in the history or actions of those before me just as you probably didn’t either.  So why are we behaving like it was us/them? Why are we hanging onto things, beliefs, ideas that serve us no positive purpose?

Let’s work together to make love what makes our world go round!

Let’s work together to be what makes our planet needs to make it the best it can be.

Safe, green, healthy and loving!