Week 1 Assignment sharing – New Story

A very long time ago, a sickness started to spread through the Human Family. The sickness was an idea: Empire. The idea that a few people can have extreme privilege at the cost of everyone else, and Mother Earth.
This sickness slowly spread thoughout the whole Human Family and its main symptom was violence. After many hundreds of years, the sickness was so endemic, that people thought that it had always been this way. That there was no other way it could be.
There were always a few visionary people in every generation who guessed that another way of cooperation, love and nonviolence were possible. But they were isolated and cut off from each other, and so their ideas couldn’t spread and flourish.
But in the heart of Empire were the seeds of its downfall. Mother Earth herself had become sick with the violence of Empire, and most people had become tired of their own oppression. But the leaders of Empire were blind to this. They had become so clever, that they had invented new ways to communicate with each other all around the globe. Ways that they could no longer control. Suddenly the visionary people could talk to each other without the leaders of Empire being able to stop them. They started to come together and learn from each other. The first person to realise the power of this new way of talking was a man called Gandhi. The inspiration of his experiments with a new vision, a new story, called Ahimsa or Nonviolence (actually a very old story that he had learnt from the visionaries of the past), started to create new communities of Nonviolence all over the planet.
These communities were put down with violence and anger, but the tipping point had been passed and as they reached out to each other, they could no longer be stopped.
Enough of the Human Family could see that their New Story of Compassion, Inclusion, Love and Cooperation, was a better story than the Empire story of Competition and Domination. This story was helped by the New Science which showed us that the species that survive and thrive are the ones who find their place of service to the whole. Because life exists only in community. Once the New Story took hold in enough hearts, it was only a matter of time before we discovered ways to put it into practice through New Economics and new ways of relating to each other and Mother Earth with Nonviolence as the cornerstone of all relationships. Different peoples stopped competing and started to discover one another.
The transition wasn’t easy, but because of those brave and adventurous people, we found Unity in Diversity. Nonviolence became the means and the end. And so we saved the planet and ourselves.

Thanks to those who have already shared their stories… interested to notice how courage to share seems to help others feel en-couraged to share. 🙂

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Friends, I would like to tell you a story.
 
This is a story about stories.
 
This is a story, that contains within it, all the stories of the past, and all the stories of the future.
 
This story changes constantly and adapts to meet emerging needs.
 
This story stretches its arms of love, compassion and light around, through and within all dimensions and imaginings.
 
This story lives in no-particular-time and dwells in no-place-in-particular.
 
In being all these things, this story requires no time to tell and cannot be said to begin or end.
 
Neither new, nor old, this story has roots and paths that stretch in every direction. At various moments in historical time, this story moved in and out of focus – in and out of awareness.
 
There has always been a custodian who held the knowing of this story somewhere on the Earth.

These custodians have often been misunderstood – sometimes even by themselves and their own intuitions. This has had all manner of consequences for the custodians.

And yet, this story is light and brings with it grace and confidence.
 
This story is owned by no-one and can be accessed by any-one any-time any-where.
 
This story is about how we story.
 
You might be more familiar with stories that can be repeated, that always contain the same events, that follow the same trajectory or, that are fixed in time – forever. Today I tell you, that these notions of sameness and repetition are simply our surface impressions.
 
Flowing beside and through the appearances of time, sameness and repetition are liquid processes of creativity, interrelation and constant change.
 
For this reason, when we tell stories, we are now aware that we must be careful about what kind of story we are telling.
 
We must be careful to consider if the story that we are telling lives in the dimension of the historical – bound by time and the distinctions between things – or if the story is like the one that I tell you now: a metta-story.
 
When we are unaware of the distinction between these types of story, we experience a great frustration. The realms of daily life begin to feel abstract.
 
When we forget that a metta-story exists, there is an imbalance. Beings begin to grieve and the creative meaningfulness of life becomes difficult to touch.
 
When we carefully engage with each kind of story, there is renewal and life is sustained.
 
The historical story is like a single drop of liquid.
 
The metta-story is like an ocean.
 
Each relies on the other and is produced by the other.
 
If the drops of liquid are water, then a nourishing and life supporting ocean results.
 
If the drops of liquid are blood, then the ocean is one of despair and destruction.
 
Waves will continue to move across this ocean. Ripples of intention shaping the nature of each wave. In the metta-story strength is strength. We all have the ability to direct the energy of this strength according to our awareness and judgement.
 
It is important that our story-awareness is constantly active.
 
When we are aware of all stories, we become story-makers. We become the custodians. We become active contributors to the shape of each story. The outcomes of our actions depend on this awareness.
 
Our story-awareness makes possible the participation and flourishing of other beings.
 
This is why we have the gifts of creativity and attention.
 
Our awareness and attention helps us to navigate the historical and the metta.
 
Our creativity helps us to innovate and to facilitate the emergence of new forms and processes.
 
In this story, we recognise that the nature of what we put in is amplified and becomes the substance of all that follows.
 
This metta-story teaches us that for life to thrive there must be love.
 
The principles of this story have been observed and articulated by many beings.
 
You may say that I have not told you a story here at all. There were no characters, there was no plot, there was no conflict, no emotion and no resolution. That is because today I have told you a metta-story.
 
We are the characters in this story. Our actions are the plot. Our shared awareness and engagement with the story is both the story and where we will go from here.
 
Please promise me this:
 
You will strive to pay attention to the stories that we tell. Pay attention to the kinds of results that each story has. If you notice that a story is having difficult consequences – then it means that a story is in need of renewal.
 
Find ways to make your stories inclusive, sustainable and peacebuilding.
 
Find ways to notice those tricky stories that are deeply embedded in our assumptions about life. It can be hard to see the wave that you are riding. When the wave crashes into the shore – have the courage to say what you saw. Use this insight as a community and as the basis for future action.
 
When you inherit a story, recognise that as it passes through the light of your gaze, that story will be changed and developed unavoidably.
 
If you prepare yourself for this constant moment you will become an instrument of peace. You will be a story-maker.
 

Friends, I would like to tell you a story…
 
Once upon a time, there was a community of human beings on this planet Earth who, as part of the natural flow of history and emphasis, lost track of their metta-story. Although the human race was still very young (having only been on Earth for a few million years) there was an atmosphere of endings and old age. People seemed to feel that collectively they had established what would be the key parameters of story and that these should be held onto ruthlessly. Unfortunately the story became very specific and inflexible. This meant that many people felt blocked and their actions demonstrated their frustrations and desperateness.
 
There was a general forgetfulness and arrogance too. Humans forgot their dependency on other beings and forms. Having forgotten the distinction between the historical and the metta, they were unable to recognise that the myriad of cultures, religions and philosophies mostly occupied the realm of the historical. Each tribe felt that their story was the only story and that their story was complete. This sentiment caused much violence and fighting.
 
Ironically, the tribes of the world seemed to be unified in one unpleasant way: they insisted on using dominance, aggression and violence to organise and modify their societies and planet. Despite the great learning of their elders, and the easy observations of all involved, the humans seemed stubbornly committed to a story that was causing deep destruction… a story that could easily bring about their own extinction as a life form on planet Earth. They refused to pay attention to the impacts of their own actions. It was popular to claim that nothing can be done, that humans are violent and that the situation is too complex for changing.
 
As I mentioned earlier, the thread of the metta-story was never quite lost. There was a critical time when a great wave of metta-custodians came forward. They worked to articulate in new language the old wisdom. They worked to apply the metta-practices to new and challenging contexts.
 
The human population had grown to extreme proportions and was placing immense pressure on the planet’s ecosystems. Innovations in communication had reached the point where daily interactions between beings could take place without their need for bodies.
 
The custodians realised that now was the time when story-awareness must be supported and encouraged.
 
The seeds of this encouragement were planted. The case for this awareness was translated into all of the heart-languages of the world in the hope that the humans would recognise the simple truth of their situations.
 
They called this the ‘new’ story.
 
Drawing together the old wisdom in light of current contexts, a case was made for humans to take a refreshing and pragmatic approach to the story. The case was made in such a way that it was clear to all involved that no one was being judged or ridiculed or devalued during this time of renewal.
 
Many of the old story-holders gripped tightly to their version of the story. They had forgotten that stories are living entities: with their own life cycles, births, expiration and sense of constant change. There was a great fear that if they loosened their grip, that things would fall apart, that evil would win, that life would become meaningless and chaotic. This response was understandable, given that the humans had never before needed to collectively co-operate as a planet before. The logistical demands were immense and the habitual reactions were strong and creaking under the pressure of imminent change and transformation.
 
The custodians were deeply aware of this fear and attachment. They found ways to reassure and care for the story-holders. This was a time of great learning and healing for everyone involved. In fact, it was eventually understood that this time of challenge had been a critically necessary part of the growth of wisdom on Earth.
 
The custodians set out to lay an important foundation, one that would pave the way for a different response to crisis in the future.
 
Story-awareness became central to daily life and the number of custodians grew and grew and grew until eventually everyone was a conscious part of the ‘new’ story. The custodians saw their role as being responsible for the constant renewal of the story through their lived daily actions.
 
Of course, there were times when things became difficult – as things are prone to being. There were also times of great joy and peace.

Hello all! Here is my (late) addition to the wonderful things all of you have written so far. Thanks so much for sharing–I’ve really, really enjoyed reading all of these.

When I was little, we were taught to see ourselves as the culmination of a long, arduous process. Millions of years of evolution had brought forth the true inheritors of the planet’s worth. We had more knowledge, more convenience, more power than our ancestors ever glimpsed, and we had the right to do whatever we chose with it.  We took whatever we wanted from the Earth, and from each other, to satisfy our need to possess. Possessions, we were told, would make us happy. To own as many nice things as possible, to stockpile enough wealth to ensure we would never go without nice things, and to leave behind a mass of money so our children could have nice things–this was the goal of human life. The bigger a dent we could leave in the world, the more full our lives must have been.
 

 
But we aren’t entitled to whatever we can carry, and what’s more plundering the Earth and each other’s homes will never make any of us fulfilled. These believes, the tenets of the Old Story, pervert human nature into something base and violent, something that has culminated in a race bent on supremacy over all. The truth is, we are only somewhere in the middle of the Earth’s journey. There will be generations after us, and a universe of achievement we can’t even imagine.   That is, if there is a still a planet left for them to live on. I do not have any right to the planet beyond that of any life form at any given point in the history of everything, and my taking too much could short someone else.
 

 
For me, this is the driving impulse behind the need for a New Story. I have no right to put myself before others. To break this rule and violate our interdependence will make me more, not less, unhappy. I was taught that some individuals are worthless while others are inviolable, and that my survival depended on picking the right side in some huge competition. We can only gain at someone else’s expense, and the fight has to be one to the death. Yet the never-ending cycle of violence would only destroy me.  My happiness has never come from hurting another person, and it will never come from inflicting pain to gain material goods.
 

 
Elements of the Old Order—greed, dishonesty, stockpiling, violence, destruction, pollution—fall before this revelation. I can’t do very much on my own, especially when I act from the worst in me. I am capable of so much more when I act from a place of love, and in so doing link myself to the whole human race. Individually, we are next to nothing. As a whole, we are capable of anything.  To increase the value of an individual is to weaken our united force. 
 
In my childhood, I found myself lost and confused in the Old Story. I purchased and worked and purchased but only became more and more dissatisfied. Trying to give up selfishness and greed is the most freeing, generous thing I can do for myself. When I act within this system, this New Story, I allow my self to achieve the full dignity that is my inheritance as a human being.