The Refugee Crisis In Europe

Now, I had quite a few questions about, well, two things. One, quite a few questions about the refugees or migrants that are pouring into Europe. How there are some here that I picked at random, and then there are others, how best to be in a state of compassion and so on. It's already wonderful to see that there is a lot of compassion, especially in some countries, like Scandinavian countries, Germany and so on. There is a lot of openness and compassion towards the suffering of others. And it's heartening to see that there's also a lot of fear in other countries, and also in Germany and Scandinavia, of what might happen to their society, their cultural values, if there's a continuing inflow of people. So it's a question of balancing the heart and the head. A time will come when there will be no more borders. But at the moment, just as a time will come when we don't need laws anymore, but for the time being, they still have a function. If we open borders totally, then of course the entire social system would break down. There are not enough jobs, so everybody, there's nowhere to live. After a while, if millions and millions come in, that would be the end. So compassion is wonderful and needs to be balanced with wisdom. Compassion and wisdom, There's a balance. The middle way. The Buddha's recommendation is the middle way. The challenge is initially on a physical level, finding accommodation and work. A greater challenge is the integration, which hasn't really been done very well in most countries. So they need to focus on that, because if they don't focus on the integration, it could lead to huge challenges, which would be fine too, because humans evolve through challenges. But if you can have wisdom, then you no longer need a huge challenge to develop. Because by applying wisdom to a situation, which means a balanced view, by applying wisdom to a situation, you prevent it from becoming a huge challenge. And if you cannot apply wisdom to a situation, then it will become a huge challenge, and that will be fine too. Because humans evolve through challenges. Wisdom usually means that, yes, there will still be challenges, but you don't create gigantic challenges for yourself in the absence of wisdom, you do. So it's an interesting fact that not only for individuals, but also for the collectives, there's a continuous. One thing after another arises is, oh, no, now this. First it was Greece was the big challenge, and now you have an even bigger challenge. It's as if some script writer for the drama, the collective drama. Infinitely creative script writing. Okay, what can we do now for the next episode of humanity now, let's give them that. It's a challenge. Of course for the refugees themselves, it's a huge challenge. And for the others where they go to it's also becoming a challenge and could become a huge challenge mindset. These people come from different places. It represent different forms of conditioning of their mind. Just as in the west the mind is conditioned in certain ways, so in the west is only just arrived at certain insights through painful, very painful insane behavior that they manifest in until recently. They've only just arrived at a fragile realization of the importance of seeing another person's point of view, another coming to a compromise rather than wanting my way or our way. Through incredible suffering that they inflicted on themselves, they've now arrived at this fragile point where they value tolerance, compassion. And that's been a long road and it could be lost again easily. It's only just. It's part of the growth of. It implies some diminishment of ego in order to practice tolerance. And compassion means on a collective level there has been some diminishment of ego. And it has happened through suffering that was self inflicted, through endless wars culminating in the insanity of the first and second World War and genocide and so on. So all that self inflicted suffering has finally brought them to this point. And it has been going on for centuries. The gradually equality for women to value equally man and woman is also relatively recent. We've arrived that now the separation of church and state also was a relative recent achievement. And that took centuries again of struggle. And not all parts of the world have arrived yet at that stage. They're still stuck in other more intolerant mindsets. And this is why the integration is very important. Because integration means are they able to adapt to our mindset. Now there are some people who say all cultures are totally equal, it's just different. I would suggest that there is such a thing as a development in cultural values and a development of collective consciousness. And if a society displays compassion and tolerance towards others, that is a sign that there has been a development in consciousness in that society. If another society displays intolerance, then that hasn't happened yet. Even in European societies, not that long ago there was huge intolerance. So what is the mindset that people come with? Are they able to undergo the shift? That is the question. Is there going to develop an alternative society that has a totally different mindset in the same country? That remains to be seen. It is a challenge. There are many good signs. It's wonderful to see the compassion that is in many humans now in Europe. And it is also understandable that in Others, there's also fear. There are some small minorities in Europe that are very unconscious that violently attack or try to attack immigrants. But that group is relatively small. So let's see where this challenge takes us. Humanity ultimately is going to evolve as a whole, as a single organism, more and more so. And it seems natural that there's more coming together now of cultures that before were totally separate. Now it's growing into something that we cannot foresee what form it exactly it will take societies that are still in a different mindset. There are still places on the planet where the collective mindset corresponds to the Middle Ages in Europe. Not saying that those places cannot have humans who are highly evolved. Just as in medieval times, in Europe there were human beings. Some human beings were deeply spiritual, egoless and highly evolved, even within those societies which collectively were quite ignorant and deeply, deeply in the grip of the collective ego, which in Middle Ages in Europe took the form of religious dogma and so on. So there are still some societies which are at about that time period, so that the shift can be speeded up. If they come to the west, to what extent can they go beyond their mindset? And not all the refugees are from those parts of the world, because Middle east, there are many different energy fields. Syria is not the same as Afghanistan, it's not the same as Iraq and so on. There were ancient cultures in many of those places that predate European culture. And Islam, for example, in itself, Islam in the Middle Ages was more advanced and more tolerant than Christianity, more culturally advanced. And so it's not the religion. A religion does not exist outside the consciousness of the people who practice the religion. So really it's what is the state of consciousness of the people who practice the religion? It doesn't exist outside of that. It's something in human consciousness. This is a huge thing that perhaps some other time we can talk about it in more detail. So let's welcome the challenge and see on a personal level, if you live in Europe and you can help, you feel called upon to help, that's wonderful thing to do.