disarming serendipity

Nothing is separate, our loneliness is an illusion.
We share the pains and the confusions,
The joys and peaceful days of all our many, varied selves.

And thus throughout our lives,
Throughout our civilisations, we have stamped
The stain of self and judgement,
Even on those we love the most - and they inevitably pass it on.

Thus have we armed ourselves and others
Against the enemies of ego.

How to disarm ourselves?
Again its simple, but perversely hard:
To understand what's happening and to remain awake against
The sleep of self and custom.

Then shall the weapons of destruction fall
Unnoticed from our mental hands,
And the grace of individual lives
Merge within the glory of the All

Adam Curle 2005

I was looking for something else, as you do, and found the FWCC Asia West Pacific Section newlsetter, unopened on the desk, with this poem on the front. It connected for me with several conversations had over the last few days about judgements of others and ourselves, the impossibility of truly understanding someones actions (or lack of them) without hearing their 'whys' and the damage we may unwittingly cause due to our lack of understanding or even not wanting to hear. But just how do we 'understand what's happening' when no-one wants to tell us?

Looking through the newsletter I found, as I usually do, many names that are not only familiar but are attached to well loved faces - what got me really excited though was finding Aletia's blog site mentioned - woo hoo! Aletia is one of the QUNO Geneva interns working on disarmament - there's that word again...