The Bigger Picture:The greatest problem in our society today is isolation. If we could eliminate that, we could solve all the problems of the world. Sound like a bold statement? That it is, and I will show you how true it is, writes Shalini Sinha.
The mind is an incredibly powerful tool. A gift really, when we can fully mobilise it. Our imagination is limitless, our sense of humour deep and healing, and our capacity for compassion is truly life-embracing. Combine these three things and we can do anything.
We can certainly create peace in the world, in our minds and in our bodies.
However, like every great gift, even our mind has its limits. It can get isolated and shut off from the outside world.
When it does this, things start to go quite wrong inside it. We have thoughts that we think make sense, but actually they come from a frightened and defensive world view.
It is not coincidental that the first thing to happen to us when we get hurt, is for us to get a little bit detached.
In this way, we get isolated. There is a distance that emerges - between our self, our surroundings and the people there who witnessed or participated in the hurt we just experienced.
If we never heal this hurt, we remain somewhat distant. As other experiences accumulate, this distance becomes a formidable isolation.
The truth is that human beings are born beautiful and deeply attractive. We are very loving beings.
We do not arrive in this world with fears and insecurities. We do not emerge from the womb harbouring deep, dark secrets about who we "really" are.
Newborn babies are eager to express themselves. They look out at the world with no shame or embarrassment, but just interest and joy. And we connect with this. We find it inspiring and attractive.
As adults, most people feel on their own: like no one truly understands them and if anyone really got to know them, they would not like what they saw.
We believe that if we were to show ourselves completely - truly express ourselves - we would be left open to target, ridicule and rejection. And so, we keep our distance.
This is the isolation that stops us identifying with the humanity in each other. This is what makes it possible for us to be hurtful - sometimes without even noticing, often with no understanding of how we also hurt ourselves in the process.
Certainly to kill another human being - even to try seriously injuring someone - we must disconnect.
No matter how deep and irreparable that separation might seem in someone, it always began with the wounding of an individual's self-esteem and the lack of support to heal that hurt.
In our society today, this level of disconnection - this lack of identification and lack of love - has become commonplace. We think it is a normal way to live. And we have allowed it to follow into our public policies. We simply do not end poverty and war.
At this stage, we have the technologies and social mechanisms to do so, but we don't.
We continually misunderstand that, in fact, there are plenty of resources around and the struggle for humanity is not for the individual at the expense of the collective, but for the individual embraced by and located within this collective.
Certainly the idea of "profit before anything else" is a strong example of isolation. In truth, profit is a ridiculous idea - a misfiring of thinking. There is no need, under any circumstances, to stockpile resources for the exclusive benefit of one or two individuals at the top of a chain.
There is no purpose to it. It makes no logical sense and it ensures the exploitation of people and resources, thus ensuring our own isolation.
Everyone should be paid for their work and contribution, but to make it necessary - even the utmost priority - to generate a meaningless extra to make those at the top feel safer, more comfortable and better than others is senseless.
However, this is the idea driving society today. It drives us to kill and control each other. It ensures we are disconnected. Certainly not safer or comfortable.
Get hold of a lot of money and what happens? You start buying alarms and electric gates. The more money you hang on to, the greater the level of fear you live in.
This is not peace. This is not happiness. This is not good health.
The key to all the problems of the world - globally, locally, and individually within our minds - is combating isolation.
We must connect. We must be kind. We must reach for compassion and understanding.
Only when we do this will we be able to identify with and love each other fully. And so, we make it possible to fill our lives fully with love.
The will to watch each other suffer cruelly and indefinitely melts away as the will to bring about peace of mind becomes tangible.
ssinha@irish-times.ie
Shalini Sinha is a life coach and Bowen practitioner in her clinic, Forward Movement.