Dialogues with William The 9-11-01 Trauma Q. You have been credited with the suggestion that we respond to the situation with BREAD NOT BOMBS. How did this notion occur to you? On a meditation walk with my spouse, Judith Yost, I told her I had had a dream about her suggestion to drop food not bombs. She looked puzzled and said that she had mentioned such to me; it was news to her. It must have bubbled up from the depths of our life together through my nightly dreams and visions. Q. Are you suggesting that this be a governmental response to Osama bin Laden? These are my dreams and visions of what is right for me to do. I don't pretend to know what is right for those who might choose violence as a response. I don't propose giving food to bin Laden but to the poor people of Afghanistan. I would like to put a message in their language that our response to the violence done to us is to forgive and give. My intention is to put this suggestion into the unified field of energy as often as I can in as many ways as I can. If it begins to unfold, I will know that I am on the right path. Q. So, you actually see this as a practical path for us now. Definitely. On Wednesday, Sept. 12, I proposed this path to a Marine Colonel, retired and a retired Navy fighter pilot. Each one paused thoughtfully and said that it might actually work. The sooner we act on this the better. Q. Are you a pacifist? That is a complicated question. My highest principles are non-violence. My first teacher, E. Stanley Jones, was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi. Through Jones I got into Gandhi and his truth-force. Later, I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and saw first hand how powerful that point of view is. On the other hand I also am aware of a powerful warrior/killer inside me, a jungle energy, as it were. If my grandchildren were attacked, I can easily imagine that my non-violence would give way to the warrior. I work at an aware state that keeps these sub-flows of energy in tension with each other. Back to your question: my general position would seek to reflect Jesus and Buddha as Nature-based teachers. As I encounter them as a mystical Presence, I am certain that they favor alternatives to violence. In my best moments I stand with them. Q. What is your response to putting this event in the framework of evil? I recall that Reagan used to call the USSR, the evil empire. To bin Laden the USA is evil. To the USA bin Laden is evil. It is easy to state that everyone who does you harm is evil. It raises the question: what is evil? I will address that notion first. A few years ago Judith and I shared breakfast with Hal and Sidra Stone. I asked him if he thought evil existed outside the human psyche. He replied, I would say that it exists only in the human psyche, but I would be afraid of what I might dream tonight. So, I won't say it. Neither will I. In a beginning way I hold that evil results from our refusal to expand our awareness. In physics we learn that no energy in the universe is ever lost, so a consistent choice to remaining unaware stores the energy of unawareness in a field of energy. Moreover, a consistent set of choices not to be aware of our different selves and the world around us, separates us from our true identity, our essence, our soul. As we drift far from our soul, we are overcome with amnesia. When we surround ourselves with amnesia for the soul, we can convince ourselves of nearly any terror. We humans are capable of incredible destruction as we drift farther away from our center. We can convince ourselves it is ok to kill 5,000 people. We can convince ourselves it is ok to consume a lion's share of the world's goods. We can convince ourselves it is ok to destroy the rain forests. After a time this amnesia takes on a life of its own. This is a beginning description of the kind of evil we saw the other day. Q. Then, are you saying that our unawareness contributed to the disaster? I won't speak for you, but I will acknowledge that I have contributed to the unawareness. I have had little notion of how vulnerable we are to this kind of atrocity. I have complained about having to go to the airport even an hour earlier. Q. What is your response to the judgment that the USA has done just as terrible an act to other people? We have. Our nation has not yet faced its terrible evil in regard to the Native Americans, for example. Yet, no one is innocent with regard to these terrible acts. That is the meaning of the Eden myth. We all have fallen. This does not mean, for me anyway, that I am not in touch with the depth of generosity of the USA. We are, in my estimation, the most generous nation in modern history. On the other hand, we are the most wasteful and selfish and narcissistic. With both of these truths in my awareness I am very glad to be an American. Q. I have heard you say that your primary loyalty is to the Earth. Is that more so than your citizenship to your country? First, I am part and parcel of the piece of land where I live in the Texas Hill Country. I love the little town of Wimberley, and, I admit it, I am an incurable Texan. As I said, I am very glad to be an American. I am loyal to our nation/state. However, my primary loyalty is to the Earth and beyond that to the One, that includes all of these parts. Anything that any of these parts do has to be measured against the good for the Whole. Q. Finally, for today, what is your response to the notion that God sent this disaster or even that He allowed it? I will tell you a story. I have a friend who is a ranger in the Texas Parks and Wildlife. He works in a desert area where we were having a vision quest. We were there in the spring during the height of the rattlesnake bites. Coming out of their dens half-blind, they tend to strike very easily at any moving target. My friend sat on one on a rock, and, surprise, it bit him. Two years later, he sat without looking again, and another snake bit him. We had forty people in the area that was crawling with these snakes, and thankfully no one was bitten. Was our awareness level higher so we watched where we were going? Was our respectfulness(at least for a week) at such a high level that the snakes sensed that we were no threat? Or were we just plain lucky? Did God protect us and not my friend? According to me the universe is a Sacred Energy Field. Snakes are here. Humans who do evil are here, including ourselves. It is a good idea to keep alert, aware, and compassionate. There are no guarantees, but sitting on a snake is less likely. Q. You haven't really answered my question. Quite true, but, nevertheless, watch where you sit, and drop bread not bombs. Both Jesus and Buddha told us that returning violence with violence leads to greater violence. So far, we are trapped in that karmic cycle. Now might be the time to break out.