by Michal Hall
Chapter 9
Living in Humility
“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
Crowfoot Blackfoot, Native American
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”
Gary Snyder
It’s really impossible to tell someone who is still sunk in pride and greed what happens when you step out of it and start evolving into humility’s unselfish peace and sharing. It’s not just a change of actions, or even a change of mind, it’s a change of identity. It is a change of how we perceive ourselves that changes everything. When we process our interconnectedness, we start finding ourselves just as concerned for others as we are for ourselves. Without thinking, we open our minds to the natural peace of loving everyone and everything to live in the wonder at the awareness that we really belong to everything. Before us evolved countless new relaxed relationships at levels we could never have imagined before. As we rediscovered our mother Earth, we began to live in its rich culture of truth belonging and freedom. For the first time, I was at home with myself, with others, and with my life!
Also, we were given a whole new perspective on what is meant by good and evil. The Federation taught that living in the cosmos means that we are always moving together with everything instead of moving apart. This is because what they call ’The Cosmic Way" that is always moving everything and us together. However, pride has pulled us apart to rob us of this natural force, but when we humbly live in love, peace, and all the other words that describe how we move together, we are in tune with the cosmos. This means that what is good is living in this Cosmic Way that pulls us together, and what is bad is living in the prideful way that tears us apart.
Thus, we can deduce from this that individuals are not alone in being bad or good. The reality is that the milieus, cultures, and their beliefs that constantly surrounds and teaches us are also things that determine our fate. That is why moving out of the milieu of pride that divides us, into a milieu of humility that unites us, is necessary if we are to survive, live well and contribute to the Earth and cosmos. Thus miliues and cultures can be either good or bad.
This means that our jobs now have nothing to do with things that just benefit ourselves…like making lots of money. No, now our jobs are to humbly build a life where we can serve everyone and everything. For me, this humility was encouraged when I learned about things like the vast cosmos, our amazing planet, and the complexity of all of life. Soon I was able to reclaim my intimate relationship with the Earth to understand and even help the ecosystems, which then assure the future of all of the species on this planet. Of course, our job also is to clean up all of the shocking mess we had made when we blindly lived on the Earth in pride, to eventually allow the Federation to go home and enjoy their own planets.
The teachings constantly talked about the fact that we are interconnected to everything. They taught us that being interconnected is different from just being connected. Being connected is where we are touching everything, while being interconnected means that we are woven into, and a part of, everything. This helped us to accept that we really are everything.
We are each other. We are the Earth with its animals, plants, vast lands, and oceans. We are the balanced eco-systems that not only allow life to exist, but are always bringing new life into being. We are the dust of the exploded stars in the cosmos. We are the 17.2 trillion cells of our bodies and the unique stories that come from our super complex brains. These amazing brains are constantly analyzing what comes in from our five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) to give us our unique stories. As reflective beings, we can choose to live out these stories for good or for evil by living in humility or living in pride.
I will always remember when, through these teachings, I was able to advance to a place where I could actually feel interconnected. That was because at that point I had left my pride behind and immersed myself in humility to experience my oneness with the Earth and cosmos. I became fully aware of who I really am and who we all really are. For the first time, I understood the meaning of being real, relaxed, and happy.
Food was not just available to us at every meal; we could also tell the screen the flavor of food we wanted for the next meal. We were encouraged to take the food and the chairs outside to eat it, because, as much as possible, we were to participate in nature. Thus weather providing, we ate to the tune of a stream that runs down behind our house, the concert of birds singing out of joy, and the mystical, and sometimes dramatic, sounds of the wind blowing in the trees and bushes. We found that our attitudes, emotions, as well as our minds, were totally changing. We started releasing the clutter of worry, fears, comparisons, judging, guilt, expectations, hate, and all the other satellites of pride’s foolishness. We would often talk about how relaxed we had become, and how pleasant it was to live free and at home in nature.
At one point, I asked the screen if we would always need to just eat one-celled organisms. It said that the ecosystems of the Earth are designed so that everything takes care of everything else. Thus, when we had dramatically reduced our population to around 750 million, and when we were giving back to the ecosystems more than we were taking, it might be possible for us to occasionally eat something from the abundant plant life on the Earth. However, it said that killing and eating any animals, which are much more complex beings than plants and are so much like us, we would soon see as a form of cannibalism that is disgusting. Thus, obviously, we will never, ever, kill and eat animals again.
All did not go smoothly for everyone during this time of transition. It actually took three or four years before many people were able to really listen and respond to the Federation’s teachings on the screens. Occasionally, when I was walking alone in the woods, the Federation’s light would appear before me to ask my opinion on some things. For instance, on one of those occasions, they told me that when I had talked to all the people in world at the United Nations, they were doing more than just getting our opinions on whether they wanted the Federation’s help. They said that they were also able to determine the amount of physical and psychological abuse that each person in the world had received throughout their lifetime. They also said that in our interconnected state of being, every abuse affected everybody else. They had a big name for it, but for the first time I realized that everything we do or say impacts everyone and everything on this planet and beyond. I realized that the abuse of one is the abuse of everyone. For instance, I saw that our previous wars that leave people homeless and starving, our ignoring of the poor and sick, our blindness to mean prejudice, our acceptance of the abuse of power, our many forms of slavery, and our countless other acts in pride’s dark menagerie, don’t just happen to a few; they happen to everyone.
This was also when I was told about some of the negative things that were happening since the beginning of the great transition. From the beginning people were fighting and rebelling against the “radicals” who had kidnapped them. Most of the previously rich and privileged people were very mad at suddenly needing to live like everyone else. Some people even did things like trying to set fire to their house, trying to force other people to join rebel groups with them, refusing to eat the food to go on hunger strikes, demanding better furniture and more space, trying to make guns and gun powder, and on and on.
Still, most things were far from negative. For instance, being free of things like the fear of making a living, the fear of what people expect, and the misery of doing everyday something that we hate to then live in endless regret—all upped our spirits and our enjoyment of life considerably. My wife and I began to feel the mystical wonder of walking through the rebudding nature all around us as we, for the first time, heard, saw, and felt its wonders and our place within it. We began to identify with the land and all of the plants and animals that were sharing it with us. As time went on, we were able to see the c
omplexity and depth of it all, to feel at one with the Earth and feel at home in the beautiful culture of the Earth.
Most people were content to just grow into these wonders, but some people, even after just one year, started asking if they could do something to help. They wanted to be trained to do things that would serve the Earth and the common good. The Federation didn’t push this, but whenever someone asked, they would enthusiastically respond. It had been made clear in our teachings that the Federation would not always remain with us on this planet, and when we were able to take over, the Federation would go home.
The teachings said that the concept of a national government had never worked on any planet. Even if we erased the lines that someone had drawn on a picture of the Earth, someone else would foolishly draw the lines in again, and they would once again be taken literally. The teachings said that they found, in helping other planets, that the pride of nationalism is the hardest pride for any species to give up. It’s like they become addicted to their so-called ‘national identities’ to lose sight of the fact that their identity only comes from their planet.
Also, we saw that the practice of buying and selling land, so a person could supposedly own it, was ridiculous. The truth is that all of the land on the Earth simply belongs to the Earth. All we do is live on it, and every moment we should be grateful for that fact! Some people had a lot of trouble taking this in, but after a while, people did begin to accept that they were actually citizens of the Earth…and nothing else.
However, with the federation’s help, some dedicated people have managed to establish a new democratic, representative, world governing body in which everyone participates. It took many years to get this going, but its success pointed to the fact that at some time in the future, the people of the Earth would make all of their own decisions reflecting the culture of the Earth and their new state of mind.
After only three years, there were a large number of people from all over the world being taught to do really helpful things. For instance, some who had been people of the sea, were taught how to seed and grow the one-celled organisms that we ate, and how to protect and encourage marine life. Others who may have been in food preparation were taught to cook our food, while others were taught how to send the food on radio waves to everyone’s home. All of us were quickly taught how to access everyone else in the world through the screen, and most were eventually taught how to travel on radio waves to any place on the Earth. I was fascinated with the screen, and soon I began to learn how to build and repair them.
It took over twenty years of being taught how to leave pride behind and joyfully embrace humility, before everyone was able to relate to and embrace everyone, as well as the Earth and its life-forms, with love, appreciation, and tenderness. It was then that everybody started celebrating the day of what we called ‘Our Liberation into the Future’. All of us could feel the powerful relief of finally being free from violence, fear and not having a future.
As is to be expected, there were some mentally ill people such as psychopaths, sociopaths and others with deeply ingrained prejudices, who ignored the teachings and everything else, and quickly needed help. They were immediately diagnosed from the health monitors and sent to places that could compassionately deal with them. There were some people who were still unable to live in a humble, caring and sharing world, and who continued to hurt themselves and other people around them. They were sent to one of the many uninhabited planets the Federation had found in our galaxy that gave them the freedom to do whatever they wanted without hurting anyone.
Starting soon after the first day of change, no person or animal on this planet was ever killed again, and if somebody did kill another person or animal, they would be diagnosed to see why. If their condition was something that could not be cured, they would also be deported to an uninhabited planet. After three years, the subject of killing anything ceased to be an issue. The teachings clearly taught us about how amazing and wonderful all of life is, and in our growing ability to live beside and affirm all of nature, it was accepted that all life around us would not just be respected, but would be cherished.
None of us had previously realized the extent of our previous abuse of animals. We saw in our teachings the horrible, unthinkable things that went on in industrial farming and the way drugs were used to make them bigger and fatter. We saw the shocking cruelty to animals in some of our sports, such as horse racing, dog racing, cock fighting, and bull fighting. We also saw the many ways that animals were cruelly used to work for us and provide our transportation. We saw how the breeding of animals, such as dogs, cats, and other animals, robbed them of being who they really were to satisfy our own selfish egos. We also saw how the Earth has lovingly provided us with life, sustenance, and beauty, and we have returned this amazing gift by giving the Earth back our trash, pollution, overpopulation and the death of its many life forms.
The teachings encouraged us to presently keep our pets, but to progressively give them more and more freedom to go outside whenever they wanted even though there might be some risk. If the pet decides to stay outside or go elsewhere, we were told to remember that no animal belongs to us, and we should willingly let them go. We were also taught to never purchase or take a pet into our homes again, because they must be allowed to live freely in nature and not be dependent upon us. Only by doing this can we ultimately reverse our controlling, prideful, self-centered domestication of animals to get out of the way of nature’s intent. They said that there might be a somewhat painful transitional period, but soon all of the animals would be free to live without our arrogant interference.
We were encouraged to hear that when this happens, we will learn how to care for all of the animals as friends and cherished siblings in our mutual evolution on this Earth. We will also find that all animals will be close to us because they will be respected and loved for who they really are. They will be deeply valued not because they are seen as belonging to us, or are pleasing to us, but because they are us. However our teachings also said that sometimes it may be appropriate, when an animal is unable to fend for themselves, to compassionately help them by nursing the animal in our home. Of course that should only be done when it is the only way to relieve pain or allow the animal to live, and we should return them to nature as soon as possible. All of this means that we must learn to protect the civil rights of animals just as we do humans.
However, I am now dying. The health monitor has allowed me to live a long and healthy life, but it is time for me to go. What will happen after I die? I really don’t know. We’ve been taught that all of the many opinions on this subject should be respected. However I believe that my death will simply mean the end of my life, as it does for all the plants and my fellow animals. None of us knows how the cosmos began or what is behind it, and none of us knows what happens when we die. This is because none of us were there when everything began, and none of us have ever been dead. Thus I don’t believe that any one knows, and whatever I think has to be true. The Federation has taught us about the devastating results of religious pride. Almost all religions have said that they are against pride, but very few of them have acted on it. Most religions have pridefully said that all of the other religions are false, and that only their religion is true. Then they’ve pridefully gone out to convert everyone to their own way of thinking.
Also, since the teachings have now taught us about the many religions of the world, as well as about the Earth and the cosmos, more and more people are coming to feel that the superstitions surrounding their religions should be seen as myths that may sometimes offer us meaningful lessons about life, but they should not be taken literally. I am very impressed with the teachings of most of the religious founders; however, I have never been impressed by the added on selfish, anthropomorphic superstitions that evolved into these religions after their founder’s death.
Of course, when we live in humility to love every person and living being, everyone is free to believe whatever they want. Beliefs and op
inions are fine, but exclusive beliefs and opinions that demeans other people or species, comes out of pride and is not fine at all! Also no one who has actually moved out of religious pride would ever try to convert another person to their religion. No, they would humbly appreciate the other person’s opinions, just as they appreciate the other person.
Through the amazing teachings of the Federation, I have become a new person. At some point in my transition into a humble, reflective life-style, I realized that I was growing in my appreciation and love for everything…and it felt so good. I found that I was more patient with the people I met, and that they were all very easy to talk with and be around. I think one reason for this was because I was able to stop just thinking about myself to actually listen and identify with them. I would not just be concerned about the words that I would say next, but I was able to hear what they were saying… able to tune into and really care for them. This also caused me to hear sounds that I had previously ignored like the songs of the birds, the breeze in the trees, or the unique sounds of my fellow animals.
I also felt compassion and love for things that had never even touched my life before. I began to see that I was not just a miracle of life on the Earth and the cosmos, but I was the Earth and the cosmos…I was a part of everything, everywhere. It was then that I began feeling that I really belonged…that I was not alone…that I was home. I began to feel what the teachings called ‘the culture of the Earth’, and it felt good.
Gradually, everything was handed over to us. More and more people, who might have contributed to the inequality injustices and competition of our past were now effectively contributing through their new cooperation education and understandings. So many people who were capable and smart but could never have done anything in the past but try to survive, were now brilliantly doing the things that the Federation had previously done. The Federation had given us so much, but at this point, we were doing things on our own!
