Cooperation or Competition

Competition or Cooperation
Competition to me is one of the patterns of our society that breaks down the moral fibers and robs us of our true abundance. It takes and does not give. It supports the erroneous idea that I am better then you. It is an idea of superiority versus inferiority.
It goes back to the notion of a predatorial existence. It is the idea of the strong overcoming the weak or survival for the fittest. It is based on the belief in duality that there is a power of good and evil and are two separate powers that exist in the universe equally or not. It is the belief that God or the creative power of the universe created two separate powers one of evil and one of good. God is not divided against itself. God is wholeness. God is oneness. God is one in many. God is love. In that love is unity and not separateness or inequality.
This is part of the human condition our belief in superiority or might is right. I know this because I have contributed to this belief myself and know from experience how insane this concept that is fed in our schools to our children as a way of life for human beings.
What we need to really embrace more and more is the idea of cooperation working together for the greater good, knowing that we are all connected to each other and what we do to one another we do to ourselves individually and collectively at the same time.
I remember growing up as a child the joke I use to say, “What does one firecracker say to the other?” “My pop is bigger than your pop. “ Just in an innocent joke is this idea or belief in superiority over another.
Our religions speak of superiority and inferiority with a concept of a God that is superior and to be feared and not loved to make one feel inferior and unworthy. I know for me that was my experience and belief that God is superior and I am inferior and we could never be like God even though I was also taught to believe that I am created in the image and the likeness of God. I always felt unworthy and was made to feel that way by others who were supposed to be my spiritual guides and support system. My mother used to say to me that there were no bad boys, but that didn’t mean that I was good. The statement for me that I am not behind the point of perfection nor advancing toward it and that I am at the point of perfection and it is from there I need to understand myself from speak truth to me.
All of our society and its institutions and traditions are based on fear and self imposed limitations and what you can take or steal from me. We have been raised with a competitive spirit in schools and at home. Why can’t you be like your brother or sister? A father who is supposed to be the role model for the son tells his son that he will never grow up and be like me. I am smarter then you and I will always be smarter then you. You are never quite good enough. My pop can beat up your pop. My mother cooks better than you mom. My gang is better than yours tougher and smarter. Children can be cruel growing up because they take after their parents who are living in a society that believes that competition is good thing.
If you look at the big picture competition is draining our society giving us a sense of independence and I am not my brother’s keeper. It is saying that more is good and never enough. We must be better than our competition. We must crush our competition. We must beat our competition. Our products are better than yours. We will use you until we can use you no more. It is not brotherhood or sisterhood but alliances where we use each other for our own purposes and not what is good for the whole.
Competition takes, it does not really give and it is in giving that we receive. Competition has the appearance of giving but it robs from Peter to give to Paul. It is a dog eat dog world and we better get as much of it as we can before someone else takes it from us or before we die and cease to exist.
Are these helpful ideas or are they destroying the fabric of our society depleting our world resources because we believe our country is superior then yours.
We raise a flag for our country and say it is the home of the free and what do we do bind each other to a society with laws that support capitalism and a caste that says papa may have and mama may have, but God bless the child that got his own. It is a belief in a society that believes in them that gots' and them that don'ts' this is the have and have nots of the world. I am not my brother’s keeper. Where is the love in that? Where is the idea that we live in abundance and that there is no scarcity if we live and believe by our actions that we are impoverished by the way we treat others. What we choose or have chosen becomes our experience of the world. Change you mind and change your experience.
Cooperation comes from the idea of universal love and abundance. Generosity is the opposite of greed. Generosity sees the bigger picture and realizes that we live always in abundance and that there is that which is greater than the sum of all its parts, but to the measure that we are willing to give to others do we receive.
It starts with our nuclear family and extends out to our greater family of the world and the universe and beyond. We are all family, brothers and sisters of the same light no matter our color of skin or what country we are born in or whatever our status is in society.
We are here to expand in consciousness the reality of who and what we are by extending the Truth of what we are to others. As we are the movement of life and we decide to flow with Life’s purpose we then fulfill each other’s need. As we give from our universal abundance to our brother we also give to our self and connect more and more with what we are in each other.
I do not believe anymore in a competitive society and if capitalism is the epitome of competition we have truly erred and we need to turn capitalism around to world cooperation, sharing and generosity to each other so that we use the world’s goods and resources for the betterment of all the world and mankind.
We can take everything that we have acquired and think we owned for a higher purpose that fill fulfill and not take away that what we have. I cannot say it enough but we are all contributing on some level that is depleting our resources and that is because we are competing with our neighbor.
We really do not own any thing and we cannot take it with us either. It is here for our use until it is no longer needed, but it is not just for personal use, but to be used for the good of all.
If we desire to see the lion lay down with the lamb then we must stop being predatorial and let go of the idea of conquer ring heroes and the strong overcoming the weak. All of this is based on a self centered or ego centric belief that we are all solitary living in an unversed as a mortal with no connection to anyone and that we are alone.
We need to stop bullying each other as we did as kids and doing the one –upmanship thing and instead look at each other from a frame of reference that is the real truth of what we are being eternal Love and asking this truth what the real need here is with each other that will reconnect us and find our strength.
He who exalts himself shall be humbled and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. He that appears to have that does not give that which he appears to have will be taken. The universe gives to itself. We are the Self that the universe gives too. Life does not compete with itself, because it does not see itself separate but whole. We all complete each other by the recognition that we are whole and not separate.
Competition is the culture of selfishness and greed. It is the belief in lack. I grew up in a society that taught me that stealing was okay because society was stealing from me by not helping me or providing me a support system and that everyone was on their own. I believed because I didn’t have any real skills or self worth that it was okay to steal because society did not care.
I lied and cheated and stealed in order to survive, because I believed that is what society did. I didn’t realize that I was really doing it do myself because of my limited beliefs that society taught me to be true.
I wanted to have what others had but because of my institutionalization and what I was taught to believe I could not unless I stole from other what they had. I believed that the rich were my enemy and justified pick pocketing or writing a check without the funds or any form of white collar crimes would get me ahead.
We now have white collar crime on the rampage by a corporate America that says anything goes as long as we get ahead of everyone else because I am on top of the mountain and there for better than you and have a right to cut you off from my resources which I pillaged and raped to get and took so that I can be all powerful and rule the world.
I will build an empire that will worship me as a god and I will rule even to the extent of depopulating the world.
I grew up in an institution that taught me to steal and rob and if necessary kill because it was us or them.
I do not believe in that way anymore and I see now more and more a society with all of its ills as a part of me and what I do to it I do to myself. By thinking that I am superior to others I always find someone who thinks like me that they are superior.
It goes back to the idea of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This means of course that the perception of each other must be equal and if I see you not as my enemy but as a friend or a brother equal to me as one of me I will treat you as such and in turn be treated the same.
Competition says different, that I am not your equal and that I am lesser than you and there for you have the right to take from me as I have the right to take from you even though on the surface it appears that we are sharing.
The key to this age is Cooperation, sharing and generosity if we as a world and a society are to survive. I am my brother’s keeper and we are not, have and have not’s but we are all one with each other and if one of us didn’t exist we all wouldn’t because we are all one Self and Son/Daughter of God.
We are all one synergy of being that is singular in its Reality. We are all one Love inseparable from each other and closer than hands and feet. Our labor is love in the flesh or as Gibran said love is made visible. We are here to make love visible and service as our reward to meet the human need and by doing that we are Christ incarnated in the world.