I recently found a book of pictures of people condemned to death by the Khmer Rouge.
Many of them had just had their blindfolds taken off after having been carted in trucks all night, and some had just been beaten. Their "confessions" under torture and their head shots were preserved by the Khmer Rouge as evidence of their "betrayal". One confessed, for instance, to accidentally allowing the lighting in a government event to go off, and "due to the lack of money in the Party" confessed that he had shamed the party and deserved to die.
These people elicited two distinct reactions. First was the emotion of outrage and anger, and second was the desire to understand what led these people to this extreme. I learnt in the essay that a desire to please authority, extreme poverty, a hatred of what was perceived to be buddhist ethics, and domination by fear and shame gave rise to these events in Cambodia.
Prosperity in my opinion is part of the defense against this kind of outcome. It would seem to me that even a handful of people in the 300 levels of consciousness present in such a population might avoid such a situation in future.
The material and personal goals of the 300s and 400s have their own context which supports life. I suppose one cannot compare the goals and views of this realm with the spiritual goals of the 500s. But in my opinion spirituality includes the materialistic and personal goals into a broader context without any conflict at all.
Many of them had just had their blindfolds taken off after having been carted in trucks all night, and some had just been beaten. Their "confessions" under torture and their head shots were preserved by the Khmer Rouge as evidence of their "betrayal". One confessed, for instance, to accidentally allowing the lighting in a government event to go off, and "due to the lack of money in the Party" confessed that he had shamed the party and deserved to die.
These people elicited two distinct reactions. First was the emotion of outrage and anger, and second was the desire to understand what led these people to this extreme. I learnt in the essay that a desire to please authority, extreme poverty, a hatred of what was perceived to be buddhist ethics, and domination by fear and shame gave rise to these events in Cambodia.
Prosperity in my opinion is part of the defense against this kind of outcome. It would seem to me that even a handful of people in the 300 levels of consciousness present in such a population might avoid such a situation in future.
The material and personal goals of the 300s and 400s have their own context which supports life. I suppose one cannot compare the goals and views of this realm with the spiritual goals of the 500s. But in my opinion spirituality includes the materialistic and personal goals into a broader context without any conflict at all.
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