To be or not to be?

Jennifer Aniston says that if her friends are not vaccinated then they are no longer her friends and are not welcome in her home. The Prime Minister of Israel says: “I ask each of you to go and get vaccinated, you are endangering yourself and the people around you, as if you were walking with a machine gun and shooting Delta viruses at all of us.  This is selfish, unworthy and irresponsible.” WOW – what has happened to tolerance?

Others are saying that to vaccinate our children is consciously harming them and, in some cases, killing them. Certain scientists and health workers are saying that the deaths from vaccination are hugely more than is being reported and that the numbers are being suppressed in their tens of thousands, justified by what is perceived to be the “common good”.  What is happening to us?  It feels like Brexit, Trump, Black Lives Matter all over again – extreme polarisation.  Who do we believe?  The Government says trust the scientists.  But which scientists?  Do we trust the scientists supporting the tobacco industry, the scientists supporting factory farming and big oil companies or the scientists supporting fracking; the scientists supporting nuclear weapons of mass destruction?  The scientists against climate change?  Or just the scientists that the government and media tell us to trust.  It is not so simple.

We have been seduced and conditioned into the cult of objectivity. There is no objectivity, only inter-subjective agreement, i.e. the dominant narrative.    

However, there is a simple solution. To stop putting our misplaced trust in so-called external experts.  To cease acquiescing from a place of disempowerment and lack of personal responsibility.  Instead, to listen to our own internal expert, our own internal wisdom and to take responsibility for our choices.

The vaccination is an experiment.  In the history of the human race no other vaccine has been rolled out with less than a minimum of 12 years trials (experimenting).  It is far too early to evaluate the efficacy of this medicine in any meaningful way.  The medium to long term effects remain completely unknown.  We have a choice to be part of this experiment or not.  I respect and admire any friend or family member who listens to the debate with an open mind, reflects deeply on their position, listens to their inner voice, then decides to have the vaccine. I also respect and admire any friend or family member who listens to the debate with an open mind, reflects deeply on their position, listens to their inner voice, then decides not to have the vaccine.

I have no respect for anyone who listens to one particular narrative and seeks to impose this on others as dogma or the only perspective.  Who preaches from the cult of objectivity, steamrollering the honest, inner reflections of mature, educated, wise adults.  There is more than one view.

The quote from Hamlet, “To be, or not to be?  That is the question—Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them?” is asking the question whether is it better to live or to die.  Hamlet discusses how painful and miserable human life is, and how death (specifically suicide) would be preferable, would it not be for the fearful uncertainty of what comes after death.

Jesus of Nazareth was flogged to within an inch of his life and then nailed to a cross for speaking truth and challenging the religious and political status quo.  Before dying he asked his Heavenly Father to forgive his persecutors because they had no idea what they were doing.  Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years for the same reason, challenging the religious and political status quo, yet he came out of prison talking about forgiveness.  Socrates, the greatest philosopher ever, was put on trial and killed for corrupting the minds of the young, i.e. challenging the religious and political status quo, 400 years before Jesus (399 BC).  At his trial he said two things which have lasted more than 2.000 years.  The first, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and the second, “a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death”.  And, having been found guilty and punished with death, Socrates pronounced “But now the time has come to go away.  I go to die, and you to live; but which of us goes to the better lot, is known to none but God.”  There are many other amazing and ordinary examples of people speaking their truth, irrespective of the consequences, throughout human history.

Is the vaccine safe?  The only possible truthful answer is “we do not know.”  Is it better to live or die; to be or not to be?  We do not know.  Listening to external experts on this or any other subject is unlikely to lead closer to truth.

Ephedra, Thalidomide, Oxyphenbutazone, Dexfenfluramine and more than 180 other pharmaceutical medicines were thought perfectly safe when introduced and used on human beings for many years.  All have subsequently been banned by most governments in the world.  Ironically, the three deadliest drugs in the world remain legal and endorsed/approved by governments.  It is estimated that tobacco, alcohol, and opioids kill more than 2,000,000 men, women and children every year. They also create billions of pounds of money for governments.

The outer world is messy, ugly, beautiful, absurd and full of contradiction.

The great teachers from a wide variety of traditions over the past five thousand years have been seeking to teach us that it is not the outer world that harms or hurts us; it is our disconnection from our inner world and our compulsion/attachment to the outer world from which all suffering arises.

If we are aligned to who we truly are, we cannot be harmed.

For me, the sole purpose of Covid, is to highlight that we are “way off track” with our reliance on the outer world, which is transient and impermanent.  We need to get “back on track” by anchoring ourselves in the inner world, which is eternal.  Individuals and communities have known this for thousands of years and we still deny this truth to continue in a state of disconnection, seeking to rely on outer events.  However, we are evolving and this is the greatest evolutionary transition right now.

The dogmas of the religious and political outer world need challenging and confronting, more now than at any previous time.  But only from a place of inner connection and truth.

Covid is the beginning, not the end of this turbulence.

What is coming next will be far more disruptive.

Why?  Because we are on the wrong path – individually and collectively.

If the species is to survive then we need to find another path; another way of being in the world.

Those of us who resist the change that is coming will suffer greatly (and that is perfect because it is our path) and those who ride the wave, however imperfectly, will experience a level of liberation and peace previously unknown.  But known, of course, to Jesus, Mandela, Socrates, Buddha and many others who have tried to tell us… we are all ignorant, we are all slow learners but we are waking up and that is truly magnificent.