Mini 19

As the pulled-apart diagram suggests:

• At our core, we’re each a perfect, brilliant being of light, at one with the vibrant, infinite cosmos, where life flourishes peacefully in win-win, live-and-let-live relationships,
• But we also have an inner savage for earth living—a shadow aspect of ourself that emerges when we’re drawn into the predatory, parasitic, and competitive dramas that are so common in this world—antagonistic win-lose relationships that are apparently rare elsewhere in the cosmos.

So, Earth is a scrappy world, and humanity spends a lot of time and energy sorting out the problems stirred up by its inner savage.

Down through the ages, there have been essentially two ways humanity has tried to tame the savage, either by 1) enforcing clear-cut rules of right and wrong, or by 2) fostering social harmony at every level of society, as a way of life. Then, when things go wrong, we either

1. consult the rulebooks, name the rule-breakers, and punish them (the hard, win-lose, punitive, “masculine” approach that’s predominant in western culture), or else we
2. talk it through, see where things went wrong, and try to heal the situation (the soft, win-win, restorative, “feminine” approach that’s more indicative of Asian culture).

I believe those two approaches—the win-lose punitive masculine and the win-win restorative feminine—evolved from our ancient past and are fundamental to our human nature. I suspect, therefore, that when people make mistakes or bad choices that cause damage and suffering, most societies, cultures, communities, and human relationships employ both of those methods to restore peace and order.

• Western culture, with its win-lose justice system, leans heavily toward the masculine form of punitive justice (#1).*
• Asian countries, at all levels of society, lean more heavily toward the feminine form of restorative justice (#2).*
• Indigenous cultures also lean toward soft, healing, restorative justice, while
• Muslims are subject to both punitive and restorative justice in their sharia form of law.

From the human perspective… we vaguely sense a source of power and knowledge deep within us, though it gets buried by the win-lose dramas that preoccupy our mind from day to day, moment to moment. Our inner savage keeps us “grounded”… and isolated from the source.

From a finer spiritual perspective… people are perfect light beings whose essence is Love inherent in the source, but who have a sense of separation from the source as they engage in egoic win-lose dramas that fill them with fear, envy, doubt, deceit, hate, and other savage motivations that darken the human spirit.

Acknowledging and nurturing our oneness with the source is the way to tame the inner savage.

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*Blending of east and west. In western culture, mediation, collaborative law, and other forms of restorative win-win justice are becoming more popular, especially in family law, especially in English-speaking countries—USA, Britain, Canada, Australia.
Meanwhile, Asian cultures have had to become more familiar with rulebooks and punitive win-lose justice while dealing with western cultures through international relations.