Timothy Leary was a psychologist and writer known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Leary’s work with psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin was controversial and influential, as he believed that these substances had therapeutic and spiritual value. Leary famously coined the phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” which became a mantra for the hippie counterculture. He encouraged people to explore their consciousness through psychedelics as a means of personal and spiritual growth.
Leary’s views on psychedelics were intertwined with his political beliefs. He saw the use of psychedelics as a way to challenge traditional authority structures and promote individual freedom. He believed that by expanding their consciousness, people could break free from societal norms and create a more enlightened and peaceful society. Leary’s ideas and experiments with psychedelics led to conflicts with the law, and he was eventually arrested and imprisoned for drug-related charges. Despite this, his work had a lasting impact on psychology, philosophy, and popular culture. Overall, Timothy Leary was a complex and controversial figure who significantly shaped the cultural and political landscape of the 1960s and beyond.
Compassion in the first instance demands the need for a non-judgemental stance in thought and action. Christ and all teachers taught the need for compassion as one of the components required towards bringing alive the God within each of us. In society today and throughout history, the current social norm of likes, dislikes, trends and fears condition people to react in ways that reject certain behaviours, and ways of existence; that seem to fall out of the circle of what is considered acceptable. Acceptability appears to be defined by the trends of the time and the tolerances that may or may not exist as defined by the behaviours that are known to exist. It is true that throughout history humans have grown nearer to a clearer understanding of compassion and although it is seen to be practised more now in this new millennium, than ever before, many questions should be addressed.
But is humankind as a species anywhere near reaching the level of compassion required? We think not, how can those who champion injustice in wars and by other means, always at the expense of the weaker, continue to be allowed to take such liberty with the masses, who continue to suffer at the hands of those who hold the power on the planet.
We would like to think we are compassionate after all we may donate money and resources to those who suffer from natural disasters such as earthquakes and tidal conditions. But we then ignore the person who lives next door because they are a little strange or we cross the road to avoid walking past someone who we do not like the look of.
We give to charities that exist to help with specific problems such as Alzheimer’s, Cancer and so on. Yet all these conditions are a part of the human condition and thus set apart because resources are inadequate to meet needs. But how can this be so when billions of dollars are easily found to fight needless wars. So the word selective seems to be the one that informs how and what may be seen as the priority of the day. There is no doubt that the priority of the day is to continue waging needless conflict and raping the planet for its resources. We are not the only species living here and yet we pay lip service to conservation whilst driving millions of species on the land, in the air and in the sea to extinction.
We rationalize by saying we have the technology to preserve DNA and recreate it when we feel the circumstances are right but that sounds rather arrogant in the extreme. We are told throughout the ages that man was created to be like God but we seem to have taken this literally as we arbitrarily decide what and who will live or die.
Man, in my opinion, does not mean the species it means the individual, the ‘I Am’. In that, each of us individually is and has chosen to be created in the likeness of God. Religion lost sight of this fact aeons ago and along with it, true compassion!
Before one can have compassion for others one must first have it for one’s self. Before one can practise compassion outside of the self one must practise it within the self. Forgiveness of the self by the self for all indiscretions follows an understanding of the self as to why faults may exist and self-growth can thus take place. We are being compassionate to the self when we accept our failings as part of ourselves. This is just as important if not more so than the good things we may be and do individually.
The self is the seat of compassion. From the self, thought becomes action or not, but the fact it was thought of within the self related to an examination of the self, is an act of compassion by and for the self.
But how many of us are truly compassionate to ourselves? Is depression in our species more an inability to be compassionate to the self? It certainly must play a very important role when we consider that guilt and failure, feelings of self-doubt and self-worth are all the things that would fade into obscurity, if we were to be compassionate and forgive ourselves in the first instance, others in the second and thirdly to accept one’s lot. It is only by taking this step can the move be made to climb out of the morass of self-pity that so many of us exist in.
However, how can this be easy at all when the injustice and lack of balance across the planet is as it is? Those in power are blinded by values that do not inform the quality of life they confuse and alienate compassion through actions that promote death and destruction at the wave of a shaky hand. We are certainly so far away from the centre and right off the track as far as individual and global compassion is concerned.
What a life we live as we acknowledge lemmings leaping into darkness and certain death and yet ignore the blatant fact that we as a species are doing the same thing. It is just that there are billions of us and the edge of our cliff is the planet we live on. Maybe we are as lemmings and the extinction of our species is a sure thing. It certainly is the way that things are going there are no doubts about that.
So again I say that compassion does not exist in its strictest sense. It is overshadowed by greed and avarice. It is suppressed into the subconscious only to be subliminally charged when those in power wish to press the emotional buttons to raise funds to address needs that your taxes should already meet or to go to war.
Have things gone too far? Many think this is so and therefore will say why bother to do anything when there is no point. Others call it evolution. Clearly, this is an act of abject selfishness if not stupidity and arrogance. There is every need to bother, every need to preserve life for those who are to come after us. The Western ideal of luxury is sought after by so many countries and this is destroying cultures, countries and moreover the planet. So as well as the difficulty for individuals in practising and breathing compassion it seems that for the world as a whole, it is an impossibility.
The way forward seems to be an enlightenment of compassion.. a renaissance and perhaps this will only happen through some major global upheaval clearly it will have to be something so huge as to unite the planet .. extraterrestrial or interplanetary, but whatever it takes .. it will have to shake everybody to their very roots. Love cannot exist without compassion and the Law of Attraction functions best on this vibration. Dishonesty breeds greed thus fuelling jealousy and unpredictable behaviours leading to violence and wars .. this is the Law of Attraction in reverse thus enabling the spiral of descent into darkness.
May we all walk our talk, honour each other and praise every day that Mother Earth continues to let us live here. Dance in Beauty.
Lazarus Carpenter - Author 