Jürg Rohrer - ABC of Awareness (auf Englisch)

It is almost simpler to derive certain non-permitted actions from the basic rights of existence. As a direct result of this, killing someone for example, is not permitted (such as by means of the death penalty, crime, war) or to prevent someone from having his own opinion (totalitarian regimes).

As is probably already clear from these few examples if we consider our everyday situations we soon come up against a conflict with the widespread views of our world. Is it for example permitted to intervene militarily in a country and thereby accept the killing of people so as to establish there the right to a life of freedom for the people? The answer is clearly: No.

From the basic rights of existence there comes neither a right nor certainly a duty for certain people to establish these basic rights on the earth! Because certain people have violated the basic rights of existence there is similarly no right for other people to establish them for other people – even if other human beings are being made to see «reason», i.e. being coerced into maintaining these rights! There is no justification in any of this for a «policeman of the world» with special rights!

The basic rights of existence are valid for ever and for everyone, there are no exceptions. All beings (people, plants, animals etc.) must live according to them and we should also naturally not violate them in order to establish them.

The foregoing discussion calls in the question as to who then establishes this law if it «may» or must not be established by human beings. Who disciplines the «wrongdoers»? This question is all the more interesting because we all presumably violate this law several times a day. Let us leave open this question of a judge and consider what happens when a being violates this law:

In observing the needs of people we have seen that first we try to safeguard our physical existence and only at the highest level do we seek total happiness, self-fulfilment, internal harmony and peace - or whatever one may consider the highest objective of all. We can probably assume that there is an analogous needs hierarchy amongst animals and plants, in other words that they too aim for a state of total fulfilment.

Now comes a very decisive thought: Let’s assume that we find ourselves within a system where certain rules exist which we cannot change. We also cannot leave this system and are simply there inside this system.

How can I have a feeling of well-being within such a system, in which I either follow the rules or resist them – but which I cannot change? Naturally I will only be able to feel good in this system if I follow its irreversible rules as rigorously as possible 1. If I accept these rules, if I «play along» with them.

This really does make sense since we have of course made the assumption that we cannot change the rules. Why therefore fight against something which we cannot change? Lets look at this with the aid of two examples:

If I wish to feel good in the «water system» as a human being, I must be able to follow the rules of water for better or worse. I am free to assert: «I can also breathe under water, I don’t need to learn to swim.» When I actually breathe in the water, the consequent choking will sooner or later lead me to the realization that I must accept that I am subject to certain natural laws. I simply have to accept them and can for example learn to swim, then it will be much better for me in the water system!

As our next example let’s assume that I would like to feel joy and satisfaction in playing football. This is possible if I keep to the rules of football. If on the other hand I violate these rules, sooner or later I will be whistled back by the referee, maybe even sent off.

Its easy to find other examples. It is thereby quite clear that the respective rules must be followed if someone wishes to feel good within a given system.

The basic rights of existence behave in just the same way at a global level: If we want to have a feeling of well-being on the earth - if we wish to achieve lasting harmony and calmness, peace and happiness, we simply have to abide by the rules. The better we follow these rules the closer we will find ourselves to our objective.

This possibly leads us back to our original question as to whether the basic rights of existence are actually valid. As already indicated many times: You have to make this decision for yourself personally using your own intuition.

We can also ask ourselves the question whether the law upon which our earth system is based can, for example, be changed by us human beings in our favour. Here is a brief suggestion for thought on this:

The rules governing a system are established by whoever founded the system or set it up. Whoever it was who created the earth system – it certainly wasn’t us human beings since we didn’t arrive until very late in the day! It would therefore be extremely contrary to believe that we can change the rules of the earth system ourselves.

Measured against the age of the earth and nature we human beings correspond with a baby which is still in nappies. Perhaps this comparison is not at all bad: Whoever has brought up children will certainly remember that the children in the family also want to dictate the rules of living together. During their upbringing however we force them to follow the rules of play which already exist: One eats from a plate, uses a knife and fork, dresses neatly when going out etc. Perhaps therefore the time has now come for us humans to accept the rules of play of the earth system – the basic rights of existence – and to attempt no longer to unsuccessfully try, like a child, to dictate the rules of the system.

Whoever still unshakeably believes that it is we human beings who determine or can change the foundation of existence on the earth system, must at least admit that our effect on the earth when looked at globally has so far not been very positive. The signs in fact point more to increasing problems in the future: So far we have not been able to stop environmental catastrophes, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, whirlwinds etc. any more than epidemics, sickness, hunger and war. On the contrary many of these things seem to be even worse!

From the above thoughts we can conclude that the desired state of harmony on the earth can only be achieved if the basic rights of existence are followed one hundred percent. The less frequently we violate the basic rights of existence, or the better we live a life of unconditional love, the closer we find ourselves to our highest of all goals, internal harmony as well as harmony with our environment. If other beings violate the basic rights of existence, this only influences us indirectly at the most. We can decide for ourselves whether we wish to respect the basic rights of existence in a given situation or not, therefore the achievement of lasting harmony for ourselves and for the environment depends entirely on us! It is entirely us alone who can control how quickly, or whether, we wish to achieve the highest objective of all people. We will come back to this in later chapters.

The development towards the top of the needs hierarchy can be imagined as a study course with lots of lessons. Every lesson thereby corresponds with a characteristic or a capability, which is necessary for respecting of the basic rights of existence. The more lessons which have been successfully completed, the closer a being is to his goal and the greater is this being’s capability of respecting the basic rights of existence. The objective can only be reached if all lessons have been successfully completed.