Cyber War and the Need for True Communication

Cyber war wages across the internet as hacker supporters of WikiLeaks attack prosecutors of Julian Assange. To the hackers it is a battle of keeping the internet free of government control, although now I am afraid the FTC will use this as an excuse of needing more control. As one who uses the internet to disseminate my views out into the world I certainly want freedom of expression, with no one telling me what is appropriate or not. After all, I know there are many who would find what I said as wrong. But when I stand with founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Perry Barlow, and say that attacking anyone for their views goes contrary to freedom of expression, I hope I am not attacked by these freedom hacksters.

My stand with WikiLeaks is this: I agree there needs to be independent outlets, free of government or big-business media, where whistle blowers can go to. Otherwise the shadows of government, corporations and powerful individuals will not be brought to the light. However, just as there is Right Speech, which is: Is what I am about to say kind, true and helpful; so there should be right speech on the internet. To release all information is like someone just telling it like it is, no matter what the consequences. Yet a lot of harm can be done with that manner of expression. There are needed secrets at times in all businesses, agencies, and with families. Otherwise things may be revealed too soon, taken out of context; something might have been said when the person was out of balance, in depression, in anger, and in balance the same person may have regrets over it. Why should they be held in a noose over it? Who has not said anything they later regretted?

It will be interesting to see how this war turns out. Like most wars, opposing sides will not see things as they really are, but will see acts, statements and such as symbols, rallying points to justify continued attack. In war all perspectives become polarized of us versus them. In this conflict it is the battle between freedom and form, the individual versus government. Yet both sides have their perspective that is legitimate. It is like the left brain fighting against the right brain. We need both to be a balanced humanity.

I hope peace will be remembered. And to have peace one must stand in the shoes of the other to see from their perspective. Hell, this is really all about communication. What is communication? It is communion. It is coming together in union. That is how we form community. And the community I want for my family and for all the world is community where all viewpoints are acceptable, that there be diversity and not my way or the highway.

Peace,

Janaka Stagnaro

First Communion

For the past month or so my family and I have been attending our neighborhood Episcopalian church called the Incarnation. My wife was raised Catholic but has not attended mass for years as she has had too many irreconcilable differences with the Church being as she is a most independent woman. I have had little relationship with organized churches except for the church of Religious Science by Ernest Holmes, and that was due to the church in Pacific Grove, Pacific Coast Church, having a strong connection to the teachings of the East, which I am most familiar and comfortable with. We started attending this church as a need for a spiritual community, a sangha, especially for my boy to have. I have found that this church, with its emphasis on inclusion and acceptance of the fact that everyone has their own unique relationship with God, where questioning is encouraged, allows us to feel right at home. At first, we had wrongly assumed that one had to be an Episcopalian to come up and take the Eucharist, but we found out that Communion here was an open table, that all were invited, even, as I am, not baptized.
So this past Sunday my wife and I walked up to the altar to take the Host. I invoked my friend, St. Francis, to walk beside me, who has been my bridge to Jesus the Christ (along with the teachings of A Course in Miracles). It has been a long time since I have participated in such a Christian ritual; in fact, I have shied away from churches all of this life. So in a sense, I was walking up there as an act of forgiveness to the church (all churches) for all the suffering that has been done by them in the name of Jesus and God, so I can see past such egoic, fearful actions and see the Christ that resides in all bodies, whether in an individual or in a group. Father Matt, the rector of Incarnation, told me that everyone is free to approach the Eucharist with any belief. So I took the communion as literally having the Divine descend upon my tongue, just as years before a holy woman from India, Karunamayi, wrote the Saraswati mantra upon my tongue with honey. To have the Godhead upon one’s tongue is something not to take in vain. The Buddha called for Right Speaking. To speak rightly is to speak truth, yet only if it is helpful, needed and or kind. It is also to speak consciously. When one speaks consciously one speaks less. So that was what I invoked and affirmed for me to do, to speak rightly.

So that was my first taste of Communion. And though I do not need any ritual to remind me of my infinite connection with All That Is, I am looking forward to the next time I kneel before the altar and hold out my empty hands.