SACRIFICE PART 1

Learning to Sacrifice and give away Part 1

One thing that all students of synergetics must understand is the concept of sacrificing your immediate personal gain in preference of actions and behaviours that strengthen the group or network.

In Nature

It is a principle that we can see around us in nature all the time like when an ant will sacrifice its life to act as a bridge for the other ants in its colony to walk across. Sacrifice also occurs when a female animal will give up her own life protecting her offspring from predators .

In Human Societies

We can see it occur again and again throughout history and is represented as the archetype of the Martyr. Jesus is I guess the most easy to recognize, The Archetypal symbolism and message of sacrificing his own life has been carried through history for over 2000 years. The Buddhists have their own sacrificial archetype in The Bodhisattva, a being who sacrifices their own liberation and enlightenment to help the rest of humanity achieve the same. In Native American cultures giving away is seen as a very great thing to do and they have developed ceremonies just for that purpose. In India, Hindus have a very strong tradition of giving away, they call it "Dana" and every one does it, it’s built into the society and cultural values. Most people give to the poor, give to sadhu's and spiritual mendicants and give to their gurus and teachers. No one ever has to ask, it just happens

Today

In our modern competitive western world these concepts and ways of behaviour have been totally lost, in the capitalist , attention seeking, celebrity, me culture, getting to the top for personal or financial success are often what is deemed the most important. Philanthropy is only practiced by the extremely wealthy and then often only for tax purposes. The practice of tithing has thankfully seen a recent revival but is sadly only a drop in the ocean compared to the selfishness that prevails in the world today.

Service Mindset

I would like to get everyone to understand that synergetic relationships cannot be developed until you have truly dropped this type of selfish mental pattern and adopted a service mindset. In the past all true spiritual traditions would have selfless service to others as their major pillar. Look at your life now and all the actions that you performed in the past week. How many times have you acted knowing that you were looking after your own best interests? I want you to stop right now and write down any examples that come to mind. If you have to go back into the past month or the past year that is OK but make sure you have a good personal example to work with.

Expand your Perspective

Now taking your example I want you to expand your view of the situation you were in, expand it out to include not just yourself but all the components in the system. All the people and all the issues that were surrounding the situation. I will give you a personal example to illustrate, One day I made myself a sandwich and when I went to get the bread there was only 2 slices left, Now I was particularly hungry so I ate them both. Ignoring the fact that my girlfriend was also hungry and would want to have some toast for her breakfast . When I expand outwards I have to identify the components of the system; from a personal perspective there was only me, the bread and my hunger. So the obvious solution was to eat both slices because I was hungry. When I start to expand my perspective outwards I see that there are other components in the system, namely my girlfriend, her hunger, my fear that there was not enough food for both of us, The potential conflict that might arise when she finds out I ate all the bread etc.

Zoom in and Out

You see when you zoom out your decision making strategy has to change because it is not just you in a single feedback loop there are other components that have to be accounted for. Had I adopted a more expansive vision in this example I would have identified my girlfriends hunger into the equation and looked for possible solutions that would have made both of us happy, The social benefits of thinking about the needs of others has to be calculated. My girlfriend would feel loved and cared for by the fact that I was concerned about her going hungry which would be a positive feedback into how we were interacting with each other. Taking the selfish approach It might be just another minor annoying behaviour that triggers a huge argument and fight between us, damaging the quality of our relationship.

Ghengis Khan

A good example comes to mind along similar lines from the life of Genghis Khan. When he was a teenager his father was murdered and he and his family were banished from their tribe to starve in the wilderness. It was winter and Genghis, his older brother, three younger brothers, baby sister and mother had only a few simple tools and had to struggle to get enough food so they could survive. What Genghis discovered was that his older brother was going out hunting and was not sharing what he had caught, eating his prey on his own in secret and then coming back to the family group to claim his share of what the other brothers had brought back. Genghis took strict action by seeing that if he allowed his older brother to continue such behaviour they all would die so he conspired with his younger brother, and abashed and killed the one who was acting in such selfish ways.

Global Perspective

Let’s apply this to the world on a global scale and it becomes obvious that a lot of the dilemmas, economic, social and environmental problems we face as a species stem from this type of thinking pattern and organisation principle. It is repeated on all levels of human society.

What you can do

I hope that by now you will have understood the problem, so now the question becomes what we can do as individuals to change this. We can only really change the world by changing ourselves first. My personal intention is that if I can help you to understand and change your perspective and it is proven to make your life more successful and also your business then you will go out and teach others these same principles and it will spread to infect the whole globe. This is where social networking comes in. Right now if we had a perfect viral network with one email I could get this message distributed globally. Feel free to copy and paste this into an email and send it off, but only if you feel this article has any merits.

Please check out part 2 of this article where I suggest some practical exercises