Unite with Others

The first step in improving communal existence involves uniting with others.

If you experience no deep unity, then your community is (by definition) riven by me/them divisions that are ultimately irresolvable. This is likely to create discord that can escalate, ultimately to violence.

To ensure unity with others, two Injunction Centres are required:

• See Unity-L7_B
  

This is a «get a grip» Centre. It is up to you to take hold of yourself so that you imagine genuinely that you and others are similar in some fundamental way and united as part of larger whole, or even wider humanity.

• Care About Others-L4_B

If you did not take caring about others seriously, there would be little reason to unite with them. Caring for others is boosted by a perception of similarity that naturally invites empathy and concern, and fosters unity.

This Channel-Precept is named: Treat others as yourself.

If I can just see that everyone is similar to myself in the most basic ways, then I will treat them well—and I naturally wish others would treat me well for the same reason. The differences between us are important too, but the first step in handling differences sensibly is to proceed just as I would wish my own uniqueness to be handled.

Treating does not refer to the minutiae of personal preferences much less to entitlements or emotional demands. It is about demonstrating the basic values of social life in action: appropriate attention, courtesy, assistance, fairness, respect &c. You just put yourself in the other person's shoes.

The Golden Rule

This Precept reminds us of the Golden Rule. It is worded above in a neutral form. However, there is also the positive form:
Do to others as you would wish they do to you.
and a negative form:
Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you.

This is a wonderful Channel, anchoring any worthwhile communal existence in a perennial truth often claimed to be the essence of a good or godly life. It might also be worded: Love the Other as Yourself, which has the additional implicit encouragement to love yourself. But just remember spiritual and emotional states are difficult to control or assess; while a focus on overt «doing/treating» is workable.

Whatever formulation is chosen, under the influence of this Precept, I should be unable to demonize others and unwilling to cause someone harm.
But if I do such things:

Then I must accept that I am black-hearted. I intend to lead my own life in accord with my selfish interests, not by any criterion of goodness. That position, taken by intensely power-centred individuals, releases evil. It opens the door to ruthless domination/submission and coercion, with the ever-present likelihood of violence or war.

The Extent of Unity

For the best possible world, uniting should extend beyond a local community, past larger society and on to the whole of humanity. This is feasible in principle, but most are not quite there yet.

In the earliest days of human evolution, uniting could not realistically extend much beyond the family or clan, and later not beyond the tribe or city. Today, unity is commonly ethnocentric: evoked and limited to a society, nation, ethnic group, or religion. That is probably the best that some can do (i.e. good) and yet it is a lesser good once awareness dawns (i.e. evil). Limited unity opens the door to irretrievable disharmony with those outside the boundary. Jews, Christians and Muslims can still readily butcher each other and their own kind over highly magnified small differences of belief and lifestyle.

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Once I unite myself with others, I immediately come face to face with the many marked differences amongst people, including: interests, beliefs, temperament, capabilities, values, motivations, knowledge, spiritual development and more.

So the next essential requirement in a better communal existence involves stabilizing myself amidst this bubbling and challenging social diversity. There are two methods that we use:

• look at: getting a grip; &

• then consider: paying attention.

Originally posted: 31-Jan-2013