A human story

Many years ago, man lived in harmony with the rest of the natural world. Through what we would today call telepathy, he communicated with animals, plants and other forms of life- none of which he considered "beneath" himself, only different. He worked side by side with earth angels and spirits, with whom he shared responsibility for taking care of the world. The earth's atmosphere was very different from what it is now, with a great deal more vegetation-supporting moisture. A tremendous variety of vegetables, fruit, seed and grain food was a available. Because of such a diet, and a lack of unnatural strain, human life was many times longer than what it is today. The killing of animals for food or "sport" was unthinkable. Man lived at peace with himself and the various life forms, whom he considered his teachers and friends. But gradually at first, and then with increasing intensity, man's ego began to grow and assert itself. Finally after it had caused many unpleasant incidents, the consensus was reached that man should go out into the world alone, to learn a necessary lesson. The connections were broken.



On his own, feeling alienated from the world he had been created from, cut off from the full extent of its abundance, man was no longer happy. He began to search for the happiness he had lost. When we found something that reminded him of it, he tried to possess it and accumulate more, thereby introducing stress into his life. But searching for lasting happiness and accumulating temporary substitutes for it brought him no satisfaction. As he as no longer able to hear what the other forms of life were saying, he could only try to understand them through their actions, which he often misinterpreted. Man began to manipulate the earth forces for his benefit alone, plants began to shrivel and die. With less vegetation to draw up and give off moisture, the planet's atmosphere became drier, and deserts appeared. A relatively small number of plant species survived, which grew smaller and tougher with passing time. Eventually they lost the radiant colors and abundant fruit of their ancestors. Man's lief span began shortening, and diseases appeared and spread. Because of the decreasing variety of food available to him, and his growing insensitivity, man began to kill and eat his friends the animals. They soon learned to flee from his approach and became increasingly shy and suspicious of human motives and behavior.And so the separation grew. After several generations, few people had any idea of what life had once been like. As man became more and more manipulative of and violent toward the earth, and as his social and spiritual world narrowed to that of the human race alone, he became more and more manipulative of and violent toward his own kind. Men began to kill and enslave each other, creating armies and empires, forcing those who looked, talked, thought and acted differently from them to submit to what they thought was best.



Life became so miserable for the human race, that around two to three thousand years ago, perfected spirits began to be born on earth in human form, to teach the truths that had largely been forgotten. But by then humanity had grown so divided, and so insensitive to the universal laws operating in the natural world, that those truths were only partially understood. As time passed, the teaching of the perfected spirits were changed, for what one might call political reasons, by the all too human organizations that inherited them. Those who came into prominence within the organizations wanted power over others. They downplayed the importance of non human life forms, and eliminated from the teachings statements claiming that those forms had souls, wisdom, and divine presence- and that the heaven they were in touch with was a state of unity with the divine that could be attained by anyone who put aside his ego and followed the universal laws. The power hungry wanted their followers to believe that heaven was a place to which some people- and only people- went after death, a place that could be reached by those who had the approval of their organizations. So not even the perfected spirits were able to restore the wholeness of truth, because of interference by the human ego.



Where we go from here is up to us.

The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.- Ueshiba