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#3720 - Friday, November 20, 2009 -
Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Today's feature is from the Facebook page of Eric Gross, who authored Liberation from the Lie.
Why the Indian (Native American) Pities the White Man: Words from an Old Lakota
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 11:31am
When I was 19 had a remarkable conversation
with an old Lakota (Sioux) man at the Crow powwow.
It was dusk, on a hill above the Little Big Horn River, right
where Arapaho, Lakota, and Cheyenne warriors wiped out Custer and
his men 94 years ago (at that time).
He liked to speak to me by posing questions, which I later
learned is a fairly common way of teaching in the “Indian”
way. He had previously told me many “tall” tales and
then would ask me, "Eric do you believe this is true?"
Usually, I would politely reply that I didn’t believe it to
be true and he would chuckle good-naturedly. On this day, he was
more solemn and he said that he was going to tell me a different
sort of story. He wondered if I might believe this tale.
He asked, “Do you know why we Indians view white people with
pity and contempt?” his question confused me. I didn’t
know what he was referring to, nor what he was trying to tell me.
So I answered, “is it our obsessions with money, material
things?”
He smiled and then asked me to look around and tell him what I
saw. I told him that I saw hills, grasses, sky, and the river
below us.
He nodded in agreement. Then he said, “Where are the wolves
Eric?”
“They are gone.” I answered. “Where are the bears
- Where are the buffalo?” and he asked about many animals
that are now gone. He asked me, “Were they all here, before
your people came to this land?”
I hesitantly nodded yes.
“Did not the white people kill the wolves, the bears, the
buffalo and all the other animals that once lived here? Is this a
story you can believe Eric?” I said, “Yes, I can
believe this.”
Then he asked me to look down at the river and he asked me,
“Eric, would you drink from that river?” I answered no.
He then asked, where are the many fish that use to fill that
river? Isn’t it true that the white man killed them all? Do
you believe that to be so?” “Yes”, I said, “I
believe that to be so.” I was growing increasingly sad and
forlorn.
Then he asked me to look up at the sky. He said that before the
white man there were many more birds. He asked if I knew why
there were so many fewer birds now than then. I said that I didn’t
know. He explained to me that birds feed on the grasses, but that
the white man did away with the wild grasses and covered the land
with plants that need poisonous chemicals to live. The plows and
chemicals of the white man destroyed the original vegetation,
which killed off many of the birds. “Poison and death
everywhere.” He said softly.
He paused and then he looked at me sadly. “The white man
kills anything that is wild. Do you believe that Eric?”
He paused again and peered pensively into the darkening sky. He
was very serious now, as if he was unsure how to present his next
question.
Then, full of sadness, he asked, “Where are the wild people
that filled this land before the white man came?” I then
pointed out all the Indians who were attending the powwow. “They
are here,” I said eagerly - hopefully. But he responded with
a quiet, “No, these are not the wild Indians, these are the
reservation Indians, these are the conquered Indians.”
He then asked again, “Eric, where are the wild Indians now?”
I said very softly, “They are gone with all the rest.”
I had to hold back tears.
“What has the white man killed?” he asked. I
reluctantly uttered the long list we had now amassed…the
animals, the fishes, the grasses, the birds, the wild people, and
even the earth itself. For each increasingly heavy category of
life now destroyed, he would tirelessly repeat the question,
“Do you believe this to be true Eric?” And for each
point, I had to say “yes, this is true.”
“Now I will ask you again, why do the Indians have pity on
the white man?” Confidently I replied, because of the
killing. The white man is a heartless killer, I answered thinking
that I was definitely on the right track. He said that was part
of it, but not the whole story.
“What is it the white people kill?” he asked. I
answered, "Anything that stands in his way." He said
“can you be a little clearer?” I became confused and
wasn’t sure what he was trying to get me to say. I really
was confused and didn’t know where he was taking this
conversation.
He then answered his own question, “The white man kills
anything that is wild. More than anything else, the white man
fears anything that is wild.” He paused, “The white man
depends on control. Anything that he cannot control, he must kill
or control in some extreme way. But that is not the answer to my
first question.”
He then asked, “Do you know the answer now Eric?” I was
frustrated with myself, because I just couldn’t figure out
what he was to getting at.
There was a long pause. I felt he was frustrated with my
slowness. He then said the answer. “If it were only the
killing, if that was the only issue, we would not pity the white
man. We would think that he is crazy, but we would not pity him.
We pity the white man because this killing gives him
pleasure." There was a long pause. He wanted me to fully
absorb the word "pleasure". "He loves to kill. The
killing gives him a sense of accomplishment. The white man looked
out onto this wild land and saw it as useless the way God made
it. He had to fashion it in a way that served his interests. That
meant that his pleasure became killing the work of God - Great
Spirit. We Indians lived in peace with God since the beginning of
time. Your people have no peace with God. Your people are in love
with death."
He continued, "Eric, everything is alive - everything, but
to your people being alive is the same as being wild. So they
kill everything and they keep on killing. They are a people at
war with life." The old man was so sad and pensive.
There was a long silence. I too was so sad. He put his arm on my
shoulder and said, “Its okay Eric, this too will pass. Life
is a much longer journey than we can possibly imagine and I have
faith in you. You’ll be different.” He smiled and we
walked down to the river together. I never saw him again.
I've posted a follow up to this post at my site. You can find
here:
http://liberationfromthelie.com/blog/2009/11/13/imagine-this/
This post is from http://liberationfromthelie.com/blog. The love of control and discipline originates with
the negation of our original self. We take a very big step to our
own liberation when we see how this love contorts our being. We
are, ultimately, another wild animal.