One of the professors gunned down at Virginia Tech was a Romanian Jew who survived the holocaust. Still teaching at 76 years of age, he barricaded the doors to protect his students. His life had been spared all those years ago, and now he gave it saving others.
A person who gives their life for others demonstrates in a dramatic way the irrevocable oneness of the human species. There is no greater evidence of how deeply interfused our lives truly are.
The young man who opened fire did not sense this oneness, or he would not have done what he did. Yet, he was a clean-living student, according to the man who sold him the handgun for $500. He was not downtrodden, victimized by poverty, or openly in a rage. On the contrary, he came from solid suburbia, living in a neighborhood and dwelling that would be an immigrant’s dream. He was an English student at a university that would be the envy of so many around the globe, who would love to study at such an institution.
It’s easy to see why the tragedy has been dubbed an “inexplicable rampage.” And yet, it is not inexplicable—not when you view it through the lens of Michael Brown’s book The Presence Process. The causes are not difficult to understand.
He was a loner, they say, who blamed the world around him for his sadness. Even when people greeted him, he often didn’t respond. Clearly, he was in far too much inner pain by this stage in his life. He was suffering from what Eckhart Tolle calls “the pain body” in his book A New Earth.
“You caused me to do this,” Cho Seung-hui wrote in his suicide note.
Well, he did it—he was responsible. He pulled the trigger, not once or twice, but over and over and over.
And also, so did we. For in some measure he was right. We too are responsible. Let me explain.
President Bush’s comments stressed that “people from all over this country” are thinking about the bereaved. University president Charles Steger commented that the “entire nation and people from many other nations are coming together to grieve” over what happened. Not only was the basketball stadium packed, but the crowd spilled over into the football stadium. At such times, we naturally rally around each other.
What we see in this is a fundamental sense of our inherent oneness. We come together because we are together. It is our basic state, even though much of the time we ignore it. We are one—one life, the expression of one universal love.
But to the degree that we fail to make this a realized love, a felt love, individuals such as the 23-year-old South Korean feel isolated—and the pain can simply overwhelm them. There is some suggetion he was on medication for depression. He had also been recommended to counseling because of the disturbed nature of his writing in English class. What a tragedy that we don’t rally around each other each and every day, so that the difficulties we go through don’t spiral out of control.
Most of us carry a great deal of pain, though we keep it hidden most of the time—not only from others, but from ourselves. We stay busy. We keep the television on, the music going. We don’t allow the pain to surface.
But how much better to resolve our pain. How much better to become so centered in ourselves, so present in each moment, that we have no need of denial or avoidance. On the contrary, we are thrilled to feel each second of our lives.
Michael Brown’s The Presence Process enables just such a resolution of pain. His book, coupled with his CDs, are wonderful healing tools that free us from pain so that we can live joyously, connectedly, lovingly.
In light of what happened at Virginia Tech, consider not only embarking on The Presence Process for yourself, but also sharing it with those around you. Introduce them to Michael’s groundbreaking work. This is a process the whole planet needs desperately to experience.
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