I think I may have shared this here before. Maybe. Can't remember where I got this piece - but it made a lasting impression on me in more ways than one.
Not directed at anyone in particular. Just food for thought:
The Hitler Experience was made possible as a result of group consciousness. Many people want to say that Hitler manipulated a group—in this case, his countrymen—through the cunning and the mastery of his rhetoric. But this conveniently lays all the blame at Hitler’s feet—which is exactly where the mass of the people want it.
But Hitler could do nothing without the cooperation and support and willing submission of millions of people. The subgroup which called itself Germans must assume an enormous burden of responsibility for the Holocaust. As must, to some degree, the larger group called Humans, which, if it did nothing else, allowed itself to remain indifferent and apathetic to the suffering in Germany until it reached so massive a scale that even the most cold-hearted isolationists could no longer ignore it.
You see, it was collective consciousness which provided fertile soil for the growth of the Nazi movement.
Hitler seized the moment, but he did not create it.
It’s important to understand the lesson here. A group consciousness which speaks constantly of separation and superiority produces loss of compassion on a massive scale, and loss of compassion is inevitably followed by loss of conscience.
A collective concept rooted in strict nationalism ignores the plights of others, yet makes everyone else responsible for yours, thus justifying retaliation, “rectification”, and war.
Auschwitz was the Nazi solution to—an attempt to “rectify”—the “Jewish Problem.”
The horror of the Hitler Experience was not that he perpetrated it on the human race, but that the human race allowed him to. The astonishment is not only that a Hitler came along, but also that so many others went along.
The shame is not only that Hitler killed millions of Jews, but also that millions of Jews had to be killed before Hitler was stopped. The purpose of the Hitler Experience was to show humanity to itself.
Throughout history we have had remarkable teachers, each presenting extraordinary opportunities to remember who we really are. These teachers have shown us the highest and the lowest of the human potential. They have presented vivid, breathtaking examples of what it can mean to be human—of where one can go with the experience, of where the lot of us can and will go, given our consciousness.
The thing to remember: Consciousness is everything, and creates our experience. Group consciousness is powerful and produces outcomes of unspeakable beauty or ugliness. The choice is always ours. If you are not satisfied with the consciousness of your group, seek to change it. The best way to change the consciousness of others is by your example. If your example is not enough, form your own group—you be the source of the consciousness you wish others to experience. They will—when you do. It begins with you. Everything. All things. You want the world to change? Change things in your own world.
Hitler gave us a golden opportunity to do that. The Hitler Experience—like the Christ Experience—is profound in its implications and the truths it revealed to us about us. Yet those larger awarenesses live—in the case of Hitler or Buddha, Genghis Kahn or Hare Krishna, Attila the Hun or Jesus the Christ—only so long as our memories of them live.
That is why Jews build monuments to the Holocaust and ask us never to forget it. For there is a little bit of Hitler in all of us—and it is only a matter of degree.
Wiping out a people is wiping out a people, whether at Auschwitz or Wounded Knee.
Hitler was not sent to us. Hitler was created BY us. He arose out of our collective consciousness, and could not have existed without it. That is the lesson.
The consciousness of separation, segregation, superiority—of “we” versus “they,” of “us” and “them”—is what creates the Hitler Experience.
The consciousness of divine brotherhood, of unity, of oneness, of “ours” rather than “yours”/”mine,” is what creates the Christ Experience.
When the pain is “ours,” not just “yours,” when the joy is “ours,” not just “mine,” when the whole life experience is Ours, then it is at last truly that—a Whole Life experience.
Hitler did nothing “wrong.” Hitler simply did what he did. I remind you again that for many years millions thought he was “right.” How, then, could he help but think so?
If you float out a crazy idea, and ten million people agree with you, you might not think you’re so crazy.
The world decided—finally—that Hitler was “wrong.” That is to say, the world’s people made a new assessment of who they are, and who they chose to be, in relationship to the Hitler Experience.
He held up a yardstick! He set a parameter, a border against which we could measure and limit our ideas about ourselves. Christ did the same thing, at the other end of the spectrum.
There have been other Christs, and other Hitlers. And there will be again. Be ever vigilant, then. For people of both high and low consciousness walk among us – even as we walk among others. Which consciousness do you take with you?
(Hitler)He didn’t think he was doing something “bad.” He actually thought he was helping his people. And that’s what you don’t understand. No one does anything that is “wrong,” given their model of the world. If you think Hitler acted insanely and all the while knew that he was insane, then you understand nothing of the complexity of human experience. Hitler thought he was doing good for his people. And his people thought so, too! That was the insanity of it! The largest part of the nation agreed with him!
We have declared that Hitler was “wrong.” Good. By this measure we have come to define ourselves, know more about ourselves. Good. But don’t condemn Hitler for showing us that.
Someone had to.
