To master reality for one's own benefit, with no thought of making reality better for those without the same mastery, is selfish and unspiritual.
For example, consider this, from "Contact Modalities: The Keys to the Universe" by Grant Cameron and Desta Barnabe (which is an excellent book that I thoroughly recommend, by the way), on the plasticity of the human brain:
"The whole process becomes one of personal responsibility as opposed to outside victimization by uncontrollable events. The idea that the brain is static and unchanging is wrong. The brain has the ability to change functionally and physiologically by adding neurons."
Yes, that is true, and a benefit for individuals in many ways. However, it ignores many avoidable problems - such as, say . . . poverty - that have major impacts on the brain.
Wouldn't it be better for those directly involved in situations of poverty, and for the world as a whole, if poverty was eliminated, and thus the amazing adaptability of the brain unleashed for the benefit of all? As I wrote in this post, how many Michaelangelos, Eleanor Roosevelts, and Albert Einsteins have been lost to the world in extreme poverty?
People born into poverty are NOT there for reasons of alleged errors, but they - particularly the young children - suffer the well-demonstrated developmental and other harms of poverty (including the limitations in creative thinking that arise as a result of being focused on survival).
And poverty is capable of being acted on - China and the word generally have shown that by the reduction in extreme poverty that has occurred since the 1980s. I contend that we can do better, with things such as the non-paternalistic "direct giving" and better thinking about how to contribute (see https://80000hours.org/, and also here, here, here, and here).
Of course, this notion of seeking to make others' lives better has been around for thousands of years - it is, after, all a key part of Buddhism, particularly the concept of bodhicitta / bodhisattva.
Now, I'd like to turn back to a theme I've addressed a fair bit in recent weeks: racism.
As I've written a few times now, I've been quite struck by the very apparent - to me - problem of unconscious endemic racism in extraterrestrial contact field. The ETs described are all variations of Caucasian - even when they have differently coloured skin. The inclusion of different bone/physiological structures is good, but how come none of these variations includes anything that can be related by people of colour (PoC)?
To try to argue that a Universe that has PoC (black, brown, red, and yellow) on Earth has variations such as blue in the rest of the Universe but no darker hues is utter BS.
Now, we know from life on Earth that people of colour - black and brown and red and yellow - are not intrinsically worse or better than whites - yes, there are the very real effects of discrimination (including poverty), but put whites in the same situation for the same length of time, and they would also suffer the same consequences.
We also know that unconscious endemic racism is an all too real problem.
I started thinking about this after watching the DW video "The Nuremberg trials: Uncovering Nazi crimes" (see also http://www.nurembergfilm.org/).
It seems ironic for racism to be a problem in this field, given the extent and historical length of ET contact in non-white cultures - see, for instance, this author, the second part of this book, and this.
I'll end with the following link for you to possibly consider:
