We all carry with us the baggage of our history - our personal history and the history of the culture(s) we are a part of. It informs the things we do, the choices we make, the attitudes we take and everything else.
Some of us inherit a huge amount of cultural baggage. The Germans and the Jews are a good example. We all know of the horrors of the Holocaust. They left a stain on the German soul and a deep wound in the Jewish psyche. However, much has changed since the Third Reich was finally defeated in 1945. Germany is a different place now.
A beautiful 2016 documentary Germans and Jews looks at how non Jewish Germans and Jewish Germans relate today. There are more than 200,000 Jewish people currently living in Germany. How do these Jewish people feel about their home and how do non Jewish Germans reconcile their terrible ancestral past?
The film reveals much about how we can grow and shed some of this baggage. During the first decade after the war Germans were heavily focused on rebuilding their country. The adults at that time were a part of the system that perpetuated the horrors and were mostly indifferent to them. Remarkably, some saw themselves as victims for having lost the war. The human capacity for self-deception is immense.
It is no surprise that the momentum for a historical reckoning came from the next generation that rode the wave of the sixties movements sweeping through the western world. This generation opened itself to a pluralistic world view, to the post modern, green level of consciousness as per the Integral model.
Only with a pluralistic view of the world can we be open enough to examine our historical faults. This level of human consciousness accept the validity of many different ways of living. It rejects hierarchies. It is more sensitive and conscious. It has opened to the feminine. So it is completely apt that it was the hippie generation in Germany that brought in the much needed correction. Only they could properly do so.
Two films help show this shift in consciousness. We all know of Downfall, the famous film about Hitler’s last days from which all the hitler meme clips have been made. Towards the end there is a scene where some of the officers insist that they have to defend till the last bullet and then use it to kill themselves. A doctor officer asks - this is the english translation - "prestigious murder or suicide, are these the only two options?"
At that time, in the psyche of the Germans, those were the only two options. Now let’s contrast that with the vibe we find in the 2012 film A Coffee in Berlin. Much water has flown under the bridge in the time between the Nazi era and 2012. In A Coffee in Berlin the protagonist is a college dropout who just wanders through random experiences in Berlin. His world is wide open; he has a lot more options. The choices the soldiers think they have to make in that scene in Downfall would seen absurd to him. If faced with such a situation, our protagonist would put down the gun, tell his supervisors to go f themselves, find a cafe, make art and make love. His world allows for these alternate ways of living and relating.
What about the German Jews? How do they deal with this terrible wound they have been given? The documentary suggests that it is difficult. After the war most of the remaining Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe left for Israel (or America). For various reasons a few stayed on in Germany, some had to return to Germany after leaving for economic reasons.
It was hard. Anti-semitism was still there, if not openly expressed. Only after the counter culture awakening did things start to change. Still, many who share their stories in the documentary find it hard to see Germany as their home even though it is where they have lived their entire lives.
However Berlin today is hopping with new creativity. It is a happening city right now on the cutting edge of post modern exploration - art, food, sex and everything else. It draws all kinds of people. We learn in the film that tens of thousands of Israelis now reside there and have taken German passports. It is now a safe(r) place where they can create and prosper. So also Jews from the former Soviet Union escaping anti-semitism in their home land have found a safe home in Berlin. Some trust is returning. It is true, a new creative reality destroys the past.
Time heals all wounds by inducing forgetfulness. The new generations of Germans are further and further removed from their Nazi ancestors. As per the film, they are able to begin the process of putting aside the stain. Forgetfulness alone is not enough though; it will not be possible to put aside the stain if the difficult work of acknowledging and reconciling has not been done.
Most of us are unlikely to have this kind of terrible historical baggage. However, whatever baggage we carry, historical and personal, we have to deal with it and even if it does not involve such terrible historical events, it can still feel heavy. It is feels heavy it is heavy to us whether it looks so to others or not.
A personal story - as an immigrant to the US I went through many of the typical phases that immigrants go through. For a long time I wanted to forget the motherland and it’s imprint in me. I thought I could push it away by simply pretending it didn’t exist. The old world seemed so heavy. Disagreements with my parents, the strictures of the old culture, its problems - it seemed a worthy goal to have them all be forgotten.
I was trying real hard to push away my accumulated past in the new world as well. I was searching for a way to be 'light’, without history, just enjoying the pleasures of the world.
My quest really came into focus when I visited Israel. There I saw history and modernity living side by side - Jerusalem v/s Tel Aviv. The history in Jerusalem jarred me. It reminded me too much of my mother country India with the old religion, the old ways of living, all the stuff that I was trying to forget. Tel Aviv was modern, fun. I came back with the rather tongue in cheek recommendation that the place would be better served with less religion and more Disneyland.
Now, seventeen years after making that trip(oh my, how time flies!) I can look back and see how mistaken I was. All this effort to deny the history only meant I was stuffing my karmic bag with oodles of shadow energy and eventually this energy burst out in ugly ways.
Not long after my Israel trip I ended up quitting my job and wandering the proverbial desert as it were, just like the first Israelites. The ‘light’ life I was trying to create had become unsustainable, the shadow was demanding it be addressed.
This quest to be light in this way isn’t that unusual. It is especially the provenance of very sensitive souls. During my wanderings in the desert I got involved with the Zen practice and found something of a kindred spirit in the Zen teacher and chef Ed Brown. In the delightful film How to Cook Your Life Ed wonders why we have to become banged up teapots like the ones he sees in the kitchen. It is true, in the course of living we do get banged up and tarnished like the teapots. We accumulate that baggage.
Eventually I had to acknowledge that not only was my history an integral part of me, it was an essential part of me, it made me who I am. I ended up going through a long process of reconciliation with the mother country, a place (and people), when I was ready to be honest about it, I was actually missing terribly. The whole process was made extra difficult and lengthy because I was trying to deny the past.
Now I can understand that “Be Here Now” as Ram Das so famously exhorted, is not meant to be a denial of history, but a full acceptance of it. Everything has a time and a place. To come home is to put things into their proper place. Only when you fully accept all that has gone before can you be at ease in the present moment and only the pluralistic perspective can give you this capacity to accept.
It is a work in progress and that is why it is called a practice. I have good days and bad days, as do Germans I am sure and everyone else. As the famous German Nietzsche wrote, our long forgotten demons come to visit us in our weakest hours.
What is the verdict then? Can we overcome our past? For most us the answer will be ‘yes, with occasional fallbacks’. Maybe one has to be an enlightened soul to fully do so. However we can do a lot to lighten our burden and the acceptance and creativity are the keys for doing so.
Check out the film, it is outstanding.