"Rising Above Self-Condemnation"

Today, in some remote part of our minds, there's a cesspool of beliefs that's constantly putting us down. These beliefs are born from victim consciousness and nurtured by the vicissitudes of success and failure that we have bought into. And unfortunately, for some of us, it's our beliefs about our actions -- whether they are successful or not -- that inextricably tie us to victim consciousness, specifically, in this case, self-condemnation.

Most of us function without ever giving much thought or consideration to how our thoughts victimize us. We're too busy searching for the lost treasure of success and belittling ourselves for not being able to achieve it. Our thoughts have paralyzed us with doubts and limited our perspective of the decisions we are making in our lives. We are basically encapsulated in a web of self-condemning beliefs that's weaken our resolve to revalue ourselves with the tools of enlightenment that's available to us in our intuitive consciousness.

 Similarly, we frequently fall prey to the powerlessness associated with the doom and gloom of a slumping economy,  the deteriorating social, moral, and spiritual values, and political polarization spreading its cancerous destruction across this country. Even though this time period appears difficult to us, this is not the time to cling to our fears and doubts. This is the time to draw on the power we have to control our behavior and focus on our goal of enlightenment. This is our time to be empowered and to stop condemning ourselves for the failures and setbacks causing us to feel so unworthy to achieve the riches of enlightenment.

Some of us know the difficult we have with facing our fears and doubts. We have good days and days where we just cannot seem to overcome our feelings of inadequacy. On the days that we feel down, lowly to the point of depression, these are the days for us work harder on our vision of enlightenment. And contrary to what a number of well-intentioned people have told us about living in the present moment, many of us still find this to be very difficult. For some reason, we continue focusing on the past regrets and wondering if our lives would have been different if we had made different decisions.

Some of us, who are suffering with our decisions, want  desperately to live in the present moment. We would give anything to have our past regrets disappear so we can stop condemning ourselves. We desire to live in the present moment, but we're accustomed to the illusory contentment with the past. The past is home for us. It's where we live with the other victims, who are struggling for illusory political, economic, social, and religious goals. The freedom we seek is outside of ourselves.

It is from the position of darkness that we must seek the light of enlightenment. It is from the fears and doubts that we must seek enlightenment. of . It's here now in this moment where we must sit with the fears and doubts causing us so much pain, anger, self-hatred, suffering, and spiritual stagnation.

Whenever we become fearful of something or somebody, we seek to destroy it or ourselves. Some of us act this way because we are fearful of new information. We need our information to be rooted in the past, a cultural lineage of victimization, so that it's palatable with our existing beliefs.  If it's a denial of the cultural lineage of victimization, we find it difficult to listen to any information that holds us responsible for our actions. And while this type of behavior might seem strange to the present-moment advocates, it's normal behavior for those who have become victimized by our thoughts and beliefs.

What's even  stranger than our victim behavior is the narcissistic view we have of ourselves. In a world with billions of people, we believe the whole world is watching our every move. Whenever we want to do something, we wonder what others will think about us doing it. Will they approve? Will they support or reject us? We stop ourselves by our fears of being condemned by others.

Meanwhile, for us to go beyond condemning ourselves for not measuring up to some prescribed criteria of success and failure, we must be willing to nurture the enlightenment part of our consciousness. It is there where we find the freedom from condemnation.

Nevertheless, when we wake up from our victim nightmare long enough to go to the bosom of enlightenment where we are able to perceive ourselves existing in a meaningful and fulfilling way in this world, we will know the truth about who we are, and our relationship with others in the world. 

From the vision of enlightenment, we know we are worthy to exist freely with the billions of people on this planet. And we know there is no condemnation in enlightenment. We know clearly that we are powerful, compassion, and courageous enlightenment warriors.

Enlightenment is not magic, it's work. We must work to cultivate an enlightened mind. This requires us to remove the beliefs causing us to condemn ourselves.