Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Power of Commitment

On the road to enlightenment, we must maintain a strong commitment to overcoming victim beliefs. In spite of what people say about us, we must trust the intuitive process that's guiding us beyond the illusions that money, fame, and political power can overcome victim beliefs. To do this, we must trust, absolutely, that we possess the power to change the way we think and live.

As we know from having been on the journey for a while, it's sometimes difficult to remain true to our commitment to achieve enlightenment. Yet, as difficult as it may seem to us, we begin the process to change when we commit ourselves to the goal of change.

There's nothing magical about change. It is simply achieved by the actions we take to overcome the victim beliefs causing the pain and suffering in our lives. It's nothing more than that.

Nevertheless, for some of us, our commitments don't have very much power. We toss around promises like meaningless words. In most instances, we have no intention to honor them. This behavior is magnified in those instances that require us to address an unpleasant situation like losing weight or changing our diets to eat more healthy foods.

Whenever we are required to commit to doing something for ourselves, we find it easier to procrastinate than honor our commitment. Unfortunately, for us, our procrastination only creates more pain and suffering.

To illustrate this point, we know certain types of foods are unhealthy for us, but we eat them anyway. We rationalize our behavior by claiming we like the taste of fried meats, barbecued ribs, buttered pancakes with syrup, cake, cookies, potato chips, potato salad, and so forth.

Similarly, after vigorously defending our rights to eat whatever we choose, we then kneel in prayer or meditation with our stomachs filled with unhealthy foods.

Nevertheless, in these types of situations, while we believe we're honoring our spiritual commitment, we think very little about dishonoring our commitment to having healthy bodies. Unfortunately, unhealthy lifestyles, like unhealthy spiritual practices, are mirrors reflecting the true nature of the way we think and live. In other words, the body and its spiritual companion are reflections of what we think about ourselves.

In the meanwhile, when we ignore the importance of healthy bodies, we remain half-awake. The good thing about being half-awake is that at least we're not totally asleep. This means we see the areas we need to work on in our lives.

One of the greatest weakness of half-awaken individuals is our lack of understanding the importance of honoring our commitments to change the way we think and live. Nor do we fully comprehend how our everyday commitments benefit us in our work to achieve enlightenment (empowerment).

While we grow accustomed to living half-awake lifestyles, we must not remain complacent in this manner of thinking about life. Even though, there's some light to guide us, we're still overcome with too much darkness.

On the enlightenment journey, darkness is frequently perceived as frightening. It clouds our abilities to feel comfortable about what we are doing to change our behavior. There's far too many times on this journey when we reach points where we feel we aren't making progress.

It is during these moments of darkness that we question not only our actions, but our commitments to achieving enlightenment (empowerment). These are the moments we want to stop and seek refuge in our former victim lifestyles. The practical side of us seems to take over. We feel depressed, regretful, while constantly bemoaning our decision to seek change in the first place.

Yet, it is during the difficult times that the world of things -- money, fame, and power -- seem so desirable. And, unlike the invisible world of enlightenment, they seem more worthwhile for us to pursue. In other words, the practical, material world seems more desirable than the intuitive, invisible world, because it's what we feel most comfortable with.

As we continue on our journey to enlightenment, in the midst of great strife and conflict in our lives, we must comfort ourselves with knowing we have the power to commit our time and energies to changing the way we think and live.

As we travel, here are some suggestions to assist us with strengthening our commitments to achieving enlightenment:

1. Begin and continue to Honor our promises and commitments to ourselves and to others.
2. Envision the body and mind as equally important to us in achieving our goal of enlightenment.
3. We can prioritize our commitments to have parity with other important things in our lives.
4. Recognize that invisible thoughts and goals are the source of all creations.
5. Set aside time to make a commitment to eat healthy foods and empower the mind with clear ideas.

The journey continues with my book "Seeds from the Ashes."

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