One of the greatest misconceptions we have about achieving enlightenment is that it's a pain-free experience. Well, it's not additional pain, but the pressure we feel from releasing our existing pain and suffering.
For those of us who might be afraid to trust ourselves, we must take the time to understand the intrinsic value that self-discovery contributes to our work of achieving enlightenment. As much as we might desire to achieve enlightenment without having to do the necessary work, we know it cannot be done.
So the process to change our lives begins with us. Few of us ever find it enjoyable to examine our own lives. It's analogous to a visit to the dentist. We delay it as long as possible until the pain becomes unbearable. Then, and for some of us, only then, are we willing to do whatever we can to relieve ourselves of the pain.
Well, the pain and suffering has reached this level with many of us and we still delay the inevitability of having to examine our own lives first. We find it easier to continue doing the things to create more pain and suffering in our lives.
As we know, from the work we are doing on ourselves, it's much easier to examine others than ourselves. Perhaps many of us feel this way, because we fear what we will find if we dig too deeply into our minds.
And like an untreated mouth, filled with decaying teeth, bleeding gums, and suffering from years of neglect, many of our minds are similar to this condition. Whenever we sit in the dentist's chair, awaiting the outcome of his or her examination, we seem shocked when we hear how much it's going to cost to fix our teeth. Yet, for some of us, we already knew we had shabby dental preventive care programs.
For some of us, our enlightenment preventive care programs are just as shabby as the example. In other words, we know we haven't done the work necessary to free ourselves from the intense pain and suffering; however, we seem shocked to learn the amount of time, energy, and commitment it's going to take to correct years of spiritual neglect.
Regardless to how we feel about the time, energy, and commitment that's required to heal ourselves of pain and suffering, we know the longer we procrastinate, the worse the situation will become. This is how we feel when we learn how much it's going to cost us in time and commitment to heal our diseased-latent behavioral actions.
In the meanwhile, some of us are bogged down so deep in emotional quagmires of pity, regret, and failure that we don't dare unravel the mess we have made of our lives. And whenever someone suggests that we do, we make half-hearty attempts that barely skim the surface of our consciousness.
The fear of self is the greatest of our fears. It causes us to distrust ourselves and trust others. Nevertheless it's our lack of confidence in our worthiness to make empowered decisions that inextricably tie us to victim consciousness.
And from the prism of victim consciousness, we believe there's something unknown and frightful lurking deep in our minds. Even though we don't believe or want to accept it, we know exactly what it is: It is our fears of uncovering things we don't want to face and other people to know about us.
After years of reading and listening to individuals telling personal growth stories about the pain they experienced by opening themselves up to face their demons -- unknown problems -- and their subsequent freedom, we cringe at the thought of inviting more pain into our lives. Moreover, some of us are working on ourselves now to remove the pain, not to create additional pain.
To delay work on removing the pain and suffering from our lives is murderous to our vision of empowerment. For us to procrastinate on beginning the self-discovery process makes us unworthy to lay claim to our commitments to achieve enlightenment. We cannot achieve our goal without first examining our own lives.
For many of us, self-discovery is a major deterrent to our achieving enlightenment. It's something dreadful painful about self-discovery, because it keeps us tied to victim lifestyles. And as victims, we are constantly searching for magical solutions to help us bypass the self-discovery process.
Whenever our pain and suffering overwhelms us, we feel powerless; victims of our own fears. There's nothing inside of us to fear, except the images we have created of ourselves. Our images are carefully hewed from our egos into individuals we believe are pleasing to others. These are the images we are afraid to disturb.
Nevertheless, the truth about us is known only to us. WE know what we have done and are doing now. There are no hidden secrets buried in our minds. We know everything that's there. And, for many of us, we want what's there to stay right where it is. Unfortunately, in our deliberateness to bury our regrets with pain and suffering, we discover we need an endless supply of pain and suffering to keep them buried.
Our hidden secrets are the things -- regrets, failures, misdeeds, and so forth -- we buried to prevent our images from being tarnished. And as long as they remain buried, we can continue to shape our images to become even more pleasing to the public. Unfortunately for us, the arduous work we are doing to maintain our secrets are taking a toll on us.
Meanwhile, after we think about it for a moment: what's so dreadful in our lives that we are unwilling to face? For some of us it might be things we believe others would think less of us if they knew about them. In other words, it is our unwillingness to face ourselves that's creating most of our pain and suffering.
On our journeys to achieve enlightenment, we must look closely at how we make decisions and the power behind these decisions. On every level of our activities, we must perceive ourselves existing with bountiful supplies of power and freedom.
For us to achieve enlightenment (empowerment), we must first achieve awareness of who we really are. To do this requires a commitment to empowering our minds to think and act from positions of power. And from this perspective, there's nothing in our lives off limits to us.
"Seeds from the Ashes" is coming soon. Get your copy from Amazon.
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