Regardless to the number of times we tell someone to change, he or she won't listen until they're ready. Unfortunately, most of us are victims of this type of behavior. While we hear the words and intellectually process them, we remain steadfast with our beliefs. And when we are ready to change, we become receptive to new information and not a moment sooner.
For so many of us who are suffering from victim beliefs, it's challenging to listen to anyone, even those whom we believe are worthy to teach us something. It's not that we don't want to listen, we just haven't reached the depths of despair where we are willing to stop inviting the pain and suffering into our lives.
New things -- beliefs and actions -- frighten us. Old things -habits and beliefs -- make us feel more secure. We believe there's greater safety in the known than the unknown. Since most of the people we know and interact with are victims, we find it more comforting to remain in our present state of being. There's no reason for us to do anything to change ourselves by leaving our family, friends, and others to their victim behavior. We would only be hurting ourselves.
When we decide to remove ourselves from our current dysfunctional behavior, we discover how deeply asleep we are with what's going on in our lives. Some of us, who have worked on ourselves for a few years, believe we're already awaken from our coma and everything was a dream. We are now able to perceive our behavior from a different perspective. We believe we are awake or enlightened.
From our half-awaken prism, we perceive ourselves to be free of victim beliefs. We have accomplish so many things -- possessions, degrees, awards, and so on -- that validate our freedom. And even when we experience pain and suffering in our lives, we believe it's different than what the authentic victims experience. We believe we have overcome our victimization.
Similarly, we begin to establish goals to enrich us with greater security. We search for this security with our eyes half-closed, our minds dulled by years of victim beliefs, and our unwillingness to expose ourselves to new information. We are constantly struggling to live in darkness. Our commitment to victimhood is so great that we're unaware of the psychological and emotional cataracts clouding our visions while we are working to change our behavior.
Nevertheless, at some point we're going to seek the necessary surgery to remove the cataracts blocking our vision. Unfortunately, until we do, we struggle to live, blinded by our beliefs, in a world where we're unable to clearly see the carnage from the wars, inner-city violence, poverty, illiteracy, and the widespread anger emanating from the intense suffering of those around us. With all of this happening around us, we continue to believe we are in a position to change our lives without ever seeing what's truly happening in our lives.
And despite our desires to separate ourselves from others, we remain fully connected to them. Our individualism is inextricably tied to our inability to see clearly. If we were not blinded by our victim beliefs, we would know we are an integral part of all humanity. And our individualism was born from the blindness that created our egos.
For us to clear away the victim beliefs, we must first become aware of their existence. It is this awareness that removes the cataracts from our visions so we're able to see life the way it is. When we see life without victim beliefs, we free ourselves from the rationalizations used by victims to justify their behavior. We know clearly that our suffering comes from our actions. And that this means we are the cause of not only our suffering but what we think about it.
Unfortunately, to perceive life without our victim beliefs is a daunting experience for most of us. We have lived this way for so long until it's difficult to believe it's possible to live our lives without pain and suffering. Our lives have always been defined by our powerlessness, our suffering.
For us to imagine ourselves living victim-free lives, we cannot continue to believe we are victims. The nexus from victim to enlightenment is action. The actions we take each day, even those we believe are insignificant, become our gateway to a more expansive, spacious consciousness. This helps us to remove our victim beliefs without causing us to incorporate more pain and suffering in our lives.
Today many people find it empowering to worship men like Jesus, The Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad, and others. Yet they find it so difficult to commit themselves to do the work (actions) they did to change from thinking of themselves as victims (at some point in their lives they were dependent on others for their existence) to achieving enlightenment.
They first had to overcome the beliefs taught to them as children by their guides -- parents, teachers, and society -- before they could discover the enlightenment within themselves. Then, as enlightened men, they were able to see clearly the suffering around them. This empowered them to share their light (enlightenment) with others to assist them with their search for enlightenment.
The road to enlightenment is one that's been traveled by many people. And when we remove the victim beliefs from our eyes, we can clearly see the footprints they left for us. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. The work to overcome our victimization is the light we all must use to guide us toward enlightenment.
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