When there's pain in our lives, there's love. When there's anger, there's peace. When there's hope, there's action. When there's action, there's change. When there's change, there's the door to enlightenment.
PROBLEM:
It's difficult to shine enough light (enlightenment) on so much darkness in our lives. Even as we work to bring light into our lives, we are, by our actions, unknowingly creating more darkness. A victim mind is a terrible thing to keep. Yet many of us cling to victim consciousness because of our unwillingness to exchange information with others in an open, nonrestrictive dialogue. An openness where we are willing to stop defending our beliefs and refraining from criticizing others because we disagree with them.
Nevertheless, by letting go of the toxic victim beliefs we're holding on to, we open our minds to examine other options available to us. This small exploration of our inner awareness is a significant step for neophytes on the enlightenment road. It's our first foray into the power we have to search for tools outside of our comfort zone.
Similarly, we must learn how to become independent thinkers and free our minds of the prejudices and doubts victimizing us. This means we must free ourselves from our attachments, particularly those beliefs that cause us to believe we must maintain the status quo.
To free ourselves from our attachments is not an easy task. Many well-intentioned and committed people have tried and failed in their quests to do this. It's especially difficult for those of us who are attached to religious dogma, political affiliations, and societal definitions of who we are and the power we have to overcome powerlessness. These are the beliefs that inextricably tie us to dysfunctional lifestyles.
Some of us, even with new information, remain firmly attached to our old beliefs. Unfortunately, most of our lives have been devoted to mastering victim beliefs, not overcoming them. As loyal followers of victim beliefs, we remain committed to staying where we are in life and not listening to new ideas. It's very difficult to change after so many years of living as victims.
The strain, the wear and tear on our minds and bodies give our illusions such great power that we forget where they came from. Since we have been victims for so long it's difficult to recognize that our beliefs came from others. The world and all its beliefs were waiting on us to become a part of it. And with no input from others, we entered a world where others believed their beliefs were basically sacrosanct.
In this world, we accepted whatever our parents and teachers taught us. If they were Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and so on, they taught us beliefs consistent with their own. And like others before them, they believed if we adhered to their teachings, we would ultimately be saved from the pain and suffering in the world. We would live virtuous lives and someday achieve enlightenment, even though they had not done so themselves.
After a while, we embodied others' beliefs as our own and set out to teach them to others. We were proud to identify with a certain political, religious or social ideology. And it would only be much later in our lives that some of us would begin to question our beliefs. By questioning our beliefs, we risked alienating ourselves from our parents, teachers, friends and so forth.
Nevertheless, when the first questions begin to awaken in us, we begin to experience the pain and suffering from trusting ourselves. There's a natural fear that comes from standing alone. It's a fear that cuts deeply into our minds and carves away the stench of victimhood. It allows us to experience the freshness of clarity and perceive life without judgments about who we are. In the stillness of clarity, we are no longer attached to the right or wrong thinking.
With our newly formed clarity, some of us begin to go further, deeper into our minds for the answers to our beliefs. At the deeper level, we can see the wall that's separating us from ourselves and others. This is the wall built by generations of victims to teach, protect, and transform us into believing we are powerless to escape from our beliefs. And unless we stop living behind the wall, we, too, will teach our children how to live without ever expressing their full potential. This is the wall we have built to prevent enlightenment from entering into our lives.
Unfortunately, most of us teach from behind the victim wall. Whenever we decide we want to help others to live better lives, we steadfastly hold on to the beliefs that we received from behind the wall. These are the beliefs that cause us to believe we have sufficiently mastered the victim beliefs and we're now in an exalted position to teach others. It is from this level of awareness that we begin to cling to righteousness of our beliefs and doubt everything outside of the wall.
As we teach from behind the wall, we offer others, those who believe in us, money, personal comforts, fame, power, peace, security, and so on.We provide them with elaborate presentations and testimonials to demonstrate the success of living behind the wall with victim beliefs. We tell them this is enlightenment. Everyone wants what we have. The world idolizes us.
Similarly, as begin to build our own walls within the walls of others, we become more confident that we made the right decision. As we look at the beautiful walls shielding us from the suffering in the world, we work harder and harder to ensure they will never be destroyed. No one can challenge what we are doing because it's right. We must shield ourselves from others so they don't come and try to destroy the victim beliefs protecting us from the world.
Meanwhile, the harder we work to create victim beliefs, the more we become lost in a victim euphoria of righteousness. And some of us begin to believe that enlightenment beliefs built the great walls around us. Unknown to us is all the pain and suffering behind our walls. However, since we have never seen a world without pain and suffering, we believe the suffering around us actually comes from enlightenment.
SOLUTION:
Today, we must awaken from this nightmare and begin tearing down the walls --belief by belief --shielding us from enlightenment. This means we must begin to create independent minds that are open to examining and changing our beliefs. To some of us, this is frightening because the mere thought of exploring something else is unthinkable, blasphemous. Yet we cannot have unity of purpose without first understanding how we became victims in the first place.
Our judgments come from our beliefs. And until we achieve enlightenment -- the ability to live without attachments to people and things -- we are judging others from behind the walls preventing us from seeing what's really happening in the world.
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