Taking Care of Ourselves

Nearly every day we are deluged with messages of doom and gloom.  Most of the times we can only sigh nonchalantly, shrug off our distaste for what's happening, and try to move on pass the unpleasantness to a more pastoral place. Whenever we feel like this, we are now willing to try anything to help us to overcome the powerlessness we feel about the economy, the political turmoil, our overall fears and the social carnage fueling the proliferation of violence and hatred streaming through the country.

To feel helpless is a terrible feeling to have.  When we want to do something, anything, to change what's happening around us, we create within ourselves a deeper level of anguish and pain.  Our suffering intensifies. We begin to believe that we cannot continue to stand idly by and watch what's happening without getting involved. Unfortunately, in many instances, we don't know how to engage ourselves in the process of change, because we don't know how to take care of our own selves. 

One of the greatest tests of our self-awareness is to understand who we are, and the power we have to take care of ourselves first before we try to take of others. This angst behavior is what causes so many self-proclaimed leaders to fall victim to their own teachings. They become over desirous to do something about the doom and gloom around them without first realizing it is there because of the way they think and act. Those who desire to change the world must first begin with ourselves.

The hatred we feel around us is there because of our beliefs. The same goes for the economy, the violence, the poverty and so forth. Every problem we encounter is there because of what we think about ourselves. If we believe we are powerless, the greater difficult we project into our problems. However, if we change our thoughts and empower ourselves with spacious minds, then we're able to perceive our problems as harmless expressions of our victim beliefs.

There's power in believing in ourselves. We can stop struggling to achieve something (s) that we have already achieved. We struggle because we're searching outside of ourselves for solutions to the problems we see in the world. And with our cloudy, victimized visions, we struggle to see ourselves expressed in the actions of others.  This cloudy vision prevents us from perceiving ourselves with the power to express whatever we desire to express.  In other words, we stop struggling to live as victims and begin to express the already present power of enlightenment within us.

 When work from the level of clarity, we are aware of everything within us. We know that everything we need to live successful in this world is contained within our intuitive-enlightened-consciousness. And regardless to the energies we devote searching for answers outside of ourselves, we will always return back to  ourselves for the answers. Unfortunately, for most of us, it's the doubts we have about ourselves that cause us to seek answers to our problems from outside sources.

There's something seemingly unnatural about victimizing ourselves into believing we are powerless to take care of ourselves.  As some of us know, we are what we think. It is our thoughts that embody the knowledge we have acquired from others.  Some of this knowledge tie us to victim consciousness. It causes us to believe we are powerless to take care of ourselves. And moreover, we must rely on others for solutions to the problems we believe are happening to us and others. 

Unfortunately, it is this knowledge that stops us from clearing away the doubts.  These are the beliefs causing us to wait on someone else to do it for us. In other words, someone will say what I'm thinking and then I won't have to do anything but agree with them.  This is how self-proclaimed leaders are born.

The challenge before us today is to become our own individual leaders. To do this requires clarity of purpose. We must remain mindful at all times about what we think and our actions.  We must change our psychological, emotional and physical diets so that we have healthy minds and bodies.

This means we perceive life with healthy attitudes. It also means we refrain from using our bodies as garbage disposals for the unhealthy foods we are eating. And we must learn to live without ingesting medications that assume to cure something that we can cure with daily dosages of meditations, healthy foods, and exercises.

When we become leaders of ourselves, we will witness our actions expressing themselves with the passion we see in the leaders of people. Most of these leaders express themselves passionately. They work fervently on telling the world how much they care about us and what must be done on our behalf. 

We must now do this for ourselves, because no one knows our feelings and problems better than we do.

Becoming Involved in Change

Nearly all victims are angry about something.  It's usually the way we feel about our living conditions vis a vis those of others.  Most often our anger is misdirected toward others, even those whom we don't know. And it's this misdirected anger that prevents us from becoming involved in changing how we think and live.

To change from victim to enlightenment, we must become aware of what we're doing to ourselves and others. This is not a lackluster, cursory awareness of our behavior, but a deep, prolonged examination of the origin and development of our beliefs that cause us to become angry at ourselves and others for not measuring up to our self-prescribed goals of success.

The change we seek must be from an intense desire to understand how we acquired our beliefs about ourselves and others. It is from this starting point that we must begin our transformation journey

Some of us believe change is an inevitable consequence of age or experience.  In other words, after we have numerous experiences with the vices and virtues of the world, we will ultimately decide to become virtuous. It's unfortunately for us that the transformation process is not based on either age or experience, but on our commitment to examine the origins of our beliefs and change those beliefs causing us to suffer. 

WE can decide to change at any point in our lives. There's no spiritual, psychological or material determinate dictating to us.  It's our individual choice to live as victims or as enlightened people.

The world we are living in now is composed of ideas, laws, beliefs, and prescribed virtues on right and wrong.  Nearly everyone has a opinion on how to change. So it's difficult for us to know who to trust or what to do to overcome the suffering. Most of us just continue to read, meditate, pray, and search for answers within our minds.  We believe, perhaps because we have been told so, that within our minds we will find a place that's free of all victim beliefs.

The inner search for something different is troubling for many of us. We cannot visually experience that which we seek either in ourselves or others. And while many people extol messages about how to change our lives, we continue to remain victimized by our beliefs. Unfortunately, some of us are in denial about the fact that we are still victims.  We cannot even accept that our suffering comes from us.

To be clear, some of us believe we can never go beyond the beliefs we have about skin color and race. We are forever inextricably tied to the beliefs that define our color and race.  And even after years or decades of meditating, praying, and trying to be kind to people, animals, and so on, we continue to perceive and accept ourselves according to the beliefs responsible for our suffering.

Some of us believe we were born into a victimized world that has grown accustomed to perpetuating itself as victims of imperfection. The generational changes, particularly in science and medicine, pale in comparison to the less than stellar spiritual progress. We are still searching for the meaning of enlightenment in a world we have judged to be overcome by victim beliefs.

Meanwhile, we remain in search of enlightenment in spite of our beliefs.  We continue to work on the judgments we have about ourselves and the world, and to reaffirm our commitments to achieve enlightenment.

Nevertheless, it's our willingness to seek enlightenment that changes our perspective of living in a victimized world. And this change in perspective allows us to engage in the work necessary to overcome our victimization.

WE have the power to change the world into whatever we desire it to be.  The only things preventing us from doing this are our beliefs.  When we change our beliefs completely, we change ourselves completely.  This allows us to become one with the world, not as observers, critics or judges, but as participants. We are responsible for the changes we seek in ourselves, not for those whom we judge to need changing.