The Limitless Power Beyond Race, Politics, and Religion

Let's face it, most of us are just waking up everyday. We're not living our lives with any passion or purpose. We are just working hard on not dying, or at least we think we are.

The thought of facing life each day makes us reach for something to motivate us to get out of bed. Perhaps it's money, a project, school, work, or even meeting someone for a romantic rendezvous. Whatever it is, it's not satisfying our desires to liberate our minds of the toxic beliefs disguising themselves as illusions.

 For us to find the clarity and peace we desire to have in our lives, we have to focus on ourselves. We must ask ourselves: why do we act the way we do? Is it because we have been trained to act this way? Are we doomed to live a life of suffering?

Sadly, we don't really know why we concern ourselves with trying to liberate other people from their suffering when we have so much suffering in our own lives. Perhaps it's our way of handling the suffering. And what's even sadder is how many people listen to us when we tell them we can solve their problems for them.

The power we seek is within our minds. It's the only connection we have to ourselves and the world. All of our ideas, decisions, and actions come from our minds. Even the beliefs we have about race, religion, politics, money, values, status, government, and other people come from the data we have stored in our minds.

At the core level of our existence, we don't really know who we are, or what we have been taught to believe about ourselves. In this miasma of dogma and egoism we struggle to make sense of our existence.

Nevertheless, the quality of our existence is determined by our minds. If we don't take the time to examine and remove the illusions that's preventing us from discovering who we are, then we must accept how others define us.

And if we desire to change our conditions, we must reach higher into our minds. We must work to free the mind so it can go beyond our current limitations. It's similar to going from basic mathematics to calculus or symbolic logic. If we stop at the basic mathematics level, we will never discover the existence of calculus or symbolic logic.

Similarly, because we don't know something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It also doesn't mean we don't have the power to discover this existence and use it to either guide us deeper into our minds or treat it as an obstacle to the clarity we seek.

In my book, Seeds from the Ashes, I write about how to begin the process of self-discovery of the mind. The following informaton highlights this process:

   "On your journey to achieve enough power to change your life, you must continue to search for it within your mind, which is where your intuitive (unconditioned) consciousness is found.

   "This power must not be confused with illusionary powers found in societal positions such as the president of a country or a major corporation.

   "Whenever you think about achieving power, it means that either you are in an unpleasant situation or you have doubts about your abilities to obtain something that you desire to possess.

   "Regardless of your level of awareness, the desire for power is always present in your consciousness. What you think and know about yourself determines what you think and know about expressing power.

   "The purpose of changing your life is to assert that you have the power to do it. When you do, you open mind to see limitless possibilities; however, you must be willing to open your mind."

The choice to seek the power within our minds is ours to make.

Letting go of the Dysfunctional Behavior

Today, amidst the great pain and suffering in us and around us, many of us are searching for something outside of ourselves to make us feel whole, complete.

As we search for the answers to our self-made problems, some of us even feel a certain joy in watching others fail, or seeing them being publicly humiliated.

We have become victimized by the images of others. And, unfortunately, it is our beliefs about what's happening in the outside world that inextricably tie us to feelings of uncertainty, doubts, fears, and worries about what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iran, China, Occupy Oakland, politics, and so on.

It's important for us to remember that there's more to our lives than our interpretations of world  events. We are much greater than our current behavior. And there's so much information about ourselves that we don't want to know.

Nevertheless, to get to the point of knowing ourselves, we must let go of our dysfunctional behavior that's creating the illusory perceptions we have of the world and its people.  Some of this behavior goes unnoticed because we've become accustomed to it.

Yet, as we read "Seeds from the Ashes," we clearly see that behavior is transitory. It depends on us for its existence.

     "Many individuals who desire to live life more abundantly are unable to do so because they don't believe they will ever achieve it. It is easier for them to focus on the small , insignificant things in life that lead them to mediocrity and complacency.

    "When you focus on the small things in life such as anger, envy, jealousy, and hatred, you can't see the big picture. A small-minded individual expresses an aura of pettiness in his or her actions.

    "This type of thinking produces a cancerous mind that destroys your will to be successful and live life more abundantly.

    "Anyone who constantly focuses on the small things in life will find it difficult to believe in empowerment (enlightenment). This lower-level thinking is where victims live, in the shallow parts of the ocean among the reefs of lack and limitation and the barges of worry and fear.

    "For you to overcome victim consciousness (dysfunctional behavior), you must train your mind to go farther into the ocean where you will find the limitless thoughts of empowerment (enlightenment).

    "The goal of anyone who feels restricted by circumstances is to free himself or herself from the restrictions. To change your life, you must first leave the small things behind and swim toward your goal.

    "This means you must empower your mind to stop daydreaming and wishing for something magical to appear in your life. You must know, absolutely, that you are the source of all your actions. There is nothing that can ever happen in  your life without your knowing about it."

We have the power to discover the enlightenment within us.

Finding my Place in the World

Many of us at some point in our lives become curious about who we are or what's our purpose. It's as if we believe we are not the person others -- society, parents, and life experiences -- have taught us to be.

We cling to our beliefs and values that identify us as such and such. We believe we are of a certain race, gender, nation, state, and so on.

We even believe we are handsome, beautiful, ugly, fat, skinny, successful, important, failures, righteous, sinful, and so on.

Some people believe the truth about who we are is probably never known to us. And that it's our destinies to  live our lives never discovering our true identities. 

Similarly, we seem to be forever tied to the societal beliefs taught to us. We are always black, white, yellow, brown, African, European, Asian, Latino, and so forth. It's difficult to stop seeing ourselves and others in this manner.

And after awhile, we don't want to see ourselves any other way. These beliefs make us feel like we belong in the world. They make us feel proud about ourselves.

And at the end of our lives, our societal-made identities are personified by: Born on such and such date and died on such and such date. That's it!

Nevertheless, our self-made illusions remain with us even as we pass away from this world. We do so believing we are such and such person who's expecting to meet such and such person. 

Meanwhile, if we are nothing more than what we have been taught to believe about ourselves, then why should we search for something else; such as our true essence or purpose. And to make matters worse, why do we search for an alternative identity by holding on to our current  beliefs and values.

In other words, we search for our other identities by using the beliefs and values that caused us to question ourselves in the first place. For example, if we believe we are of a certain race or gender, we continue to cling to this belief even as we search for what we believe is our true self.

Unfortunately, it is these types of beliefs that victimize us. They represent the illusions imprisoning our minds with powerlessness, doubts, fears, and acceptance.

Nevertheless, some of us on the enlightenment path believe we can see ourselves and the world differently. We believe we can let go of the beliefs that define us according to the beliefs and values of others. And we believe we can gain the clarity to perceive the illusions as they really exist within our minds.

When we gain the necessary clarity of mind, we're able to  perceive our existence at the core level as colorless, formless, and faceless. We know that it's our beliefs that add the color, form, and face to our identities. And we know that these are the illusions we must work to overcome.

When we are truly reborn, or when we gain the clarity of mind, we are freed of the illusions defining us as such and such person.

This is our moment of clarity and rebirth; the moment when we see the world as it is, not how we have been conditioned by others to see it.

We end our search for who we are the moment we understand that our identification of who we are must come from us.