Creating our own Path

It's difficult just to be ourselves.

Most of us are easily distracted by the shenanigans of others on the crowded road of life. We are constantly searching hither and yonder for the next fad or gimmick to magically solve our problems.

And since nearly everyone we know is caught up in this illusory behavior that's responsible for  human suffering, we find it too difficult to resist what they're doing. So we go along with the crowd.

As we create more illusions in our lives, we forget that we picked them up from the troubled lives  of those guiding us on our journey. We don't recognize the sickness within the illusions, because sickness is all around us. Everyone on the crowded room is sick in one way or the other.

Sickness of the mind is deadly, even if we can't see its pernicious effects in our dysfunctional beliefs and values. It's there, dragging us blindly through life; killing us slowly with each step we take.

Nevertheless like all sickness, silent or not, at some point we begin to feel its presence in our illness.  And we usually feel this illness more intensely when we become  discouraged with ourselves and begin questioning the wisdom of those guiding us on the crowded road.

This means we have reached one of the many forks on the crowded road providing us with the opportunity to change our paths.Whenever we reach the point in our lives that we're willing to listen, to trust, and believe in the powers in our mind, we realize it's time for us to travel on a different path.

And to travel on another path, we can't use the toxic illusions to guide us to it. This new path must be one that's free of illusory beliefs and values. It's a path without signs, maps, or the ideas of others to guide us. It's one where we must create our own signs, maps, and trust in ourselves.

For most, if not all, of our lives, we have followed the signs, maps, and ideas of others. We seldom questioned their maps or even if we were traveling on the path we desired to be on. We just followed the crowd.

Surely, we thought, they know where they're going. If not, we thought someone would raise questions about the direction we are traveling in life.

So we packed our bags with college degrees, life experiences, ambitions, and desires searching for worthiness in the life choices provided for us on the crowed road,

After stumbling and falling beneath the surface of the prodding footsteps of our guides, we can no longer sustain ourselves in the darkness engulfing our path. We find it too painful to walk through life by holding on to someone in front of us.

At the point of psychological, emotional and physical exhaustion, we are ready to let go, even if only for a little while. Our blindness has been removed from the veil of powerlessness and we can see what's on our path.

Unfortunately, what we see is very disturbing and daunting. We can see that people on the crowded room have no idea about where their path is leading them.

Yet even with this information, most of us are too afraid to change our paths. We are too lazy or too afraid of the work we must do to create our own paths. And we continue to doubt if we have enough sense to know what's best for us.

When the pedal of our minds meets the road (beliefs and values) and we're faced with either remaining where we are, or creating a new road to travel on, we know it's time to do something.

Now that we can see the garbage -- all the beliefs and values we have acquired in our lives --  on our path, we can no longer tolerate the smelly and harmful toxins emanating from them and causing us to become psychologically ill.

The road to enlightenment is not crowded. It is spacious. It's a path where we can see clearly where we are going. It's one where we don't have to hold on to others to guide us.

And it's one we must create for ourselves, because our own individual path is the only one that will guide us to the enlightenment in our minds.

All power is in our minds.