Self-Condemnation Epidemic Facing Us

When we begin to understand the powers of mind, we stop feeling sorry for ourselves. There are far too many of us wallowing in our own self-condemnation. The world seems to have defeated us or turned us into helpless victims of our own beliefs.

There is a quote in Seeds from the Ashes that says, "Who is responsible for changing the way someone thinks, acts, works, and lives?"

And when we think about this question for a few minutes, it doesn't take long to realize "..that each individual, regardless of his or her state of affairs, is responsible for changing the way he or she thinks and lives."

Regardless of how many times we hear that we are personally responsible for the conditions in our lives, many of us find that it's too difficult for us to accept this responsibility. We continue to blame outside sources for being responsible for the decisions we make.

In other words, our environment, parents, racism, poverty, and so forth are the culprits.  For example, we are alcoholics or drug addicts because of the way our parents treated us. Or we believe we are uneducated, unemployed, or misinformed about politics, government, economics, and religion because of limited opportunities available to us.

Many of us use this heuristic methodology to remain in a perpetual state of self-condemnation and victimization. We seek solutions for our problems by blaming others for the way we feel about ourselves. And the more we condemn ourselves, the more power we give to others to maintain their power over us. 

It is time for some of us to stop kidding ourselves and open our minds to clearly see what's happening in our lives. This process begins with our awareness that we cannot find power in another person, because our power comes from within our minds.

When we search for power in others, we become victims of Hero worshipping, which contributes to self-condemnation. Whenever we worship the accomplishment of others, we denigrate our own accomplishments.

In many instances, we trick ourselves into believing we are proud of what others have accomplished. Yet, at the deeper level of our awareness, we wish we could have made these accomplishments. And by wishing and hoping, we remain on a desultory path with our enlightenment work.

There are only so many ways to talk about enlightenment. And most of us have heard them all. So it is no longer about talk, but doing the work. Some of us like to talk too much about problems and illusory solutions. We find enjoyment in dancing with the illusions like drunks slurring on  bar stools.

Let's wake-up our minds  to become curious about what is unknown. The time for waking up the mind begins with our feeling the sharp points of the pain in our lives. In other words, we feel our suffering and our fears about it.

Meanwhile, with intense suffering comes feelings of liberation. We want to rid ourselves of suffering, but we don't believe we have the power to do so. Some of us seek a Messiah to do the work for us. And while we rationalize that this power is in us, our minds, we search for it within the illusions.

Now is the time to recognize that we are the Messiah for our lives. In other words, we must liberate our minds from the darkness created by the illusions.

It's important to know that we must do the work ourselves. We cannot continue to wait, when we have been endowed with all the power we need to free our minds from the illusions. The paradise we seek is found in our own minds.