The Consciousness of Enlightenment

We are the same as our awareness of being.

For many of us it's difficult to accept responsibility for our current conditions. We cannot seem to find the power to move beyond the unemployment, home foreclosures, out-of-control debts, unhappy relationships, psychological and emotional abuses, fears and doubts about who we are, and a lack of vision to overcome the thoughts and actions responsible for these problems.

Well, it's time for us to realize that we are the beginning and ending of everything in our lives. And without our minds there is no beginning or ending.

So our awareness of being something (black, white, oppressor, victim, poor, rich, obese, attractive, unattractive, an addict, abusive, violent, and so forth) is exactly the way we act all the time. Whatever we are conscious of being is exactly the way we act.

Some of us do a lot of play-acting. We create roles and images within our consciousness to conform to the illusions we are relying on to interpret our worthiness or unworthiness to have power over our lives.

After we spend most of our time relying on illusory interpretations of what is real or unreal, we become comfortable with accepting ourselves as victims of unforeseen circumstances. This causes us to rationalize our suffering as just being a part of living. In other words, we are powerless by happenstance.

It's important for us to remember that we are powerless because we choose to be. We make the choice to ignore our Powers of Mind and continue to rely on the beliefs and values from our parents, society, and experience. Unfortunately, this reliance on others is what distorts what we think about ourselves and others.

Similarly, many of us are always perceiving ourselves with different images. On some days, we are powerful, happy, and feeling untouchable by outside forces. While on other days, we cannot seem to overcome the simple things causing us to feel unhappy or dissatisfied with ourselves.

The vicissitudes of our interpretation about who we are come from our beliefs and values. And within every interpretation is the opportunity for us to use our Powers of Mind to express something new.