Maintaining Compassion

When others treat us bad, we are inclined to respond in kind. Their projection finds reflection in us, and we must magnify it, out do them, in order to feel safe. The thought erupts that if we just do this thing, get back at them, then our urge will be satisfied and we will no longer have these feelings, but often is the case when we find our revenge at hand and we are not sated. Through justification we have excused our malicious intentions, but once they have played out, we find that the justification was a veiled deception, deceiving us from the true nature of our intent. We did not intend to do harm for good, or to achieve a sense of justice, but because we chose to do harm. It becomes a state of mind that we choose, even though many of us are not actively aware that we have chosen it, we feel its pull, and assume that it is natural, that it is genuine, that it is 'us'. If we were only to question, to give attention to this automated process of reflection, then we would see a process that is not inspired by our true desires, but by an automated mechanism, instinct, meant to preserve the human, but not their humanity. As subjects of environmental programming, the vast majority of us do not even question the values and beliefs that we have taken from our environment. For Rachel and Amanda grew up in homes full of violence and retribution, and because that is the world they grew up in, they have accepted those values at a time when they were not concious enough to question them. Yet the presence of these values remains, and will until they actively give them attention and question them. If we were to all question our values we would discover that many of them do not serve us well. The call for revenge, often confused with justice, only serves to fill its holder with malice and poisons every breath they take. Hate is little more than a madness, a disruption of the very core of our being. It can be categorized purely in that fashion, as destroying the proper functioning of a system and allowing thoughts and actions which would in no way be reasonable to a sound mind, to be justified and even encouraged. When those around us display this madness, we feel the stress and discomfort it brings, and like ripples in the water we are compelled to be influenced by them, but unlike all other creatures in the natural order of things, we are not bound to respond according to our environments, but have an underlying current of will - conciousness - that gives us the power to choose our reactions, to decide for ourselves the state of our mind, rather than allowing it to be dictated to us by fate.
In the face of disunion, I would rather choose to be a compassionate person, despite the expressions of anger, fear, and revulsion given by those I love. We all say that we would like things to be perfect, that we would like to get along, but very few of us are willing to drop our grudges, forget our old divisions, and create a healed and unified future. When they turn to strife, I will turn to unity, and that I all that remains in my power to do. The only way to bring the values into the world that we desire to see is to exemplify them with the only engine we have full control over - ourselves. If I want my relationships to be healed, to be loving and compassionate, giving, and caring, then I must represent those values within myself, in my thoughts, feelings, and actions. While most of us will respond in the only way that seems natural to us, according to those values we learned at a young age, we find very little awareness is given to the processes which we take for granted. Amanda will tell you all day long how she wishes the world were a better place, how she values love and forgiveness, but when the real tests come, she responds in the manner that she was taught as child, with violence, with anger, callousness and distance. If only she paid enough attention to see that the way she is creates the world around her, then she would change her ways, but because the process occurs unconsciously for her, she doesn't even question it, all she knows is that she despises the feelings, without knowing where they come from. Wow so much of this was completely unknown to me just a few months ago. How much more is there for me to learn?

Victims

In life we are all either kings or pawns.
People live two primarily different lives, those who are a product of their circumstances, and those who produce their circumstances. The vast majority of us, 95% I'd estimate, live lives full of blame and accusation, where nothing is their fault and everything is to blame for the lives that they live. Its easier to sit down and list off all the things that are wrong, and all the things that keep you from doing something about those wrongs, in order to make yourself feel better in the short term. In the long term, however, such thinking gets you nowhere, even wastes your life away, because at the end of these rationalizings, nothing has changed. Our mindset inspires the thoughts we produce. If we believe we can, then we will, if we believe we can't, then we won't, and our thoughts will continue to this effect. I hope to change that in people. It isn't about processes, it isn't about solutions, it isn't about obstacles, its about mindset. So many people in my life are living the same way today that they did yesterday, and the day before that, as far back as the behavior started. They don't change because they don't have the mindset of change, but of comfort. If I know anything about change its that its unsettling. When I'm facing my fear, and I'm not sure what I'm standing on, the feeling of being disturbed, of not having anything to hold on to - would make most people cringe and flee. But I strike out head first into the maelstrom and not only endure, but thrive. Is it because I'm unafraid? Is it because it doesn't hurt? No, its because more than believe, I KNOW that I will grow for every moment I spend in that storm of spirit. It is the fire that tempers the steel of my being, and the farther forth I venture, the farther behind I leave my loved ones who are frightened of the fire. I don't want to leave them behind, I want to take them with me, but in order to do that, I have to learn how to give them a hand, to encourage them, tell them it will be alright, and show them through to the other side, where we will be strengthened in our bond together. I wish Rachel could see that the beliefs she has about life and relationships don't serve her wants. She wants to have a happy, healthy relationship, but instead of asking, how can we overcome this together? She lists off the things that are wrong, and instead of them being opportunities for growth, she sets them up as obstacles to the relationship. She really is a beautiful person, but she is plagued with defeating life practices, and as such, she will never even scratch what she is capable of as long as she holds on to those old mindsets, old ways of finding blame.I am a constantly growing person, and over time I've continued to grow by leaps and bounds, but I've also left behind the people who didn't grow, because they allowed our differences to separate us. If I want to find a solution for this, I'll have to start finding ways to give to other people the gifts I have recieved. Show them the better way, and help them adopt the practices that give me the success I desire in the areas I pursue. It really is a world of the can do's and the its not my fault's. Those with power will always outnumber the powerless, and is it because they were given more? No, its because they took more. They believed in themselves and their abilities, and in so changing their mindset they consequently changed every aspect of their existence. When you have the right mind, you tend to ask the right questions, develop the right solutions, produce the right results. When you have the wrong mind you get the wrong in all those areas. Our lives are built from the inside out. History is full of people who build riches, lost them, and built them up again. At more than one point in their life they were no better off than trailer park trash, with everything stacked against them, and the one thing that they had that was different was their attitude. They chose their path, pursued it, and took action as a result and in no time were back on their feet. These haves had no more than the have nots, not in capability, or starting advantage, and yet they succeeded because of a simple thing that we don't believe in very much - the human spirit.We can all change, we are not held to the ground by anything tangible, but by the chains of our own pessimism. By realizing the simple reality that you are free, then you can be free, and all things will be opened to you. In life we get what we look for. Seek and ye shall find. If we want to see problems, difficulties, insurmountable odds, then we will find those things. If we see instead opportunity, growth, and potential success, then we will find those things. When I think of Rachel I see a chance to grow closer to her than anyone she's ever had in her life. When she thinks of me she probably sees hopelessness, abuse, maybe even hatred, and because thats what she chooses to see, then thats what she has. We are born into this world flooded with information from our senses, and we grow to believe that that is all there is. We buy into the attitude that our lives are determined by what is around us, rather than our life being determined by ourselves. It is the mindset of the victim, I have no choice, I am trapped, there is no other way. Self defeating tapes play back and forth all day every day in their mind, and then they continue to complain when they produce the very results they'd been telling themselves all along they would get. I could show her a world where she doesn't have to be the victim. Where she not only decides what she wants, but gets it! The thing is, whether we believe it or not, our lives are ALWAYS a product of ourselves. If we ignore it, and continue to infest our minds with pessimistic thoughts then our lives will be exactly what we do not want. When we look at ourselves and believe, when we constantly focus on what we do, rather than don't, want, then we will find ourselves blessed with it. Input determines output. Until we learn to take advantage of the limitless power of the human spirit, then we will always remain pale shadows of ourselves, defeated by the slightest twist of fate, beaten down until we have no life left to live. We live reactively or proactively. We all hold our fate in our hands, what we choose to make of it is entirely the result of our decisions. Until I find a way to show her that she doesn't have to give up, that every day is a new opportunity to create the life she wants - instead of running from the one she doesn't, then she will continue to be beaten down, not by me, not by her circumstance, but by her own limiting beliefs. She is truly her own worst enemy.

Resilience

Its hard for me to hold something against someone that I so easily succumb to myself. There are those who would judge me, put me into a box they've formed in their mind. They have already mapped out my dimensions and objectified me, transforming a living being into a static entity. It all emanates from the pain we feel as a result of our ignorance combined with our assumption. When we decide to let the pain go, when we realize that nothing can harm us - only we can harm ourselves, then we can be truly liberated from the automatic process of casting judgement. When we stop living reactively and start living proactively, then we become a force in the world, rather than being subjected to the world's forces. Those who inspire great change did so not by grabbing hold of the world and forming it as they chose, but by taking as complete advantage as possible of the one thing in the world they could control, themselves. By gaining concious control of our own organism, and overriding the natural processes that are hardwired into us from nature and nurture, then we can truly become masters of our own destiny and our lives are directed not according to our urges, but according to our will. Then we begin to act in the interest of a world that exists in our vision for a better world, rather than reacting to the world of our past. The past can teach us many things, but it should only be utilized to the extent that it enriches us in the now and subsequently enlarges our future.I know that any time I suffer, any time I feel the pain of another, it is not something to be despised, or to flee from. I take hold of it as an opportunity for me to expand, for wherever there is pain there is room for growth. Thats all pain is to me, an indicator of potential improvement, and as such takes on a positive connotation. Whenever I am unsettled I know that I am expanding my boundaries and improving my ability to handle all the things that life brings my way. It is not for me to question the divine providence of the world, but to appreciate all things that enter my arena, for they can in no ways bring me down. If I am flexible in my approach and lenient in my understandings, then everything no matter how difficult holds the promise of enhancing my being, all I have to do is take advantage of it. As I grow in my understandings of the world and humanity, I feel especially privileged to be given this knowledge, and to take advantage of it wholly, but I also think what this knowledge is giving to the world at large. Sure it helps me to grow and advance, but what of all those out there who cringe from the nature of their reality? Most of us choose to despise what we have been given, hating our fortune, running away from opportunities simply because we choose to hold on to an old mindsets that increase our hurt. I don't know what makes me so willing to destroy my presuppositions, what it is that allows me to break myself down time and time again in the pursuit of higher spiritual awareness, but it is a gift that I hope not to take exclusive advantage of. There are many people out there who live in suffering and hold great pain entirely because they choose to. I want to show them a better way, a way to let go and not be afraid, a way to walk into that unsettling feeling and emerge a stronger person. We don't need to fear the fire if we know we will come out purer on the other side. Life is a fire, it tests us, builds us up. It applies the stresses that enhance our being. Through the continual application of pressure we become stronger, as a weight lifter puts on muscle, so our character grows by overcoming the challenges that life sets before us. In this way my capacity for love grows. Each heartache, each harsh word, each pain that is given to me from another person enhances my ability to absorb that pain, and respond in a positive manner. Once I allow the negativity of another to reflect in me, then I only contribute to the energy that brings them down, only now it is magnified within them and present within me also. Everyone loses. Someone has to forgive, someone has to be proactive - allowing their will to decide the state of their being, and not reactive - allowing their environment to decide the state of their being. By choosing to embody love, by seeing that those who cause hurt only cause it because they suffer, and understanding that I choose to give them the love that they may not deserve, but they desperately need - I can enhance my own understanding of love and capacity for it. There is a way that we are taught to react to pain, and then there is an entirely different way of loving through the pain, allowing that divine state to shine through you and out into the world. It is that way of being that I hope to achieve in greater amount, the ability to refuse all hurt, and be a source of benevolence, with no trace of malice. Of course there will be those who despise this way of being, or who mistrust it, refusing to believe in its possibility in the world because they refuse to believe in its possibility within themselves. We have martyrs for a reason. There are those whose goodness drives other people to heights of insanity, the result of a law of nature perhaps. For every action their is an equal and opposite reaction. For everyone that chooses to love, there is one who embodies suffering and so spreads it throughout the world because it is the nature of their being. By seeing my pain as beneficial, by continuing to strive for love within myself, I wash away layer after layer of accumulated suffering. I'll never get to be that perfect person, but it is not the result that I strive for, but rather the intention. It is the intention to be loving that forms within me a loving attitude, and where effort and attention are directed, change is bound to follow. Lifetimes are built one day at a time. It is by the consistent attention to the improvment of myself today that will result in the change I experience tommorow. I've spent so much of my life in tommorow and yesterday that I'd forgotten about today, and about the power that it gives us to live our life anew, to make changes, to be better people. Each and every day I change a little bit, my knowledge expands and I grow closer to that day when I will no longer reside on this earth and will move on to another existence. Then I will have my result and will be able to reflect on all I've done and say that I have come so far from where I thought I would go.

Heartburn

Curry is bad, don't eat it.
Those who are certain are those who assume. When I feel pain, I usually find something external to attribute it to - a natural process and a justifiable one. It exists to preserve us from those things in the world that threaten us, a primitive method of self preservation based on our animal instincts. While it works well to ensure the survival of the organism, it does little to encourage the growth of the spirit. There are those in my life whose assumptions are born from pain, and their pain is born from their assumptions. Its a vicious circle of feel baditude. The pain causes me to form assumptions, and so I understand the natural process, and how can I condemn something that is so easy to succumb to. I know because I've succumbed to it myself. Its so easy for me to judge, but that judging is just another reaction to the pain, and that pain results from the judging, another ironicly hilarious circle. Its amazing how our natural processes can spiral out of control, resulting in the destruction of our sanity and well being. Only by looking at my pain and facing it can I overcome it. But we feel love when we give love. I understand that you can't make someone feel love. Its been an assumption of mine that love is given, and when love is given the you feel it. After observation I've come to think that love comes from within. It cannot be received, only expressed. Sometimes the circumstances of our lives will encourage us to adopt the mindset of a loving person but that mindset is then dependent on our circumstances. Like the Joker said, "They're only as good as the world allows them to be." But when things go sour, so do we. Its that dependency on the external that ultimately results in our allowing the world to dictate our behaviour.There's a belief that we can choose to hurt someone in order to prevent a greater hurt from happening. But if those great examples of loving behaviour from the past can teach us anything, its that pain only begets more pain. Ghandi, MLK, Mother Theresa all absorbed immense punishment and encouraged others to do the same, for it is only by absorbing the suffering of others that it dissipates. When we allow that suffering to reflect in us, then it grows and magnifies. If someone doesn't learn to forgive, if someone doesn't learn to stop that cycle then it will perpetuate eternally, until all of us are destroyed. Human conciousness has the potential to either destroy or save human kind. Its all dependent on how we direct it.It would seem that the extent of love could be determined by the extent a person is able to suffer. The suffering is not an ultimate result, but rather a knee jerk reaction inspired by our fear.

We are who we choose to be

When we enter a state of mind that is angry, vengeful, that wants to cause hurt, then it causes us heartache. There's something profoundly disturbing to the human being in these discordant states of mind. When we feel heartache, it isn't the external things that cause us to feel it, its those external things prompting an internal reaction. So first and foremost it is what we feel internally that causes us to feel that way. But does that process need to be automatic? Couldn't we decide whether or not we want to let someone else's heartache affect our own? I used to think it was being untrue to yourself to control your states, to choose what you would feel rather than having the things in the world choose for you. But it is the truest form of self, allowing yourself to create those states of mind - rather than letting an element of your external reality define you. I'm torn between what I think will be effective and what I think will be right. I want to be close to her more than anything but I don't know what to do to make it happen. Maybe I'm trying to hard to have something that I just can't make happen. I can only strive to learn, strive to grow and improve myself, maybe then things will come to me. Ironic how in life that which we pursue so often eludes us, but when we stop pursuing - it comes right to us. By chasing something you only drive it further away, maybe its better to stop for a moment and focus on something else. Pain is everywhere in the world, and we choose whether or not we want to feel it. We can have the power to say, I will not hate, I will not be angry, I will not be afraid. We can instead choose an attitude of love, I will give, I will forgive, I will have compassion. Even if the world does not reflect these qualities back to us, we can still possess them within ourselves. Those that I do love have not reflected that love back to me, and thats the world they choose to form, its not mine and I don't have to be a part of it anymore. I will choose to love regardless of the harshness of others actions, and I think thats truly how those who have loved in the past have achieved it so greatly. When the world around them was a dark and cold place, they ignored what they saw and chose to believe in a world of their choosing and thusly that world was formed out of the infinite fount of their love. We all have an infinite influence in the world, the extent of which is unknown to me. But if every day we strive to perform the right action, the right cause, then those small victories accumulated over days result in a lifetime of achievement. There was a martyr named Stephen who as he was stoned to death by the towns people proclaimed, Forgive them lord, for they know not what they do. Those around him only projected a mindset of hate, and it spiralled out of control within them, ultimately destroying their sanity, but he didn't allow it to affect him. He controled that one aspect of the world that he could, himself, choosing to love when others chose to hate. Mother Theresa was surrounded by poverty, and despite the lack that everyone around her was convinced of, she saw abundance, an abundance of spirit that only waited to be harnessed. She chose to encourage that abundance, to believe in her dream more than the reality that surrounded her, and from that illusion she created something real.There are many who do not appreciate, some who even hate, but they cause their own heartache, and those states of mind are theirs to bear. They do not have to be mine, and I do not have to reciprocate. I can choose the mindset of love, even if no one else believes in my dream, I still can.

We are who we choose to be

When we enter a state of mind that is angry, vengeful, that wants to cause hurt, then it causes us heartache. There's something profoundly disturbing to the human being in these discordant states of mind. When we feel heartache, it isn't the external things that cause us to feel it, its those external things prompting an internal reaction. So first and foremost it is what we feel internally that causes us to feel that way. But does that process need to be automatic? Couldn't we decide whether or not we want to let someone else's heartache affect our own? I used to think it was being untrue to yourself to control your states, to choose what you would feel rather than having the things in the world choose for you. But it is the truest form of self, allowing yourself to create those states of mind - rather than letting an element of your external reality define you. I'm torn between what I think will be effective and what I think will be right. I want to be close to her more than anything but I don't know what to do to make it happen. Maybe I'm trying to hard to have something that I just can't make happen. I can only strive to learn, strive to grow and improve myself, maybe then things will come to me. Ironic how in life that which we pursue so often eludes us, but when we stop pursuing - it comes right to us. By chasing something you only drive it further away, maybe its better to stop for a moment and focus on something else. Pain is everywhere in the world, and we choose whether or not we want to feel it. We can have the power to say, I will not hate, I will not be angry, I will not be afraid. We can instead choose an attitude of love, I will give, I will forgive, I will have compassion. Even if the world does not reflect these qualities back to us, we can still possess them within ourselves. Those that I do love have not reflected that love back to me, and thats the world they choose to form, its not mine and I don't have to be a part of it anymore. I will choose to love regardless of the harshness of others actions, and I think thats truly how those who have loved in the past have achieved it so greatly. When the world around them was a dark and cold place, they ignored what they saw and chose to believe in a world of their choosing and thusly that world was formed out of the infinite fount of their love. We all have an infinite influence in the world, the extent of which is unknown to me. But if every day we strive to perform the right action, the right cause, then those small victories accumulated over days result in a lifetime of achievement. There was a martyr named Stephen who as he was stoned to death by the towns people proclaimed, Forgive them lord, for they know not what they do. Those around him only projected a mindset of hate, and it spiralled out of control within them, ultimately destroying their sanity, but he didn't allow it to affect him. He controled that one aspect of the world that he could, himself, choosing to love when others chose to hate. Mother Theresa was surrounded by poverty, and despite the lack that everyone around her was convinced of, she saw abundance, an abundance of spirit that only waited to be harnessed. She chose to encourage that abundance, to believe in her dream more than the reality that surrounded her, and from that illusion she created something real.There are many who do not appreciate, some who even hate, but they cause their own heartache, and those states of mind are theirs to bear. They do not have to be mine, and I do not have to reciprocate. I can choose the mindset of love, even if no one else believes in my dream, I still can.