Inner Engineering in Current Events

I think what a lot of people are failing to understand about themselves is their power. The agency that they have in their lives. They don’t have a good concept of responsibility. Personal responsibility especially. Responsibility is just the ability to respond and that ability is infinite. The capacity in which we can respond is finite and that is what we look at, generally. Is it not the things we can’t do and the things we don’t have that hurts our souls? Judging from my personal experience anyway. There is a science to creating misery and it is one that we are all an expert in. Passing the buck. The blame game. Not accepting your own responsibility. Failing to see that your life is responding to the choices you make. The dietary choices you make, the financial choices you make, the romantic choices you make, the belief systems you create, the habits you create etc. That is the real meaning of Karma. It’s not the western version of what goes around comes around. It is simply this, life is what you make it. It’s not the content in your life that makes you miserable, it is the context.

I often get a lot of pushback when I talk about this because people cleave to the limiting belief that they are a perfect victim of circumstance. They then amplify their pain to justify how cruel the world is to them. I’m a horrible friend to talk to because I reject their victimhood. I aim to empower them instead. The only way out is in. We are not born free, we are born a slave to our appetites and pains and fears. Freedom comes when you tame your appetites, pains and fears so that you can govern yourself. The only thing we truly experience is ourselves. Our own minds and our own bodies. Pain is when the injury happens once. Suffering is when you experience that pain over and over. I was a victim when I was raped in my childhood. I was a victim when I was kidnapped and tortured by the family of the man who did it when I told my story. I didn’t become a survivor until after I stopped experiencing those events over and over in my mind. The mistake I made was using those experiences as a clutch to excuse myself from making positive changes and habits in my life. Victimhood was easier for me. Is personal responsibility intrinsic? I don’t think that it is. I think it is developable. A skill that we have to learn and develop. Losing my victim mentality did not happen overnight and it was not something I was able to do on my own. I had to build a new mindset in which I do not externalize my power. I do not externalize my worth and love. I don’t externalize my insecurities and anger. It is me who I experience at the end of the day. My own heart, my own mind, my own body, my own emotions, my own beliefs.

It has been the job of mystics across history and culture to lead you out of this ignorance and into the light, enlightenment. From unawareness to awareness. It’s not an awakening it is a homecoming. Yes, I recognize how religions were often used to create law & order but that was never the job of a mystic, guru, shaman, priest & monk etc. Spirituality is what I believe to be intrinsic. It is a calling in each of us that we learn to ignore. Education emanates from the Latin word Educatum which means to lead out of ignorance. That’s not what is happening today, it leads us into ignorance. That’s another entry though. Whenever I see somebody trying to explain how to free themselves from their own pain and suffering that is God’s work. God as I understand. That’s another entry still. We all live in a culture that does not love us and we need to create a culture and God for ourselves. Religions are like treadmills, great for toning and exercise but not good for getting somewhere. E=MC2 says that everything comes from one source of energy. That energy is what the mystics across history and culture call God. That energy is what I prefer to call source which sounds pretty New Age, I know, but calling it God is making the infinite a particular but that’s another entry. It’s raining here, I have Cello music playing in the background and I’m just feeling broody today.

PS
This popped up just after I was talking about it. Daisy is one of my fav pundits/influencers/journalists and I was wondering if she was going to bring this up. She’s good at being a pundit, tells you the facts, explains them to you and expresses her opinion in a way that is balanced. IMO anyway.

Last updated August 15, 2020