despair

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My Letter to a Friend

You once mentioned that I am somewhat alone in holding the views and positions that I do in life. You once mentioned that I’m labeled a liberal, even though I don’t think of myself as fitting under a stereotype, yet others think of me that way. But, I’m not really alone and so, I will answer the unasked question of why I feel and think, and act, as I do.

My answer is this.

….Because I see how people are treated in the world. I’ve seen people of all walks of life – normal people, people who struggle to get by, struggle to eat, struggle to find work, struggle to stay alive, struggle against despair, and struggle to not commit suicide, because they’re buried by unending hardships of life, and drowning from going so long with the lack of any hope. This is happening to more and more people in this time and place. I see people who through whatever circumstances – get bent and broken, hurt, harmed and killed. I witness people who oppose others living their own life differently, and ask myself, why don’t they have the right to try to live their life, and live it as best they can.

My answer is this.

….I have the right to care about other people if I so choose to. I have the right to help another person if I want to help them. I have the right to feel what I feel about helping. I have the right to choose to help when and who I can help, and especially when I know someone absolutely needs help.

I know what suffering and pain is. We all know what it is. We see it in our own life, and sometimes we see it in others’ lives. I have the right to muster whatever effort I can to help end whatever suffering may be possible, with me only being one person…. who could join with another one person…. who could join with another one person….

My answer is this.

…When someone’s belief is “Those people are evil.” I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and I believe, “No, they’re not evil just because you name-call them that.” When someone’s opinion and belief is, “Those people deserve to suffer.” I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and then believe, “No, they don’t just because you say they deserve to suffer.”

When someone believes the Internet rumors, or the powerful people’s name-calling, the Internet speculation, the claims of those on TV, and “he said it, therefore it’s true”, I have the right to believe that the rumors, the name-calling, opinions, speculation, claims and “HE SAID IT THEREFORE IT MUST BE TRUE” are only that – opinions and beliefs, which just as often are proven not true as they’re presented, and yet still cause pain, suffering and harm to people. I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and then oppose the words, and demand proof. And I’ve witnessed that the proof, many times, never shows up.

When someone says their beliefs about others are Facts, I have the right to say “I believe they are not FACTS, because you don’t prove them, while there can be opposing FACTS which have been proven.”

I have had experiences being the target of prejudice, of disrespect, of hatred, of harm, of rumor, name-calling, claims, and “he said it, therefore it’s true.” I’ve been the recipient of religious people “bearing false witness” against me for whatever reasons they have. I’ve been targeted and harmed from it.

All of these actions of mankind are chosen actions. No one is a programmed computer who has no freewill. When human beings choose to target someone, humans do it – very many times – because it is a belief, and we humans hold within our hearts and minds the willingness to target and harm another human being. In our world now, with the choosing of impatience and animosity, the greatest majority of targeting and attacking is ONLY based on beliefs and attitudes, and not actual proven FACTS.

My answer is this.

…I choose to work hard to help prevent and oppose threats and bullying. I choose to add effort to helping people who want the right to live their life as best they can. I choose to work hard at helping to prevent and oppose prejudice, and rumor and the harm that comes from “somebody said it somewhere, therefore it’s true” or “The President said it, therefore I believe it.”

And each time someone says, I’m a fool or says I’m stupid or I’m an idiot, to be this way, with insults and raging at me, I will continue to work to say, “That’s only your opinion, and I disagree with it, but you have the right to choose what thoughts live within your own mind, your own heart, and within your own soul.”

And so do I.

by

Love Is It

Every individual struggles to live life as best as possible, even with all the hurdles we place in front of ourselves, and the stumbling blocks we cling to. Yes, our lives are filled with difficulties, pain, suffering and the like. Even when we have wonderful things to potentially make life easier, bring joy and be less painful, and bring happiness and have less suffering, our lives are not free from any aspect of life. We simply have a different kind of pain and suffering in our life.  Some of it is easily seen, and some of it is hidden to everyone except ourselves.

No individual’s life is strictly either black or white. No life is strictly either pain or joy. No individual, no soul is strictly either good or bad. Consequently, no experience is strictly only good or bad, black or white, pain or joy.

In our world, we know suffering exists and many of us try to help there be less of it. In our world, we know that understanding God more can help there be less of it. Yet, again and again we run into the wall of the differences between our efforts and our results. Over and over we seek ways to offer others insights or learning which we have with the hope of reducing suffering and with the hope of increasing understanding and compassion in our societies and the hearts and minds of people.

It is so common to get very discouraged and saddened when we believe that we’ve been ineffective and unsuccessful. If we hold to this belief – that we’ve been ineffective and unsuccessful – or that we haven’t even been able to change ourselves or enhance God’s presence in our own lives, then we can also become depressed or despairing – feeling that we get nowhere with our efforts at changing another’s consciousnesses.

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But, if we open our minds just a little bit more, we’ll be able to see something different happening. If we can see that our effort at changing our self is the superior path – the path that brings us to greater awareness of our world through the greater awareness of our self, we can begin to see that, of course, we’re going to get depressed about our ability to change somebody else. Of course, we despair when we think we’re here to put love into someone else’s heart.

There’s a paradox here.  These tasks are not realistic tasks for us. These tasks are not the tasks set before us by God.  These tasks are not why we’re here. We’re not here to bring salvation to someone else. We’re not here to bring enlightenment to someone else. We’re not here to bring about someone else’s greater learning.

We’re here to demonstrate something special.  We’re here to seek salvation within. We’re here to seek enlightenment within. We’re here to come to know our own self as uniting with God within. We’re here to seek our own greater learning within.  We can do this by loving God above all and loving our neighbor as our self, and demonstrating all of the above.  What we learn from this is a very simple realization.

Each time we love or express love in some way, each time we feel love in our hearts and demonstrate it, we are in a very real way, bringing God’s consciousness, energy, and vibration into this plane in order to affect this plane – like a tuning fork, to raise the vibration of all things. Each time we love, regardless of who or what receives, we are opening to allow God to have a greater presence in the world. Each time we love, the love energy extends and strengthens the connection we have, and increases our awareness of the Oneness of all life. Each time we love, the world, the planet, the environment we’re in changes. Each time we love, we change.

This means the way to healing is to love in a greater capacity than the way of illness. This means the path of illness, dis-ease, darkness or whatever we call it and this path’s strong inertial pull, can be changed by choosing to love and sending this love out.

While the path of love is not an easy path to walk, it certainly offers more than the path of trying to change others instead of ourselves. It offers more than the path of thinking that we’ve failed because the world is still “crazy” even after all those meditations and talks we’ve done. It offers more than the path of trying to figure out what what we’re supposed to be doing to make ourselves “spiritual.”  It offers more than the path of believing that spirituality is what we do rather than what are.

The path of loving is the path that can offer the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and taking life one day at a time.  The path of loving is a path of demonstration of all that has been said in this article.  Every time we love, we bring God in all God’s Infinite Consciousness into the present moment into this space that we’re in. Every time we love, we demonstrate love to someone who may have forgotten it.  There is no greater spiritual act that any of us can enact than to love. There is no greater spiritual purpose to which we can attain. There is no greater spiritual path that we can progress upon.

Love is it.

Now, a few questions:
If any of us died right now, would the people in our lives have known for certain that we loved them?  or would they think something else?  If anyone we knew died, right now, would they die knowing that we loved them?  or would they die thinking something else?

What is the harm of demonstrating to someone else that we love them?  What is the harm of expressing to all life that we love all life?
What is the harm of showing God that we love God?

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This article is dedicated to a friend of mine – someone I love.