Audiobook: The Inner Path - Chapter 21: Healing Ourselves

Chapter 21 Healing Ourselves and Our World With our attention constantly on things that will give us pleasure,

We can easily forget that we are enough.

We can also lose sight of the fact that as we take more and more from the world outside of us,

We actually feel as though we have less and less.

In this state of mind,

Our present belongings are never good enough and perhaps never fully enjoyed.

We can also have difficulty finding contentment in our lives,

Especially when we're dealing with uncomfortable feelings or situations that aggravate us.

As a result,

We might long for a time when we will have no problems,

When life will be easy.

And of course,

When we compare our current life with its inherent and perfectly natural struggles and setbacks to some imagined life of perfection and ease,

Somewhere in the hopefully not too distant future,

We can naturally feel even more dissatisfied.

We can begin to regret any difficulties we may be facing and long for a future that might never arrive.

When we start to view our challenges as a way to grow in self-awareness and wisdom,

However,

We can begin to see our lives in a different light.

The constant ups and downs that we experience can be seen as they truly are,

The ebb and flow of life helping us progress on our spiritual journey.

We are constantly looking for ways to feel good.

We resent life's struggles and our own limitations and are always trying to attain objects and experiences that will allow us to feel more pleasure.

We are ruled by our minds and as a result are never satisfied.

We can easily find ourselves becoming bored with our lives and the things in it,

Although in reality,

It is not our environment which is boring.

We often feel bored because we are failing to be enthralled by the beauty of the moment,

By the mystery of even the smallest forms of creation.

For example,

Are we able to stop and revel in the beauty of an ant on our picnic blanket or do we hurriedly brush it away,

Fearful of anything that might not fit into our picture of perfection?

As we begin viewing our lives with greater awareness,

However,

We will start to better understand the insatiability of our desires and the futility of our constant striving to have and be more.

We are constantly trying to make our lives more perfect,

All the while failing to recognize the unfathomable perfection that they already are.

We often act as if we are in charge of life,

Becoming upset when someone or something defies our will.

And yet,

This often only leaves us feeling even more powerless.

And of course,

We don't ever want to feel that way.

We want to always feel strong and in control and right.

We lose sight every day of the beauty that surrounds us and the mystery that fills us.

We often act as if we are adrift on an ocean of discontent,

Desperately clinging to whatever we can find that might give us pleasure or satisfaction.

We avoid our fears and weaknesses and constantly run from them toward things outside of us,

Always living as though we need more than we already have,

Than we already are.

As we begin accepting our smallness and our weakness,

However,

We can start to realize how limitless we truly are.

As we begin letting go of our need for control and pleasure,

We can start to see that we are,

In fact,

Already okay.

We can begin to understand how the act of accepting ourselves in every moment can free us from the need to look beyond ourselves for fulfillment.

And we will find,

Perhaps,

Simply by accepting and learning from all of our fears and desires that we are more whole and more important than we ever thought possible.

As we understand this,

We can begin giving to ourselves instead of taking from others.

We can start planting seeds of compassion within ourselves instead of constantly engaging in a desperate search for outer fulfillment.

We can also begin to see how our need to grab onto pleasurable experiences that make us feel alive diminishes in direct proportion to our ability to accept whatever we are experiencing in any moment.

As we begin bringing a greater awareness to our fears and desires,

We can start seeing our lives as an opportunity to grow in wisdom.

Instead of spending our time constantly taking from the world to cover up our uncomfortable emotions,

We can begin embracing them and learning from them.

As we continue doing this,

We'll start to realize that life is supporting us in every way on our path to wholeness.

As we surrender our will to the hands of a greater power,

We will,

In turn,

Become empowered.

Instead of constantly running from ourselves in a never-ending pursuit of stimulating experiences,

We can begin allowing everything to be exactly as it is.

And from this place of clarity and acceptance,

We can learn to listen to our own heart and bravely follow it into action.

We can begin improving our lives and our world by spreading love and presence.

We can start to understand on ever-deeper levels that we're not only enough,

But are tremendously powerful and capable of creating a life that is rich and fulfilling.

We can learn to work in harmony with nature and slowly stop acting like the world is our playground,

As if we are superior to every other creature on this planet.

As we do this,

Our long-wounded inner children will learn to heal and play in peace,

And we will begin to accept our roles as custodians for this world,

Instead of always needing to be customers.

We can also,

Through our brave investigations into our own actions and behaviors,

Learn to see them in others.

As we do this,

A compassion will be bred that will enlighten the world.

The constant threat of conflict that exists will eventually be transformed into an environment of acceptance and harmony.

Yet perhaps we might think that this is an untouchable reality,

One in which all humans are free,

Fed,

And equal,

And working together to create a world of peace.

We can have difficulty imagining a world without borders or violence,

A world where all men and women are brothers and sisters in the same family.

We have for so long led ourselves astray with our disparate beliefs that we have lost sight of the fact that we are all the same,

Perhaps of different cultures and nationalities,

But the same nonetheless.

We constantly judge each other on everything from our clothing to our political viewpoints and seem to feel justified in doing this simply because someone happens to be different from us.

Yet,

Is this really any different than how we treat everything in our world?

Aren't we just as quick to judge food or vacation spots as we are to judge people based on their nationality or appearance?

We're so quick to build walls and to defend them with our self-righteousness.

We lose sight of the fact that we're all human beings and refuse,

Out of our own fear and insecurity,

To accept those who are different from us.

We often look down on those who don't measure up to our self-imposed standards and in the process slowly lose the desire to connect with them and accept them for who they truly are.

We can't seem to understand how our need to control our world so that we feel comfortable in it is destroying any hope of us actually doing that.

We have to remember that true peace is found in accepting reality and that running from ourselves and constantly passing judgment and hate onto those we feel different from is a very small way to live.

It is only by learning to accept our inner world and life as it is in any moment that we can discover true peace and freedom for ourselves and the world.

No government can eliminate the hate and greed within each of us.

No outer body can make our individual and collective actions more mindful.

The ability to realize our true potential can never be defined by a political agenda.

We can never find true peace and understanding by simply enacting laws and regulations.

To heal ourselves requires great strength,

Patience,

And perseverance.

To heal our world takes great individual healing.

The only way that our world will ever be at peace with everyone happy and fulfilled is if each of us,

As individuals,

Begins taking responsibility for ourselves.

Yet,

How can we ever possibly hope to do this if we ourselves are not healed?

How can we expect others to stop killing and hating when we kill ourselves every day by abandoning those parts of us that we deem undesirable and hating those things that disturb us?

We run from our uncomfortable emotions at every turn and then criticize others for their selfish ways.

Are we not just as selfish for needing to satisfy our lack of inner acceptance by constantly grasping at pleasures from the world around us?

The only way that we will ever heal ourselves is if we can own our feelings without running from them or acting them out.

And if we can learn to sit with ourselves without fighting the reality of our inner experience,

We may be able to one day sit with our enemies instead of fighting them.

We have to understand the importance of this.

This is the only way to freedom and peace for each of us and our world.

It is up to each of us to free ourselves from the constant need to take from the world in order to fill ourselves up because we mistakenly think that we are not enough.

Only we can see through the illusion that we are in some way lacking or deficient,

That we need to have more to be more.

It is in the act of investigating and accepting all of the different elements that are within us that we can learn to see the truth and to find the courage to act upon it so that we can begin to heal ourselves and the world.

This is our true purpose in life and the path to true happiness and fulfillment.

To discover the world inside of us that is waiting to be explored and to lead us to our true self is the most beautiful,

Difficult,

And important journey that any human being can engage in.