Part Three: More on news
Lets continue the chain of thought from the last few posts.
Now you may ask
When living as yourself , why not try to focus upon:
Trying to change the world or to stop the global madness?
I fully understand this question. In fact, this was where I started in the process. I have children and I would rather work towards making a beautiful world rather than following the current course of creating a husk of a burnt out polluted shell.
So I spent many many years trying to understand this problem , watching and examining very closely all the options I could find on this subject. I went through every historical example I could find and I looked deeply into my Taoist teachings...
The issue simplifies down to reflection:
Action and re-action.
This has two major consequences:1) If a person works actively at changing the world... the world re-acts back to changing you.
- If you look back to many of the most famous people who did change the world. It came at a very high cost. Almost always coming at the cost of their very own life and everything they love most.
So if you take the tact of directly changing the world for the better, the process will and does change you and often in ways you will not desire. Often in ways that actually prevent you from changing the world toward a better place. I have watched people lose families, happiness, and well being because of this. I have watched people turn into radicals who's anti-government actions actually end up supporting the government. Now thats twisted!
IN fact watch. We have been seeing and are seeing the American government step up the process of exposing and hunting down "home grown" terrorists who really are loyal Americans trying to support the constitution. Yet their actions will get labeled as destructive and extreme which promote the terror the current government uses to control people... It all loops around in a twisted way. And before you know it, our children are shouting "Don't Taze me bro!" for just asking honest questions.
2) What ever tool you use to re-shape the world, forces the world and society to take on characteristics of that very same tool.
- If you start a revolution upon violence, then your new culture will have violence as a very basic part of it's nature.
These were not outcomes I desired.
However, being a Taoist I noticed something. In the way I lived, by being myself, I did make a difference. I could help people and impact my surrounding in my actions. I came to the conclusion that just being being myself, also invoked those very same principles of
Action and Re-Action. In being myself, the world became more like the characteristics I live within. More importantly, by being myself... I didn't get attacked or hurt by the system. IN fact the opposite happened. The more I was myself, the more the world supported me to be myself and continue onwards in making a difference.
This isn't something that is intuitive. In fact we are taught the opposite in American Culture. We are taught action, to fight for what is right.. to go out and make a difference...
Interestingly both sides of the situation are correct: We do have to take action, and we do need to make a difference.. but it's centered upon being ourselves. This is a mixture of Eastern and Western ideals. It works. Maybe not quickly... but it does work.
Then I look around at what others have been teaching, looking at other historical figures who made a difference with peace... This teaching has been around all along ... It's just modern society does it best to try to change the subject since Western Society is currently not based upon peace.
Ghandi said it best when saying: "Be the change you want to be. "
That's why its important not to lose focus. The battle isn't to change the world..
The real path and challenge is living the life
within your life
which makes a difference in the world.
Peace
2 comments:
Very true!
Not only are we taught the opposite of being ouselves, but there are an infinate amount of noises and distractions which attempt to prevent us from self-discovery.
In a culture based upon violence, profit and greed - we look out at the world around us and see it as *life*. Yet the life that we are closet to is the life *within* us. And as you point out it is that life which has the most power.
In fact the more *myself* I have become over the years...the less resistance I have found from other people.
An school education which taugh self-understanding and life-skills would be an amazing catalyst for change. I guess that is exactly why we don't have such an education system.
But in the end that doesn't matter. You have pointed to the very hope which we can look to!
Wouldn't it be great to create such a system : An school education which taught self-understanding and life-skills would be an amazing catalyst for change.
Could you see how many parents would be upset over such a thing.
Such a school would upset many many people. Children are a form of immmortality, people try to impress upon their children their own ideals, beliefs and nature... since in doing so we replicate ourselves to the next generation.
Thats why the teenage years are so hard. a teenager is breaking away from the parent to be themselves.
such a school system would probably go a long way to helping teenagers have less problems... at the same time I bet 1/2 the parents would reject it it since from an earlier age you are teaching a child to be themselves over what the the parents are trying to do unconsciously...
So not only would society resist and try to destroy such an education system.. Many parents would also reject it outright.
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