In this world there are many different types of strange phenomena. One of the strangest has to be our insatiable desire to implement change. We honestly believe that without our help, change would not occur. We assume that, even if change did happen without us, it would inevitably be worse than change according to our design. Such arrogance we have! It is funny that we struggle to control the only constant in our known reality…inevitable change.
So why do we have this need for control? To put it bluntly, we are afraid of change. The very idea that something might happen that we do not expect frightens us to death. In fact, this fear is so widespread that we naturally associate it to other people, assuming that our council and advice will obviously improve the lives of others.
The truly ironic part of all this is that eventually, after many generations, we also end up at the receiving end of someone elses need for control/security. Want an example? The entire concept of government is based on the need to control the status quo. So, now that the status quo has been decided, enforced, and made convenient, the public goes out into the world with a renewed sense of safety…until something happens that was not previously expected. Luckily, the system is fool-proof when it comes to offering the illusion of control. Despite the fact that we know the government controls our education, laws, and even health care, we believe that, again, we must implement change. Rallies, riots, terrorists…each one a more extreme reflection of our need for control and our growing fear of uncontrolled change.
When will it be time for us, as a species, to stop and abandon our need for control? Left and right we will protest that we have found enlightenment and still we go out into the world looking for those who “need” us. Why? Because throughout our lives, other people have been using us for the same reason. Isn’t it hard to accept that every assumption you have is based on the belief of someone else who just had to “improve” your life?
Control and Dependancy go hand in hand…for us to give up one, we need to give up the other. Not as a society, that is how all of this began in the first place. You don’t have to go out there the change the world. Your world is not out there your world is in you. For the longest time, we have believed that group decisions are best for the whole…unfortunately this creates a system where only a select number are pleased while the others are forced to abide by the collective decision. The slogan “we are all in this together” has been manipulated and bastardized to make you believe that only through numbers will positive change ever happen in the world.
This view of change is very limited, and more importantly, very inaccurate. We assume that the only important change is large-scale change because those are the only changes we stop to notice. Now, this is not because massive change is the only actual change…this is because we’re moving too quickly to notice the very small and most important changes.
One of our natural assumptions has always been that everyone is seperate from everyone else and that thoughts are individual and private. This assumption is based on our belief in seperation…we believe that we are seperate from reality. Just for a moment, lets say that this belief is a perception…not necessarily the end-all and be-all, but one way of interpreting the world.
As I’ve mentioned in other writings, Duality is the absolute foundation of all perception. For love you have Hate, for arrogance you have Humility, and of course everything in between. We’ll discuss this another time, but for now let’s say that every perception has an equal opposite perception which is just as valid according to the perceiver. Saying that, let us look back at our last assumption.
“We are seperate from reality because we are within it.” : This perception makes you and I very small specks in an apparently random mass of cause and effect.
My point is simply this, for this perception of seperation to exist the equal and opposite perception must also be available to us.
“I am connected to reality because it is within me”: This perception creates absolute responsibility. Reality is within, and therefore all things within reality are a reflection of your beliefs, fears, doubts, deceptions, guilt, hopes, and even feelings. Change through active control of the outside world is redundant in this perception, change is entirely dependant on the perceivers ability to understand Duality. Within the mind, one has 3 options…to be looking for oneself, to be running from oneself, or to be oneself. Each of these states of perception are directly linked to how “reality” and you interact. It is in this perception that attention is paid to the smallest changes within, these are the origins of the larger changes without.
In this perception, help becomes an entirely new concept. The concept of helping someone is based on our beleif that they need help. Think about this…our entire lives are devoted to finding ourselves…whether we know and admit it or not. The only true way to find yourself is through abandoning your fear and standing on your own…but, how did you learn to stand in the first place? As much as we hate to admit it, it is our hard times, our loneliest and most frustrated times that teach us our own ability to survive and flourish.
Our help is misplaced, it seems, because we are trying to make life easier on others, and all we are doing is creating a dependance in them. We are helping them avoid responsibility by believing that we are responsible for them. I realize that this may sound cold-hearted…it did to me at first. But the fact is that coddling people builds dependancy and inevitably a disbelief that any responsibility should be taken at all. This does not mean you shouldn’t help someone carry a bag or move to a new house…by all means, help the person who would willingly do the job themself…the person who is not willing to try should be left to their own actions until responsibility is learned (reality is beautiful that way). These are reflections of you that believe they do not have choice or freedom, to be their crutch is choosing to let these reflections continue to exist.
So, what are we ultimately responsible for? Ourselves and our perception of the world. We are not responsible to ideals, morals, laws, people, or even God. We are responsible for what we hold onto and the “consequences” those things bring. We are responsible for this because, as “God”, we create these hardships…we create circumstances specifically for the purposes of altering our own personal story. Choice is the path through perception and our circumstances alter our choice..inevitably we find ourselves with the same 3 choices we have in the Mind. Be yourself, find yourself, or run from yourself.
Your responsibility is to choose…not once, but every moment you create.
