Tell me all about you . . .

“Every time you victimized someone you were victimizing yourself.  Every act of kindness you have done, you have done to yourself.”  -  Andy Weir (The Egg)

“We don’t see things as they are – we see them as WE are.”  Anais Nin

“Sooner or later in life, we will all take our turn being in the position we once had someone else in.”  -  Ashly Lorenzana

     I read a short story by Andy Weir, the above quote having come from that piece.  In his story a man dies in an accident and finds himself confused with his surroundings.  He sees another man who explains things a bit to him.  I don’t do the tale justice, but in short he told him that the life he had just had was just another in a long string.  In fact, this universe had been made solely for him to awaken, and every person who ever lived or will live in this world were all just different versions of himself.  In life, he interacted with himself continually without having a clue that this was the case, and each different person was but a different manifestation of him.  He would have to keep at this until he achieved enough perfection to move to the next level as a spirit.  And, promptly, he was sent to live as an impoverished Chinese peasant girl.

     Now, at first blush this runs counter to all kinds of logical thought.  But a sign of a mature mind is being able to consider and weigh points of view without necessarily taking them on. 

     What was Jesus’s rule?  Do unto others - as you would have them – do unto you.  God is everything or God is nothing comes from the scientific point of view, and if he is indeed everything then by definition we are all different manifestations of the same entity.  Eastern thought says that the law of Karma dictates that whatever we give we will receive – mirrored by the St. Francis Prayer and other Judeo-Christian lines of thought.

     So, without accepting or rejecting the view-point, what would life look like if I were fully “awakened” and realized that every other person on this earth is just me experiencing a different lifetime?  How harshly judgmental would I remain?  How would I treat me as a confused teen in puberty who is acting out with body piercings and tattoos?  How would I treat me as the religious and political zealot who craves publicity for self-validation?  How would I treat me with Alzheimer’s and how would I treat me with AIDS?  How would I treat me as the manipulative boss and how would I treat me as a sniveling employee?  How would I treat me as a drug fueled prostitute and how would I treat me as a power mad police officer?  Would I then be able to see the underlying fears that were driving me and thus treat the other “myself” with gentleness and compassion?

    

      Perhaps the question is, how do I treat me as I am right now?  When I am at peace with myself and thus in the “zone” I can see the spirit in others and know that spirit intimately.  When I am in conflict with myself I see and judge the outward appearances and actions.  Whatever the truth is, isn’t it true that how I treat me is how I treat the world?  When I mistreat others isn’t it due to my own internal conflict that I am acting out on?  Isn’t what I criticize others for just a reflection of what I fear my own faults are?

     I wonder if I could spend one full day truly “doing unto others AS THOUGH THEY ARE ME.”  And I wonder what the outcome of that day would be?  Maybe I can just try it with the next person I interact with.  And in doing so, just maybe I will learn to be kind to me.

Today may I know oneness.

If you can contribute a few dollars to this effort, Click Here.  You can email me at captureamerica1@gmail.com

Make it a great day !!

David

Who loves ya?

“Compassion is the anti-toxin of the soul.  Where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.”  -  Eric Hoffer

“Charity begins at home, but it should not end there.”  -  Thomas Fuller

      While working on a story about the heroin addiction epidemic in New England, I sat talking with a man who works in an emergency room environment.  Prior to his career in primary care he had worked for a decade as a counselor in a drug and alcohol detox ward.  He was explaining that in the case of heroin there are no “casual users” as there are with other drugs like alcohol.  He said that of the people who become addicted to opiates (whether OxyContin prescribed by a Dr. or heroin from a dealer) less than one percent will see long term recovery.  I inquired what long term recovery means, and he said ten years or more. 

     I then asked him what is different about what that one percent do.  He said that opiates take over a person mind, body and spirit.  If all three areas are not addressed the person doesn’t have a chance.  It takes five weeks of abstinence for the physical to be overcome, but the obsession of the mind and the craving of the soul will linger for the rest of the person’s life if they don’t address those issues.  When I inquired about what that involved, he said that about one percent of addicts choose to follow a rigorous path of spiritual growth, and a by-product of those efforts seem to be relief of the mental and spiritual aspects of staying clean. 

     I further inquired if the medical establishment has any vehicle to help folks find this spiritual solution.  He responded that in this country the medical field as a whole is based on profit motives and pretty much devoid of any spiritual understanding.  In fact he said it seems to scare most medical establishment people when you bring it up.  They immediately take an arrogant posture, and he stated that arrogance is always the product of ignorance.  But then he corrected himself – he said there are strong level of compassion surrounding two areas of medicine – hospice and neonatal.  

     “So, they love you when you are born and dying, but the rest of the time you aren’t much besides a potential profit center?”  I asked.  We talked for a while about how it isn’t just the medical field that seems to only have genuine compassion for babies and the dying, it seems to be sort of a norm in our society as a whole.

     This segment of that interview has been weighing on my mind since.  As usual, my ego wants to make some kind of indictment of others so that I can judge them and deem myself superior.  But the reality is that I cannot change anyone but myself, and even changing myself is a tall order.

     I brought it up with a friend that has an interesting perspective.  He said that yes, we have ceremonies to celebrate new life and to celebrate one’s life after they pass on.  But we as individuals have the option to fully live a day at a time, and in doing that we celebrate every day of life.  In doing that we find a spiritual connection that works.  And in doing that we celebrate our fellow’s lives each and every day.

    It took some decades of my life to realize that changing the world is unrealistic, and beyond that it doesn’t need changing.  If this indeed is simply a place we come as spirits to face adversities so that we can learn lessons there is only one thing we are capable of “fixing” here in the first place.  Ourselves. 

     If we are to have compassion for our fellows we must first have compassion for ourselves.  If we are to have enough compassion for ourselves to allow ourselves to be human we have to come to truly know ourselves.  And the only way to truly know ourselves is through rigorous self-examination.  If we choose to do that work we can finally give ourselves permission to be ok just as we are, and we can finally be “ok” enough to relax and live life a moment at a time.  And only when we allow ourselves to “be” can we grant our fellows the respect to appreciate them for exactly who and what they are. 

     No matter what issue I face in life, it always seems to come back to that.  Maybe someday I will mature enough that I won’t keep wasting the effort to find “another solution.”

Today, may I keep it simple.

Click Here if you can contribute a few dollars

 to this effort.  You can email me 

at captureamerica1@gmail.com

Make it a great day !!

David