Lesson 55: Review of Lessons 21 – 25
Here are the main ideas from Lessons 21 – 25:
21. I am determined to see things
differently.
22. What I see is a form of vengeance.
23. I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts.
24. I do not perceive my own best interests.
25. I do not know what anything is for.
In 2016, the presidential candidate that I didn’t support won – and I went on the attack. I posted on social media every day about the need to “resist” and fight back and undo what I perceived to be a massive injustice. I railed against those who voted third party or chose to stay home on their butts while the nation went down the tubes. I was angry. I was scared.
My attacks and negativity lost me a lot of friends, both online and in real life, but also gained me a bunch more who were with me in solidarity attacking the new regime that we felt had been thrust upon us in some form of cheating or scandal. We knew we were right and everyone else was wrong.
Then, my attack thoughts and actions began to manifest in my body. I almost passed out one morning while sitting at my desk as my heart’s rhythm went wonky and made me swoon. My father died of a massive heart attack at the age of 53. I was 51 at the time, so this episode sent me to a cardiologist for the first time in my life.
The good news was my heart is structurally sound and the surgeon offered to do an ablation to correct the electric misfiring of my heart’s rhythm. I thanked him for the offer, but chose instead to see this episode as a wake-up call – that I needed to get off the “resist” bus and find other ways to calm my fear and anger. I took up chanting and other spiritual practices that helped me let go of my attacking thoughts about the election’s outcome.
My heart still races from time to time, but I am learning that my attack thoughts – because I have no private thoughts – are damaging to this world, as well as to my own body. The rhythm that I expected the world around me to keep had been disrupted, and I further disrupted it by becoming frantic in body, mind and spirit.
Author Michael Singer talks about how we bring our spirituality into our activism by teaching that we will never be effective in changing the world until we are no longer bothered by the problems we see in the world. That sounded preposterous to me. Not bothered? By kids in cages? By climate change? By a leader who loves dictators? Ridiculous.
He explains it this way: If you are a person who faints at the sight of blood and someone is wounded and begins to bleed profusely in your presence, you will be of no use to them because you will be lying on the ground unconscious. The person who is not bothered by blood, however, will get straight to work on stopping the bleeding and helping the other person survive as best they can.
This is not to say that the person who is not bothered by blood is not concerned for the person bleeding. They obviously are, or they would not help at all. While we must be concerned about the state of the world, we must remain unbothered by it so we can be the most effective when we do step in to help.
In short, we must act in the world from our highest, divine Self, that is guided by the Voice for God, instead of acting from the ego’s frantic voice that favors any action over inaction even if that action makes matters worse. Or, the ego would have you pass out and stop paying attention to the mess it has created of the world in the first place – just be blissfully unconscious of it all.
We can become unbothered (but not unconcerned) by being willing to see the world differently, giving up our attack thoughts about it that result in vengeance and realizing we have no idea what would be in our best interest anyway. Again, this is not a call to withdraw from the world, but to do the inner work we need to do so we can be a useful force for love and peace in the world.
When we understand that, then we can begin to produce, what Hafiz calls “a masterpiece” with our lives, guided by the Holy Spirit.
“At the very least you are a vital cell
in a cosmic holy body.
“And everyone works so hard,
no matter what they do.
“There is no place for you to go
but onward to a greater freedom.
“The poor man rarely parties
because of so many cares.
We should put an end to that.
“Knowledge can be pawned for a good sum.
Find some truth and mix it with your talents.
“If you can get the right balance
shops will start selling your art.
“And maybe even a masterpiece you will become,
your every gesture.”
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