Re-examine ignorance

Many people define ignorance differently if they are speaking about themselves or someone else.  You may view your own ignorance as innocent yet someone else is guilty of their own ignorance. Notice a difference. How do you judge or reprimand? Some people are harder on self than they are on others. What are some possible reasons for your choices?

Consider why people focus on things they believe they cannot do.  In some cases, they even fight about it. You may view this as selective ignorance of potential or, you may simply notice discordant energy. Different levels of awareness affect perception of what you choose to see and feel right now.

Ask yourself how you avoid being present in the moment and what you are becoming in future.  To be present is to have a mind which is empty of thought, fear, judgment, everything. Some people are convinced they are complacent if they do not find reason to feel anxious. What brings you inner peace?

5 Ways to strengthen self-worth

Human beings are conditioned to be dishonest with the self. This nurtures a misconception of being unworthy. Suddenly, you are caught between what you feel and what is taught you 'should' do. Unaware, you suppress the true self.  Intution tells you the truth. You decide to listen or ignore inner knowing.

From a young age, the body is suddenly viewed as an enemy, something to be mistrusted and subdued. Many people learn to deny themselves intuition, natural urges, choices that feel good or right. It grows desirable to control and unthinkable to surrender. How can everyone learn to strengthen self-worth?

1) Accept that self-esteem is a choice. Reasons explain why you feel as you feel at a given moment. You either reinforce what you know in your heart or, choose to obscure that as part of a process of learning lessons. No matter what the perceived rules in a given environment, you experiment with expressing desires. You define boundaries. You take responsibility for your thoughts and feelings or, you do not.

2) Learn you are completing unfinished business. Every moment, you are learning to love and accept yourself differently. The key issue is learning to love without guilt, to give and receive selflessly. As human beings choose to explore core feelings without judgment, they enrich awareness, relationships, self-mastery and connections with everything.

3) Be aware behavior patterns are energy cycles. Every thought and action transforms existing energy.  This is a perspective of consciousness where infinite circles are interconnected in a moving kaleidoscope of life forms and formless states. You never leave an energy cycle you do not complete. Residual energy from positive or negative thoughts stays with you to manifest situations.  How you view energy determines if you know vicious circles or reasons for joy.

4) Learn to love and explore yourself in peace. To accept and affirm your own sexuality, self-valuing and caring instincts, you create a foundation for additional layers of self-acceptance.  To recognize where you repress certain instincts or, why you feel uptight, helps you move through that.

5) Recognize thought energy is multi-dimensional. When you feel good about something and you listen to that, you think moreabout that. The resulting positive energy reverberrates in other areas of your life. You begin to sense blessings wherever you are, regardless of conditions. You begin to realize how you think affects your personal life, work, spiritual or religious perspectives, and other situations. You know everything and everyone are deeply interconnected.

Grasp the scope of suffering

To connect more deeply with people, common Humanity, and to better understand thyself, it's useful to deepen understanding of the scope of suffering.  What types of suffering do you notice or overlook? How do you react? With emotion? Indifference? Compassion? Now what?

1) Mental & physical pain: This includes everything from the stubbed toe and toothache, back pain and arthritis, to discomfort and restlessness.  If you overindulge in something, like food, or exercise, you may know physical pain. Most people seek to medicate, to heal if possible, and to move beyond pain psychologically and otherwise. You may not know that believing in or dwelling on pain gives it life. What if pain is actually illusion that you devise, bring on or exaggerate? Notice what you observe, the story you tell. Do people magnify their sense of suffering to cling to the past or something else unreal? What about yourself?

2) Financial pain: You may find it easier to empathize with someone who experiences poverty than with someone living in apparent prosperity. Yet, suffering is a perception, state of mind, that can be linked to every condition. Why distinguish someone as being better off than another? Is this not a way to perpetuate illusion of separation and suffer yourself?

3) Emotional pain. Temporary pleasures have an underlying nature of pain or loss.  As you grasp nature of overuse and impermanence in anything you experience, you can gain insight into the power of resistence, temptation and the potential difficulty of adapting to what you have when it differs from what you desire. Dissatisfaction is a feeling you may find yourself grappling with on some level.  Notice when emotions control you and you, them.

4) Conditioned pain. People are constantly being influenced by cause, conditions, and events beyond their control. This kind of cycle can create a sense of suffering. You may become susceptible to undesirable experiences which alienate you and convince you that you must feel discomfort. You may also sense helplessness because you're unable to control the actions and reactions of other people.  Rather than take steps to control the uncontrollable, be open to gain insight into yourself.  Expand your awareness of suffering.

Consider the benefits of moving beyond a superficial understanding of suffering. Your sense of peace and contentment would not falter. As you interact with people then, you could imagine painful situations, and yet, not be controlled by them.  Instead, you remain grounded in  inner nature.   As you grasp meaning behind your actions, you'll effectively remove yourself from conditioning and expand how you see and connect with people.

Accept that suffering includes more than what you think you know.  As you expand your vision, you'll understand better suffering means more than what one has or has not.  Deficiency is a human invention.  Perception differs. We have much to unlearn.

"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all." -George Lichtenberg

Realize contentment

Success is embodied in feelings of contentment.  Peace arises when you aren't comparing who has more or less than you. Being yourself and accepting all that you are brings you a sense of success. What makes you believe a sense of success evolves from external things or action? 

True success is felt as you are deeply grounded in being yourself, when you're not searching for consolation or hoping to do what you have not yet done.  Drop comparisons.  To see yourself as neither higher nor lower, in terms of where you are, this is success.  You can become intuitive and sense life offers more possibilities than your senses have the capacity to realize.

Success is more than a state of mind.  Its a state of being.  Rather than think about what you must do to understand and achieve, why not experience success without thinking?  Be happy without a cause.  Attract and create the feelings you envision.  Success is sensing the possible and being it.

Imagine success regardless of your external situation. Anything with a cause is never permanent, but time dependent and predictably disappear. Feelings and circumstances that have no cause will last forever.  Become successful through your own inner transformation.  Look inside yourself for the truly impersonal experience.

What is Balance?

Balance is forever present, yet people often find themselves believing they must chase it. Slow down. Stop even. Watch the mind going in circles. Let go of beliefs that have you side-tracked. What is permanent is an innate state unaffected by worry.

To paraphrase the poet Kalhil Gibran,

Without the energy of Hate, we don't understand the full energy of Love.
Without Sadness we don't understand the full energy of Happiness.
Without Evil we don't understand the full energy of Good.
Without Chaos we don't understand the full energy of Peace.