Activism, campaigning
We all want change. The circumstances to change, others to change… We want people to change to what we deem the correct or good way to be.
We want reality to be different.
We put our attention to what’s wrong, in our view, what is missing, in our view.
In essence, we want the world to conform to our norms.
I am describing, to a more or less degree, humanity… though a segment of the population is very loud about it, very verbal about it: activists and campaigners.
The number one ingredient to become an activist, whether it is in your marriage, trying to change your husband and the kids, in school, in industry, in the world, is to have your fingers point, in blame, outward.
One of the behavior rich, or happy, or accomplished people have, is pointing their fingers at themselves… This capacity is completely missing in the rest of the people, in the campaigners, in the activist, and the (passive?) aggressive in the home.
You can choose to be miserable and incite others to act from anger or unhappiness.
What activists can’t do is do your inner work, work with what you have, be the change you want to see in the world… It’s incompatible with being an activist.
I am not married, I don’t live with anyone, but I still get to practice this… have people around and not be an activist… something that looked impossible beforehand. I say practice… including the times when I tell people what to do… people who don’t pay me to do that.
The way to be and grow with people around is to allow the other person to be exactly the way they are and exactly the way they aren’t… and have peace, workability, without compromising your own life, your own purpose for your life, without giving up growing, without giving up flying.
Of course, if you are unlucky and you live with someone who is an activist or a campaigner, telling you what’s wrong with you… it is mighty hard, maybe impossible to build a strong core, a self, that would allow you to be unshakable, unflappable, solid. You think that being a fighter, fighting for what is important to you… but it is merely reacting to their behavior, mirroring it… you are an activist, not doing your own inner work.
My path to home
I remember not knowing what was important to me, what I liked, what I didn’t… I didn’t have a strong core. I lived with “activists” and I was, in turn, an activist myself… a protester… lol.
But I kept looking inward, and returning there when I was grabbed by something to be upset about… to protest about, to be right about.
But return “home” I did, and after many years of dropping the world’s influence, the rights and wrongs I imposed on myself, I am almost totally home, myself, solid.
The magic of “almost”
I say almost, because, I think, this work is never done… because the moment you consider it done, you are on your way of losing it.
The dynamic of the world is to want to eat your life alive… and wants you to be a puppet with no self.
So the work is never done.
I have two students who are, in particular, exposed to this gutting nature of the world…
They have, so far, chosen two different paths:
One of them has given up her inner guidance, and have chosen to harmonize herself to the outside… low vibration, no growth.
The other is still struggling to reclaim his self. You don’t have to have a family… the internet is plenty oppressive: your email box with emails from Avaaz, about injustice, blaming, campaigning… and there you are, back in the fray, back in the worldly battle where there is no self… where you must be upset to do anything… a life of upset, a life of being the gun-powder that is going to explode.
It is all about where the finger is pointing. Outward or self-ward… on your own self.
You have no power: When it points outward, you need to force, coerce, manipulate others to change, or do something. A life of misery, because you have no power, no real power there… only the power of force.
You have all the power: When the finger points back on yourself, you have an opportunity to see where and how you contribute to how things are, and change what you do, your attitude, your actions, your whole beingness.
In this work of human evolution, I can see the cost of outward pointing fingers.
- the inability or unwillingness to evolve… to allow new capacities to be turned on.
- the inability or unwillingness to use new capacities
- the loss of the new capacities when the outward pointing finger takes over… again
The next question to ask:
what is considered outside, and what is considered inside?
And here I have a surprise finding: Ego is outside. Ego that is really good at blaming, and throwing its weight around, whether it is trying to sway you this way or that. The moment you feel a strong push, strong energy, it is always the ego.
All atrocities, all abuse, all misery comes from ego… because ego only cares about itself. Not you, not the environment, not your children, not about love… itself.
The energy that jerks you, pretending to be on your side.
I know this article has been disjointed, stream of consciousness… and that was the best I could do.
Your job is to grow a strong inside
Anyway, your job is to grow a strong inside… through flexibility, through disconnecting your attention from the mind, the outside, the whole horizontal drama.
Work with what you have… taking the attention off of what you don’t have, what you should have, what you had before, what you will have someday…
It’s all done with capacities. Needing you and helping you to point your fingers toward your inside, towards your vertical self.
Because behind that surface controlled by the ego, there is a self… and I want you to meet it and live from it.
Ego’s other tool is discomfort, fear, disease… designed, to take you out of your center, out of your vertical.
If you have a habit to shrink every time you experience discomfort, fear, disease, you need to break the habit, and grow some balls. No balls? No glory. No growth. No integrity.
Expect life to get worse.
