IF YOU ARE SEEKING ENLIGHTENMENT TO CHANGE
THE WORLD, YOU'VE ALREADY FAILED
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WE CANNOT CHANGE IS EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT AS KNOWING WHAT WE CAN
It is not an easy task to always know what we can and cannot change. And it is often that it isn’t until we try to change something that we find out the answer to that question. To try to pre-calculate what it is we may or may not be able to change is a recipe for madness not to mention we will probably talk ourselves out of the many opportunities that we may have to affect the outcome of a given thing..
What we need to accept is that the world is a stubborn and slow moving beast. As inspired as we may be, the world moves at its own speed, History and the realization of change is a thing of countless pushes forward and countless steps backward. The world, just as people and individuals do, resists change. It, like us, is a thing of habits, of momentum, even if that momentum is counter to the well beings of those that reside upon it. Perhaps it is best to embrace that we cannot change the world. However, we can affect the world. Change is the result of a lot of people choosing to have an affect on a given thing. That has to be a sustained effort and it always comes with a sacrifice, a discomfort and a humility in that the world, just a larger system like us, is always going to challenge that effort regardless of the intention or number of people pushing forward.
I believe one of the most powerful things ever written has to be the Lord’s Prayer. Even if you are a devout atheist, it would serve anyone to find a way to give that little handful of text some personal meaning. Essentially it is just a sincere request to the almighty, to the universe, to our own higher intelligence, to grant us the ability to have the wisdom to change what we can and accept what we cannot. Anyone who can pull that off on a regular basis has got something right and I would like to meet them to see if they can rub some of that off on me..
In our personal evolution it is beyond critical to understand the reality of what it is that we cannot change, which can be far more than we would like to list. This is because most of our desire to evolve is fueled by a hunger to remove ourselves from the things that we either fear or that cause us suffering. However, we have a very natural, albeit delusional by product in our evolutionary process which is that we can believe our evolution, our awareness, will give us some magical ability to change things as we please, or perhaps realize the foolish desires that seemed previously to be out of our reach.
True awareness is something that is always given with equal parts humility. If we feel alive and aware, and we do not feel deeply humbled, we are not truly aware. Awareness reveals to us how small we are in the grand scheme of things. It reveals all the things that we cannot change and it is not our burden to do so. Awareness dispels the notion of the secret magic wand we are supposed to get in order to obtain our deepest desires which, by no coincidence, is the speech given by spiritual con artists all over the world. The speech so many of us want to hear.
To those seeking spiritual power, this is a sad and disappointing story, embracing all the things we cannot change. But, to the enlightened, it is a truly freeing and incredibly liberating thing. This is because this burden of changing things can be lifted. What burden? The timeless burden that it is up to us to change the world, if only we can find the wisdom to do so. The only true wisdom in the universe is being yourself as purely, honestly, and wisely as possible. What comes of that is not up to you. The job of an oak tree is simply to be an oak tree. A bush, a bush. The sun, the sun. A thing that exists in nature can have a dramatic effect on the things that surround it if it can just get on with the business of being what it is meant to be. What is more powerful than the sun and yet the sun does not decide what it does and does not change. It is just the the sun. It nourishes some things and scorches others. It hides and suddenly there is cold and darkness. It is not something it chooses to do nor can it be blamed for. All we can ever be, is a force of nature. And then we do what we do. We change what we can change, and we do not change what we are not meant to. In the end, change is a fleeting thing, a process in which the long term outcome is not always known. When we rush to change things, it is not uncommon that we can actually accelerate their destruction by forcing upon them something out of their time and place. Is this a reason to avoid trying to affect a given situation? No. Just a reminder to listen to life.
This is to a large degree the great frustration of humanity. We know, very clearly, what our best expression is. We know what a wise, fair, happy and rewarding society looks like. It is right in front of us. So simple. A handful of guidelines to follow and yet, look at us. We cannot expedite change fast enough. We are like a giant ship on the ocean making a mile long right turn one frustrating inch at a time, all the while fighting against the current of the sea. Often, when we try to initiate change, in a worldly sense, things get worse before they get better, as the madness of the past reacts to our demands for progress, this all complicated by our cultural differences and expectations. If ever there was a time for humility perhaps it is now, as we seem to be standing squarely on the precipice of a great evolution, while simultaneously trapped in the sticky muck of the fears, mistakes, inequity and foolishness of our lengthy human history. Now, you are wondering if this is all meant to put us into a dark rabbit hole of pessimism. Of course not. In the midts of all of this madness is ife and love,. joy and the capacity to do what we can which that is all that we are after.
Humility is something that is needed the most in those places in which there are no answers. Perhaps we have the answers to a problem, but we have no answers to the reality of the madness that stands in the way of our answers coming into fruition. If we are to find any sense of peace in our lives, it will come largely not from the excitement of all the things we can change, but from the acceptance of all we cannot, never will, nor need to. When we look down at the Earth from the stars, it is quite a beautiful thing. As we descend, it reveals itself as the jungle it has always been. A cooking pot of birth and death, of evolution and counter evolution, and the endless game of the struggle to survive. We can’t change this. We are part of it. And yes, it can be a frustrating thing to comprehend this notion if we walk a path that wishes to minimize the suffering of the world. This does not mean that we cannot still serve that purpose. It is just not for us to worry about what it is that we are, or are not changing. We can only be ourselves as purely and wisely as we can find ourselves to do so.
How do we pursue goals without caving into despair? It’s an old philosophy. It’s called doing things just to do them. We don’t get lost in the outcome of a given thing, which is a tremendous challenge. We got lost in our passion to simply do whatever it is we are inspired to do because it feels like the right thing. This is what a mandala is all about. It is the ability to skillfully and intently create a work of art knowing that we may very well be creating it all over again tomorrow. If we lose our passion, if we are attached to whether our deeds will last, we will be disappointed. If we are unconcerned about the outcome, we can do beautiful things just for the sheer joy of creating them. We know before we even begin they may get washed, or blown away. But they can still have their moment to shine and to inspire. Then we can leave it to the world and to history as to what they chooses to do with our work, two forces we are ill equipped to argue with. We also must remember that much of what we do in life is simply counterbalancing. There is an aspect to the grand scheme of life in which nobody ever really wins anything forever. And so we must take some sense of reward in simply being able to counterbalance things, even if the moment does not bring us some victory we would hope for, which is all politics in a nutshell.
It may seem like I have writtten all of this simply to tell a discouraging story to all those inspired individuals who wish to find the secrets to empowering change. The truth is quite the opposite. It is far better to walk into the world humbled by the challenges of change and then go about changing what we can, then to walk into it it full of optmism only to be let down and then give up on our dreams and visions. So, be good and be yourself and then let that energy guide you into your challenges, your rewards, your battles, and your tests of what you can or cannot change. This will keep you plenty busy. Contribute? Absolutely. Change? Whatever.
