The Ever-Shifting Geopolitical & Spiritual Dynamic
BEING TRULY FREE means that we are at liberty to make choices. With all that is going on in our world today, it can feel otherwise. It can feel as if events are so out of control that we have very little liberty to do anything other than react to all that is going on.
Yet, every choice we make plays into a larger, connected web of activity and we should never underestimate the importance of the most minute decisions we enact as we go about our daily lives. After all, one’s own karmic future coalesces into fruition directly from the choices we make as we go about the most mundane of activities. The future of climate change, for example, starts with something as simple as choosing to monitor how we go about recycling our waste right down to the smallest piece of paper we go about throwing away.
While the world can seem at times as if there are way too many horrible events piling up on the global stage and, on occasion, in our own lives, we must never despair so completely that we cease to make an attempt to create a difference in the world at a personal level. To play our part is a sacred duty, though most of us are so caught up in the microcosm of mundane affairs that we rarely give such a notion a single thought.
In effect, we forget that we are beings of light. We forget that the light that forms the flesh is the same light which catalyzes neural pathways in the brain and fills the bloodstream with all the countless electrochemical neurotransmitters which spawn the most powerful emotions within us. It is the same light that illuminates the mind and generates dreams and visions.
We humans are, indeed, “beings of light” in a very literal sense.
While the Sun may be the obvious, primary source of light in our world, it is the quantum field which gives rise to the subatomic particles, atoms and molecules which make up the stellar activity that surrounds us in the cosmos. Whether there is a “God” who created the quantum field is open to argument, but invariably for those who believe in such a Supreme Deity that Being is depicted as the ultimate source of light and love.
One does not need to believe in “God” to feel inspired by light and love, however. All of us find inspiration and love in our own way even if we are hardcore materialists. As most know, there are countless stories of inventive scientists who experienced world-changing inspiration — their insights and visions coming to them inexplicably and unexpectedly from out the blue in some mysterious fashion — and this in a cosmos believed to have exploded into being purely by chance.
When we feel inspired, there is the sense that we are filled with light. Words and images often spring into the mind unbidden in this state and, as a result, we might write a song, a poem or gain the entire plot of a novel. We might “see” a way to formulate an important scientific theory or suddenly perceive an answer to whatever has been in question in our life of late.
When we are stimulated emotionally, thought is coupled with a genuine love of whatever subject matter has us enraptured in the moment. When that happens, we can feel “brilliant” or “incandescent” even. We can become “excited” just as photons can become excited and leap into more intensified states, thus becoming more radiant in nature.
Such a powerful, stimulated state can fill us with so much emotion of a positive nature that we can feel overwhelmingly enriched and brimming with a sense of happiness and wellbeing.
In stark contrast, when we are uninspired, others might describe us as being in a “dark mood”. People who endure a dark mood over a lengthy stretch of time are said to be in a “dark place”; one that is so emotionally painful to the person that he or she feels deeply stressed and can sometimes lash out at others or erupt into tragically violent behavior. Such a person might even feel the urge to escape this world completely and do away with his or her own life.
Being in a “dark place” stems from physical, mental or emotional experiences of one kind or another, but the feeling is that of a constriction of the light in our minds and hearts. This can have a person pulling inward and retreating from others. When that happens, one’s existence then becomes all about one’s own inner darkness and the suffering that it causes us.
The way out of this dark place is by reaching out to others and ceasing to focus only on our own plight in life. By speaking with others, it helps us to open outward, especially if we really listen to whatever is happening in that person’s life. Crucially, if we genuinely empathize with that person we can push out of ourselves and understand that everyone has their challenges and problems.
Feeling empathy for what others are experiencing can make all of the difference to us. Empathy compels us to cultivate compassion in our hearts and compassion is what generates a higher form of love. That love can actually grow so expansive and powerful that it can have us concerned for the wellbeing of virtually all our fellow beings and even all creatures if we make the effort to see life from the viewpoint of those creatures. Such love can even prove palpable to us for the simple reason that it is energetic in nature and, therefore, subtly luminous.
The mystics and sages of the world tell us that the higher, more expansive, the love we generate for our fellow human beings, and all the earthly creatures with which we share this Earth, the more luminous the inner life we can enjoy.
Neuroscientists tell us that empathy generates serotonin — the naturally occurring feel good chemical in the body. Even simply witnessing an act of kindness and compassion is apparently enough to set the serotonin flowing within us.
To feel good, then, couldn’t be easier. Simply reach out to others. Engage in “random acts of kindness”. Grow in compassion for all creatures and for the planet itself. Above all, think of yourself as being filled with light and love — because you are! The real problem is that we allow ourselves to get so thoroughly distracted at times and get so down within ourselves that we fail to see the sacred in the mundane and the miraculous in what seems to be the purely profane side of life.
All is connected, however. All is One — yes, even the ever-shifting geopolitical dynamic. None of it is separate from the spiritual, karmic activity which makes up our every thought, word and deed.
We are wise to always remember this: being truly free means that each of us is at liberty to choose in even the smallest detail of our lives how we perceive every aspect of the microcosm which constitutes the personal human dynamic itself.
In truth, we are the world. We are the cosmos itself.
