The world is in a dire state in many ways, and yet most people carry on the same regardless. There’s a lot of information about meaningful issues available through the internet, and what’s really happening behind the scenes can be discovered by anyone digging in a little. This information could be a catalyst for real change, unfortunately there are so few people who are actually interested in digging deeper to find out what’s really going on, let alone actually doing something about it. This is not just a social or political problem, but one that goes deeper, into the nature of what it is to be human.
Looking at a few figures about how some people live paints an awful picture—over 850 million people in the world are without enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs, more than five million people suffer from illnesses from poor drinking water; in the last forty years, approximately thirty percent of the world’s cropland has been abandoned because of soil erosion and degradation; 2.8 billion people survive under two dollars a day, wars keep erupting and nations face huge burdens of debt.
Problems like these are not new, they have been going on for a long time, and it says more about humanity itself than it does about any particular political or technological system.
This is a talk that was streamed live online in 2009
It’s a very strong article, directing us to reflect on our responsibility for inner change, through our behaviour and actions, in our daily life.
I also came across a certain negative inner situation recently and didn’t succeed being responsible towards myself and mostly towards a another person. I let myself to be drived from this thing in me, although I had a small sense of it and wasn’t completely in it. I felt it in my stomach and a battle was taking place in my mind. The sense that I was wrong was completely clear. But in this battle in me, this strong force was gaining ground softly, cheating, as in the begging my mind was saying one thing and my mouth another, serving this ego, and afterwards there was a strong struggle making me go front and back for some times. I was surprised with the power it had upon me, making me harm and affect negative the other person and with how irresponsible I was. It made me question myself what do I want and if I really want to change. It was difficult to accept my reality, but accepting it made me able to have some peace and see more clearly my weaknesses.
Things like this happen every day and it’s in our decisions how we’re going to handle them and if we’re taking advance to learn and change helping ourselves and others.
There are times also when I’m surprised deeply, realizing how the environment around me has, unnoticeable and strongly, affected my opinions and my ways of acting, how it has permeated me.
This article has helped me understand better, how some things are related, guiding me somehow in my inner investigations, shocking me in some point, with my ugly inner reality.
Thank you very much for this help.
A really really great read. Thanks
It was great to read this article. I have been reflecting on my own responsibility towards creating change in the world, through changing how I am internally and externally.
I’ll share something that happened to me recently. At work the other day I had to deal with a situation I strongly disliked. So much so, that I couldn’t hide the different negative and angry internal states coming up within me, and it led me to being a bit cold and snappish with a customer asking for help, explaining I couldn’t help him, he’d have to ask someone else.
As I struggled with this strong negative state, I saw something really interesting unfold. That same customer went to ask the person I had directed him to for help, and when he didn’t like the answers he was given, he exploded into a yelling argument with the person.
While everyone has a choice for how they react to things, I could see that my initial negativity had a direct affect on this man, which brought him to feeling what i had been feeling and then worse. I felt a great sense of remorse for my irresponsible way of being and I saw just how much we can affect those around us.
It was a hard lesson but something I am really thankful for to have seen. These kind of situations happen in small and large scale every minute of everyday. I can see now more than ever, if each person is trying earnestly to change within, these small situations would happen less, and the big ones too, because there would be a much more intelligent, spiritual and peaceful way of acting towards each other.
Thank you for this article and the many truths within it.
I feel the world is just heading into a sadder and sadder state since the last time I listened to this talk some three years ago. I find it baffling that people choose to blindly ignore all of these issues, because it’s easier not to have to worry about them. I’ve had many discussions with people who were in fact concerned on the surface (so far as the media encourages people to be concerned) about the issues our planet and our society is facing, and yet when the true depth of the problem is brought up or the lengths to which things need to change to actually improve a given situation just seems to make people uncomfortable and so they turn away from it. It’s really a shame.
There are so many horrible things going on right now in the world. Canada is negotiating to sell its oil resources to China which would fundamentally remove our rights to govern and legislate foreign companies who own our resources. Everyday more things surface through alternative media streams about rights violations, cruelty, greed and violence. Amidst all of this chaos there is a few who spread the knowledge of spiritual change; something that transcends the material and brings real peace and happiness into the individual who wants it and works for it.
I don’t know how I would be able to live in the world today without this precious and hard fought inner knowledge. It truly does make a life worth living.
Eternally Grateful
Those are some good examples Andrew.
I also really liked this article – totally helps put things into perspective.
“I don’t know how I would be able to live in the world today without this precious and hard fought inner knowledge. It truly does make a life worth living.”
I was thinking the same thing today Andrew!
When I was growing up I didn’t see much sense in the world or much direction. Materialism seemed a ridiculous pursuit, but it clearly ran many things in life. I got quite depressed not knowing anything better. Thanks to the help of these teachings I have gotten a sense of that inner happiness Belsebuub mentions in this article.
It seems very clear things aren’t going to change in a big way for humanity, but at least for ourselves it’s a blessing to know we can change ourselves and work together for truth, and freedom from inner slavery to the material world and the destruction of this planet.