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Photo: Graeme Huntr
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After walking the shore of a local (lake) beach recently, I was overwhelmed by the crowds and the amount of carelessly discarded garbage—plastic bags, water bottles, coffee cup lids. I wondered, would it be different anywhere else?
What I think it boils down to is resistance to the way things are. Many of us find ourselves in an environment of strip malls, dollar stores, Tim Hortons, and Starbucks. It’s a sea of ugliness. Ranting about it and loathing it is futile though and it only brings negativity to our lives and to those we interact with. We are not at peace.
Sometimes things have to get really bad before they get better. Maybe things are exactly as they need to be for us to wake up spiritually. To remember who and what we truly are. To feel without ceasing the life energy that animates and interconnects us with every living thing on this planet and beyond.
Although it’s true that we can’t get rid of our thoughts/feelings, we can observe them with compassion. Our thoughts and feelings are not who we are. They are like any other function our amazing bodies perform. Just as the lungs breathe and the heart beats, the brain thinks and we feel things according to how we interpret those thoughts. Is this reality? Or are we each creating a world in our own minds?
