Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Discouraged? Overwhelmed? Feeling Guilty if Healthy and Well-thee?

Discouraged? Overwhelmed? Feeling Guilty if Healthy and Well-thee?

It seems like it all started with the eclipse one month ago, August 21, 2017. No point in being superstitious but it's our nature to look for causes and there have been a long run of catastrophic clobberings from Mother Nature in the western hemisphere ever since the eclipse. 

I'd like to say I predicted this but I won't. I can say, however, that when, stirred up by the craziness surrounding the eclipse, I researched ancient musings on eclipses there was a strong association between solar eclipse and natural disasters. This produced in me a foreboding and a distaste for the solar madness going on around me. I lost interest in going outside with kooky glasses and instead gathered some friends to meditate inside.

Being a solar event, fires were definitely high on the list of events associated with eclipses. But, sure, ok, it was fire season. And, yes hurricane season, too. But earthquake season? We of the West and of science respond to these associations mockingly but the facts speak for themselves while science can only stand mutely in the background.

I won't even begin to discuss American politics. 

What does one do when every few days your heart aches for untold numbers of people whose lives are in peril or shattered in disarray? When the news speaks of billions of dollars of damage day in and day out. After a while it is numbing. 

What comes next? And where? I will say this: "Stay tuned." So, what CAN we do?

1. Yes, pray for others. Let's start there.

2. Donate, even a little bit is something.

3. Get your house and car ready for local emergencies.

4. Ask your family members and neighbors "Are YOU prepared?"

5. Get involved in helping and serving beyond your own needs and comforts.

6. Accept that for now and for the foreseeable future, our nation and our planet may experience a steadily increasing variety and frequency of trials and tribulations from a variety of sources. Don't keep hoping current troubles will simply stop and go away. Get ready. 

7. Time to think about the meaning of life and appreciation of higher values like compassion, wisdom, and service to others. Stop resisting God and pretending you're going to live forever.

8. Increase your commitment to meditation and prayer. Pledge and commit to your meditation: https://www.meditationpledge.com/  Pledge to BE THE CHANGE.

9. Enter into creative engagement with others in service to a higher cause.

10. If your life allows you to go on a sacred journey or pilgrimage, DO IT NOW!

11. If you haven't already, it's time to to consider and talk up that there are "no coincidences" in life. Maybe there's a connection between these events and human consciousness and actions! (Hence the value of BE THE CHANGE). Proving it is less important than considering the possibilities and how we might change.

12. Be not a denier, like the proverbial ostrich, nor yet not a Polly Anna either. Be a realist who scans not just the material world but the psychic-spiritual world as equal manifestations. Use your will to act in positive ways as though it all DID depend on you yet, at the same time with no expectations as to results: reaping only the benefit of exercising your will power, using your energy, and being positive! 

Challenges like natural disasters (hmmm "natural"?) bring out the best and, sometimes, the worst in people. But in general folks pull together. The opportunity for people to help each other and to think beyond their own personal lives and struggles may be the silver lining in the cloud of large scale events.

May the Light of Divine Wisdom guide your path to soul freedom!

Nayaswami Hriman