Listening

     We live in a world where we attempt to reach out destination through effort. We believe we need to work harder and be more to succeed in ways we cannot succeed now. We need to focus more, to be more engaged, more committed, more disciplined, more intense. These attitudes can and often help us succeed and often are what we need to do, but I feel that often we have these attitudes because we are insecure.
     We are afraid of not succeeding. Of letting people down. We are panicking and we are stressed. We are on the run. We are running away from failure and from falling apart. We are holding on tight to keep control. The problem is, the tighter we hold, the more we actually lose control and the further we get from being happy and leading fulfilling lives. We end up running away from ourselves and our life. We lose touch with ourselves and with reality. We slip into deeper fear, deeper stress, deeper instability and unfortunately deeper insanity. We think by holding on we will remain safe and secure, when actually we are avoiding the senses that would save us. We hold on because we believe we need to. We have these beliefs because from birth we are programmed to be a certain way. We are told what to do, how to be, what is good, and where you will go and what your life will look like when grow up and keep on growing up. A lot of this is groundless. A lot of this is perverted sense by the corporate-consumer world. A lot of this is madness given to you by the insane and unknown. The unknown being people who don't know themselves.
     We consciously or subconsciously compromise our integrity and well being to fit into the world. We do it because we are afraid of being refused by the main current of society. We think we have better chances of survival if we don't listen to ourselves, but adopt other people's belief systems. This is true in a large sense. By compromising our values and integrating into the system, we gain the support of the powers that support it. We do gain safety and security. The problem is the long term trade off. The long term trade off is insanity, depression, dehumanization, and destruction of the planet. It means losing real friendships, losing real happiness, losing vitality of body and spirit. The problem is you've been duped, swindled and enslaved. Enslaved by the system however conscious the intent to enslave is, and enslaved by yourself, by your mind.
     The problem is that a lot of mainstream society is extremely negative and dangerous. A lot of it is not run by good people who care about you, who want to give you products that are good for you. They want to give you things in exchange for something worth more than what they give. They want to cheat you. And they do. Over and over and over again. This is the illusion. Look at all this cool good stuff. Of course its good for you. Of course you need it. It only costs the integrity of the entire planet and the sanity of the species. The reason it works is because it is one of the dominant forces on the planet. And they use their power to get as good as they can at manipulating and hypnotizing us. It works because we are sick enough and detached from our senses enough that we don't hear the alarms going off. Or we do, but we're too weak and too overwhelmed to do much about it.
     We cannot afford to be too weak and too overwhelmed to do much about it. Its now or near-total collapse of the good on Earth. We have to stop taking the red pill and take the blue pill. It's time to listen to our senses. To listen to ourselves. To turn off the tv and get to work. We may not even know where to begin to start. I have know idea what I really want to do with my life. I have no idea what my passions really are. The truth is that their is an incredible amount of good work to do right now. We may not know how to connect to life and society in original ways. That's ok. Figure out what you can do now and do that. Be open to the possibly of getting to know yourself more, of listening to yourself more and understanding your world and life more. If you open up enough, a torrent of wisdom, creativity, and sense will flood into your life. Life is ready for you to step up your game. Life is waiting for you to step up and hit the ball. We need heroes and we need leaders. We need people with big cajones who want to have fun. Our communities are thirsty for positive leadership and inspiration. Their are huge holes to be filled. Holes filled that will make life so much more fulfilling and easy.
     The key is being kind to yourself. Being patient and understanding and loving. This process is meaningless without love and consideration. It is not a ball to be beat, but a child to be nurtured. We need nurturing. Massive out-breaking of love. We need people to open their hearts to life and to each other. We need people to be brave with sharing their feelings and listening to the hard truths of the world. We need to understand that we can't get along by forcing each other around. We have to listen to each other until we find common ground to work from. If we listen to each other enough we will come to love and appreciation of one another. We won't be afraid, frustrated or hateful. We will understand and see beauty where we saw hate and division. We will feel like rejoicing and we will know what we need to do to solve our problems. When we don't listen to how we feel and we don't have people to truly listen to how we feel and what's going on in our lives with an open heart, we become afraid. When we don't listen to our fears, we begin to close off to the world. We don't stay awake. We start to get mad, to go mad. To get confused because we aren't seeing or thinking clearly. We get resentful and start to blame people for how we feel. When we blame them enough for our problems, we begin to hate them. If we think we're to blame we hate ourselves. We become sick and our perception becomes distorted. We get so sick that we want to hurt ourselves and others. We take drugs we don't need to take. We get into abusive relationships. We manipulate each other and do things we know are wrong. We become destructive. Self-destructive and world destructive.
     To heal these wounds, we need wide open tender-loving listening hearts. We need non-judgment and appreciation. We need people who are ok being as they are now. People who are ok with how you are now. People who love you as you are now. Wars don't solve these kinds of problems. Violence doesn't solve these problems. Hate doesn't solve these kinds of problems. Fear doesn't solve these kinds of problems. If we want to unite the world, or even to unite ourselves,our family, or our community,we can't do it without love and kindness. We can't do it without listening to the pains in our hearts and having the strength to do so. Without loving ourselves, our family, and our community more than we hate them and more than we are afraid of them.
     It takes strength to open your heart to the truth. It takes strength to turn to love. It takes fearlessness and self sacrifice to walk the path of Christ. To turn away from darkness and to be vulnerable in the Light. Its not easy being true. But is is harder living in a world without order, without decency and without good will. If you want to pursue the Good and the True, you have to face your feelings. You have to face the pain inside of your heart. You have to resist the temptation of evil in your life. You have to stand up for yourself and for those around you. You have to learn the word of God. The Word of Truth, the Way of Christ. Christ lives in your feelings. Christ lives in your heart. Christ belongs to the world, so you too must belong to the world. You must be prepared to follow the Light into darkness to liberate your Soul and the Soul of the World. You must be prepared to redeem the world. In order to redeem the world, you must first redeem yourself.
     You must grow beyond means of might and compulsion. You must grow beyond the conventions of your people. You must step outside of the box and you must put aside the security that you know. You must continually face the unknown as consciously as you possibly can. You must let the past die and be willing to let your life fall apart. You must give up everything you have and know for the presence of this moment. You will not find your life in your thoughts and ideas. You will find your life in yourself as you are now. You will find your self in yourself as you are now. In your pain, in your confusion, in your misery, delusion, fear, suffering and ignorance. In your goodness, in your love, in your laughter, in your happiness and in everything.
     It all begins with the heart. It all begins with a choice to listen to how you feel rather than to ignore how you feel and who you are. It begins each and every moment. You can rise and you can fall in each and every moment. When you do not or cannot listen to your heart, you fall. When we do not or cannot listen to the hearts of each other our society falls. Its not enough to have policies to govern us. We need wise and willing hearts to sow our lives together with listening and love. We can't know how to solve our problems if we don't listen to our hearts. By listening to our hearts and to the hearts of each other, we can learn why their is hate and why their is suffering. When we turn towards hate with hate we don't listen. When we turn towards people we don't agree with, with judgment and with certainty that we are right and they are wrong, we don't listen. When we don't listen, we don't solve our problems. When we don't listen, we stay angry, we stay afraid, we stay divided. We don't learn. We have to have the heart and the strength of character to face what we don't like for the sake of the integrity of the human species and the integrity of life on Earth. We don't need to win. We need to work together. We need to hear what is being said. We need to listen.
     Love will change this world. Love will change our hearts. Love will bring us together and make the bitter sweet. Love will turn rubble into roses, rust into shine, carelessness into carefulness. Love will end hatred. It will end fear. It will end suffering. It will end division. It will end sorrow. It will bring the Kingdom and the Seat of the Lord to the mountains and the seas of Earth. It will bring the Kingdom of Christ into our hearts and into our lives. It will bring Heaven to Earth. We must not be afraid of what we cannot control. Not be afraid of what we cannot see. We must not be afraid of monsters and demons. Of sickness, death and darkness. We must not be afraid of each other or ourselves. We must not be afraid of what has happened to us, what is happening to us, and what may happen to us. We must know that we are Children of God and that we are not of this world. We must listen to are hearts and answer the call to live the life we must. We must stand together in freedom and Justice. We must stand up to tyrants and dictators. We must cast down unfairness and cast Light onto the world. We must sow evenness into the foundations of our buildings, into the foundations of our hearts and our sight. We must sow evenness in the words we speak and the steps we take. We must listen to the Word of God and see it live in our lives.
      Listening is the way to the truth. It is recognizing the deeper harmony of life and being able to act from it. It may stand out in a world where people are asleep. In a world of violence, force, and abuse. It is dancing with life instead of dominating it or being dominated by it. It is seeing things as they are, seeing through what you are taught to believe. It is being still in crashing waves. It is seeing yourself in the other and it is letting go of hate and bitterness. It is the melting of winter ice and the coming of spring. The flowing of a stream through green fields. It is openness and evenness without form or ground. It is being without thought among thought and form. It is recognizing what you know and what you don't. It is being the seen and the seeing. It is as you are now, walking and waving speaking without saying. Listening is the return to the field. It is seeing your legs and feet in waving green grass. It is seeing where you stand without stepping away from where you are. Where the end of your sight is the beginning of your sight, and the beginning of your sight is the end of your sight. Where the apple falls onto the grass and makes a sound. And the sound on the grass is the grass waving in the wind.