So I'm not crazy. Too bad it took me this long to figure it out. Theres a person in the world who understands.


Enlightenment

I am a person. I am a human being, a culmination of my mind and body, each working towards a goal, syncranized, and harmonious. I have been on a long journey for enlightenment. The people around me, who have loved me, or hated me, have all watched this journey. They have watched me fall countless times, get lost in self destruction, fall into our materialistic society, and pick myself back up. I have given into myself, and I have given into my surroundings, but throughout all of the struggle, I have kept one goal: peace. Peace is easily preachable. We all want peace. We beg our leaders to make peace in our world, on a societal level, and a political level. But we are all hypocrites. Peace cannot exist in the world around us unless we start with ourselves. Peace is achievable. We cannot hate on our leaders for declaring wars upon other countries for foolish reasons, if we are starting wars and arguments with our loved ones for trivial matters. Reasons that do not exist but are built upon our own insecurities. We are not offended by others if we have strength in who we are. We are all protecting our own feelings, but in doing so, hurting the feelings of the people around us. I am no better than anyone else, and my journey is of equal importance. I am the product of my environment and the natural woman that this world created. My words are simply words, for people to take in the way that they will, and they mean nothing. I cannot teach but through example. Then why am I writing this? I have no idea. I cannot change lives other than through knowing people and learning from them.
I have learned that self acceptance is a constant struggle. I think that the best way to begin your journey, and start learning is by realizing each one of us is a student, as well as a teacher. The student and the teacher are one in the same. Regardless of what level we are at in finding enlightenment, we can and will learn from people at all different levels. We learn from people strengths, they give us motivation and goals. But we learn equally from peoples flaws, which give us equally as much motivation. We all contain both light and dark, and are in search of a way to use them harmoniously rather than allowing them to fight for victory inside of us. Don’t shut out people that you don’t agree with, love them for what they are, and realize that all they are is the best that they can be with the resources that they have had. Rather than preaching to them, or hating them, lead them by example. Show them the way by giving them acceptance. We all want to be accepted, and most of our evils come from feeling unaccepted, awkward, and alone. Sometimes it is hard for us to manifest love for someone who is so different from us. We are all a product of our surroundings. For some of us it is easier to go against the grain and discover what is true, but for others those feelings of being alone still rule over rational thought. We need to be accepting of them and the level they are at. We are all on the same journey, going at different rates, in our own ways. What works for me, may not work for you. We cannot force our methods upon another, we cannot force our words or ideas upon them, but we need to lead by being the person that we think others should be, rather than preaching or destroying the person that they are. All I can do is be what I believe, and lead through example. I will be the best person that I can possibly be.

The first step to enlightenment I think, is letting go of our past. This does not mean forgetting, we do not need to forget the pain or the pleasure because we all know that it has led us to where we are today, and whether or not we like that place, it is our reality. With that in mind, acceptance of our past, and our present allows us to step into the future with a clear mind, and make the changes in ourselves that we want to make. We need to make peace with the people who have hurt us, for they did not mean to hurt us, they are simply on their journey and have made mistakes just as we have. A big part of life is hurting the people that we love. We all do it, whether we mean to or not. Which is what leads me to the next part of this step. Self forgiveness. We need to learn to forgive ourselves for the mistakes that we have made in our past, for hurting the people that we have loved, and for hurting ourselves. We all have demons from our past that come out in our present. The distrust that we have in the people around us today, is caused by the people who have broken our trust in the past. We cant let our past emotions rule our present. Human beings are extremely sentimental creatures. We like to reminisce about the good times and the bad. Story telling is a big part of who we are, sharing incidents, to inspire, or entertain. All of which is very important, as long as those incidents and experiences are not destructive to our present life. This step is a hard one. We all have different ways of facing our past, confronting it, with our present minds. But wee cannot completely live in our present state, until we have made peace with our past, and we will never find peace in our future unless we live peace in our current existence.

Step two, Making peace within ourselves. In this step we sometimes have to be selfish so that we can eventually be selfless. Do whatever it takes, to be able to wake up and be okay with the person that you are. Do what you need to do physically to be able to look in the mirror and like what you see. Don’t continue to complain about the weight that you need to lose without taking the steps to make that change. Change does not happen overnight, and this step takes a lot of time and patience. We can all fight this materialistic world, but the fact is, we have a body as well as a mind, and we need to feel peace in our physical form to feel peace emotionally. Sometimes this step means temporarily hurting the people who love us. This may be in the form of leaving home, to go out into the world and learn about it for yourself. The people who love you will be sad to see you go, but unless you discover the world for yourself, you will never be able to step out into it and go in the direction that you want to go, to make the change that you want to make. This is the step in which you learn to be what you believe. Be the person that you want to be, physically, and mentally. We cant have peace with the world and people around us, unless we have peace inside us. Our insecurities, create negative irrational emotions such as anger, and envy. These emotions when acted upon will hurt the people around us for reasons that are trivial. You will not be jealous of another, if you are completely satisfied with the person that you are. This step is mostly about self acceptance, but is also about discovering what matters for you and taking control of your emotions. We all feel the negative emotions, but we need to discover what truly matters to our life, and what is simply trivial. When you feel a negative emotion towards another human, rather than acting upon it immediately, use rational thought to think about it. Why did that person act the way they did to make you angry? Most likely they are not doing it on purpose to make you angry, but odds are they were probably feeling hurt themselves and defended their feelings the best way they knew how. This is where you need to be the bigger person. Rather than being hurt by the way they acted and putting up an immediate wall or jumping to save your own emotions, try to understand the reasons behind their actions. This will help you to find a less hurtful way to handle it. All of these steps are possible, as long as the peace in you is strong enough to not let another person’s actions destroy it. I found that this step is a constant struggle. Once the peace is found it is a constant battle to keep that peace. Change is the only thing constant, and your situation and environment will constantly be changing, so you will need to continue finding your peace and carrying it with you throughout the changes in life.

The third step is impossible unless you have overcome the first two. This step involves letting go of your ego. Destroying the invented idea of the “self”. Realizing that there is no “I”, and it is not about me, or you, but about humanity as a whole, and the role that each human plays as a part of the natural harmony in the world. This step involves taking away all emotional attachment to our material objects. Now that does not mean just going out and giving away everything that we own. To make a change in our world we need to be a part of our world, and to do that we need to live in it, which means working and schooling and whatever else it may require. Those actions all involve material objects to an extent, which is important, but we cannot let those objects affect our emotional state. In other words we cannot count on a material object to create any kind of happiness for us. This step also involves really understanding the idea that it is not about me, it is about all of us. For example, I may not want to go to school, because I would rather go out and do something more pleasurable (partying), but I need to go to school because if I want to reach enlightenment, and live in a world that I want to live in, then I need to go to school to learn about the direction in which I want to go and gain the tools that I need to become successful in our society. Unfortunately it is unlikely that people will take me seriously in this world without that little piece of paper that says I am capable. And although this is a sad truth, it is a truth none the less, and we have to work with the system before we can beat the system. This step has been extremely challenging for me, and I think it is keeping me in a rut. It is taking time to make these changes in my life, and I do not know how long it will take me to overcome this one.

What comes next? I have no idea. Live and learn, time will only tell what takes me closer to my ultimate goal, or if i am even moving forwards or drifting backwards.

These are simply my thoughts and ideas put onto paper. I have no idea if they hold any truth, and I am not expecting them to be valued or followed. I put them into the world for feedback, to learn about what other people think and feel about them. I want to learn from everyone and everything. I don’t know if these steps are in the right order or if they are accurate. They are vague and confusing, but I am equally as confused. I do know that I have forgiven the people in my past who have hurt me and made peace with all the demons that were once in my closet. I also know that although it has nearly destroyed me, I have finally found peace in myself, and that has created peace around me. I found that I was never going to be able to have any kind of peaceful relationship, whether romantic or friendship, unless I was able to be at peace with myself and no longer be owned by my insecurities. This has made a huge impact with my life, and has made living and working with a lot of people so much easier. Although other people’s energy bleeds into me very strongly I have learned to let mine flow into them as well. I have discovered what truly matters to me and what is trivial. There are certain things worth fighting to the bone for, while others are laughable in the real world. People seem to get mad just to get mad. Create drama to fill their time, or place the blame elsewhere so that they do not feel the weight of blame upon themselves and they do not have to deal with the issue at hand. Rather than fight all these things, or let them destroy me, I am working on simply keeping the peace inside my own head. Or maybe I’m just crazy. ☺