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Articles
Perception and Our World
By Rusty Stewart, Ph.D.
The only thing that can change the pattern of our human history of self-righteousness, power, and greed is love. Nothing else can work, never did, never will! War has never been the answer. War creates resentment and grievances. Energetically, what is sent to something or someone will come back. Giving is the same as receiving. Give what you want to receive. This is basic physics or duality. Playing the good versus evil game is a senseless eternal battle. Fighting for good, energetically, is the other side of the same coin as fighting for evil. Both are self-righteous belief systems based on judgment. Judgment is perception, and as we can attest to, we all have different perceptions of our reality. Most of us do not have to reflect any further than our relationships, family, and friends to see the illusion of "right" perception.
When I talk about love, I am talking about the type of love that enables us to see ourselves in every other person on this planet. We are all the same. The only things that separate us are the choices we make when confronted with fear. Either we fight fear with fear or we extend love to fear. Now this is not as easy as it sounds. In order for us to consistently extend love to fear we need to do our own deeper work. Thought is the precursor to manifestation. So whatever we are thinking whether it be thoughts of love, forgiveness, compassion, and oneness or thoughts of hate, separateness, judgment, and resentment, these thoughts go out into the collective consciousness to manifest. Essentially we all make the world and are responsible for what is happening in it.
Think about your life and ask yourself whether you are engaging in inclusion or exclusion. Another way of looking at this is to ask ourselves whether we look for similarity or difference. An example of this that came up recently for me was the anger that Americans had for the war protestors who were not wearing yellow ribbons. The feeling was that war protestors did not support our troops. This is exclusive, not inclusive. As I see it, all of humanity needs to be supported. Why not wear ribbons in the hope that ALL soldiers from ALL countries and cultures return home safely? Why do Americans count more than others? If any one of us grew up in Iraq we would also have Iraqi belief systems. If many of us looked at our own country, especially foreign policy since World War II, we may be quite disenchanted to find out that things underneath are not as they appear on the surface. Again, it all comes back to our perception.
What do I support? I support love, compassion, forgiveness, equality, diversity, integration, respect, and oneness for the world and the universe. This can only be achieved through non-violence and changing our perceptions of ourselves and others. I am clear that I cannot change the world. I can only share my feelings, thoughts, and experiences. What I can change is my perception of myself, which will also change my perception of my life and the world. There is no other way. As a human species we have been doing the same things for thousands of years expecting a different result. That is the definition of insanity. We need to do something radically different, like the paradigm shift in consciousness articulated in "The Cultural Creatives" (Ray & Anderson, 2000). This is a must read for those of you interested in trying something hopeful and different.
In closing I would like to take a quote from one of my favorite spiritual books "The Tai Chi Journey" (Lash, 1989). "If there is someone starving, if there is war, if someone is racially oppressed, if nature is polluted, if a child is abused, if someone is sick, it is the Tai Chi person's fault. If they had done what their nature requires of them, only harmony would reign throughout the Tao. But this realization does not come from a logical analysis of life, nor does Tai Chi teach it: it gradually develops from within the Tai Chi student themselves as they journey ever nearer the Oneness with their own nature. Tai Chi's method for overcoming the disharmony of the world is by example." Once we can accept personal responsibility, our changed perception can open us up to experience anything.
Yoga Living, September/October 2003
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