WEEKLY CONTEMPLATION: MY STATE
This week during your daily meditation, contemplate the following:
"I GIVE WHAT I FEEL. NO MATTER WHAT I SAY OR WHAT I DO, NO MATTER WHAT MY WORDS OR ACTIONS, I GIVE MY OWN STATE."
Dear Friends,
How can I ever hope to uplift another when I, myself, am in a state of suffering? More importantly, what can I ever expect to give to someone I love when I, myself, am in a state filled with unhappiness or anger?
Do I justify my inability to offer compassion and love by saying things like: "I can't control what I feel; I can't just turn love on and off anytime I wish; How do you expect me to be nice to someone who is so mean and selfish?"
One of the things that I always try to remember on my journey through life is that I can very conveniently and very easily throw up my hands and give in to a victim mentality. That way, I am off the hook, I can put the responsibility somewhere else, and I can put the blame on someone else.
For many years I blamed my conviction and the subsequent 15-life sentence I received on the attorney who represented me, along with the police informant whom I believed with all my heart set me up. I was convinced that it was because of them that I was in prison. I was a victim and they were clearly to blame for what happened to me.
One day I realized, during a meditation session, that I was the one dealing drugs; I was a drug dealer, and I was the one who set myself up. The attorney and the informant weren't to blame for what happened to me-I was. I saw clearly, in that understanding, that everything that happens to me in this life is truly the result of my own past actions. More importantly, I realized how much pain and suffering I had endured by carrying around the anger and hatred I felt inside for the attorney and the informant by blaming them. Those feelings were eating me up alive inside and I didn't even know it.
It was then that I knew that I had to begin taking responsibility for my own life and my own actions, otherwise I would continue to poison my own state, as well as offer that same poison to the world.
I also understood that although a victim mentality may temporarily change the way others react to me, it would never help my inner experience. My moment to moment experience was always determined by my inner state, not what I said or did in the world.
The state I give to my loved ones, as well as the world around me, is the state I give to myself.
If I claim to be a victim, without realizing that I have the ability to change my own state, I am ultimately living in a prison of my own making, trapped by my own emotions. I am in a state of unconscious ignorance and I suffer because of my wrong understanding.
The truth is that we are all Divine beings, filled with Wisdom and Power. Meditation will validate this for us through our own inner experience.
Meditate!
Love and Blessings,
Alan
How can I ever hope to uplift another when I, myself, am in a state of suffering? More importantly, what can I ever expect to give to someone I love when I, myself, am in a state filled with unhappiness or anger?
Do I justify my inability to offer compassion and love by saying things like: "I can't control what I feel; I can't just turn love on and off anytime I wish; How do you expect me to be nice to someone who is so mean and selfish?"
One of the things that I always try to remember on my journey through life is that I can very conveniently and very easily throw up my hands and give in to a victim mentality. That way, I am off the hook, I can put the responsibility somewhere else, and I can put the blame on someone else.
For many years I blamed my conviction and the subsequent 15-life sentence I received on the attorney who represented me, along with the police informant whom I believed with all my heart set me up. I was convinced that it was because of them that I was in prison. I was a victim and they were clearly to blame for what happened to me.
One day I realized, during a meditation session, that I was the one dealing drugs; I was a drug dealer, and I was the one who set myself up. The attorney and the informant weren't to blame for what happened to me-I was. I saw clearly, in that understanding, that everything that happens to me in this life is truly the result of my own past actions. More importantly, I realized how much pain and suffering I had endured by carrying around the anger and hatred I felt inside for the attorney and the informant by blaming them. Those feelings were eating me up alive inside and I didn't even know it.
It was then that I knew that I had to begin taking responsibility for my own life and my own actions, otherwise I would continue to poison my own state, as well as offer that same poison to the world.
I also understood that although a victim mentality may temporarily change the way others react to me, it would never help my inner experience. My moment to moment experience was always determined by my inner state, not what I said or did in the world.
The state I give to my loved ones, as well as the world around me, is the state I give to myself.
If I claim to be a victim, without realizing that I have the ability to change my own state, I am ultimately living in a prison of my own making, trapped by my own emotions. I am in a state of unconscious ignorance and I suffer because of my wrong understanding.
The truth is that we are all Divine beings, filled with Wisdom and Power. Meditation will validate this for us through our own inner experience.
Meditate!
Love and Blessings,
Alan
