No woman, as no man, should let society dictate what her strengths are, what her beauty is, what her place in the world is. The everyday pressures to think, feel, behave a certain way. The influences from social media, from celebrities, from friends, from family.
All this is causing major disruption in our thinking process. Much anxiety is being allowed in our minds by all this garbage. There must be a 100% focus on your inner world, taking care of your mental health and blocking or ignoring whatever is not uplifting and conducive to your well-being.
An inner revolution
After all, life is about discovering yourself; but for this, you must focus entirely on the way you think and feel without any bias or influence from anything or anyone out there. If there is no self-discovery, a person is like a machine. A machine follows set programming.
A machine follows and copies what others have programmed into it. But a machine can never be truly unique. And life, love, happiness, as a better human being, requires us to be unique and to study ourselves in depth in order to grow. Ponder this and start an inner revolution.
Sounds too spiritual, doesn’t it?? Sounds like some ‘Buddha mysticism’, right?? Well, it’s simpler than that actually. It means to understand the deep roots of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. People all over the world become impulsive, they follow beliefs, try to fit in with others.
Why?? Because they do not find an identity within themselves, and this makes them anxious, disturbed, even violent, and so they feel the need of justifying this by joining others that have no identity like them. So, what happens in this state of mind??
People follow ideas, opinions, philosophies, rules that others set for them. Could be parents telling them this or that. Could be religions introducing beliefs into their minds since young. Could be politics based purely on satisfying one group. Could be little groups of “friends” just “having fun”.
Why knowing yourself…??
Knowing yourself is understanding yourself. There are many benefits, but I will mention the most important ones, at least for me.
1- You realize and build great self-love, which takes you to focus entirely on creating better, healthier, more positive habits daily. This grows your confidence, you begin to appreciate more the time with yourself, and you increase your self-esteem in every aspect of your life.
2- Your understanding of others, of the world, grows massively and gives you so much insight and knowledge, and all this insight and knowledge takes away your frustration, misery, jealousy, violent and revengeful thoughts.
3- You become more wise in your decisions, you start growing a deep insight, some call it Third Eye, into better ways, better ideas, new strategies that help you see other paths as your self-awareness expands. And this expands as well your capacity to be truly happy and to make others around you happy as well.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” ― William Shakespeare, As You Like It
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” ― Mark Twain
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ― Aristotle
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ― Socrates
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ― Aristotle, Metaphysics
The path to liberation
The way we live today, or the way our societies are built, may bring pressures, tensions, burdens. And for this, the path to liberation, to enjoyment of myself and my life, is wisdom, knowledge, insights to live better.
Obviously, experience is important; however, experience, living each day is not enough. I must cultivate myself through learning from the wisdom of others. So, it is my heartfelt desire that you take this into consideration and find the knowledge, the wisdom that can help you, in whatever situation you meet in your life.
People always seek, and ask, and remain confused about some aspect in self-development in their lives, because they have not studied themselves; therefore, all the knowledge they carry from others, from reading, does not fulfill them. Know yourself.
Self-knowledge does not come to the mind due to reading books, following scriptures, listening to religious noise, and good and honest desires to be so-called “spiritual.” Awakening, enlightenment, is the result of paying close attention to one’s body. This process is your most sacred key.
Know your body and mind. Its chemistry. Its biology. Its conscious and subconscious programs. How it works. Its composition at the physical scale. Then you can really understand the spiritual realm. The spiritual (energy) can only be understood by going through the physical first.
Each person lives in his own world, in his head and with his preoccupations; and when people interact with you, with the world, they do it under their own terms, based on however they feel and on what fills their minds at the moment.
Remind yourself that each person out there is like a robot, even though they may not understand why. Each person obeys their own program, their own conditioning, views, beliefs, unique values; and they have been molded by their past, personal experiences.
Once you understand this truly, you will interact, initiate relationships, work and socialize with people and not get affected, irritated, angered by what they say or do. Your mind will not be attached to them in any way.
Have in mind that you do have your own conditioning as well, but you probably do not see it in yourself as it is a subconscious behavior which may escape your awareness. Allow yourself to be free from your own conditioning and from the conditioning of others.
Ponder deeply why something bothers you. Study your thoughts and feelings about yourself and about people. Internalize that which you meet in your relationships, the challenges and frictions, the difficulties and different views. Don’t let it bother you and make you anxious, depressed, or disturbed in any way.
When the mind is rushing, thoughts are churning, anger festering, or anxiety overpowering your thinking, or when your ego is annoyed in any way, a relaxation is required, a whole moment of patience must be taken.
Reacting to your sudden impulses is what makes you volatile, attached to immoral behaviors and thoughtless decisions; and, as long as you keep doing this, you will remain immature and deluding yourself in your life, no matter how young or old you are.
Having a sincere dialogue with yourself, a tranquil and unexcited communication in your mind with yourself, before you react with your sudden outbursts will give you clarity on your decisions and on your daily behaviors.
Ask yourself why you react this way, how to be less rash or impulsive in your thinking, what is the best way to react in a relationship. The way you think and behave will design your character, your personality; so, if you behave thoughtfully, morally, consciously, then you will be that in your persona and you will illumine your decisions in all aspects in life.
WHEN YOU OBSERVE THE DARKNESS, YOUR WEAKNESSES, YOUR IMMORALITY, YOUR IRRATIONALITY, YOUR OWN SELFISH AND UNHEALTHY DESIRES, THEN YOU OBSERVE YOURSELF. YOU FACE FEAR AND NEGLECTS; THAT PART OF YOURSELF THAT IS HIDDEN. BY OBSERVING, BY THIS VERY FACT OF SEEING, YOU TRANSFORM YOUR DARKNESS INTO LIGHT.
This seems intellectually proper and easy to do, even obvious; however, people do not actually do this in their daily lives though, because they choose to remain unconscious and attached to their old psychological patterns.
They do this as a subconscious way to deny their own darkness, immorality, weaknesses, and what they do not like about themselves. But the reality is that you cannot evolve into a better human being until you recognize this darkness in yourself and turn it into light.
The way you react in your life is the way of your subconscious emotional programming. When you get upset about someone’s words, it is because your mind’s beliefs, ideas, or opinions have been rattled or threatened; thus, your subconscious programming makes you react even without consciously thinking about it.
But when you train your conscious mind to respond in a different way, unattached to beliefs, ideas and opinions to the words and behaviors of others, then you are creating your own subconscious programs.
This gives you intelligence, it boosts your inner harmony and knowledge of self; for you become more confident, liberated from egoistical reactions, thus penetrate into a deeper understanding of yourself, of others, and of the ways of life.
Intelligence is not your memory and the accumulation of knowledge there, but indeed this is what the naive and ignorant world believes–and so, just look at it and you’ll see that there are no really intelligent people out there, just people holding school degrees and people old in time.
Intelligence is in the way you react and respond to the world, to your stress, to your negativity, to your anger and frustration. Intelligence is to create your own emotional understanding and to see beyond the petty acts of your ego.
People make the mistake to seek themselves in society–in their relationships, in their jobs, in their religions, and in all their particular activities. This is to put on masks and try to fit in and find your love, your happiness here; however, these are the lies people live and tell themselves every day. Because these are mere things, as important as they can be to you, superficial things you do, experiences of the human games you are here to play; but still you are searching for yourself in the wrong places where nothing of eternal substance can be found…
“The game.”
I was blind and my foothold very weak, I thought me as superior in my own eyes, I felt saved, proud, safe in a crooked path Where I had you through painful choices. I did not see myself in this game but a lie Which grew in me and cut my freedom, A game where I constantly seek and seek, In you, In them, some love, some happiness, A way to express myself through my masks; But soon it swallowed me and kept me away In spite of my bouts of anger and frustration, In spite of my desires to be mended by you. But I finally discovered myself in the mirror, Aging, deceived, broken–but alas awake! Thus awake with a light I hadn’t seen before, Such brightness which took me past the mask, Past societies, past cultures, past seeking. And now I saw you, dear, for who you were, My partner, not my savior or my source of love; And I saw me, I saw how illumined I was, what I was, and who I needed to be for me. Yes, I contemplated my role and my worth Far beyond society’s many false arguments. Who was I…?? Thunder came, lightning shot, Then I knew who I was, and who you were too…
Some of you still belong to religions, I am sure of this, your minds still attached to these beliefs and dogmas designed by men with a selfish purpose–a purpose which has nothing to do with truth or God. In their sheer ignorance they believe they are spreading knowledge of truth and God. But if this is so, tell me, and tell yourself: Why there are so many religions dividing people…?? Why is there not peace in the world yet…?? Why have you still got problems in your life…?? Why is your mind still confused about God, love, peace…?? Why do you still seek answers…?? Why do you still suffer the slavery of your own ego…?? Why can you not ascend mentally yet…?? And the questions keep going forever…
All that religions have done was to take Enlightened men, like Jesus, like Buddha, and put them as the main attraction, as the mere figureheads of their blasphemy; they mock these Enlightened men by using their names on their garbage institutions which do not really teach you to be enlightened like they were–they do not help you see your own ego and wake up from the dream. Because they live in the dream as well, and if you found a way to see beyond the dream you would rise up and become free; and freedom of thought, self-discovery–that is not good for your religions business. And you do understand religions are a business, like the business of foods or houses…?? Religions deal with your hopes, dreams, desires to know love and God and truth–they sell you all these, and trust that you are ignorant enough to buy from them. Are you still buying from them, or have you woken up…??
Because religions are institutions created by the ego of man. Religions want control over the masses, to grow the institution, to create a legacy, to rule over all activities of man, to amass material wealth through not paying taxes and getting free money and gifts from members/from faithful but ignorant followers. But God, love, truth, peace–these are not found in the ego of man, no institution can actually give you these; hence religions cannot either. These can only be discovered in man’s soul, by himself, through aloneness, through meditation, through self-discovery and self-knowledge…
The words, the beliefs, the traditions, the rituals--this is keeping you down, dumbing you down from self-knowledge, from the truth; find out who you are without all these enslaving arms.
So I just had two of these young missionaries knock at my door, and I truly felt for their confused minds which are overwhelmed by garbage others have told them, all this ignorance–like parrots they repeat scriptures and what they have been told since birth by the bishop and their own parents. Yes, they were like parrots standing on my door’s threshold, their mouths enslaved by the same words and phrases over and over again, and I could sense that they weren’t really thinking for themselves but they were reacting to a program forced in them and that now they were seeing as true.
So, they asked the usual: Why wouldn’t I go to church with them or why wouldn’t I come back…?? I looked at them. At that moment I really felt sad for their empty minds and I wished I had had the power to make them see through the veil like I can; but, however, I know that awakening and seeing through the veil is something which cannot be taught by mere words, and that illumination comes to your very conscience when you are ready–and, in the case of highly religious people, that awakening is extremely difficult to happen. Possible, as it happened to me, but extremely difficult; for most people live their entire lives without questioning themselves and the status quo of all society. God, true love, absolute peace, freedom–these are not even experienced by them, their minds following blindly their own imaginations and stubborn views. Are you one of these lost souls…??
What would it take for you to awaken and become illumined, not by my rebellious words here, not by any ancient scriptures or modern articles or man’s knowledge of any kind, but by your constant self-inquiry and serious meditation in all of life’s aspects…??
You don’t need a middleman. You don’t need to kneel in prayer. You don’t need to think about Jesus and Buddha and put them on a golden pedestal, and so become pitiful followers. You don’t need to be guided by family traditions, blind faith, and by any man, saint or not, who may appear to have the truth or some revelation. Aren’t you the Creation and the Creator…??–Or does your ignorant mind make distinction of the two…?? And if there is no difference, then you mustn’t look out there for a Creator. Isn’t God the very rich energy inside each atom making you, the world and all worlds…??
All you must do is see clearly, empty your own mind from your beliefs, traditions, and all words; for your own mind/your own ego is the one you call Satan or The Devil, or whatever is keeping you from actually experiencing all love and truth. Your confusion, your emptiness, your loneliness, your need to follow others and repeat their words like a parrot–this is your ego, and it will never allow you to be illumined or enlightened in this lower state of existence…
The words, the beliefs, the traditions, the rituals–this is keeping you down, dumbing you down from self-knowledge, from the truth; find out who you are without all these enslaving arms.
- Asa Rodriguez - 