I have awakened, and so can you., page 9

I feel that the only way you can truly help people is to give them the keys. If you think you are going to go to Africa and liberate a bunch of starving Ethiopians, I sure hope you have amazing transcendental powers. Otherwise, so many people who get a little taste of enlightenment feel as though they must save people by charging off on some crusade to help the down and out people of impoverished nations or the homeless or the needy. They forget that these people have the ability to help themselves, and if they don't they are giving in to the illusion. It's their game, just like it is ours. Nobody is going to save me. Nobody is going to save you. You save you. I can only talk, and either people will get intrigued and start a discussion, which may lead to fruitful yield of enlightenment for the both of us... or I talk, and they judge, or I talk and they play the victim saying "Why don't you try doing this and that, and then come back to me talking about God and Enlightenment? Until then, shut up!"

If people want to be victims, that is up to them. If people just want to be and to learn from their experience, that is the only way to true peace... seeing everything as a part of your experience. Learning from it.

I see all of this, the way it is, and I get angry too. Every once in a while, I'll think "Oh screw humans. They can just die."

But I always come back to this thought: Wait a minute, this is "bad" and those guys are "ignorant" and that person or group of persons is "cruel"... but yet look how I have improved. Look at what was bestowed upon my being because of these "bad" things.

Some "enlightened" people wish to try and fill their head with only "good" things, "positive" thoughts, happy feelings, yada yada, trying to block out their dark side.... trying to block out the world's dark side... but they are trying to become blissfully ignorant, yet maybe in only a slightly more cognizant way than all those "sheeple" who get lost in pretty moving pictures and luxurious items of ownership.

The problem does not become better once we stop contemplating about the negative things. Too much of anything is a bad thing. Salad is healthy, but you'll die if all you eat is lettuce and tomatoes and fruits and vegetables because you'll never get your protein.

Feel angry when you need to, feel happy when you need to... but be observant. Like Awakened Sleeper said, step one is to observe yourself. Learn from the thoughts and feelings you have. Learn from your actions. Know that you are not only this body performing these actions. This outward thing does not represent the inward you. Don't get too down on yourself if you mess up... Because in reality, mistakes are lessons, not mistakes at all. Events are tests, and life is a like forgiving teacher. You know, the one who always lets you come in after school and re-do the test you scored really poorly on, the teacher you look back upon and go "Man if it wasn't for that person, I'd be SOL"? Life knows that if you fail a test, you probably just weren't paying attention. You can always review the test afterwards and figure out which areas you really need to study based on the problems you missed.

That's the first step, is the passive observation and active realization that your thoughts are your training lessons, and your environment is your testing grounds.

The great thing about school is that you're never too old to learn, and you can always re-enroll if you flunk out, even if you drop out. Knowledge is infinite... so why would experience of that knowledge be finite?

Philosophy is a great starting point for people who wish to pursue higher states of awareness. If you want to experience higher awareness and KNOW things, meditation (however you meditate, matters not. Experiment with it until you find a method freeing your mind of thoughts, then just let it go) and philosophizing about "what is...stuff?", as I used to joke, is the best route. You'll probably come to the exact same conclusions as all world religions without even realizing or reading a damn thing.

Peace... and hopefully I made sense.