Right Action

Right Action or Conduct

Video

Last time we discussed right speech, and we learned that there are causes and effects with how we utilize our speech. We learned that our words contain power and energy. We also learned that it’s imperative that we pay attention to how we utilize the creative energy that empowers our words. We learned that when we speak, we are performing an action, and today we will go even deeper into the importance of our actions.

All our actions have consequences, and the consequences of our actions are what we call effects. What we say in our minds eventually gets expressed through our actions, and this is an important reason for why we need to be aware of ourselves from moment to moment. Each action has a consequence, and this is what we call karma; the law of cause and effect, “we reap what we sow.”

Let’s begin by becoming aware of our present situation: who we are today, right now. Let’s ask ourselves: what have my actions caused, where have they led me, and what are the fruits of them? Take a moment to reflect on this when you have time.

Shine the light of the consciousness on your life and study yourself. Every moment strive to be aware of how you conduct yourself within your mind, around your friends, family, and people you don’t know. In this way we will come to understand that many of our actions cause suffering.

Through self-observation and retrospection meditation we will learn how our actions cause suffering. This type of analysis brings about knowledge of ourselves; the comprehension that every external action is triggered by something from within.

Throughout our lives we have learned many mistaken behaviors, many that have led to not caring about the consequences of our actions. Most of us have been through a variety of hardships, and the diverse difficulties that we’ve all faced have caused us to create things within ourselves psychologically. What we’ve created are what we call psychological aggregates, addictions, and vices. What we have within motivates us to make poor decisions; decisions with how we conduct ourselves. What we have within our minds motivates us to react to situations and circumstances in different ways. Every decision, every choice, every action we’ve made had consequences and still does. Every action has an effect, whether it stems from a thought, emotion, something we say, or do, everything we do affects our psyche, and our actions affect those around us. It’s important that we grasp this, it’s important that we see how we have affected others with our actions, it’s important for us to understand what we’ve done to ourselves and why our lives are in the current state we find them in.

We begin by understanding that what we have within, psychologically speaking, affects the world outside of us.

“The exterior is a reflection of our interior.” – Samael Aun Weor

To grasp this statement, take a moment to become aware of the current state of the world, it’s a mess, right? The mess we see is a direct effect from what we have within ourselves. We are a mess psychologically and so the effects of our internal world affect our external world. If greed, anger, selfishness, addiction, hatred, prejudice, lust, laziness, filth, pollution, and ignorance exist outside of us that’s because they already existed inside of us.

Many of us have hardened ourselves, hardened our hearts and minds, why is this?

Why is it that we live in a difficult world? Why is society complicated? Why is my life complicated? Meditate on these questions when you have time. Reflect deeply!

We have many difficulties within ourselves, many contradictions, many attachments and conflicting desires. The psychological aggregates within us, from one moment to another, desire to satisfy themselves. If you don’t believe me, simply sit for one hour with your eyes shut and pay attention to what happens. If you can sit for one hour with your eyes closed, without moving, you may discover many impulses, and many desires for certain things. Be mindful of them.

Pay attention to what wants your attention, observe yourself!

The egos that wish to express themselves are different parts of ourselves that we’ve trapped in vice. The parts of us that are trapped in vice wish to satisfy temporary desires.

What types of desires are we specifically referring to? Addictions to sensations.

We love the way things make us feel. Most of the actions we perform each day are rooted in the desire to satisfy our addictions to sensations. We may have never given much attention to what we do from moment to moment, and when we do observe our behavior patterns, we may become disturbed or surprised, but what we find. There are many types of vices, each one of us may have many and it is important that we become aware of them and not make up excuses for them.

It’s common for us to make up excuses for our vices and errors. We think it’s normal to behave inappropriately or we simply don’t care how our actions affect ourselves and others. We like to think we are disconnected from everything and that we are merely individuals in this world in which we live. We think our individuality keeps us from affecting others and our planet. We think that we are separate and not connected to each other and nature. If we feel our actions have no effect on the outside world look at the current situation, we find our planet and humanity in. Look at how our actions have affected generations. Become aware of how we as a humanity repeat the same mistakes. Look at what we do to each other and look at what we do to ourselves. Everything is affected by something. What we say and what we do has consequences. The consequences of what we’ve created in our minds and hearts affects the outside world through each word and each action. What are we teaching our children? What are we putting into their minds? How do we treat our friends, family members, spouse, dog, cat, etc.? How do we treat ourselves?

“As long as we do not have a good relationship with ourselves, we will not have a good relationship with others, and the result will be all types of conflicts.” – Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

With this step of the eightfold path, we want to pay attention to ourselves so that we can become aware of the consequences of our actions and seek to change the behaviors that cause suffering. Look at the pollution in our world, look at how we treat animals, our oceans, the air we breathe, our food, and be mindful of your attitude and the attitude of your neighbor, observe how we treat each other. We as a species on this planet destroy our own habitat. Our actions have led to the contamination of our water, food, and oxygen. But for some reason it’s common for us to hear people say, “we’re advancing and evolving,’ but are we really? Are the things we create making a better world for everyone? Are we any closer to being less destructive? If you say yes, then why have we not figured out how to stop murdering and exploiting each other? Why do we spend billions of dollars inventing the best way to kill one another? An evolved people are not barbarous. They are not warlike, hateful, greedy, and selfish. A truly pure and advanced people are aware of their actions, they know the law of cause and effect and they are psychologically awake. They don’t create things that destroy their imagination and take their creative abilities away. They don’t murder each other nor exploit their fellowman. An advanced humanity is helpful and useful to their planet and each other. They find a way to work together and unite for the common good of everyone and everything.

Hardly anyone observes the consequences of their actions anymore, and this is because we are consumed by desire; the desire for more and more and we simply don’t care how that affects anything. It has become very difficult to see beyond our own selfishness, but all of that can change.

Einstein stated, “energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

We can connect this statement to many different things, but right now we will specifically relate it to the welfare of our psyche. Every cause originates from some type of energetic force, psychologically speaking, most of the causes of our actions are rooted in what we call ego. Our ego or better said egos, are our pride, lust, envy, greed, anger, gluttony, laziness, vanity, etc., and they affect our emotions, thoughts, and actions. We can say the cause of our suffering is rooted in egotistical desire. For instance: when we receive an energetic impression of someone through our senses, who is expressing anger at us, in most instances we translate the impressions we take in with our ego, we see, hear, and feel their anger and if we are not mindful, we impulsively react. We then without realizing what is happening with all this energy exchange instinctually and emotionally react negatively. The energy we receive and feel in those moments is not being understood, processed and transformed in the right way. We simply end up mirroring the impressions that we see and feel.

Can you think of a time when this has happened to you, when you reacted without processing anything first?

Our emotions and thoughts are energy, and we all have the ability to take our energy, direct it and transform it. When we direct our energy it becomes a force, a force that expresses itself through our actions, and our actions have rippling affects. Anger is energy, when unleashed it becomes a force that causes pain and suffering. One outburst of anger can cause many mistakes. How about lust? What happens when we see an attractive person? Do you ever pay attention to what happens, how you feel and what you’re thinking? Do you have control of yourself? How do you conduct yourself, how to you behave? Do you have control over your thoughts and emotions? Are you in control of your senses? Most of us may pridefully answer this question, because most of us believe that we have control of ourselves, that we are strong willed, but let’s be honest, in most instances we lack self-control, if it were true, that we had mastery over our minds and senses, then why can we not keep ourselves from relapsing, from getting angry, from violence, from looking at the opposite sex without having perverse feelings and thoughts? Perhaps it’s because most of our willpower is being used on the wrong things and this is why we lack self-control, because we are utilizing our willpower to satisfy desire.

Can you think of something that you’ve put a lot of energy into that you shouldn’t have?

Can you think of something that you put energy into that was beneficial for you and others?

We use energy in a variety of ways, one being to think. Every thought consists of energy and is formed by energy. In order to imagine something, we need to able to concentrate and we need willpower. It takes willpower to concentrate and visualize something in our mind. The root of all the different types of energy we use from moment to moment comes from the most important energy we all have, the creative energy. Creative energy is our sexual power, and our sexual power empowers our mental energy; the ability to imagine something. When we imagine something in our minds we create something in our mental world. Creative energy is the root energy that gives us the ability to think or imagine. Thought forms are energetic substances within our minds. But what happens when we are not mindful of our thoughts? What happens when we put filth into our minds? What happens when we are feeling and thinking negatively? What happens when we do not transform the impressions that we take in?  We cause psychological disturbances; we take the light of our consciousness and trap it in psychological aggregates, and we abuse our creative energy. Every thought, memory, and impression still exists deep within us, even if we do not remember them and some of them eventually resurface.

Have you ever recalled something out of nowhere and wondered, “where did that come from?”

Have you ever had something come into your mind, a memory that you had forgotten comes back to you and you thought, “where did this come from? I forgot about that.” It’s been in you all this time, you just weren’t aware of it, because it’s been stored deep within you. The thought or memory is energy and matter, and cannot be destroyed, but it can be transformed. This is one reason why mindfulness and meditation are so important.

In the military we had kind of a mantra, “stay alert, stay alive.” This cadence or mantra as I like to call it, is for anyone, not just soldiers, and Samael Aun Weor taught us something similar.

“Be alert and vigilant as the watchman in a time of war.” – Samael Aun Weor

If we are truly living mindfully, we are being ‘watchful and alert like a soldier at war,’ but what are we paying attention to? Ourselves, right? We are alert and vigilant with our thoughts, emotions and impulses. What kind of war are we talking about? Well, if we are trying to change the way we behave, if we are seeking to change the way we act, then the war is within ourselves. Every moment in life is a “to be or not to be,” moment. This is called indecision. Indecision is when we are stuck on not knowing what choice to make. It is when we waver between two or more possible courses of action. When faced with a decision, our memories, life experiences, and vices get in the way. We usually prefer to take the path of least resistance. We choose what is easy and avoid difficulties. For example: when we are tempted to give into vice (addiction), most of the time we become identified with the sensations associated with whatever it may be, and when we become identified with the desire for sensation, we fall asleep psychologically. We allow our minds to become consumed with thoughts, memories and desires of the vice. Psychologically, we are caught in a difficult place, desire is calling, so what do we do? Do we give into vice, or do we consciously and mindfully make the right decision? The issue for most of us is that we simply lack awareness. Throughout our lives we have not learned how to remain aware of ourselves from moment to moment. But now we can!

All of us have habits and some of them have been with us for a long time., so it can be very challenging for us to get out them. Any habit, addiction, vice, etc., needs to be properly studied and comprehended. When we are mindful, we are paying attention to ourselves all day, and we catch what habits, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions are causing suffering. We stay alert, and we stay alive. We remain alert and watchful so that we can catch our wrong intentions before we act on them. When we are aware of a thought, that is causing suffering, we can transform it, the transformation of impressions is fundamental for keeping from acting poorly and from storing more garbage in our subconsciousness. When we catch ourselves thinking negatively, it’s important for us to understand why we are doing that. For example: If we’re thinking that person is an idiot, they are not intelligent, try to understand why, is it jealousy, is it pride, is it anger, prejudice, what is it? Why am I motivated to think that way? What triggered it? Should I think that way about people? Do I truly understand them or am I making false judgments? We can observe all of this; it shouldn’t be purely intellectual. When you catch this type of internal behavior simply observe what is happening to you.

We need to understand that right action and conduct not only relate to the way we act physically, but it also relates to how we act in our minds. When we think negatively about someone or when we think about hurting someone and we imagine it, that thought is an internal action and that internal action may motivate you to express it externally.

Can you recall a time when you’ve done this, when you imagined your anger and then you eventually expressed it through an external action?

In order to change our behaviors, we need to see the effects of them. We need experiential knowledge of the facts, and knowing the truth helps us know which behaviors we need to work on, ethical actions vs. non-ethical actions. This includes behaviors that are both internal and external. In almost every great spiritual tradition, there are rules and laws. The rules give us helpful guidelines to live by. They help us recognize the causes of our suffering. If we know the causes and comprehend them, we can eliminate them. It should be obvious that violence, smoking, getting high, drinking alcohol, sleeping around, stealing, and watching pornography are types of behaviors that cause suffering and lead one into deeper and deeper psychological slavery.

It’s beneficial for us to understand that our actions have corresponding consequences. Each action produces a result. If we are violent what happens? If we take intoxicants what happens? If we smoke tobacco what eventually happens? Are we paying attention or are we ignoring the causes and effects? If we want to change our duty becomes to gather information about ourselves so that we can become aware of what we need to work on. We have been taught throughout our lives to mostly behave poorly. Most of everything in society has taught us to be selfish and egotistical. Become aware of this, pay attention to what you consume psychologically every day and retrospect what you’ve learned throughout your life.

With this step of the eightfold path, we are gaining awareness of how we behave. In order for us to dive deep into this step we need to retrospect our entire life. It’s important for us to recall when we began a behavior that led to addiction or some form of suffering. Retrospection meditation will help with finding how we formed addictions to pornography, drugs, alcohol, violence, gambling, hording, theft, arguing, lying, unhealthy eating habits, etc. Only you can discover what keeps you from joy, from being responsible, and from successful positive change. Obviously, we may discover more than one, but we pick one or two unhealthy addictions at time and work on them. Pick one or two things that would greatly change your life for the better and work on them; transform them into something positive. What we’re working on is the renunciation of certain behaviors that cause suffering. We become aware of harmful behaviors by being mindful, and then we meditate on them. Through meditation we comprehend that this behavior, that this attachment, is no good for me or anyone and we make the conscious decision to renounce whatever it may be. Obviously, this takes super efforts and a lot of work, but the more we comprehend the more we realize that we are far better off without this addictive behavior. After renouncing a harmful action, observe how you feel, be mindful of the changes that are occurring in your mind and heart.

Since you’ve been sober, have you noticed any changes in the way you think or feel?

Now, let’s go over ethical conduct vs. non-ethical conduct: study these behaviors in your daily life - Do no harm, do not lie, do not steal, no sexual misconduct.

Do no harm: to absolutely cause no harm is very difficult, but it’s something to be mindful of and to work for. We cause harm through our actions every day, and the worst part about it is we usually don’t care or we’re not aware that we cause harm.

When you hurt someone’s feelings pay attention to whether you feel remorse or not, and if you don’t, ask yourself, why is it that I don’t care?

Take some time to reflect and retrospect your life, become aware of when you began to not care. Retrospection meditation will help you understand how the not caring began and grew throughout your life. If we do not care about the wellbeing of others we lack love, compassion and empathy. In order to not harm anyone, including ourselves, we need to be capable of loving ourselves, and others. If we do not love ourselves, how could we love anyone else. To “do no harm,” is all about love, forgiveness, and kindness. To do no harm requires that we love all beings without limitations. Love has no limits, love forgives, we may think we are not capable of this, but we can be. The ability to love still exists within us, but it is trapped in our psychological aggregates. It is trapped in our hate, pride, anger, lust, greed, and all manner of selfishness. Working to “do no harm,” means we are striving to restrain our egotistical tendencies, to restrain our anger and selfishness and transform them into love and altruism. The opposite of altruism is extreme greed and selfishness. These psychological aggregates cause mass suffering, and they need to be restrained, studied, comprehended, renounced and eliminated.

We went over lying in a previous session but take the time to study when you are honest and when you are dishonest. Lying is a wrong action. Honesty leads one to right action.

Stealing is to take what does not belong to us. Stealing doesn’t only relate to material things and obviously stealing material things is something we should restrain and renounce, but we also steal attention, time, and energy. When we mock someone, we steal their dignity. When we cut in line, we steal someone’s place. When we seek attention and when we talk way longer than what’s needed we steal time from others. We scam and rip people off to get what we think is ahead in life. We steal ideas, positions, and creations of others. We take credit for things that are not our own. We push our way of doing things on to others to get what we want. We have replaced our ability to be helpful and useful to each other with a selfish way of being, but what we’ve lost can be retrieved, but as long as we keep telling ourselves, “I don’t care, oh well, all about me, screw them,” things will not change. This type of wrong thinking must change so that we can get back to acting in an upright way.

Sexual misconduct is a huge issue today, it always has been, but, since the invention of the internet it has become a much bigger issue. Many marriages and relationships suffer because one or both partners has an addiction to pornography. The wife or the husband catches their loved one looking at porn and is harmed by their actions. If this relates to you, if you have hurt your life partner because of your addiction to pornography take some time to reflect. If you still commit this type of sexual misconduct, study why you do it, restrain yourself from doing it again, and renounce these harmful behaviors. “Stay alert, stay alive.”

There is a power that we need in order to restrain ourselves and renounce harmful behaviors, which is willpower. Many of us struggle with right action because we lack willpower. We lack the will to do what must be done. One reason is that we have been directing the power of our will to do all kinds of things that are not beneficial for ourselves or anyone. This means that a lot of our willpower is trapped in egotistical harmful behaviors. If we’ve been spending years and years using the power of our will to watch pornography or to get high, then that’s where most of it is trapped, in vice. It’s trapped in the desire to feel sensations that we get when watching porn or drinking and getting high. So, it behooves us to work very hard to free the energy we’ve trapped in those vices.

Study your actions: If we use our energy to walk all over town searching for drugs or for someone to have sex with, we can say we’ve trapped a lot of our willpower in the need to get high and lustful desire. Now you may think, “what do I do if I’ve given most of my power away to addiction and vice?” We use the power we have left; we work with what we got; even if most of our power is trapped in addiction, we still have the power to work on ourselves. Not all our power and energy is completely gone yet, but addiction is not easy to overcome. We can say that we are David fighting Goliath. David is the power we have available to work with, and Goliath is the Giant of addiction that we must face and defeat. Remember David defeated Goliath and so can we.

To free ourselves from addiction requires that we use what willpower we have available. The more energy we free that’s trapped in vice, the more willpower we gain in order to continue freeing ourselves from addiction, but there are steps to this process, it doesn’t happen overnight.

The first step is what we’ve been discussing for a while now and that is ‘mindfulness of ethics.’ Ethics lead one to the understanding of right and wrong. We mindfully self-observe observing what actions cause suffering, discovering the root psychological motivating factors within ourselves that cause us to act in the wrong way. The root psychological factors are our own ego (pride, anger, lust, greed, envy, laziness, gluttony) and this is what we want to study, restrain and renounce. We need awareness of ourselves in our daily life.

The second step is to self-remember: self-remembering is the active awareness of the presence of divinity in each moment. Awareness of a higher power is important because we need help and remembering that something greater than ourselves is within us and helping us at all times is beneficial for our psychological healing. We have an inner guiding star, we are constantly guided, we all have a higher self that relates to spirit and conscience. Building a relationship with our higher power can help with working on ourselves. How may you ask? Simply put, trusting in a power greater than yourself will help you become more aware of the guidance and help that you are receiving from instant to instant. By self-remembering you are actively building a relationship with your inner divinity.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

-Matthew 7:7

Most of the time when we ask for something it’s usually motivated by selfishness. When we pray for help, most of the time help doesn’t come in the way we thought it would. We are given what we deserve, what we’ve earned by our actions. If we say to our higher power, “please help me with my anger, usually our higher power will lead us into a situation that gives us a mirror, which shows us our anger and we don’t like that. Instead of being grateful for the opportunity that we’ve been given, to see our anger in action, being mindful of it, taking advantage of the situation, we instead get even more angry and misuse our chance for self-discovery and transformation. “Woe is me.” Most of us want our higher power to do the work for us, to magically take our anger away for us, but it doesn’t work like that. We need to comprehend the causes and effects of our anger through experiential knowledge and profound mindfulness and meditation.

The third step is the transformation of impressions: we learn to transform the impressions we take in through our senses, and little by little we learn to control our senses. For instance: when an attractive person walks into your view, observe yourself, notice how you become a slave to your senses, notice how the power of your will is being utilized to think and behave impurely; looking at places you shouldn’t, and imagining lustful thoughts.

Learn to study these behaviors and comprehend how they cause harm to your mind and heart... Remember the law of impermanence: everything that has a beginning has an end. It’s the same for us, one day we will grow old and die and the person your attracted to will one day grow old and not look the same. Physical beauty, and all the superficial physical attractions are fleeting and will one day disappear. True beauty comes from within not from without. Kindness, compassion, humility, and love radiate beauty. Love is what brings beauty into the world. Transform the impressions of your lust by understanding and comprehending that what you see with your physical senses is superficial and fleeting. We can acknowledge physical beauty in a pure upright way, the law of attraction is real, but we suffer when we allow what we see transform into lust and perversion. Let’s say for instance that you’ve allowed your senses to become hypnotized by someone you find attractive, in that moment, become aware of what about them are you attracted to? Be mindful, are you looking at someone’s daughter, mother, sister? Would you like someone to be perverse with someone you care about? Is it healthy for us to look at someone as an object of perverse desire? Our lustful desire can cause us to jump to conclusions; do we even know the person we’re looking at? You may think that they are everything you’ve ever wanted, but what happens when you find out their rude or you don’t like their personality, the attraction goes away right? What we think is real, in most instances is an illusion created by our own egotistical desire.

Here is a much deeper system that we teach for the transformation of impressions:

1.     Absolute relaxation: we sit or lay down and relax with our eyes closed.

2.     Reach the state of meditation

3.     Relive the scene: retrospect your day, visualize your day and become aware of any egotistical behaviors (wrong actions) that need to be understood.

4.     Seek within oneself through visualization to discover what psychological aggregate (ego) caused the problem. Was it fear, envy, anger, lust, greed, pride, etc.

5.     By observing serenely [in visualization], one places the ego in the defendant’s chair and then one proceeds with the judgment. We are seeking comprehension, to intuitively understand if the behavior was pure, or impure?

6.     We then ask our higher power to help us eliminate the egotistical behavior.

So, we seek comprehension through meditation. Comprehending our impure actions will help us discover the root issues and help us change our behaviors. Comprehension is conscious understanding. It is understanding that you don’t get from reading about it or by word of mouth. Comprehension comes to us when we relax our body, heart and mind. When the mud in our mind settles and the waters become clear again, only then will we achieve comprehension. Comprehension of something stays with you forever, it doesn’t get stored away, like memories, because comprehension is a conscious intuitive knowing. We only understand something after we’ve thoroughly studied it and comprehended it. This is not intellectual understanding. Comprehension begins the instant we begin observing ourselves. When we comprehend, we perceive a truth.

What is one thing you fully comprehended about yourself?

We meditate to get information that our physical senses cannot give us, and the information we get leads to comprehension. Sometimes we don’t get comprehension during meditation and that’s ok. Most of the time we get a piece of the puzzle, but sooner or later, piece by piece, we put the puzzle together. When we start to see the reality of our mind and the reality of our present situation we will begin to comprehend. We want to comprehend why we are in our present situation and why our minds are the way they are. This takes willpower, humility, patience, perseverance, diligence, empathy and continuity of purpose. Our purpose in regard to what we’re discussing today is to understand why we are the way we are, why we do what we do, and find the things we need to change about ourselves so that our actions become ethical. Many people say, “I cannot do this, I cannot comprehend myself.” This is because they are not doing the work, they are not looking at their anger, addictions, lust, and all their egotistical behaviors. Comprehension requires us to take a deep look at our mistaken actions and find the root causes of them. In order to comprehend, we need to observe and analyze ourselves from moment to moment so that we can receive intuitive understanding. This is spontaneous and does not involve intellectual reasoning. When we are observing ourselves throughout the day or during meditation comprehension arrives naturally.

When we comprehend something fully, we arrive at a natural judgement. When we fully comprehend that a certain aspect of ourselves causes suffering for us and others, we can put it in the defendant’s chair and judge it accordingly. Whatever it is, is not worthy of you, and needs to be judged and sentenced, because it is harmful. Remember that when you do this you are pointing your finger at yourself, you have discovered something that needs to not exist within you anymore, whether it’s anger or any other ego. The process of comprehension and judgement leads one to transforming the psychological aggregate of anger into love and kindness.

The first two steps lead to elimination. Elimination comes after comprehension and judgment. There is an energetic psychological process that is being done with these steps. You are using the energy and force of your consciousness and willpower to fully concentrate and understand an aspect of your psyche that needs to transform from something impure into something that is pure. When a psychological aggregate is eliminated, the energy that is trapped in anger, in pride, in greed, in lust, in laziness, is liberated and becomes it’s opposite. Our higher power helps us with the process of elimination. Our higher power needs us to learn from our egotistical experiences and to comprehend them so that our higher power can eliminate and transform them, transforming vices into virtues.

We are seeking purity of mind and heart so that our actions will become upright and pure. Working to purify ourselves of egotistical unethical conduct leads to upright action and conduct. Impure actions bring about suffering. If we are mindful of our thoughts, emotions and impulses we can catch impressions that we receive and transform them in the right way. This psychological work helps with having mindful awareness of ourselves so that we do not act in the wrong way.

Continue to study the steps and apply them to your daily life. “Stay alert, stay alive.”

This type of psychological work requires patience, patience with ourselves and others. It also requires acceptance and forgiveness.

Remember the serenity prayer:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”.

We need courage to face ourselves, all our imperfections, one at a time, and wisely use the steps for elimination. We gain wisdom through comprehension and wisdom comes from Divinity. When we meditate and comprehend, we will know and not have to theorize, guess or blindly believe.

Courage, wisdom, love, patience, humility, forgiveness, empathy, altruism, diligence, and chastity are virtues and positive forces that lead one to act appropriately. Forgiveness requires comprehension of the facts. Whether we are forgiving ourselves or someone else we first need to gather all the facts and analyze them, discard what’s not true and keep what is. If someone has wronged you or if you have wronged someone, take the time to reflect, follow the steps and reflect, without prejudice, fear, pride, or anger. If any of these come up while observing yourself, know that they are lying to you, just observe them, and you will find that they are destructive and not constructive; they lead to suffering. Seek to understand why they arise within you, but know, they keep you from the truth, they keep you from the facts, they keep you from love and healing. Understanding the facts about ourselves leads to comprehension. We all experience hardships, we all make mistakes, we all suffer, and if we take the time to understand ourselves and others we may learn to forgive and be less harsh. True judgement comes after you have comprehended the facts. The facts are not known by our intellect, they are known by our heart. Forgive yourself so that you can forgive others. When you fail at something, when you make a mistake, make amends, forgive yourself, pray for help and carry on. This will help you with anything you experience in life and in this way, you will learn to act in an upright manner and change your life for the better.

Continue your journey and seek intuitive understanding!

May All Beings Be Happy!

May All Beings Be Joyful!

May All Beings Be at Peace!

Inverential Peace!!!