The deepest, purest and longest lasting impact we can give another is sincere love.
We are all connected and we are all similar in the way that we are all human and we all have a heart that has the capacity to give and to love. The problem is in the way we use our hearts, and how easily we let society and our environment control how we act. We have been clouded in our views and deviated from our purest nature, which is to show love to one another. We live a more mundane life now than ever before. And as sad as it is to say, most people in today’s society are unaware of anything beyond the mundane life that they are chasing. We are all about the external materialisms and gains putting an image of success as power, money and status. We can see this is all aspects of life, whether it be work, school and even at home. We care more about being right instead of showing that we care, and showing love.
We have turned against our own morals and ethics only to get what we want. We have been increasingly blinded by our mundane pursuits that we no longer see the bigger purpose in life. And we’re willing to step over anyone in any way to get it. This is our current circumstance, but it doesn't need to be how it stays forever. The question we need to ask ourselves is, are we influenced by society or are we influencing society? This question is not about gaining a lot of influence and power, it just helps us understand how much we value ourselves and our own values and how easily we are attracted to external values. If we don’t understand and solidify our own values, then we can be very easily swayed by the external.
The most important thing we can do is to be in touch with ourselves and to align ourselves with our pure hearts. To be aware and detach from worldly matters is key (read Detached and Unaffected Mind blog here). There are three levels of our awareness that can be clouded if we are not careful:
- External Materialism - These are our wants and desires that we are chasing in the material world. If we are not careful, it is easy for our intentions to be clouded as all we see is the material gains we want. This is the beginning of greed and selfishness, we only see what we want.
- Internal Emotions - Are we letting our emotions control how we act? Are we being consumed by our emotions? If we pay attention, we can see that causal conditions have a lot of control and influence over our emotional state. We are easily triggered by external situations, and if that keeps happening, we are surrendering our inner power and peace to the external world. The key is to be aware of our emotions and not to hold on to them. If we hold on to our emotions too much we will be easily swayed and controlled by them. If we have no emotion, we will lack empathy and kindness. It's all about balance, both ends of the pendulum is never good. When we feel an emotion, understand why it has risen, feel and accept it, then we can move past it. It may take time, tears and pain, but this process is vital to our healing and it is inevitably part of life. I hope we can all find the courage to bear this process. Problems start to arise when we hold on instead of move on.
- Internal Thoughts - Our thoughts control how we act and what we feel. One thought can cause the rise or fall of a nation. We cannot be lazy with our thoughts. When situations rise, what are the first thoughts that come into our minds? Are they thoughts of love or hate? Our first thoughts are great insights about our views and tendencies towards ourselves and the external world. As our society leans towards more selfish tendencies, we can see, as individuals, we have done the same. When situations arise that are not in our favor, our first thoughts that arise are thoughts of negativity. The other person is automatically in the wrong as they have wronged us, they have inconvenienced us. We lacked the heart to try to understand their situation, as we do not know anything that led to that situation. We always choose to assume and judge the other.
So we need to have the ability to sit back and observe the things that are going on inside and outside us because many events will happen with or without our consent. The act of maintaining awareness of ourselves is essentially the difference between acting with love or acting with selfishness. Once we start to have this awareness, we can really start to change society through the way we act. And the way to do that is to act with love.
Everything we do, every interaction we encounter should be faced with love. But we don’t see that in society these days, there was a time where co-operations had ethics, the economy had ethics and money wasn’t the bottom line, love was the bottom line. We know these principles already, the principles in themselves are simple, it's life that makes it complicated. What used to be human nature now takes tremendous courage to show, are we willing to be the change it takes to bring back what used to be normal?
People can feel and see love if it is shown. It just needs to be shown willingly and sincerely. And when it is shown, other people are affected also. But we spend a lot of our time judging people and situations and holding on to these judgements when we may not even know the full story. Capacity for knowledge is massive but our actual knowledge is very small, so everything we are judging is taking place on a pinhead. How is that fair on the person we’re judging?
There is good and love in everyone, it is just clouded by everything going on externally that pushes the love back down. We need to be the ones that start showing it more, and we will be the minority, but big things come from minorities. Civil Rights Movement, women’s right to vote, these huge events we now know as normal are only normal because of a minority group. They just executed it with commitment and determination. We need to be this minority group to make love a normal thing. We need to reveal other people's love. Love can only reveal itself if it is shown the way. Love is an attraction more than it is a promotion. So we need to show it.
The most important thing for us to do right now is to be more aware of our reactions and to start to bring out more positivity and love during our interactions. There is no quick way for us to remove these traits that have been embedded in us and subconsciously accepted for so long already. It is going to take some time to fundamentally form a new mindset and draw in our true abundance, which is love. But the thing we can do now is to slowly start to take these small steps into our new self. Impact doesn't need to be huge, it is the small things that matter the most, the small daily interactions we have with family, friends and strangers. Do not compare yourself and what you're able to give with others, everyone's capacity to give is different, that is no issue. Any contribution, even the smallest thing, is of significance as long as the intent is there.
Everyone has a heart that can willingly show sincere love, it is our choice whether or not we want to show it.