Mahatma Gandhi once said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
What does that mean in the practical aspects of daily living?
First we must ask, "What does it mean to live daily?"
Because we are all involved in a body self idea that seems to demand our attention for nourishment, ingratiation and a fearful startle response to avoid pain, we are busy daily, devoting our energy to survive. The five senses of pleasure and pain are not bad or wrong, we just can’t know God through them.
Learned behaviors are adaptations within the boundaries of our genetic blueprint.
Spirituality is an experience of being that transcends the boundaries of our genetic blueprint.
There is a vigilance of focus that becomes necessary to rise above our genetic code. The sixth sense (if you want to call it that) is our vehicle to remember our connection to a power greater than ourselves that we also participate in. This ability to transcend our genetic code through mindfulness, meditation, humor, a willingness to have an open mind, etc., provides us opportunity to respond to our everyday activities differently than how we might normally respond through conditioned, learned behavior.
For example, you are at the market place and someone cuts in line. "How dare someone be so rude!" Or you are on the road and someone cuts in front of you. "How dare someone be so stupid!" Or you are purchasing something and the clerk is inefficient as to what customer service means. "How dare someone be so incompetent!"
If we assume that our minds are the most powerful things in the universe, and that all of our problems have their source with the mismanagement of our minds, then we can assume that the most important thing for us to do would be to figure out how to manage our minds.
Interrupting the mental static we introduce to our minds would be the place to start. How do we do that?
• Introducing a thought of pure intention through a book of inspiration would work.
• Read it in the morning.
• Take a short simple thought that appeals to you out of the reading.
• Write it down.
• Take it with you everywhere you go.
• Repeat it as often as you can remember.
• You could even set your watch on the hour as a reminder to remember to take just an instant to remember.
The more often you do this, the more you will become the thought you practice.
Now you are at the marketplace and someone cuts in line. Or you are on the road and someone cuts in front of you. Or you are purchasing something and the clerk is inefficient as to what customer service means. You can’t take the time to be bothered with your typical responses, because you are busy practicing having peace with your mind. Is there anything that matters more!? And all of a sudden it dawns on you that, you have become, in just a small everyday way, the change you wish to see in the world. For as you respond with love to the lack you once perceived in the world, you become a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem you have been denying in your mind.
This is how Jesus the Christ turned the water into wine. This is how St. Joan of Arc led the French to victory. This is how the great Mahatmas lived the Sermon on the Mount. This is how Mother Teresa met the needs of her surroundings by multiplying the loaves and fishes.
Just like those who have gone before us,
You too can transcend the dust of time
To live a vision through the events of your everyday
As you transcend the meanings of the everyday
To live above the dust of time, just for an instant, is to see all events as either a call for help or an opportunity to extend love. To respond out of love to what once would have been an interpretation of irritation or attack and fear is to live among the great ones…and to do it through your everyday life experiences.
He who believes in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because i go to the father.- ohn 14:12
See that mountain standing tall
Before it I stand very small
With a change of mind
And a collapse of time
The mountain moved
