Month: September 2016

Inner peace during our lifetime is one of the most important treasures for any human being. Life can become a living hell if we persist in living without happiness and contentment. It’s a heavy price to pay for materialism, control, and security. Mortality is an unchangeable fact, and depending on one’s education and life purpose, the knowledge of mortality can be crucial.

We are a combination of both animal and human sides. No one can choose one side exclusively; attempting to do so leads to an unbalanced life. A successful human life is found in moderation, not in extremes. With free will, an individual must find a balance, dividing their time and efforts to keep both sides happy and content.

Living in total deprivation might make one a selfless and admired individual, but self-care is equally important. Living with inner conflict is like choosing to be a head of a department rather than a CEO. Inner conflicts cannot be overpowered by strict regimes. We must ask ourselves: Is living a mortal life, unhappy and torn apart from within, worth the struggle?

If practice made us perfect, our societies would be crime-free, priests would not be convicted of sexual crimes, and war crimes would be a thing of the past. Instead, we continue to be plagued by crimes that even other creatures would be ashamed of.

The root cause of our failure as social beings is our constant pursuit of extreme control, driven by the awareness of mortality. This awareness should help us understand ourselves and our mortality, allowing us to balance all aspects of our lives. Instead, it tears us apart individually and is a significant cause of political wars.

Using free will wisely makes you a CEO of your life. As a human, you shouldn’t pretend or try to be something else. No other creature tries to change its identity. Animals might change color for protection or hunting, but they accept themselves as they are.

Humans are often unhappy being human. We constantly try to change ourselves according to trends. Dark-skinned individuals want to lighten their skin, light-skinned individuals want to tan, short people want to be taller, thin people want to gain weight, and heavy people want to lose weight.

Humans are neither animals nor angels, so what are we?

If you start to see your life as a gift or blessing, wisdom will begin to reveal itself. Free will gives you a choice, and if you choose to please others at the expense of your own happiness, you must ask yourself what this is doing to you internally. If you are not torn apart inside, it’s great—you can live your life serving others. But as you do so, personal expectations develop. If they are not met, you will face resentment, and the animal inside of you will rip you apart. Balance is crucial, as rejecting personal responsibility and ignoring your animal side leads to inner turmoil.

Our teachings often emphasize extremes, leaving no room for questioning due to the strong sense of belonging and conditioning within our groups. This fear of being shunned while having suppressed desires to question leads to inner conflict. Nobody else sees or connects this to social ills, so the individual suffers alone.

Nature created us as human beings, and to experience physical life, part of us functions like animals. This is legitimate, regardless of ancestral beliefs or current thoughts. No one has been able to change this fact of life. There is no reason to feel inferior for having animalistic desires; this is part of our makeup. Free will exists to balance our everyday lives, despite inner turmoil. Inner conflict arises not from nature’s wisdom but from societal knowledge and education about control and conformity.

If you feel like eating something unhealthy but refrain to avoid obesity or societal judgment, you are controlling yourself, becoming more human and less animal. One might think that such practices should lead to better physical shape and evolved humanity. Yet, we see more obesity, depression, anxiety, and unhappiness today despite our knowledge. More people are torn apart, willing to harm themselves because they dislike being out of control and judged by society.

Inner peace is elusive even among the best of us. How can we achieve it? The answer lies in self-reflection. Stand in front of a mirror and look into your eyes, asking yourself if you are happy or sad and why. Often, individuals with limited knowledge have low self-esteem, desire to fit in, and seek admiration from others. If you feel this way, recognize your body as your vehicle and yourself as the driver. The body’s functioning is a miracle, and we should be thankful to be alive.

Ask yourself if your free will, animal, and human sides are in balance. If not, find the cause. The cause lies in how you use your free will and become the CEO of your life, questioning everything, including what your belonging groups have taught you.

We follow what is preached to us, mistakenly believing that God wants us to kill the animal inside to become angels. This is not true. We are created as human beings with conflicting senses and free will. This perfect wisdom allows us to evolve and reach our potential. We learn new things every day, proving that we are not a finished product and that our knowledge is not complete.

I believe God created us with more potential than we realize. There is a divine spark in each of us, spiritually connected yet physically separate. Believing that our knowledge is complete is egotistic and ignorant, rooted in politically charged senses of belonging.

Inner peace and harmony reveal our decent side. By using free will to balance our senses and desires, we manifest divinity. Otherwise, we manifest our insecurities, leading to control and spiritual crimes against our own kind.

Instead of creating balance, we often go to extremes, thinking it feels right. This suppression of the animal side leads to uncontrollable outbursts. Achieving inner peace is not about extremes; otherwise, Buddha would have found it through hunger alone.

In a movie about Buddha, I remember a scene where he meditates by a river. Two men row by in a boat, one playing a string instrument. The musician stops and tells the rower that if the string is too tight, it will snap; if too loose, it won’t play music. Upon hearing this, Buddha stops meditating to eat. This illustrates that inner peace is found in balance.

Inner peace is divine wisdom, and it is our responsibility to find it for ourselves. It is the key to justice for both our animal and human sides, helping us accept our humanity. While few achieve divine powers through extreme hardship and sacrifice, most fail and become torn.

Ordinary individuals who attempt extremes end up in turmoil, losing inner peace. Strict rules create chaos. Extremely religious individuals without inner peace can become hypocritical, acting out animalistically. Human societies have always had crime, and a percentage of people will always be seen as criminals. However, it’s not black and white. Avoiding extremes is crucial.

Conservatives and liberals constantly debate, but when taken to extremes, it indicates an inner crisis. All religions preach tolerance, yet we often get caught up in competition, neglecting inner peace. Peaceful individuals radiate peace, benefiting society in the long run. Social politics must allow individual strength. A group’s strength depends on the strength of its individuals.

Strings of Power

When we use free will, we are given numerous strings to pull, each affecting some part of our life. We often misunderstand this power, thinking we are the only ones pulling the strings. We forget who gave us the strings and the ability to use them. Our power depends on the oxygen we breathe, and every breath relies on countless factors. Recognizing this vulnerability makes us humble, while the pride of pulling the strings can lead to greed for power.

Everything we do depends on multiple factors. We must look beyond our immediate power and understand the source of our abilities. Spirituality teaches humility and belief in something greater. This is why spirituality is consistent across human societies, despite the ego-driven politics of sense of belonging.

Religions should abandon politics and focus on spirituality. Belief in God should transcend worldly setbacks, acknowledging that human understanding is limited. We must dig into the past for the benefit of the present and future, not to create more problems and unhappiness.

Our societies have changed rapidly, from gay marriages to physician-assisted suicide to equal human rights. The past should inform the present and future, not dominate them. Living in the past or future can make today a dead experience, adding up to a dead life. The present is the most controllable time.

Responsibility of the Individual and Society

A starving person stealing bread is at fault, but so is the community that failed to provide. Survival trumps all laws, orders, and beliefs. Ethics and morals are luxuries of the well-fed. When preaching control, remember that the speaker’s stomach is full. A hungry person discards all knowledge—social, religious, or spiritual—in favor of survival. We must evolve individually and as societies to fulfill our responsibilities.

If you or a loved one needs medical help, the community should support you. If not, you should take necessary steps. Community and individual are interdependent, each responsible for the other. If community rules devalue individuals, imbalance arises, ultimately harming the community.

Law and order, social systems, religion, and spirituality are joint responsibilities. Spiritual values, often mislabeled as socialist, should guide religious individuals, yet many vote against these values. True spirituality supports universal healthcare and poverty relief, not political agendas.

Religious people should logically follow spiritual values, yet many align with conservative politics, which contradicts these values. It’s time to think spiritually, not politically. Spirituality transcends religious politics, focusing on belief in God and humility in the face of human limitations.

Digging into the past should benefit the present and future, not create conflicts. Our ancestors did their best with their knowledge. Using the past to destroy the present or future is unwise. Human societies are constantly evolving, and today’s knowledge will be outdated in the future.

Live in the present, use past knowledge wisely, and aim for a better future. Human advancement depends on learning from history, not reliving it. Balance is crucial, avoiding extremes and focusing on inner peace and spirituality for a harmonious life.

 

After all, we are mortal, so we die regardless of our rights and wrongs. Criticizing someone’s life relates to our prejudiced side, making us think we are better than others and therefore right. Why and where does this kind of thinking come from? Our parents instilled the knowledge they learned from their parents and so on, so certain societies promote and preach that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Thus, we are taught prejudice from the very beginning.

Now, honestly look around the world and find me even one society that is free of prejudice. From the smallest to the largest, from the least populated to the most, they all preach two things to their young ones: nationalism and religion. Both openly fan the flames of prejudice, even in communist and socialist countries. If each and every one of us grows up with prejudice as our first education, how can humanity exist without conflict? To me, it falls on the shoulders of the individual. As a group, we are all victims of an out-of-control sense of belonging. Therefore, if countries or religions talk peace, we will never achieve it because of our sense of belonging.

The problems faced by individuals as they grow up are related to being torn apart by conflicting knowledge, learned prejudice, and the desire to grant equal human rights to all due to inner spirituality.

If one is right, that means others are wrong. This argument has persisted since the beginning of human individual awareness. Yet, we all have been and are mortal. Even our societies are to some degree mortal. Some may last longer than others, but even empires collapse.

With our evolving knowledge, our rights and wrongs trade places over time. Just look at the social advancements of humanity. We don’t burn witches, don’t kill homosexuals, don’t buy and sell human beings, and racism is a crime in advanced societies. Yet, we still have a long way to go to deal with prejudice.

Why so much passion in our wars related to nationalism and religion? At the heart of our conflicts is our prejudice-related sense of belonging. If one can overcome this, they can choose humanity over nationalism and spirituality over religion. But how far are we from this as individuals? If you personally ask yourself this question, you will often end up choosing your belonging group because you don’t want to be on the wrong side of your group.

This is the decision-making time for us all to start overriding politics and learn to lean towards humanity and spirituality instead of religion and nationalism. Historically, they have brought out the worst in humanity and failed to help us evolve spiritually.

Today, whether it’s Snowden, a football player, or other athletes who show signs of defiance against societal norms, they receive both hate and love from their belonging society. This is because a segment of the population thinks beyond the boundaries of their sense of belonging. Normally, we follow the politics of our groups, but these days people are standing up for what is right. They are not afraid to state their opinions. Things have been changing rapidly, but this is not new. States, races, and religions have been at odds for a long time for political power. These days, awareness of spirituality and equal rights has been emerging as a power with the potential to override all other powerful entities because it is evolving from within the individual.

As I said, it has the potential. But how far are we from this awakening? That is anyone’s guess, because the politics of belonging usually ensnares us all. As individuals, we are taught to compromise our personal principles when it comes to our religions and nationalism.

As the number of politically educated and spiritually evolved CEOs grows, our politics will change for the better.

These days, the general population can call a religious radical a radical even if they belong to our own religion. Would we be able to overpower religious extremism? This question is harder to answer because I believe religion and music touch individuals in a similar way where one can dance, so if one gets carried away with the rhythm and can’t think rationally, the only way to change individual behavior is to understand the power behind it, and that power is spirituality.

Spirituality crosses the lines of all human education learned from belonging political groups, so it is highly individual. Therefore, the individual must be educated in that zone. You can earn all the degrees and become a master of human knowledge, but when it comes to sense-of-belonging-tainted religious politics, there is very little hope for one to stand for equal rights for all.

Social injustice is at the heart of all conflicts and social ills like prejudice, racism, and inequality. When it comes to equal human rights, they should be for all human beings, not just for some exclusive group. If you believe and choose that your religion or nationalism is right, never forget about spirituality, humanity, and equal human rights, because you don’t want to do to others what you don’t like done to you.

This is a simple principle yet the hardest to find in politically tainted religious groups. Remember, humanity and spirituality are where God resides, so the real belonging is to belong to humanity, which is above and beyond groups. Spirituality means everything to do with humanity, which should be the essence of all religions. But these days, with all our wars, the essence appears to be the group politics that breed and preach prejudice.

Hypothetically speaking, as babies, we start with less than one horsepower. As we grow, we gain the strength of ten or more in the prime of our lives. As we age, we start to lose strength, one horsepower at a time, coming full circle to less than even one horsepower. To play the game of life successfully, one must understand their personal horsepower. If you have ten horses, you can do anything at peak performance, but as you lose horses, if you don’t adjust accordingly, aging can be tough to deal with.

The simple truth is that you can’t play at a ten-horse level with fewer horses. If you have five, you must adapt to that level or pay the price, as a mortal life should be driven by the wisdom of balance. Being humble at the peak of life and appreciative of your abilities in low times is not easy, but the wisdom of balance is available to everyone, allowing for happiness even during times of loss. This is a choice we all must make.

From an individual to a collective level, we need to look at life as mortals because that is what we all are, and no one can or should deny that. The stories of religions, past heroes, and opposing entities say so. From Moses, Jesus, and Prophet Muhammad to Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Hitler, and even the Roman Empire and the British Empire, they all had their time. The rise and fall of good and bad entities, becoming part of history, is a clear example of mortality.

History shows that we forget even the best humanity has to offer. So why do we do so much for our belonging groups? The reason behind all individual actions is the out-of-control and imbalanced sense of belonging, which denies the individual’s personal identity. This phenomenon needs more understanding. We need to look at individual life as a personal project connected to a larger picture while remaining humble so our actions don’t harm others in our lifetime or after we pass, for the sake of future generations. Even today, we kill each other over differences sown thousands of years ago.

As individuals, we are transitory entities with far-reaching impacts on others, yet we lose importance as time goes on. History shows the impacts, yet people are too busy with their survival to notice, because of the hard life.

We can’t have total control and security because of our mortality. Whether God is in the front or back seat of your life’s car, God is needed. We need help regardless of the number of horses we have, especially when we have less horsepower, like a baby needing its mother or a dying elder needing family, friends, or compassionate strangers with higher horsepower.

We naturally help each other because someone instilled that ability in all of us. This decency is a spiritual asset, potentially in all of us, regardless of our belief system. Whether you believe in God or not, you must realize that knowledge is incomplete. Sooner or later, you will find yourself needing more knowledge. If you have room to learn more, you can’t be overly passionate or sure about your existing knowledge, even if it comes from holy books. It’s important to evolve according to the present demands of time; otherwise, it’s ignorance. Ignorance is ego-related, and ego is one of the children of an uncontrollable sense of belonging, which has nothing to do with spirituality, God, or humanity—it is strictly related to group politics.

You can respect your ancestral knowledge, but you are the CEO of your personal life with free will, which places significant responsibilities on your shoulders. Watch out, because you have the potential to commit spiritual crimes against humanity in the name of your race, gender, nation, religion, or even your perception of God. If you want proof, just look around in history and even today while history is being made.

You don’t want to be on the wrong side of spirituality and humanity. Always choose compassion over passion, and spirituality and humanity over racism, nationalism, and religious extremism.

If you don’t believe in God and harbor anger against God or people, come out and say so. But denying something you don’t know or understand is egotistic. You may have more horsepower now, but you will lose it as you age, just like everyone else, and eventually, you will need help—unless you end your life, which would be unwise because it shows a lack of hope. Hope and God go hand in hand; if you have hope, you know God, whether you like it or not.

If you look at human conditions worldwide and even around you, wherever you are, you will see people at different levels of health, finance, and happiness. Interestingly, you don’t have to be rich to be happy, or in better health to be richer and more content than others. There is always someone worse off or better off than you out there. Why would God put people in misery?

The answer is difficult, but it’s all in the attitude and perception of the individual. Understanding human attitude in difficult times has been, is, and will be a quest for psychologists and religious scholars. But one thing is clear: we are all different. If you find yourself unhappy, just look at the blessings you have and ask yourself why, again and again, until you reach a conclusion.

If you feel that your life needs to be perfect and you lose happiness and contentment over it, you have placed yourself in a never-ending, unwinnable situation. You should look at it not as a disease but as a condition that has the potential to rob your own happiness and contentment out of your temporary life. Not a good place to be as a mortal. If you see yourself in this shattered glass mirror with a hard-to-understand picture created for you, and especially if you spend your whole life in this mode, you need to understand the meaning of mortality and your belief system about God. In this condition, you not only set yourself up but also set up God for failure. When that happens, you look at God without personal responsibility for reciprocation. You may expect God to do everything for you but won’t even reciprocate for the blessings of the oxygen you breathe to experience this mortal life.

If you can’t be happy during the tests of this life, how can or would you be happy in the afterlife? Unless you learn through life experiences and change, you can’t be happy, even in your perceived heaven.

It never is about what you have or don’t have; it’s always about your attitude towards what you have or don’t have. Human happiness is highly dependent on the individual’s attitude, knowledge of self, and the kind of happiness they seek. Understanding oneself helps to describe the causes or reasons for the right or wrong attitude, and that knowledge helps to discover the differences between core and surface happiness.

If you feel poor, you don’t have the power, whether it’s physical, material, or spiritual. Your happiness will become dependent on the stuff you are lacking. For instance, being physically poor will make you feel sad only when you compare yourself to others who can do and achieve more than you can. Sure, it can make one sad, but it also has the potential to inspire one to start working out, take physical activity classes, or start working on oneself to excel in whatever you can be good at. It’s a matter of attitude: you either start to improve yourself or feel sorry, blame God for your limitations, and get worse by staying in a sad situation. These limiting feelings can rob one’s happiness unless one takes responsibility to adjust their attitude and take charge to become a CEO.

The Ladder of Horizon

Picture yourself climbing a ladder with many people doing the same thing. Being competitive, we all want to be on top and ahead of everyone else. You struggle to climb one step at a time, hoping to get higher than everyone else. When you reach a point where you can’t climb any more regardless of your struggle and strategies, and nothing works, you feel frustrated, unhappy, and angry because you have lost control. If you continue to be unhappy and frustrated, you can drive yourself to illness related to unhappiness. It’s time to look down to see how high you have climbed. Sure, there are thousands of people above you, but there are millions or even billions who want to be at the level you already are, and yet you are still unhappy. The kicker is that you can spend your whole life trying to climb the ladder of horizon but run out of time. All along, while you are too busy climbing, your life is passing you by, and then you fall regardless of the height you have climbed because of mortality. You can enjoy the climb with enthusiasm and appreciation or spend your life in frustration while it passes—it’s all in the attitude. If you have knowledge of other people’s comfort, happiness, and financial success, only then do you start to feel good, bad, inadequate, sad, or weak.

The saying “we all are in the same boat” is not correct because each and every one of us is, and potentially can be, a CEO of his/her life. If everybody were in the same boat instead of on the ladder, things would be different. This ladder is a fact of life, and we need to understand it individually. There will always be levels of life you will have to climb, but remember one thing: you will personally run out of time. Watch out for trends, friends, and the sense of belonging, as they can help rob you of your own happiness and contentment right out of your mortal life. That, my friend, is your only valuable treasure—you can’t afford to sacrifice it.

Collectively, we have experimented with communism and failed miserably because it goes against the nature of a CEO. It is deeply related to the flawed and political sense of belonging, which is extreme without the balancing sense of freedom. I am a believer in personal freedom, but I also understand the needs and power of belonging. It’s not one or the other; it is the individual creating balance with the triangle from the top down: the individual, the sense of belonging, and the sense of freedom.

Since we all have been blessed with different abilities and potentials, it is human nature to either strive to reach personal potential or to be content with whatever we have. In either case, both religions and communism attempt to rob you of your personal potential so that power can remain in the hands of governing elites.

You can spend all your life energy losing weight, making money, or climbing higher to reach a certain bracket, while life passes you by. How many people are above or below you is not the main thing. You are the CEO of your life, responsible for all departments. Therefore, never compare yourself to just one side. Compare yourself to both sides for inspiration from those above you and for humility and appreciation of your blessings from those below you.

As I said, when we compare, we need to compare both sides so we can carry on and be happy at the same time. There is always someone worse off, and even the richest person can lose health and wealth at any moment. Champions lose to up-and-comers. There is no guarantee for the richest or the strongest to have it all. You can be rich without health, or you can be strong without wealth. The responsibility is on your shoulders to look after all departments of life.

Comparing both sides is crucial because people on a higher level should incentivize you to work hard and never give up, while those below you should give you satisfaction, appreciation, happiness, and contentment about your present status.

Material happiness is connected with a strong sense of belonging because we all want to fit in, be admired, or impress others to gain respect and feel good about ourselves. Putting others on a pedestal and yourself down as a doormat all the time is a sign of low self-esteem, personal weakness, and disrespect—these are flaws unless intentional for spiritual reasons. Why is others’ approval so important to you that you work so hard you acquire stress-related health problems and sacrifice core happiness for surface happiness?

Core happiness is a powerful phenomenon; it can even confuse highly educated individuals. Spiritual happiness is core happiness because serving others touches us all at our core, providing happiness and contentment.

Genetically, we are driven to work together. Our identity depends on others’ approval, yet God created each of us as a completely independent and competent CEO. The happiness department is not so confusing when you understand the responsibilities of a CEO.

Working for humanity can bring you core happiness, just like a mother looking after her baby willingly sacrifices her sleep and everything else to gain powerful feelings of nature. Ingrained powerful nature has every creature dancing for the feelings of core happiness. We are all compelled to do our job regardless of education level. Seeking happiness is wise, but it is wiser to understand it like a CEO who knows the difference between surface and core happiness.

Regardless of intelligence level, everybody is trying to achieve happiness because deep inside, we all know about mortality. Personally, I think accumulating happiness should be the top priority of a mortal life because no other treasure can match fulfillment. The confusion between types of happiness is not easy to sort out.

What is an illusion and what is real for the individual? Especially when the sense of belonging clashes with the sense of freedom, it can cause confusion about what is right and wrong even for the highly educated. That is why it’s crucial to become the CEO of your life, so you can sort everything out and do justice to all departments of life, including recognizing the power you hold as an individual. Know that you can balance people, yourself, and even God. Know that nothing works without others. God’s light cannot be lit without people, and without the individual, there are no people. (The triangle of human, God, and people.)

The power of nature is so strong that we follow it helplessly. Just like all other creatures, we follow these orders as well. For instance, reproduction continues despite all self-control, laws of the land like China’s, or the fear-based tactics of religions. Wedlock or not, kids keep coming.

Naturally, we have opposing senses. The sense of freedom is just as powerful as the sense of belonging. Wars have been, are, and will be fought for both senses.

The sense of belonging can overpower anything an individual thinks or feels. The recent dispute about standing, kneeling, or sitting during the national anthem is a classic case of being torn between belonging to a nation, race, religion, or humanity as an individual.

Your mirror has been presented to you as shattered by group politics, so you must become a CEO to see your real self. If you keep looking in the cracked mirror, you will never see how you really look. The sense of belonging is exclusively and above all for humanity as a whole, especially if you believe genetically you are a human being.

Remember, you are the one who has to see through the mirror, even if it’s cracked. You have to look into it with a personal belief system so you can take responsibility for reciprocation. If your image is distorted, you will hoard all human resources to one percent and live a politically divided life riddled with wars and social crimes against yourself. Helping others is not a democratic or political thing; it is a spiritual thing. Paying a little tax to help others, even in far lands regardless of differences, is a spiritual duty. You can’t have Islamic, Hindu, Jewish, or Christian charities; that is one hundred percent political. If you want to give to charity, it should be spirituality-related, and spirituality has no religion, race, gender, or nation. You just have to be able to see with corrected lenses, vision, or simply fix the cracks in the mirror so you can see the human being.

We have come up with self-denial and several religions for civilization. We have learned about boundaries, manners, etiquette, ethics, and social rules. All the knowledge to prevent pregnancies and the weapons for abortions, even the threat of AIDS and death, could not stop humans from following nature.

We create rules against anything just for people to break them. Since the dawn of civilization, we have been struggling for control as a society and as individuals. If we were to be successful, by now we should have been. Society should be crime-free, and individuals should be superhuman, with total control of their actions.

Population would be in control, and for sure, there would not be any wars. Just by looking at history, you can see that regardless of wars, the population has always been out of control. Like the spider, humans are reckless enough to keep reproducing. Whether it’s AIDS or God, the drive behind our nature is so powerful that you can’t stop it by fear of self-destruction or death.

The connection with nature is not as clear as we think it is. We need to learn more about ourselves to understand the power and wisdom of the animal inside every human.

If you have inner peace instead of struggle, you will be able to see how you act like a puppet. Whether it’s rules of society or competing nature, at the end of the day, you are the one responsible for your actions and inner peace.

Becoming a responsible CEO can and should help you understand the contradictions of the cracked mirror and find solutions for this temporary life and whatever is beyond. Sure, you can have a society with a lower crime rate by imposing strict punishments, but you always run the risk of human rebellion due to oppression. The truly disciplined human being is the CEO who creates balance between the inner man and the beast to achieve inner peace. With inner peace, one can understand and respect nature yet have a say in everyday life to achieve happiness, health, and success as a mortal being.