If we don’t even try to enjoy the moment and spend all our lives striving for perfection, either in this life or in preparation for the next, we deprive ourselves of individual happiness and contentment. Happiness and contentment are the most important treasures of one’s mortal life, and they are the true measures of a life well-lived. Sacrificing the opportunity to live authentically just to gain acceptance from others or to gamble everything for the afterlife may benefit certain groups but is detrimental to the individual. This is not a good strategy for a mortal being.
When you know you are running out of time, you truly understand the importance of happiness and contentment. Seeking permanent things like security, control, housing, finance, health, and relationships can work against you, especially in the latter half of life, because you put so much emphasis on accumulating and loving them, yet you have to leave it all behind. There is no security and control for a mortal being—none whatsoever. If you want to save a spot in heaven or in the afterlife, do so, but if you learn to reciprocate during your living years, you may achieve heaven in both. The supply of oxygen can put everything into perspective regarding the security of this life.
Understanding the value of yourself is not easy when you are always trying to fit in by impressing others or have a strong desire to be admired, especially as a mortal. All these desires are related to a powerful sense of belonging, a phenomenon that has driven us all crazy, regardless of our understanding of life or level of education. It has nothing to do with being selfish or selfless but everything to do with whether you are the CEO of your own life or not. You must have a personal sense of justice, not only for others but for yourself as well.
The realities of life are bittersweet with mortality, but understanding them can help one put some life into their living years while also being comfortable with the life after death. If you live only for yourself, it is seen as selfish, and if you live for others, it is encouraged by controlling authorities because they benefit from your unselfishness. If you are the one who loses out at the end of the day, it is not balanced by you. Since you are the one with free will, the responsibility lands on your shoulders to create balance in your life.
A selfish action is considered by some as animal instinct in motion, while selflessness is seen by some as a great human action. If we all try not to be seen as animals, we put efforts into fitting in, impressing others, or being admired regardless of our understanding of mortality. Remember, it is about balance, not extremes, and you are the one who chooses because you are mortal. Keep that in mind so you don’t do injustice to others, including yourself. Tribal partisanship before truth and personal justice is a clear sign of being out of control and too attached to a group or society. A level of instinct-driven actions dictates the level and strength of animal behavior. Balancing between the two sides is not an easy task unless you start to assert your personal powers related to free will and become the Chief Operating Officer of your life.
If you spend your whole life seeking your belonging group’s approval and see this approval as the price of personal happiness, you may end up with disappointments and regrets. These become the worst things to have, especially in your later years, if others didn’t even acknowledge your efforts.
Families, society, the world, religion, and groups will continue to exist, but you have to move on to some unknown dimension. Whatever you have been taught about the other side can be important, but I like to emphasize your living years, where you matter and are responsible for your personal experiences of physical life. You feel weather, emotional pain, loss of love, and the physical pleasure of eating and living in general. If you don’t know what makes a mortal life worth living, then you have been brainwashed by some installed knowledge.
The first planted seed of your personal inferiority complex is that you are taught not to think about yourself. You have been stuck in the philosophy of the mass over the individual, which is unjust and against equal human rights.
Your life has meaning, but it has been undermined by the politics of belonging to your groups. If God has created you with free will, you are blessed with the status of a CEO of your life, so you should fight for your rights as well as serve. Not only should you be able to take the belonging society to a court of justice, but you should also know that mortality puts a lot of personal responsibilities on your shoulders.
Hiding behind the mass is a sign of personal weakness, a lack of self-respect, and a lack of personal belief in God. If you really want to know your identity, just dig into the YOU part of you. All your inferiority complexes will disappear if you do this. You must strive to know the meaning and purposes of your life. When you discover this, you will realize that the installed knowledge by your parents and society is all about their politics and their sense of belonging, conforming you according to traditions and customs to keep you a part of a belonging group. The old way of thinking is that the group is stronger with numbers, but it should be about individual strength as well as the strength of humanity as a whole.
Belonging to groups may be fine, but when you cross the line to hurt other individuals or groups and commit spiritual crimes in the name of your belonging group, it works against spirituality and God, even if it is in the name of your religion. What does it do to your personal psychological state of mind? If you can’t think for yourself, it’s not just because of a lack of knowledge but because of the out-of-control politics of belonging.
A human individual’s insecurities and the politics of belonging to groups play a big role in our belief systems. We even use God’s name recklessly for political reasons. God’s spiritual credibility has been damaged by the actions of political extremists. Personally, I believe in healthy competition for the purpose of evolution, but killing each other for having a different opinion is just absurd.
This has been and continues to be the ugly truth about racism, nationalism, and organized religions. How many wars have been fought over prejudice, discrimination, knowledge of God, and group politics? How many innocents have perished in the past and are still being killed by individuals over the politics of belonging to groups? From the beginning of time, all groups, nations, and religions have gone on crusades in the name of their religious groups. It continues in today’s wars as well; no one can put a number on the innocent blood that has been shed. Interestingly, we still claim our belonging group’s belief systems are right and everyone else is wrong, especially when it comes to nationalism and religion.
My question is, when is it ever a spiritual act to kill in the name of God? Always remember, if you believe that it is a spiritual act to kill others, it has nothing to do with spirituality, God, or humanity as a whole; your belief system is warped by the politics of belonging. This decision to kill has everything to do with the politics of belonging to groups.
Who is going to change all that? It surely won’t be our groups, nations, or religions because they would be the losers of that change. They would fight the individual’s strength or knowledge of equal human rights related to humanity as a whole. YOU personally and individually will have to take responsibility to step in for the changes from the bottom up to evolve to the next and new paradigm of civilization.
Theological rules have nothing to do with God’s heaven or hell but everything to do with control-based politics of belonging to groups. Human politics changes with time, but spiritually related actions stay consistent.
The intensity of a human individual’s involvement in group politics is based on the individual’s personal weaknesses and insecurities. Most of us believe that belonging to a group is safer than belonging to humanity as a whole, which is absolutely wrong. Regardless of the knowledge, belonging groups use political tactics, including the threat of shaming, treason, shunning, and even killing their own to control the people following their groups. The group uses this control to instill fear in their followers, who understand that if they do not conform to their rules, they will be killed. The groups preach distrust against each other, yet Western civilization is based on a melting pot philosophy; there is nothing purely black or white if you look at the gene pool of the population.
Pure black and white have long gone. Not only are the brown, yellow, and red tints common, but the mixing of races, religions, genders, and everything in between is also clearly showing signs of evolution towards the basics of humanity.
Regardless of all the propaganda of nationalism, religious extremism, and racism, people are realizing or understanding their identity as human beings, not just as Muslims, Christians, Canadians, Pakistanis, Whites, or Blacks.
Proof is in the pudding, as most of us seek and are in favor of equal human rights for all. Today, finally, humanity has come up with the proposition that equal human rights should be the law of the land. Educated individuals with a sense of justice and spirituality are flocking to civilized societies where they can find equal human rights, related security, respect, and dignity.
An individual’s personal sense of justice and spirituality takes a back seat when it comes to group politics and political wars. Even educated people want to support their belonging groups because of the sense of belonging. If we can outgrow these political affiliations, we will see that spirituality is directly related to equal human rights, God, and humanity as a whole.
I don’t doubt that theology is taking a back seat in today’s world, but humanity is still having a tough time evolving beyond the politics of belonging to groups. Whether evolution-related education will bring long-sought peace is another question. So far, things don’t look good. Even America, the beacon of democracy, is divided to the point that equal human rights are in question. With this kind of passionate division all over the world, things are dangerous, especially with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. A passionate sense of belonging to our groups and lack of trust are still huge threats to humanity.
Today, times have changed; spears and swords are not the weapons of choice, so it is not between warriors anymore. Dropping bombs from drones and using chemical weapons on innocent human beings to bring resisting groups to their knees is common practice.
It is bringing the opposite results because of the powerful politics of belonging. As humans, we are not only beings; we are creatures as well, so emotional attachments and the sense of love lost can blow up all intellectual assessments in the faces of political controllers. Long-term peace is only possible when we stop robbing each other of love.
People have always questioned authority, but these days there is a personal sense of justice related to equal human rights, compelling individuals and societies to acknowledge the injustice done even to enemies in the name of God. The Pope has softened his tone about equal human rights as well.
Prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry preached by human groups are deeply connected to a human condition called “inferiority complex.” If you believe in God and yourself, you wholeheartedly accept others as equal to you. You don’t have to put effort into proving that you are better or worse than others. If you feel the need to prove that you are better than others, first individually dig into yourself for the reasons, and then literally dig into the whole thing to see if this is coming from the education installed into you by your groups.
If you keep digging, you will eventually find that this inferiority complex is deeply ingrained in both the individual and the groups. Remember, I said it is a human condition and not a matter of pride. Personally, if you join the politics related to inferiority complex, you may become the cause and victim of other human conditions like prejudice and discrimination. If you don’t care, you may end up fighting political wars disguised as religious wars. A true believer in God can’t and should not discriminate or become prejudiced. If you keep that in front as a gauge and avoid these at all costs, you may achieve your spiritual identity as a human being who is the CEO of his or her own physical life project as well as their life after death.
Religion or no religion, race, mixed nation, or dual citizenship—all is needed to cross into this new paradigm. Your individual strength and personal sense of justice are needed to adopt equal human rights for all.
Always remember that logic says the need for superiority stems from present inferiority. So if you want to look at it from your group’s point of view and still want to believe that you are somehow superior just because you belong to a group of people, you are trying to hide your personal inferiority complex. Logically, you can’t make a pig beautiful by putting lipstick on it. This is the ugly truth of the politics of belonging to a group. No matter how you cut it, it will end up with discrimination and prejudice.
The ugliness of politics and our individual need to be part of the dominant, winning group, even if it is a sports team, and the politics of belonging have taken a toll on the innocent since the beginning of civilization. Yet some of us don’t want humanity to evolve to the next level. Why, and where is this coming from? Whether you believe in nationalism, race, gender, or religion, it is all related to the group politics you choose to follow. Even today, several segments of the world population consist of groups that choose to have nothing to do with equal human rights. Clearly, if there are violations of equal human rights, God and spirituality do not exist for these groups.
Today’s unacceptable truth is that we are still bogged down with wars of discrimination and prejudice. The uglier truth is that we invoke God and use God for our political purposes. We need to learn to own our actions individually and be spiritually ready to cross over to the new paradigm so we can rid ourselves of our inferiority complex and related behaviors, not only as individuals but as groups as well.