Saturday, September 27, 2003
Inspiration is Free
When I first ran out of savings, I was afraid that it would threaten my commitment to revolution. I was afraid that I would become completely absorbed in struggling for survival and wouldn't have the time or energy to continue with my work of personal and planetary transformation.
Guess what? For a while, it happened!
Up until recently, I'd been living a very comfortable lifestyle. I ate the finest live foods that mail order had to offer; I didn't work a paying job for a living; and I took off a week at a time to study healing in luxurious Miami Beach. It was easy to give time and money to others because I had so much of both. It was easy to feel inspired and hopeful because life was being handed to me on a silver platter.
Then, I went broke.
This was devastating. No book deal in sight, working a low income job, not being able to throw around money like it was free anymore. This evoked panic, frustration, anger, and sorrow as I realized that like most people in the world today, I had to go out and earn enough money to survive.
At first, I was consumed by the struggle for survival. Would I have enough food? Would it still be organic food? Would I have to choose between eating and paying bills? Under these conditions, I began losing sight of any deeper spiritual concerns or revolutionary aspirations.
The longer this went on though, the more it inspired me. This isn't a theory; this isn't philanthropy on my part anymore. I can feel in my own life, my own heart, the injustice of domination and violence gone mad. I can feel the patterns of human consciousness, inside and out, that are creating these circumstances. I can envision another world - and the deeper that I sink into the world of today, the more I am empowered to work in the service of the world of tomorrow that so many of us carry in our hearts.
As long as I had material comfort, I was lost in the universalism and globalism of it all. This sense of security in the world was a crucial healing period for me that was a turning point in my revolutionary journey. It allowed me to firm up my choice of life rather than death and deepen my joy in living in this wonderful world of ours. But it was not at all a period of outward action.
Now, outward circumstances are serving as a catalyst for my inner transformation. I've reached another turning point. It's time for action! It's time to find a means of supporting myself financially that serves my long-term revolutionary vision. It's time to get more involved in my community, working together with others to make our dreams for a different life a reality. If we're going to pull it off, we're going to have to work out all of those pesky details of how to support ourselves together.
It's a spiritual challenge, the outcome of which may determine the course of the rest of my life. They've given us a system that is designed to exploit us, to profit by draining the very life from us, and to turn us against one another and the Earth that we call home. My challenge - our challenge - is to make our dream of a better world a reality, learning how to cooperate and flourish in a system that is hell-bent on enslaving us all and destroying our living home.
I'm feeling pretty confident in facing this challenge today. It's the challenge of a lifetime, and I'm feeling it much more personally as time goes on. But it's helping me to recognize the wealth of support I have in my friends and community. It's awakening the fire inside of me, giving me the passion and inspiration that I'll need to work with others to create a cornucopia in a land of bleach-filled dumpsters.
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Guess what? For a while, it happened!
Up until recently, I'd been living a very comfortable lifestyle. I ate the finest live foods that mail order had to offer; I didn't work a paying job for a living; and I took off a week at a time to study healing in luxurious Miami Beach. It was easy to give time and money to others because I had so much of both. It was easy to feel inspired and hopeful because life was being handed to me on a silver platter.
Then, I went broke.
This was devastating. No book deal in sight, working a low income job, not being able to throw around money like it was free anymore. This evoked panic, frustration, anger, and sorrow as I realized that like most people in the world today, I had to go out and earn enough money to survive.
At first, I was consumed by the struggle for survival. Would I have enough food? Would it still be organic food? Would I have to choose between eating and paying bills? Under these conditions, I began losing sight of any deeper spiritual concerns or revolutionary aspirations.
The longer this went on though, the more it inspired me. This isn't a theory; this isn't philanthropy on my part anymore. I can feel in my own life, my own heart, the injustice of domination and violence gone mad. I can feel the patterns of human consciousness, inside and out, that are creating these circumstances. I can envision another world - and the deeper that I sink into the world of today, the more I am empowered to work in the service of the world of tomorrow that so many of us carry in our hearts.
As long as I had material comfort, I was lost in the universalism and globalism of it all. This sense of security in the world was a crucial healing period for me that was a turning point in my revolutionary journey. It allowed me to firm up my choice of life rather than death and deepen my joy in living in this wonderful world of ours. But it was not at all a period of outward action.
Now, outward circumstances are serving as a catalyst for my inner transformation. I've reached another turning point. It's time for action! It's time to find a means of supporting myself financially that serves my long-term revolutionary vision. It's time to get more involved in my community, working together with others to make our dreams for a different life a reality. If we're going to pull it off, we're going to have to work out all of those pesky details of how to support ourselves together.
It's a spiritual challenge, the outcome of which may determine the course of the rest of my life. They've given us a system that is designed to exploit us, to profit by draining the very life from us, and to turn us against one another and the Earth that we call home. My challenge - our challenge - is to make our dream of a better world a reality, learning how to cooperate and flourish in a system that is hell-bent on enslaving us all and destroying our living home.
I'm feeling pretty confident in facing this challenge today. It's the challenge of a lifetime, and I'm feeling it much more personally as time goes on. But it's helping me to recognize the wealth of support I have in my friends and community. It's awakening the fire inside of me, giving me the passion and inspiration that I'll need to work with others to create a cornucopia in a land of bleach-filled dumpsters.
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