Today we celebrate Canada Day. And as Americans are fond of saying lately: I love my country – it’s my government that I’m afraid of.
A few days ago, the Toronto Police (shall we say) “bent the rules” a bit in their zeal to protect the G20 Summit from hearing any voices of protest. While TV news crews focused their cameras on a handful of vandals (torching cars and smashing windows), the police arrested hundreds of pedestrians and peaceful protesters who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some police went so far as to break into homes in the middle of the night and hold the occupants at gunpoint, without a warrant, until they could prove that there were no protesters in the house.
Yes, this was Toronto. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Now, I could say a lot more about the politics of the situation, but that is not what this blog is about. Like my post about how we killed Robert Dziekanski, I want to talk about what I’m learning spiritually in all this, instead of focusing blame on certain people. After all this violence that I cannot control (out there), I am learning valuable lessons on how I can let the anger go and achieve inner peace (in here).
I am learning about taking my power back.
As a spiritual person, I talk about how I manifest my outer world, according to my thoughts, beliefs and actions. And all blame aside, I believe we are manifesting our current political climate.
We live in a democracy. And I’m not talking about our nations – I mean the democracy of this Universe. We as human beings collectively determine – consciously or unconsciously – what our reality is going to look like. Our intentions create our reality. Our outer world reflects our inner world.
Do I mean that we collectively want to be subjugated by viscious police officers? Not consciously. However, there are things going on in our outer world that seem to be a reflection of humanity’s level of consciousness.
But what part of me, as a good and decent person, would be so savage as to create a police state, and then subjugate me and others to it?
I have a part of me called Ego. Ego acts like my internal government. It tries to protect me from perceived threats. But I’ve learned the hard way that it is not my friend. I did not elect it – it has been with me since birth. It pretends to be me, even while it attacks me from the inside.
It is that voice in my head that creates self-doubt, self-criticism and other negative thoughts, to promote feelings of anger and powerlessness. It then blames these feelings on situations that other people have created – especially people I have never met, who have never done anything to hurt me (such as Toronto Police officers).
Ego justifies these thoughts by claiming to be an agent of justice: that it is on the side of the victims and wants to help. But it doesn’t really care about the victims – it just wants to punish the perpetrators. It wants to find the criminal responsible for my bad feelings, and prosecute to the full extent of its own law. It wants revenge. It needs someone to blame.
All the while, Ego is manufacturing its own pain, hurting me worse than anyone else ever has. It makes up its own stories filled with guilt and anger, creates bad feelings in me, and then frames someone else for the crime.
And now, it seems to me that society has collectively created a similarly hateful government to reflect the role that the Ego plays, as an outward manifestation of our inner reality.
The government claims to be on our side, protecting us from the evils “out there” (communists, terrorists, protesters). But after all its stories, it still can’t find the WMD’s. Like the Ego, our governments are making enemies so that, out of fear, we will submit to being disempowered and locked up. Egos and governments take away our freedom in order to “protect us,” but then carry out the very savagery it claims to thwart.
The police and the government need to be reminded that they were hired “to serve and protect” the people, not to serve and protect themselves. And my Ego needs to be reminded that its only valid role is to support me as I interact with my physical world. It is not an end in itself.
So, now that I am aware of the source of my suffering, what can I do to achieve inner peace?
The first step is to realize that I am not the voice of guilt and blame in my head. To identify with that voice is to make me psychotic. I am not my Ego. I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
When I meditate, I choose to watch my thoughts go by, without attaching myself to them. I choose to go deep within to the place of compassion and forgiveness that is closest to God. I remind myself that I am that compassion and light, not the darkness of fear and anger. I choose to shine a light into the darkness, and watch it dissipate as I focus my attention on what is kind, loving, creative and expansive.
Spending time specifically on meditation is helpful, but I can also carry this attitude with me throughout the day. Sometimes all it takes is a few deep breaths and a mental reminder to put me back in touch with who I really am, and reclaim my power.
I am here to love and support humanity (the Son of God), not Ego. Ego seeks to prosecute and imprison; Spirit seeks to love, grow and create.
Let us all remember, regardless of all the tyranny in the world, that we are here to create in a spirit of compassion and grace. Let us be the change we seek.
Still Waking Up 
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I always enjoy your writing Craig.
Part of me reads here out of morbid curiousity. All these matters you write of are acres of fields through which I’ve traversed for most of my life. They’re acres behind me now. Sometimes I can’t even see their mirage in the distance anymore. Sometimes I can’t even remember they ever existed. Those acres of centered optimism in a divine cosmos, influenced by me, my thoughts, my feelings.
Two days ago, two friends defriended me. Neither will tell me why. I spent the day watching my feelings go by, like the clouds I stared up at, laying flat on my back in the middle of Fish Creek Park, my bike laying there beside me. In the past, I’ve let my thoughts take feelings by the hand, and walk alongside. In this season, I’m keeping them apart, my thoughts and feelings. Thoughts get to watch feelings, but thought doesn’t get to hold hands with feelings anymore. I’ve relegated them to different corners.
And this is what I allow my thoughts do, pretty much all the time, in this season: dismiss themselves. Well that’s not fair. Too bad. I didn’t do anything to deserve being defriended. Too bad. But I’ve loved being friends with her, the fun we had. Too bad.
Partly I am amused by the shiney optimism of your thoughts, Craig. The assurance you feel in your certainty that thoughts manifest, that spirit rules, that we human beings bear any significance at all. To the earth, to its people, to their behaviour.
In this acre, where I’ve begrudgingly found myself, all is random and feelings can be, just be, and my thoughts can go to hell. Nothing changes anything. Anyway. But you carry on … I like the idea that others are carrying the torch for a while.
Rarely have I had anyone refer to my “shiny optimism.” 🙂 It has been a lifelong struggle for me to find a place where life does not suck.
And I guess I don’t always feel like it’s true – that my thoughts create my reality, etc. There are many times when life seems random and out of control. It’s hard to believe that positive thoughts create positive manifestations when I have had all kinds of positive thoughts that never got me anywhere. But then I see evidence that our negative thoughts produce negative manifestations all over the world, and sometimes positive people get wonderful miracles, so maybe it’s true?
I’m putting a lot of ideas out there to see what other people think. I’m not always 100% convinced that I’m right about everything I say. They are just thoughts and ideas. I value your ideas whether or not you agree with me. And when you disagree, then that gives me a creative tension, a gap between point and counter-point, for me to fill in what might be more true than either one of us can say right now.
For most of us, it seems like so much of life just happens, and who can say why. If I look hard enough, I can find explanations. But if I look again, I can also find explanations for why it should not have happened that way.
I don’t know. I’m still waking up.
I hear you.
And maybe I’m just finally letting myself sleep, after a life time of questing wakefulness. We’re all good.
“Shiny optimism” isn’t the term I’d have used! Actually I found Cindy’s response to your blog rather condescending and bitter. I’m sorry for someone who sees all things as random and anyone who believes in anything as naive. Who’s to say that such a person is not the one in the dark?
What you are talking about, regarding whether or not we can have any effect on our destinies and so on, is really a matter of faith, isn’t it? And who is anyone to deride another’s faith in a higher power?
I have spent many years of living in the faith that God is, and so far none of the cynics I’ve met have had anything better, more satisfying, more sensible to offer. I try not to judge people, but to use a term like “shiny optimism” seems to me to say more about the clouded vision of the speaker than it does about the naivite of yourself.
I did not mean to spend this response being defensive in your behalf. I don’t think you need me to defend you. But condescension has always bugged me, ever since I’ve been able to identify it–which was many, many years ago!
As for what you said about the police and the government: I think you are right in saying that we choose those who will be in charge–I don’t mean that I personally chose Stephen Harper and so on; of course not. But collectively (if there is such a thing) we do make our own world. There is some truth to cliches like “you made your bed; now lie in it.” Mind you, I also believe that if we really want to, we can change the bed we made.
I think this is a little rambling, but so what. I’m on holidays!
Love,
Nora