Here's a common question, what the hell is wrong with the world? Well it's obviously the "other guys", right? Politicians, Muslims, immigrants, religious people, non-believers, liberals, conservatives... They're obviously the problem, and if they only wised up some and saw things my way, then we'd be able to really heal society. Of course, that attitude is just another one of the things wrong with the world.
What are the problems? War, hunger, conflict, fear, hatred, all the kinds of things that create pain and suffering. That's what people don't want in their lives, that's what everyone's trying to avoid, but you can't really avoid suffering. Not that you can't overcome suffering, but that's not done through avoidance, but passing through suffering. It's seeing your suffering for what it is, and seeing your Consciousness for what it is. One of those is much bigger than the other, you are much more than your pain, but most people never come to this realization and instead deal with suffering through avoidance.
How can you avoid something that's present in your life? It's impossible, all avoidance really does is create unconsciousness. And unconsciousness stops suffering as much as gasoline stops a fire, but you don't realize this because of the very nature of unconsciousness, of avoidance.
You may have heard that people have a hole within them that needs to be filled, and I mean that in a totally non-sexual way. That hole, that void within, is created through a-void-ance. If you ignore what's true in your own life, you create a kind of emptiness within. It's completely unnatural, a kind of psychosis, but it's difficult for people to see because this unnatural state has become the "normal" state. People have trapped themselves in a hell of their own creation, but they can't even acknowledge this, again, because of the nature of unconsciousness.
This avoidance manifests itself in various ways, the most obvious being addiction. Especially with the socially-unacceptable addictions, you can see how the avoidance of suffering drives the addiction. A happy person just doesn't choose the self-destructive life of an addict, a sane person just wouldn't do that. Your life has to be very unsatisfactory to begin with for the life of an addict to be more appealing.
Addiction is how people avoid suffering, and I'm not just talking about illegal drugs, but the wide array of socially-acceptable addictions too. Eating can be a joyful thing, each bite a celebration of flavor, aroma, and the art of cooking. That's doesn't seem to happen very often though, instead people eat unconsciously and habitually. It becomes a coping mechanism, just another distraction, and that's the root of addiction, distracting yourself from your life. Just about everyone is addicted to one thing or another.
Because of suffering, people seek the numbness of unconsciousness, and because of unconsciousness they bring even more suffering upon themselves. It's a vicious cycle when you behave as if the poison is the cure.
And the solution is obvious, it presents itself when you really understand the situation. Watch these things as they occur within your own consciousness, pay attention to your own thoughts and what they create.
That hole within becomes a Whole within.
The Galactic Free Press
No copyright, share freely.
