When I graduated from college, I was intent on saving the world from a climate disaster.
I’d taken classes on hydrology and fossil fuel use in my senior year that awakened me to the impending doom on the horizon.
And despite the fact that I actually graduated with a degree in art history, I pestered my way into an internship at the Union of Concerned Scientists. There, we created and ran a nationwide symposium on global warming.
It was 1989.
Within a year, I was half a world away in Hong Kong, struggling to figure out how to continue doing environmental work when I lacked an engineering degree and my Cantonese was lousy.
Determined to make a “difference,” I began teaching.
But more than anything, what really captured my attention, was an intense desire to know myself, to heal myself, and to understand what I was doing on this crazy mixed up planet.
Three decades later, not much has changed.
I still try to affect change, but the greatest emphasis is still within. In healing myself, and in deepening my spiritual practice.
It might sound weird, but as Ramana Maharshi, an Indian saint says, “Your own self-realization is the greatest gift you can render the world.”
Otherwise, all we’re really doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (sorry, can’t remember where I heard that one).
And if Ramana Maharshi is correct, how do we actually do that, become self-realized?
I know from firsthand experience that this idea can feel unattainable… but don’t get discouraged. It’s common to erroneously think self-actualization is a journey to a destination that feels impossible to reach.
Take comfort, because, thankfully, that isn’t true. Instead, think about it like this: “Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.” (ACIM W-p1.188.1:4)
Or maybe the way my teacher Ma Jaya used to talk about it will resonate with you more. She used to say, “the difference between you and me is that I know I’m God and you don’t.”
So, what is this exactly? This recognition, this acknowledgement, this self-realization?
It’s a willingness to completely accept the totality of who you are.
To accept your beauty, your innocence, your greatness, your magnificence, your light, your love, as well as all of your quirkiness.
You could start with a statement such as: “I love and accept myself today.”
You could add an even though part too, if you want, so the statement would be: “I love and accept myself today…
even though the world feels fearful.
even though I don’t know how.
even though the idea of this feels scary.
even though I don’t believe I deserve it.
For all of us who are in a body, the world situation these days feels precarious and uncertain.
Being a solitary person, it’s easy to think you don’t matter, or what you do won’t make a difference.
But one person stepping into this realization, this self-actualization, really does change everything. We know this from heroes of the past and present- Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Louise Hay, Oprah Winfrey, and on and on.
So please! Join me.
Be a light worker. Be a spokesperson for love. Step into the magnificence of who you are. The world really needs you.
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Photo courtesy of Helena Cuerva on Pixabay