We often feel overwhelmed by the news. As the collapse of the world is shouted from the headlines, it can be daunting. How can things be turned? How do we and our loved ones make it through these times? Frightening, to say the least.
How Can We Make A Difference?
When looked at this way, how can we make a difference? There are billions of people on the planet. Each with their own agendas. Each having made choices that led to this point in time. Each continuing to make choices that maintain the status quo—a status quo which is keeping the world on a trajectory to chaos like a train gathering steam toward the collapse of life as we know it. It can feel impossible at times.
Tom Brown, however, has often spoken of the power of picking up a piece of garbage. When his son Coty was little, he saw garbage on the ground. He squirmed to be put down on the ground and started picking up garbage and putting it in the garbage can. People in the park saw this little three-year-old boy gathering garbage and joined in. Soon many in the park were involved. We know the impact of Coty’s small action on this group of people since they physically joined in on cleaning up the park. What we don’t know is the lasting impression it made on their hearts and minds. In the short-term, the concentric rings of Coty’s action made the park free of garbage. In the long-term, who knows what impact it made. It is likely, in however small a way, that it made a difference in each of those people’s lives. It is likely that they never looked at a piece of garbage on the ground in the same way. A subtle change, perhaps, but a change nonetheless.
The smallest change can make the biggest difference.
When approached from simply a physical level, there is very little change that can be made in people’s minds and hearts. All the anti-litter signs and legislation against littering didn’t effect the change that Coty made in those people by his simple heart-felt act of caring for the Earth.
What We Carry In Our Hearts
Whatever we carry in our hearts informs and empowers every decision that we make, every action that we take, every concentric ring that emanates from our very being. We can go to any artifact and, using our spiritual training, discern many things about the maker: who they were, their surroundings, what they were feeling as they made that arrowhead or basket or pipe. The energy signature is etched into that artifact. It is true with everything we do.
As we move through our lives, everything reflects our thoughts, our feelings, what we carry in our hearts. The more clear our hearts, the more our actions are informed by that clarity. If we are coming from a place of anger, hatred, and fear of what is happening in the world, then everything we do will be energetically charged with that anger, hatred, and fear. If we come from a place of deep love, much as Coty, then everything is energetically charged with that love.
Whatever we hold in our hearts is what our concentric rings reflect.
It might not seem like enough to hold peace, love, joy, and purpose in our hearts. To uplift these qualities and diminish negativity that our minds and emotions want to cling to—feelings of helplessness, of hopelessness, of victimhood, of fear. But what we hold in our hearts is automatically reflected in everything we do.
And, of course, there may be deep wounding and energetic blocks that trigger us into reactionary and negative emotions and thoughts. Tom has shown us a way around this: purpose beyond the self and becoming emotionally detached, like a fly on the wall. This is very beneficial in the short-term. But in the long-term, the more we can heal the inner wounding so that we may be a better person and more truly carry peace, love, joy, and purpose in everything we do, the more we automatically send out more positive concentric rings.
Subtle Internal Changes Make A Big Difference
When faced with the world’s problems, it might not seem like we’re doing much. But the smallest, most subtle internal change will get into places where nothing else can. And, having changed and healed ourselves—always with a purpose beyond ourselves—others will not know what hit them. Changes will occur in our relationships, in our workplace, in our community. And the more we can apply the teachings gleaned from Grandfather and Tom, and the more we follow the guidance of the Creator, the more quickly the needed changes will come from a place much greater than ourselves. “Thy will, not mine, be done.”
As Mahatma Gandhi said, “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
In focusing on our selves, does this mean that we don’t take action in the world? Does this mean we don’t do healing on others? Of course not. But remember that “God helps those who help themselves.” Focusing internally on ourselves in this way—to become a better person for the sake of our people and our Vision, to become a better conduit for the Creator—is done in tandem with what the Creator guides us to do externally in the world.
It is up to each of us to do this hard, deep work on healing and changing ourselves, becoming more in alignment with who we truly are. Not in alignment with what the gorilla mind says, what our emotions say, what the demons that haunt us say, but with who we truly are. No one else can do it for us.
And as we do this, our actions, our thoughts, our energy, our concentric rings will have much the same effect as Coty—effecting others on a far deeper level than can be imagined. The greater our alignment with our deepest heart—which is, of course, closest to the Creator within us—the more effect we will have on the world, doing the most good we can with each step we take. And the more we will be in alignment with that which is greater than ourselves as it shows us the way to move through these troubling times.
