The Key to Enlightenment Is Learning

No matter who you are, where you are from, what you were taught, your experiences, your desires and your thoughts. These things all influence your judgment, as they should.

The key to enlightenment is learning. If we allow ourselves to see, touch, and feel each emotion and thought, that is when we grow as people. We are all living beings and we have a place in this world.

The old idiom of “you never know a person until you walk in their shoes” applies to each of the questions you presented here.

Question Of Poverty

Why is there poverty? Until you have lived an impoverished life you cannot answer this question. What you think of as poverty may not be poverty to the person living it. They may see it as something else. A simpler, less complicated life with hardships to overcome or live with.

Maybe we think they are ignorant and need to be taught about disease and cleanliness. Most certainly we believe they need to be educated and helped which is why we have created many organizations to help those we feel need help.

Many things attribute to poverty including choice and free will. Yes, we also have to consider that there are those who look to oppress and control others for their own profit, and it is situations like those that we desire to change and the end result is almost always war.

Good, bad, Ying and Yang. Everything has a balance. Choice and consequence.

Where we get into the most trouble as human beings is when we try to impose our believes on those around us who may believe something differently. This leads to war, terrorism, oppression.

We are all kids on a playground bullying each other around to see who is right, who is strongest, and who is the best. All natural internal survival of the fittest instincts. I see it in my children. There is a quiet truth to sibling rivalry that we forget we carry as we age.

Question Of Intelligence

Science and belief intertwined in a daily experiment for us to watch and learn from with constant opportunities for teaching.

The older I get the more I appreciate my friends, my family, my surroundings, the environment, strangers, animals, music, art, wind. These are the things that we can forget.

Why we forget them is different for each of us. Why are so many people depressed? They have forgotten how to explore, create, grow, learn, and feel. They are afraid that if they share their sorrow they will be exploited, demeaned, browbeaten and bullied. Or even worse? Who would care?

Our human brains that give us so much intelligence also have given us emotion. It is a beautiful quality, if you have been taught that your feelings are OK. There are many who have been taught that their feelings are not normal or they have been forgotten by friends and family or society and therefore have no outlet for their emotions.

As a society we have become closed. In that process we have cut ourselves off from our emotions, we don’t want to care about a stranger who is struggling and that is why we are failing.

Question Of Peace

That is the true moment of possibility for peace. Opening yourself up to the world and the people in it. Taking that chance to look beyond yourself into the life and heart of another and with your whole being care for them.

All of them, crazy, sad, angry, insane, tired, poor, or wealthy them. That is when you are living completely in the present. The more you do this, the easier it gets, and the more you gain from the experience. Wisdom comes with that experience so we need reach out as often as we can.

I guess that is the greatest wish I can have. That we all decide that we all matter and act accordingly and if we could do this then our lives will be fulfilled.

So yes, we are one and we need to remember that when we walk out of our door each day. One living sphere of energy that can only survive through community, conservation and generosity.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!