Can Selfishness Respond to Calls for Truth?

I awoke to this realisation at 4am.

Again, I thank my teachers for showing me why selfishness is under the mask of self interest, whether they be business interests, personal interests or whatever fits that description.  I have realised that selfishness is actually the blocking and denial of the self.  It projects out and others feel the walls. 

I am changing what I’ve written here as greater awareness comes to me. I am really getting that those we perceive as unfeeling or behind walls just have had experiences which blocked them from feeling who they really are.  I am coming into a deeper space of compassion for all those who have been unable to respond.  I did learn to utilise these experiences to find my wisdom.  So the poem below is a tribute to those who did give me a difficult time by not turning up the way I expected but forced me to probe deeper for my own truth.  I often see this as the philosopher’s stone, I work on my own hard edges (resistance, judgement) to re-form myself rather than change the other (their job).  I regard life as contrasts now and that it is necessary in order to choose who you become.  So if I meet a person I perceive as selfish or critical, I see that I do not wish to mirror this and I practice peace and unconditional love.  I have seen a selfish person with a person who loves unconditionally, before my eyes I have seen that person change.  So I would say yes selfishness can respond to the truth of love, they may not admit truth, but they do emotionally change when they realise they are loved.  There is no higher truth than unconditional love.  People, I realise are at different levels of awareness, perhaps if I walked in their shoes I’d be the same, I suspect I would.  So they are me.

Slowly I am waking up.  Indeed it is worth the suffering as I now have the light of understanding to cast on this path.

Life is indeed a fascinating journey, I have REAL HOPES that I am returning home

 

SELFISHNESS CANNOT RESPOND TO CALLS FOR TRUTH

 

Life is my muse,

And I am amused by life,

As truth becomes my lover,

As I am the devoted student,

Seeking to pass inner examination,

With flying colours,

For I am here to fly not fall,

As the rainbow serpent gives me the inspiration,

To live.

 

My critics remained silent,

As I stared endlessly into the pond of my reflection,

I found my silent spring in the midst of turbulence,

A fragile plant breaking through the hard earth,

As the revolution of my life was to be the evolution of a life

of REAL HOPES,

For in Responsibility, Empathy, Awareness, Love,

Honesty, Oneness, Peace, Enjoyment and Service

The rainbow serpent came to give meaning to my life.

 

So many sleepless nights,

So many tears ran down my river

into the ocean of humanity’s shared despair,

Not realising my soul was under repair,

For in the darkest nights there were shards of light,

My inner strength was my plight,

As I sought truth over winning,

I sought understanding over condemnation,

I sought love over hatred,

To keep returning to love as my answer,

For this is the dove that returns to

The Garden of Eden.

 

Why could I not let go?

I had to know,

How cruelty could walk past suffering?

How love could become a tourniquet?

How resolution became a battleground for my right to exist?

Knowing what I resist persists,

Yet how to accept indifference?

When the threshold of pain is breached?

The end of one’s rope is reached?

How to reason with walls that divide,

My back was against the dam wall,

To discover no dam can withhold the ocean of truth forever,

For love is truth,

And truth is love,

And the love you withhold

Is the pain you carry.

 

So many years of silent retreat,

For in this society I do not seek to compete,

I am not interested in winning,

Or having more,

Or being seen to be,

My only interest is to be free,

To be me,

In my own authenticity.

 

In the early hours of the morning my answer came visiting,

Awakened me from my sleep like an urgent tug,

‘Selfishness’ was the call I had not answered,

Yet I wrote of self-interest still unable to see the gravity,

Of such an unstable state,

Without play.

 

For all the unresolved conflicts,

All the judicial process,

Policing,

Intellectual sifting of right from wrong,

Wasted so much time and money,

As selfishness sees no unity in diversity,

Only a diversity of self interest,

Seeking pleasure in material gain that generates pain,

Seeking to win at the expense of others,

Where there is no dividend in the end,

Only a divided end,

That never leads to true happiness.

 

Humanity cries out to re-balance the human family,

As insanity works for its own interests in isolation of the whole,

A hierarchy of reinforcing corruption complicit in subtle violence,

That seeks selfishness over happiness,

Profit over wellbeing,

Justifying cruelty by narrowing lines of responsibility,

As a game changer,

Choosing power over rather than power within,

For the latter is about virtues,

It is the conscience of your humanity,

That is blocked and denied,

Silenced and critiqued,

And that is why there is no ability to respond,

To truth.

Mohandas Gandhi

“Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.”

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