Is Life Getting Better or Worse?

The world is -- a projection of who we are, and how we feel about that world; that is the reality of each life -- which is expressed as our being. That being defines the manner in which we see the world -- as the best of what we make of it, or merely the worst because we fear to make it so.

And that is why the most important action in every life, is not solving all the world’s problems, but in solving all one’s own problems -- as the most powerful, evident action for making a better world -- and not that only one person can, and the rest of us can only argue among ourselves to tell that one person what to do. That is the disempowerment of our lives -- that manner of thinking that it is only other people who can do anything great and important, while the best the rest of us can do, is sit and watch what they do -- and of course, express our opinions.

That is obviously the conditioning” of mass media -- and the mediated life. The “mediated” life is having somebody else tell one what is the truth (of their lives) -- because they are the people one should believe, even over one’s own senses and judgment. Many will find it peculiar even to question that it should be any other than that -- because that is always and the only thing they’ve been “taught.” Of course the “authorities” tell us the truth, and we should believe them. Why else would they exist -- but to serve us, unselfishly, as their self-promoting public service announcements tell us is so?

There are honest people in every walk of life -- and finding them, is the joy and wonder of every existence, that should be treasured for the rarities they are -- and not merely lumped into the generalized notion that because anyone tells us it is so, even if it is what everyone else is also telling us is the truth of the matter (and one can inquire no further), if that explanation does not solve the great difficulties in one’s life -- that one has every reason to believe, should not be the only and inevitable end of the exploration of truth in their own lives -- prematurely stunted at a young age, never to be revived forevermore.

Everyone has every right to believe they can live their lives at the highest level of their own possibilities -- and not merely only to the expectations of others, hoping to exploit them for their own purposes. Finding that difference in the orientation -- is the first task of any learning, the task of every great student. Greatness in all things, is not reserved just for a chosen few -- but is the right of every life to realize for itself, and then, everything one does has great significance and effectiveness -- rather than the despair that nothing matters, and nothing makes a difference.

This is the attitude one experiences meeting the great teachers. With everybody else, the feeling is that one should never aspire to surpass the teacher; that is forbidden and out of bounds. Then one will know a great teacher when one encounters one -- which is not everyone these days who calls themselves a “teacher” or “master” -- which is the original meaning and significance of that word.

But it all gets watered down, so that even those who demand that they be called “Doctor” or “Honorable,” are not worthy of such names. More than ever, it is necessary to distinguish the truly good from that which merely pretends to be -- because the mantra of popular culture is not to be able to discriminate these things at all.