Sage Words 08.29.11

Some people are simply going to be frustrated, annoyed, irritated, mad or angry. They have decided either consciously or unconsciously that these are consistent and legitimate energies they want to put out into the world. Some of these people will label themselves as activists. Many who label themselves as activists will frame their reactivity as an important element of what they will tell you is what brings authenticity of their activism. These people will wear these things (frustration, annoyance, irritation, anger, etc.) as a sort of badge of legitimacy for their activism. The most frequent expression I have seen of this in some activists is what is called righteous indignation. From my perspective, righteous indignation is almost always an expression of ego disguised as some pseudo form of compassion or empathy.

Some people have the spiritual awareness and development to know that these states (frustration, annoyance, irritation, anger, etc.) are not beneficial nor helpful to them. Some are clear about this. Still, out of laziness or something else, we will not rise to our own spiritual development in our interaction with life. Rather, our actions and ultimately who we think we are will reflect this "lower" consciousness that in reality is not who we really are.

There are a lot of very good and even some relatively awake (whatever that means) people in the world who look out into that world and primarily see unfairness, greed, corruption, pain, sadness and the like. We then somehow trick ourselves into believing these things are far more important and real than they really are. Or we pretend there is mostly shadow in the universe and relatively little Light. More importantly, we develop belief systems and ways of being that reflect this trickery. We forget there is a constant interplay between light and shadow and that ultimately they spring from the exact same seed. This is one reason there are many highly intelligent people, many in the helping professions, who have become pessimists or worse.

This is an expression, among other things, of coming from a place of scarcity in one's understanding of life rather than coming from a place of abundance. We believe there is not enough of the things we might call the "good" things in life and too much of those things we might choose to call "bad." We have temporarily (hopefully) lost our way and are (hopefully) using all of this, consciously or unconsciously as a way of returning to the path of wisdom.