The way we look at sacrifice is backward.
I’m referring to the kind of sacrifice we think we’re making when we accept the rules and limitations of what nearly everyone in the world is doing nowadays: adapting to massive spiritual, psychological, economical, ecological and psychosomatic dysfunction.
Hey, it’s a perspective. Allow me to explicate.
We’ve been led to believe that the sacrifice is what we decide to do when we commit to raising a family, to a higher education or career, to extreme training in athletics, to a religion and its rituals, to a passion that drives us to produce something of a legacy or notariety or fame, to building a business—or to shunning the common and normal of all that is attributed to these sensible, practical, socially acceptable ideals.
But it’s the opposite. What we truly sacrifice, when we buy into the paradigms and parameters of ages past, is our most natural, knowing, deeply connected, immortal, sovereign spiritual self; when we adopt an identity that fits in to the extreme expressive limitations of today’s twisted world, we sacrifice, yet again, our power to transcend and elevate its condition.
Then, we go through the same process as is so familiar and so often written, spoken, and YouTubed about: reversing, healing, discovering, unlearning, letting go, self-helping and desperately trying to save our soul…when none of it was even necessary. Thus, we invite endless trauma, and then struggle to find ways to undo it.
For more proof, look to our popular arts, our sexuality, our corporations, our laws and governments, our military and police, our homeless, and our oceans.
All that was impressed upon us from the ages of 0 to 10, 20, or 30 was, and is, a destructive hand-me-down. Yet who among us is courageous enough to step back and say “Um, no! No more. It ends now.” You won’t read or hear about them in mainstream media—save in the light of ridicule or debasement. Most true geniuses work well away from the noise, as their world-saving solutions usually get them bought out, or murdered, and most who are truly connected to the nature of things will never be found in a city, where those who believe cars and iPhones are necessities of life.
And maybe that’s the point of this place, on this earth, at this time, and in this dimension. I don’t know. But it sure seems ridiculous. It’s true our values and priorities shift and evolve in a lifetime. But, because of the process noted above, we rarely know until well into a life what our true, authentic, unfiltered values and priorities really are.
And, by then, marriages and businesses have failed, the kids are grown, more forests are gone, and…well…here we go again.
What are you truly sacrificing for you, your children, and the next several generations?
Solvitur ambulando