Life is nothing short of a phenomenon. In every sense life is mysterious and unfathomable. Life is so big. Do not try to fill it. Instead, expand within. You are enough for you. Be grateful for yourself. Be grateful that you are you. You will never know anyone more intimately than yourself. Love yourself and be good to yourself. You are unique and beautiful. You always were beautiful, and you always will be beautiful. The child you once were lives on within you unchanged. Allow yourself to expand deep within your consciousness to remember the beloved child who is so worthy of love; that child is you.
Start with gratitude for the gift of awareness, which allows you to pay honor to all life. Notice you are breathing right now. Become aware of your breath. How sacred and wonderful is each breath? Life is so kind. We do not need to beg, "may I have another breath?" Become aware of how you are sustained and supported at this moment. Even discomfort or pain delivers awareness of life, and an opportunity for gratitude.
Give honor to your source by having an abiding respect and reverence for life. There is no room for reverence in a mind fettered with ceaseless query. In reverent pauses, when we slow down and think about the gift of life, we may briefly touch humility. Life is so humbling when we slow down and witness the gifts. The gifts of life are everywhere. There are too many gifts to count. Should we try to account for all the gifts of life, there would be no time for distress and uneasiness. Slow down and look for the beauty within all things.
The purpose of this message is not to provide you with a belief system. You were created, and you do exist. Rest your mind for a moment in the peace of knowing you were created, and you do exist. Do not quarrel or restlessly seek for more knowledge, until you have given proper honor to what you already know. You exist. No matter the source of our creation let us give honor to that source. Pause your opinions, debating and absolute knowing for long enough to conceive gratitude. Once you conceive the thought of gratitude, hold it safely in your mind and keep the gratitude thought alive. Allow the thought of gratitude which is in your mind, to submerge into a feeling in your heart. Once you feel the warmth of genuine gratitude glowing in your heart, allow it to grow within you. You are alive in the world just like that thought. Do not let the gratitude thought fade away. Gratitude is where self-love begins!
Everyone who has an abiding reverence for the sanctity of life wants to promote as much safety and support for people as possible. We are the world, both the good and the bad. We are responsible for what we are creating. Even the cultural momentum that is sculpting us through our values, politics, entertainment, literature and art was and is our creation. It comes from us, and it is us. The full mantle of responsibility is on our shoulders, and the great thing about life — the most magnificent thing about being these sentient human beings — is that we have been given the power of choice. We can change the world one thought at a time, one act of respect and kindness at a time and one soul at a time. Let the change begin with your choices this very moment. You are creating through your choices, even now. When you close your eyes to what apparently "is," and look inward to the infinite truth of what is possible through choice and imagination, you will discover vast landscapes of uncharted territory, clear open spaces for all people to exist together in harmony. We can build these beautiful visions together, through respect. The essential respect is the one in your own heart for yourself. The expansion of your own consciousness, capacity for love, humility and compassion — this is the path; this is the way.
Within each person is the miracle of a unique consciousness unlike any other in the universe. Within you, you will find everything you need to be complete. Within you is the power of unlimited creation. Within each of us is the enormous creator potential. We must seek together to address the good aspirations of people everywhere, for we are bound together through great commonality. There is a deep interconnectedness of all life on Earth, from the tiniest organisms to the largest ecosystems, and absolutely between each person, no matter their cultures or traditions. We have a tremendous opportunity as individuals to be kind, loving and considerate to others. We possess the choice of turning away from the lower self, and reaching for the higher mind. We possess a clarifying and self-defining moment of chance to give others the greatest comfort they can have during their journey. The beginning of all hope starts with respect.
Every person's true identity is beautiful, and much of the ugliness we observe in others was put inside of them by external influences. We all know the true beauty of people everywhere, because we have all looked into the eyes of children and saw ourselves looking back. When someone is suffering, there is a deep, visceral reaction in the core of our being, a flood of empathy and a frightfully desperate compulsion to give aid. When we see a person in physical crisis laying with a broken body and their blood pouring out, our deepest, most urgent instinct is to rush to them, and put our hands upon their wounds and comfort them. When someone is emotionally upset and crying, nothing is right in our own world. Our truest nature is to be helpful to others and to protect and love them. We care about people, and delight in seeing others happy and safe. We see this on a large scale in the aftermath of a catastrophe; the world population is deeply touched by the images of suffering, and many rush to help either financially or in person, when there is a tragedy. This is who we really are. When we see someone laughing, our spirits rise, and the laughter comes pouring into our own souls, and we find ourselves helplessly smiling. When we witness someone commit an act of kindness or selflessness, our emotions are stirred and we are touched by the high, noble spirit of what we know is the greatest truth — that we care about others, and delight in seeing others happy and safe.
If you are humble, you will always learn the most from whatever you perceive to be less powerful than you. It doesn't matter what or who it is: children, a mate, animals, plants or a blade of grass — everything and everyone is a teacher, if you are a humble student. Progress and healing involves seeing every person as not so different from ourselves. We can show love and respect by cultivating and extending freedom to those we care about, but this process must begin with self-respect and self-love, and then flow outward to others. When you walk through life considering each moment as a practice of respect, you are moving closer to your attainment of deeper levels of spiritual and psychological fullness. When you give respect and freedom, you become a cherished source of love to others; they will look to you and see you as a reservoir of safety and security. From the simple practice of respect, you will begin to receive the greatest gift; a foundation of amity and goodwill toward all life.
It is important to create an atmosphere of safety, openness, and trust for children. Domination and the fear it fosters corners children into subconsciously adapting deceptive survival strategies or withdrawing into themselves to hide. If you don't ever treat children with dignity, they will never be able to practice being a dignified person. We only teach a child inner dignity when we treat them as dignified individual beings — that is to say, they become dignified by practicing the behaviors that you offer them by treating them with dignity. By suffocating a child with oppressive command and control, we teach children to believe and act as though they are powerless. When teaching anyone a boundary, they learn less from the enforcement of the boundary, and more from the way the boundary is established. Forcing good behaviour is itself bad behaviour. You can only teach good behavior by living it.
It is important to remember that a child's problems are every bit as big as yours. The troubles children have on the playground are just as valid and stressful as the problems you are facing at work. Children have all the same emotional challenges as adults, but without the benefit of experience or advanced emotional tools to cope. Children are small and less powerful, and we must take great care to not squash their spirit with heavy-handed and careless leadership. Domination styled communication with children suffocates their confidence. They may seem to perform on command at the moment, but they are ultimately being crippled for independent life in the future. There is a difference between oppressive instruction and natural self-construction. We want children to organically assemble themselves into confident stature with our respectful and limited guidance, not to be forcibly stacked block-by-block into statues of our limited thinking, oppressiveness, and insecurity.
