Julian Rose, Contributor
Waking Times
There’s no doubt about it: actions speak louder than words. However, words also speak loudly when intimately bonded with actions. Otherwise, they remain empty.
If we remain aloof from full engagement our words simply become a commentary on life. And a commentator is one who normally views the action as something ‘on the outside’, thereby feeling disengaged from it. The time for detachedly commentating – or commenting – on the various degrees of global oppression and struggling emancipation – must surely be over.
No one who takes the pulse of mother Earth can fail to recognize that she has a fever – a severe fever. Now if a doctor takes one’s pulse and finds one is running a fever, he or she will prescribe something to lessen it. Not necessarily the right thing of course, but nevertheless action will be be taken to try to alleviate the problem.
So why do so many feel that it is enough just to recognize the symptoms, but take no part in prescribing a cure?
Someone might retort “oh yea, that’s because we’re not doctors.” That someone would like to believe that he/she can be part of the problem, but not part of the solution. There are some, of course, who don’t even let themselves believe that they are part of the problem….so where to begin?
Firstly, we start from where we are. At this moment. For many that mean feeling great perplexity about the fickle, corrupt, and contradictory nature of life today, and the difficulty of getting a fix on anything that seems genuinely honest and enduring. This is a very valid observation because everyday life is indeed fickle, corrupt and contradictory – so nobody is wrong about that.
The next question which arises is: “how can I banish my sense of insecurity while living in this insecure, insincere, and confusing world?”
That’s a good question. One ten of millions is asking themselves every day. And the answer will be a tad different for each one of us because we are all individuals and have different points of emphasis about which route to take to find the elusive thread that leads out of the Minotaur’s lair.
Each one of us needs a particular prompt to kick-start us to take action – and not to sit and stew or try to ignore the nagging self-doubts which crowd our overcrowded minds.
A clue which I humbly offer to help us on our way is this: consider what it is that most disturb you concerning what is going on around you; or beyond you or even ‘in you’. Allow yourself to quietly focus on this thing, this feeling. Chances are it’s either a largely domestic self-imposed frustration which you have failed to get to grips with, or it’s a genuine ill in a society which you have never allowed yourself to believe you could change. Frequently, it’s a combination of both!
So once having identified the source (or sources) of your nervousness – and it takes some courage to do so – you will need to find enough emotional strength so as to take a decisive step to shift out of the cul-de-sac of indecisiveness which has stopped you up until now. Stopped you from ‘taking action’.
That emotional strength comes from a source that is intimately connected to your ‘true self’. Not the one which pings thousands of contradictory thoughts around in your overheated mind. No, the one which calms these intruders and draws upon a deeper and firmer emotional field. A field that is always there – if we can access it.
It is from this place that the direction you need to travel in will make itself known to you. Where the action you need to take will emerge. Where the courage you need for the journey, will come forth.
Now, with the subtle emergence (and yes, it is often subtle) of that true voice, you will find that you have made a new and very dear friend – who will become a friend for life – provided you keep open the channels of communication!
Armed with the support of this one durable and deeply helpful friend, you can now tackle the source of your earlier perplexity and insecurity, and move forward with a new and renewing confidence and conviction in your own ability to change whatever is the chief obstruction in your life. Be it inward, be it outward – or be it both.
You may, as I did, find yourself drawn towards particular writings which will reveal much of what you need to know and explore to further cement your rite of passage into becoming a decisive and courageous ‘action taker’, freed from the nagging doubts and worries which have held the real you down for so long.
Once the newfound boldness has taken root, you are well on your way. Now is the time to turn your attention to outward actions. Actions that are directed to helping heal the wounds of our desperately mistreated planet.
For this is the ‘giving back’ phase, and represents our evolution into maturity. Beyond the sometimes excessive ‘self concerns’ of the taking phase. These somewhat selfish concerns should rapidly diminish in importance the further we get in becoming consciously aware of our interconnection with all elements of life; with all animate and even inanimate beings and objects. For, in essence, we are one.
Now we find that we cannot stand back from the urgent calls for help that emanate from a thousand different sources. Sources long oppressed and abused by the cynical purveyors of inhuman crimes against humanity and nature. Crimes that have brought planetary ecosystems to the brink of collapse, and too much of humanity to its knees, thanks to criminals that know no bounds in their mindless acts of destruction.
Once we ‘see’ what we have not seen before, we cannot shirk our duty to go forth into the world, or into our own immediate community, and battle to bring positive change. Outward change, which directly reflects our reanimated powers of positivity and sense of well being.
For once we ‘see’, we also recognize that we are inherently complicit in having allowed the wrongdoings of mankind to have reached such a pitch in the first place. That is indeed a critical moment for us all. A point beyond which there is no looking back; no going back.
At such a point, redefining of our spiritual powers of discernment helps to make us more aware of our social powers of discernment. This means recognizing who are the like-minded individuals with whom one can mix and share actions that lead towards the realization of one’s goals. Get this wrong – and one can all too easily be pulled down – loosing much of what one has gained.
Beware, the world is full of sycophantic beings who seek to feed off our newly acquired energies.
Here, we will quickly discover that ‘actions speak louder than words’ and that many who we thought were fellow travelers are in fact just by-standers. Pontificating about matters of which they have no true experience and therefore know almost nothing. Yet such people often successfully seduce those as yet untrained in the art of detecting the false facades of ego led ambition.
A time soon comes when we are asked to show our true colors up-front. We all come up against this moment at some critical point in our process of awakening. It can take many forms, but common to all of them is that we are called to make a stand ‘In Defence of Life’*
For me, one of the most significant calls was to put myself 100% behind ecological farming – starting with my own farm. For others I know, it was becoming a dedicated campaigner for human rights; the continuous blocking of needless highway developments; the banning of carcinogenic pesticides; the championing of animal rights; working in support of the socially deprived or sick – each according to his or her particular passion.
Whichever route is taken – and here is the point – it always starts in one’s own domain, one’s own particular domestic world; and involves confronting one’s own individual habits, daily activities, and choices. It starts by making changes here.
Thus you change your diet; you recycle your waste and attempt to cut out all waste; you turn to renewable energy; cease buying ‘junk’ of all sorts – but especially foods. You get your money and investments out of large scale banking institutions; stop shopping in supermarkets; properly exercise your body; choose more carefully the words you use, and you might even change your partner (a big one). You start thinking and acting in ways that are more informed by the spiritual plain and less by the mundane.
These are just a few examples of the sort of actions that one feels drawn to put in place. I have tried to do so over the past few decades and found that it freed me from that nagging sense of hypocrisy which comes from holding onto double standards. But I still have far to go – to bring body, mind, and spirit into harmony and balance!
Only once one has ‘straightened one’s self out’ as it were – is it possible to advise and share with others from a position of actual authority. Only then is it possible for our words to carry genuine weight and authenticity? All the rest of our talk is varying degrees of ‘hot air’.
That’s a pretty brutal truth, isn’t it? But if one is to walk one’s walk one must embrace the pain of personal change.
Armed with having got one’s house largely in order – or at least moving well down that path, one goes out into the world to set change in motion there. Inward and outward – outward and inward – it’s all the same. It’s always both. Think of breath.
By fully embracing this fundamental state of equilibrium, we will finally remove the oppressors of truth and love both within ourselves and in the world at large, because they cannot hold out forever against fully empowered Earth beings.
About the Author
Julian Rose is an early pioneer of ecological farming, integrated rural economies and decentralized community regeneration. Farmer, writer, holistic thinker, broadcaster and activist: Julian campaigns against all attempts to sterilize our living earth and creative aspirations – and expresses belief in the power of the human spirit to awaken and direct our passion for life.
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