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Creative Love: Passion as Dynamic Power

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November 5, 2016

“The meaning of life is creative love. Not love as an inner feeling, as a private sentimental emotion, but love as a dynamic power going out into the world and doing something different.” ~ Tom Morris, If Aristotle Ran General Motors

When most people think of love they think of romantic love. And though romantic love is a beautiful thing, this article isn’t about that. This article is about creative love. It’s about moving into ecstasy. It’s about achieving apotheosis.

Although creative love can be romantic, and romantic love can be creative, this article is about being Love itself. And when an individual decides to be Love, they become a creative force of nature, an ecstatic seeker of the numinous. They become the personification of proactive art. Their life becomes their canvas, a masterpiece in the making.

Here’s the thing: life is fleeting, a flash in the pan, a finite flicker in an infinite cosmos. We all know this to be true to some degree or another. Being Love is being so in love with life’s fleeting, so in tune with life’s impermanence, that you’re compelled to live each moment to the fullest.

And discovering what you are passionate about in life, and then filling each moment with that passion, is the epitome of living each moment to the fullest. Being Love is being one with what you love to do. This leads to a creative overflowing, which can lead to apotheosis.

Love as an overflowing:

“I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.” ~ Robert H. Schuller

The flow of creativity that comes from discovering what you love to do, and then doing it, is incomparable. Love as an overflowing is being in love with what you love to do. It’s understanding that the greatest magic is transmuting the passions.

It’s the realization that magic is love and love is magic, and transforming passion into purpose is what makes life meaningful. It’s embracing the journey as the thing and intuitively letting it unfold, win or lose, into authentic soulcraft.

Love overflows when we’re actively out there doing what we love to do –mind, body, and soul. When we’re in the trenches of our passion, loving through the blood, sweat, and tears of our creative effort, our imagination is unquenchable.

We cannot be defeated, for even defeat is subsumed as a necessary component of the creative process. The overflowing gives us courage against fear.

It gives us strength against adversity. It gives us intuition despite the unknown. And it sets us up for a deep romance with cosmic forces, a flood of agape love gushing out like a fountainhead from our interdependent connection with all things.

Thus, the numinous is tapped. Apotheosis becomes self-actualized. Surfing the overflow, risking the fall, clinging to the creative power filling us to bursting and then letting it go through ecstatic self-expression, was the act of courage we needed to discover our passion as dynamic power.

Passion as dynamic power:

“There’s a strange combination of a sense of power and a sense of insecurity which has taken up its abode in the soul of modern man: he has all the talents except the talent to make use of them.” ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset

If, as Henry David Thoreau said, “The world is but a canvas to the imagination,” then dynamic power is the will and courage to begin painting it. Once we’ve discovered what we love to do (see video), then we have our purpose, and purpose is our dynamic power.

With this dynamic power, we have all the fuel we’ll ever need to remain committed to the hero’s journey of self-discovery and to create a masterpiece of our life.

Here’s the thing: You are the universe awake. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the universe is asleep. You have a responsibility to your “wakefulness.” You, and you alone, are accountable for being aware of your own awareness.

Once you truly realize the immensity of this power, you will never be irresponsible with it again. For it is the source of all things, the mighty conduit, the providential fountainhead, the prodigious source of all things (as far as you know.) With it, you paint the vibrant canvas of your life. Without it, you are merely a smudge of white on empty black.

Being the universe aware of itself is an immense responsibility. Using your passion as dynamic power is the epitome of being responsible with your own awareness. It’s using your love as a passionate double-edged sword, cutting through the past and the future, and then piercing the heart of God in the present, in the heart of the Infinite Now.

But this piercing is done in absolute love. It’s done with the purpose of unlocking imagination, to free the hero from fixed thinking, and to absolve the heaviness of the past so as to clear the path for the dynamic future.

As Osho intuited, “Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.”

Indeed. It’s done in order to get the hero out of his/her own way, so that the hero can finally get to the purpose of life: to create love and to fall in love with creating it.

How to Find Your Passion

Image source:

Earth heart
Surreal fist
Buddha quote

Accepting Your Parents the Way They Are

Life

Nikki Sapp

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November 1, 2016

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“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~ Marianne Williamson

You may have caught yourself saying from time to time, “wow, I’m turning into my parents,” and perhaps laughed it off as just another indication of turning into an adult.

But in a world where everything is energy, and the materials from our mother and father’s bodies quite literally becomes us as we grow inside our mother’s womb, this statement couldn’t be any more true.

We often inherit the energetic imprints from memories, unhealed emotions and traumatizing experiences that are stored in our parents’ cells as we grow in our mother’s womb. Even after we are born, we often subconsciously take on the fearful and limited belief systems of our parents and families as we form our personalities in the first years of our life.

Many people will find themselves inheriting the same ‘irritating’ traits that their parents have, or even manifesting relationships later in life that mirror back to them the dynamics of their relationship with their parents.

Fortunately, all of this can be reversed. Huge shifts occur in our emotional healing process when we heal the emotional wounds created in our childhood. Even if our parents aren’t currently alive, or in our lives, this healing process can take place as a result of going within and feeling old hurts and pinpointing the fears we may have inherited or developed.

Forgiveness

“The parenting journey holds the potential to be a spiritually regenerative experience between parent and child, where every moment is a meeting of spirits, and both parent and child appreciate that each dances on a spiritual path that is unique, holding hands yet alone.” ~ Dr. Shefali Tsabary

The very first and most crucial step in mending the relationship with our parents is forgiveness.

Any time we hold a grudge against someone, or blame them completely for things that have happened without extending some level of empathy towards them, we form energetic cords between us and said person.

It’s like we will always remain chained to the person or persons that hurt us as long as we blame them.

And for some this will sound absurd, to not blame the person who caused such intentional pain or abuse to us as innocent children. However, if you remain stuck in patterns of blame, you don’t realize that everyone is always doing the best they can from the level of consciousness they reside at.

Abusive parents were often abused themselves, angry parents were often the victims of their own parents inability to control their anger. Critical parents were often judged and criticized as small children.

Adopting this viewpoint doesn’t mean that we were ‘wrong’ to feel hurt by the things our parents did, it only means that they had no choice in the matter. They were only giving us the best they could, and the emotional pain that had accumulated deep within their own being was yet to heal.

If you have tried and tried to move past or forgive your parents to no avail, it only means that there is still a part of you that doesn’t feel supported or unconditionally loved enough to let go of the hurt.

If this is the case for you, it only signifies that your own inner child, the one who doesn’t know how to forgive, needs more of your loving attention and unconditional acceptance.

Over time, as the part of our inner child who holds on to grudges is given the space to just be exactly as they are, without pressure to change, it will begin to feel safe enough to heal and transform all on its own.

Healing Modalities

An important thing to consider in this process is that it is going to take time. Healing from years and years of emotional wounds is not something that will happen overnight, so be patient with yourself.

Often wounds will pop up that we didn’t even know we had. But when our soul feels energetically strong and safe enough to heal that wound, it will be an indicator that we are energetically in a place where healing can occur.

Our higher self is never going to give us more pain and suffering than we can handle, so in that respect, we can see that if an unhealed wound is presenting itself, it’s time to place some awareness around it.

If the process becomes too overwhelming or painful even, take a step back and give yourself some time away from it. The mere intention to forgive and to heal sets the wheels in motion for our healing process to begin. And you can be assured that the universe will draw you to the perfect people, places, and things that will help you in this process.

Often people use things like going to a counselor, writing in a journal, meditating, or using EFT (tapping therapy) to work through unhealed emotions. There are so many healing modalities available to us these days, and most of them don’t cost a thing other than our time and energy spent doing them.

Acceptance is Key

The most powerful tool we have in our healing process is acceptance. But this acceptance must be extended to ourselves first if we are ever to be able to offer it to anyone else.

Imagine if you accepted everything about yourself without trying to change it. You can even say something like, “I accept that I am angry. I accept that I am sad. I accept that I am in pain. I accept that I am uncomfortable. I accept that I don’t know how to accept that I am afraid to feel anything.”

The energy of honesty with ourselves combined with unconditional acceptance makes all the difference in the world in how we begin to relate to our parents, or our image of them.

The ironic thing is that as we begin to accept ourselves exactly as we are, have compassion and empathy for ourselves as the soul that survived our childhood, forgiveness becomes a natural by-product.

Image sources

mother and child
forgive

10 Quotes from the Bhagavad Gita to Uncover the Divine Within

Spirituality

Lauren

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October 30, 2016

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10 Quotes from the Bhagavad Gita to Uncover the Divine Within

The Bhagavad Gita, an ancient spiritual text, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture featuring a dialogue between Pandava Prince Arjuna and his guide and charioteer Lord Krishna. Krishna counsels and advises Prince Arjuna on how to become an exemplary warrior and achieve attainment.

“I am time, the destroyer of all; I have come to consume the world.”~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita

The battlefield is often seen as a metaphor for the experience of life, and the narrative structure an allegory for the dualistic nature of the self. Mahatma Gandhi referred to the Gita as his ‘spiritual dictionary’, and the text calls for ‘warriors’ to live their lives with selflessness and poetry to uncover the divine within.

Here are ten quotes from the Bhagavad Gita to add to your spiritual dictionaries:

“Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward.” ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita

So simple, yet so rewarding. Imagine if everyone did this? What a harmonious world we would live in! This trick of the mind, and heart, could quite possibly solve all personal problems entirely.

That and only doing the work that is in your heart and no one else’s and being intuitive enough to be able to follow your own line of enquiry rather than that which we are given from, for example, the school system.

“I enter into each planet, and by my energies they stay in orbit. I become the moon and thereby supply the juice of life to all vegetables.” ~ Gopi Krishna, Bhagavad Gita

The poetic side of this is immense, but so is the implication. When looking at the stars, the trees, the rivers, we can meditate on this fantastic truth and melt into existence. Just beautiful.

“Feelings of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, are caused by the contact of the senses with their objects. They come and they go, never lasting long. You must accept them.” ~ Anonymous, Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God

Non-duality. Non-attachment. So entwined with the senses yet always a perception of the observer, always illusionary. It is the great deception; yet as the quote says to accept them and let them pass is the only choice we have in order to not suffer. Whether it is physical pain or emotional suffering, it always passes, never lasting long.

“Some offer their out-flowing breath into the breath that flows in; and the in-flowing breath into the breath that flows out; they aim at Pranayama, breath-harmony, and the flow of their breath is in peace.” ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita

I like this one as it reminds me of the meditation to focus on the gap in our breath. That so minute a moment can feel so expansive and the combination of ‘gaps’ limitless. To focus on the gap on the in breath or the gap on the out breath? Such a small decision yet it could encompass the whole way we live our lives. Reality is sensitive.

“Thus the Gita places human destiny entirely in human hands. Its world is not deterministic, but neither is it an expression of blind chance: we shape ourselves and our world by what we believe and think and act on, whether for good or for ill.” ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita

How empowering a statement: ‘the Gita places human destiny entirely in human hands’! All voices of wisdom, all spiritual texts say this, it is free will and could be called the most important rule of existence. We shape ourselves.

“We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.” ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita

A sentiment that we have certainly let fall by the wayside, in Western society at least. When the individual has balanced the world of the consciousness with that of the physical senses will he experience reality in a purer form.

“One whose happiness is within, who is active within, who rejoices within and is illumined within, is actually the perfect mystic. (S)He is liberated in the Supreme, and ultimately (s)he attains the Supreme.” ~ A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Bhagavad-gita

When a person flows from the centre; a place where all the earth and stars are contained, then we find balance and happiness. We are microcosms, little universes not independent from each other.

Mediations on light and being illuminated from within may aid the individual in achieving this wonderful analogy of happiness.

“The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God.” ~ Anonymous, Bhagavad-gita

As above, our forgetfulness of this fact causes much anguish. How sad that we forget and lose touch with this.

When our perception of duality goes awry and becomes distorted beyond our perceived control. Perhaps we experience this sort of extreme distortion of the senses and our perceived separation from the divine in order to come so glamorously back to it.

“Just as the dweller in this body passes through childhood, youth and old age, so at death he merely passes into another kind of body. The wise are not deceived by that.”
~ Anonymous, Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God

Death is the next great adventure. Another disruption and distortion of reality; the fear and unfamiliarity of death.

“We must act in a selfless spirit, Krishna says, without ego-involvement and without getting entangled in whether things work out the way we want; only then will we not fall into the terrible net of karma. We cannot hope to escape karma by refraining from our duties: even to survive in the world, we must act.” ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita

If the lesson of the Bhagavad Gita could be summed up, it would probably be with this wonderful verse. Lord Krishna, the ‘guide’ and right-hand-man to the Prince, is also a divine God.

We are both God and simultaneously the beggar or aide. As the Gita teaches, we are all these facets and whatever hand karma has dealt us in this moment will also pass.

Our ‘duty’ (as Lord Krishna teaches to Prince Arjuna) is to be warriors, and the act is to be far from a violent one. It is to not seek to satisfy the ego but to selflessly give and without hope of reward.

If you would like to read The Bhagavad Gita in its entirety, it is available online.

The Bhagavad Gita: Masterful Guide for Everyday Spiritual Living | Brother Chidananda

Image Sources

Krishna and Prince Arjuna
18th century painting

Free Your Mind from Negative Self-talk: Meditation for a Positive Mind

Meditation

Susan L. Magine

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October 28, 2016

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Free Your Mind from Negative Self-talk: Meditation for a Positive Mind

If you could listen to the thoughts of others, what would you hear? My guess is that if you listened, even for a small while, to just about anyone, you would hear endless thoughts of worry, negativity and loads of self-criticism.

Why do I think this? Because this is what is going on, most of the time, in my own head. And also because I have noticed that whenever I talk to other people, usually one of the first things out of their mouths fall into one of these categories. None of us are strangers to doubt, fear, or pessimism.

When the mind is in a negative state it can launch an endless litany of insults and animosity at us, all in vicious defense of our supposed worthlessness. It’s the reason we often look in the mirror with an agenda, searching only to see what we do not like, while blotting out the rest.

It may tell us that we are no good, that other people are better, that we will never be like those other people. It can say that we are doomed to fail, so we might as well not even begin. And on and on it goes, until the negativity grinds itself a deep trench within our minds, causing it to be the most traveled route for thought to take.

Negative self-talk is an epidemic and one we need to heal. If we can learn to be kind to ourselves, surely we will find it easier to be kind to each other.

Signs you are in a negative mind state

It is possible to be in a negative thought pattern without realizing it. If you can categorize your thoughts in any one of the following ways – you are in a negative mind state:

Feeling sorry for yourself
Thoughts of unworthiness
Complaining
Criticism
Expecting the worse
Victim mentality
Resentment
Worry
Blame
Hopelessness
Irritation
Anger
Fear

Here are ways to Free Your Mind from Negative Self-talk

To free your mind from negative self-talk, your first instinct might be to combat them with their positive counterparts. However, you’ll soon notice that your thoughts and words are too contrived, too earnest, and not at all sincere.

You can’t force yourself into optimism. Attempting to do so will require far more stamina than most could endure. Besides, you can only fool yourself for so long.

You might also try to stop the thoughts altogether, and it may work – but only as long as you can keep your guard up. Fighting them will eventually turn into a cantankerous battle: you vs. yourself.

The problem quickly becomes obvious as the conundrum presents itself, for when you fight yourself you both win and lose, essentially getting nowhere. And, as the negative mind would say, you are still a loser.

But you can’t give in to the negativity. The damage negative self-talk inflicts on your well-being may be hard to measure, but it’s not hard to spot. At the very least, it can stop you from reaching for your personal goals, and at worst it can cause you to spiral into a cycle of depression and possible self-hatred.

Yet as damaging as negative thoughts can be, all they really are is a bad behavior that has formed itself into a pattern … which is actually good news. Why? Because patterns can be broken, and new ones can be formed. It may take effort, it may take courage, but it can be done.

Accept It and Move On

Change inevitably requires some degree of understanding. To swap your negative self-talk for a more supportive conversation, it’s important to differentiate between the mind’s logical and emotional dialogue.

The thoughts that are logical, such as “don’t jump off the cliff”, are there to protect you, so you must listen to those.

But the thoughts that are purely emotional, with no basis in fact, such as “you aren’t good enough”, are the ones that lead you astray. Acknowledge them, accept them, but don’t let them stop your progress, or scare you into inertia, claim your happiness.

Think of the negative self-talk as a crying baby; you probably don’t like to hear it, but at the same time you can accept it because you know it’s what babies do.

The negative mind behaves the same way – it’s always going to be there, making noise when it wants to, and although you can’t stop it, what you can do is acknowledge it, appease it if need be, and then simply tune out of it and move on.

Change Your Negative Self-talk

To help you groove some new channels into your mind for positivity to flow, it’s important to couple your mental efforts with some physical action. This will help train your mind from dual angles, both mentally and physically. Meditation can do this for you, as it is the best practice to bring tranquility to the mind.

The following meditation works on the heart center, opening your energies to the experience of the positive self, while bringing mental balance to the psyche. Practice this one daily, and watch your negative self-talk turn into a whisper.

Meditation to Stop the Negative Self-talk

Posture: Sit with an erect spine. Keep the first two fingers straight. Curl the ring finger and little finger into each palm. Bend the thumbs over top of them to lock them into place.

Bring the arms close so the elbows are by the sides, and the hands are by the shoulders with the two fingers of each hand pointing straight up.

Bring the forearms and hands forward to an angle of 30 degrees from the vertical. Press the shoulders and elbows back firmly but comfortably. The palms face forward.

Eyes and Mental Focus: Close the eyelids. Roll the eyes up gently and concentrate at the brow point, the Third Eye area at the top of the nose where the eyebrows would meet.
Breath: Create a steady, slow, deep and complete breath.
Mantra: Mentally pulse rhythmically from the brow point out to Infinity the sounds: Sa ta na ma
(Sa is Infinity. Ta is Life. Na is Death. Ma is Rebirth/transformation. This describes the cycle of life. The entire mantra means, “I meditate on Truth, Truth that I am.”)
Time: Try it for 40 days. During that time eat lightly and speak only truth directly from your heart. Practice for 11 to 62 minutes.
To End: Inhale deeply and exhale three times. Then open and close the fists several times. Relax.

(Author is a KRI/RYT (Kundalini Research Institute, Registered Yoga Teacher). Meditation is a KRI teaching, as taught by Yogi Bhajan.)

Kundalini Yoga Meditation as taught by Yogi Bhajan: Breaking the Mask

Source
Meditation by Yogi Bhajan

Image source
Tanya Shatseva

5 Reasons Why Being “Crazy” in a Sick Society is Actually Healthy

Issues

Gary Z McGee

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October 26, 2016

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5 Reasons Why Being “Crazy” in a Sick Society is Actually Healthy

Most people won’t argue the fact that the majority of societies on this planet are sick. From rampant pollution to the comodification of all things. From greed driven fractional-reserve banking to profitable war.

From paranoid xenophobia to terrorist-generating drone strikes. From billions of people suffering from propagandized Stockholm syndrome to unsustainable and tyrannical state-driven politics. From rampant homelessness to overfilled, for-profit prisons.

From 4 Difficult Truths that Will Shock You into Awareness to 4 Hard Truths that Will Jolt You Awake. The list goes on and on. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of ill-health.

The misery of it all is that we are more or less aware of this sickness, but we don’t know what to do about it. We see how rocking the boat just agitates everyone on board and causes more waves that nobody wants to deal with.

But there comes a time when we say “F$%k it! Screw everyone’s delicate sensibilities. I’m going to do something “crazy” in this sick society that doesn’t realize it’s a crashing plane. I’m going to put the oxygen mask on myself and lead by example.”

1.) Eccentricity is essential toward curtailing conformity

“In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.” ~ John Stuart Mill

Being healthy in an unhealthy society necessitates eccentricity. Sometimes in order to think outside the box you’ve got to flatten the box. Sometimes you’ve got to rise above the ill-health of it all and shout Stockholm-syndrome-shattering diatribes into a bullhorn through a gasmask while doing pirouettes on the Wall Street Bull.

So crucify conformity by capitalizing on your quirks. Embrace your own weirdness. Being eccentric is being interesting, and what makes you interesting makes you valuable.

Especially in a sick society with backwards values. Be extravagant. Be boisterous. Be a measure of health despite the sick society. It will drive them crazy.

Like Edith Sittwell said, “I am not eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.”

2.) Flexible questioning is healthier than relying on fixed answers

“Our highest truths are but half-truths. Think not to settle down forever in any truth. Make use of it as a tent in which to pass the summer night, but build no house of it or it will be your tomb.” ~ The Earl of Balfour

The badge of (dis)honor worn by a profoundly sick society is “having all the answers.” Ironically, a sick society believes it is the best society. It raises and praises its flags with fierce idolatry. It wields its nationalism like a bludgeon, clubbing the rest of the world’s nations with its xenophobia and fixed thinking.

The only thing thicker than its patriotic caprice is its utter obedience to authority. The authority spews out “answers” and the hooked-on-having-masters populace, the longing-to-be-ruled statists (or royalists), soak it up without question. But an unquestioned truth makes the whole world ignorant.

Unless, people learn to question authority. Which can, and will, make you seem crazy to those hooked on the answers. But the only way an “answer” can become prestigious and valid is if is put through rigorous scrutiny and circumspect inspection.

Otherwise it’s just the blind (conman) leading the blind (bamboozled). As Bertrand Russell said, “Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.”

3.) The heart is greater than money

“I found most of my friends quite content to be used as tax-material, even though the sums of money taken from them were employed against their own beliefs and interests. They had lived so long under the system of using others, and then in their turn being used by them, that they were like hypnotized subjects, and looked on this subjecting and using of each other as a part of the necessary and even Providential order of things. The great machine had taken possession of their souls.” ~ Auberon Herbert

In this world of competitive one-upmanship, it’s “crazy” to have someone come along with the understanding that cooperation is primary and competition is secondary. People get all bent out of shape when you suggest interdependence is healthier than independence is healthier than codependence. Especially when it comes to money.

This is because, in a sick society, people are conditioned to hoard things. People are brainwashed into competing for material possession, usually at the expense of other people. People are soft-wired to be codependent on an unhealthy state, which creates unhealthy codependent relationships.

To include financial relationships. It’s a vicious cycle that only ends when the “crazy” individual rises up with a full heart and turns the table on their own codependence, thus becoming independent in order to self-actualize interdependence.

4.) Being contrary humbles the powers that be

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.” ~Wendell Berry

There is a wealth of health to be found in contrariness. Not to mention, the pleasure gained (Which I “contrarily” just mentioned).

Being contrary in a sick society is being audaciously exemplary. It’s being a black sheep and proud of it. It’s rising up from the bottom of the pile and pulling the too-comfortable one who’s on top face-first into the mud.

It’s kneecapping high horses. It’s burning flags and bibles and Korans. It’s melting down thrones and crown jewels and polishing turds with them. It’s “climbing the highest mountain and punching the face of god.”

The profoundly sick society has survived for far too long, and the trick-doctors, the contrary shamans, the sacred clowns, have had enough. They are the ones “crazy” enough to imagine a new world. They are the ones contrarian enough to usher it in.

Their contrariness upsets all apple carts in order to reveal the rotten apples hidden under the shiny Monsanto veneer.

5.) Dangerous freedom is healthier than peaceful slavery:

“When freedom is outlawed only outlaws will be free.” ~ Anonymous

You can tell a sick society by the level of its blind servitude. The sick society is subservient and dependent upon the state. Born into bondage, the people in a sick society rarely achieve the level of self-awareness necessary to question their chains.

They are too enthralled by the bells and whistles of the man-machine, too caught up in the nine-to-five daily grind, too enraptured by bipartisan claptrap and state-driven propaganda, to notice the cowardly sickness at the heart of the conquer-consume-destroy-repeat lifestyle.

In short: their peaceful slavery has made them apathetically content. This is precisely why freedom is dangerous. It’s not a given. It takes hard work despite those who are lazy.

It takes getting uncomfortable despite the comfortable. It takes being healthy despite those who are well-adjusted to a sick society. It takes being “crazy” despite the all too passively content status quo.

At the end of the day, the sick society will just keep getting sicker. Those well-adjusted to the sick society will just keep getting more adjusted to it until the world is no longer able to support that level of sickness. But by then it will be too late for all of us.

So this is a call to arms to all those who are willing to be crazy despite the tyranny of normal, to be rebels despite empire, to be round pegs despite their square holes, to be black sheep mocking both sheep and shepherd, to be healthy despite a profoundly sick society.

Dare to be Divergent. Dare to be “The One.” Dare to be the Braveheart David standing toe-to-toe with Goliath. The status quo will think you’re crazy, but posterity will think you’re a hero.