Seeing Beyond Fairness

If there’s one thing that I continue to learn in this journey, it is that to move towards love, we must let go of ego and all its ploys to pull us into conflict.  To be an instrument of love, we must be anchored by love.  Unfortunately, we are easily challenged by this in the in the smallest of circumstances.  The person at the checkout counter is rude for no apparent reason and ego claims injustice to justify our anger.  The problem with this reaction is that there is no room for love to blossom when we are bound by the constraints of fairness and justification.

If our response to others is determined by how others respond to us, we cannot serve as the great instrument of love that we were meant to be.  Instead, we are stuck in a reactive cycle, vulnerable to the whims of ego.  We blindly react from a place of past conditioning…a place that justifies our responses in the name of fairness and respect.  Admittedly, this is one of the more difficult hurdles to overcome in this journey to shift out of ego and into spirit.  I have surely done my share of justifying my anger through a sense of unfairness (still do!).  While in Panama, my friend, Lindsey, and I have had multiple experiences where ladies at the checkout counter acted put off by our presence.  We’ve witnessed a clear change in their demeanor from processing the person ahead of us to helping us.  In the moment, it feels like an injustice.  What did we do to them?  We were friendly in our encounter, yet that friendliness had not been reciprocated.  Why?  My knee-jerk reaction was to feel frustrated…a typical response based in ego conditioning.

The problem with that reaction is that it only serves to uphold the energy that the ladies produced.  If we want to break that energy cycle and bring about love, we cannot allow their behavior towards us to effect how we respond to them.  We must move beyond the barrier that is being created by responding with indifference towards their attitude.  Ego takes personal offense in situations like these, but spirit sees beyond the illusions that these situations are attempting to create, by staying centered in love.

Seeing beyond the transgressions that our past conditioning perceives is a necessary hurdle that must be mastered, if we want to serve as instruments of love.  If we only love those who treat us in the ways in which we believe we deserve, we will not serve in our highest capacity, regarding being an instrument of love.  Instead, we will remain bound by ego.  We have to become so strong and centered in truth (love) that transgressions against us are no longer perceived (or at least no longer reacted to).  Reacting to transgressions is what keeps us in an endless cycle of conflict.  The only way to break this cycle is to see beyond it.  We do this by identifying transgressions as acts of ego, nothing more.  We either choose to uphold ego or move beyond it in order to be an instrument of love.

I do not presume that changes such as these can or will occur at the flip of a switch.  They take practice, but practice is not possible without awareness.  In bringing to light how ego operates in situations like these, ego’s motivations will be revealed and with time, neutralized.  I have made it a habit to examine my everyday experiences from the perspective of ego versus spirit as a way of uncovering ego’s motivations in my reactions to the circumstances of my life (hence, analyzing the experience with the ladies at the checkout counter!).  The process has helped tremendously in neutralizing ego’s hold over me, such that more divine love is allowed to flow through me.  The journey continues, of course, but definite progress has been made.  I encourage all of your to consider implementing similar habits in your life.  The simple act of bringing light to darkness (ego) has the potential to transform our ability to love.  Ego begins to melt away as spirit becomes the predominant force in our lives.

Transformations that occur within ultimately extend outward.  As we become more centered in spirit, it neutralizes the impact that other people’s egos can have.  Without an active ego for other people’s ego to lock horns with, the power of their ego is also reduced.  Just by making these changes within ourselves, we have to ability to significantly affect world around us.  I hope you’ll consider joining me in tackling this major hurdle to love.

Much love to all,

Shanna