Chapters 1 & 2: The Wounded Mind and The Loss of Innocence

This photo is in our bedroom in Nevada.  It reminds me to focus on the positive light, the love present in this universe.  Here it is almost the end of March.  I have had a challenging month at work along with a case of the crud and strep.  It still amazes me how easily I can slip back into the fear-based mode out of habit, but I remind myself what I want to create for my life and continue onward.

The beginning chapters of this book discuss the fact that we live in a fear based society.  I can remember when I was influenced by fear more so than I am now.  I have had an awareness, a knowing that there is another option, living life from a place of love.  It is not easy to get beyond the fear, because it is so ingrained in us as a society.  I believe the first step is to understand where the fear comes from.

The author says the Toltecs believe the human society lives in The Dream, or mitote.  This big Dream includes all the rules of society, its laws, its religions, its different cultures and ways to be.  This dream keeps us from seeing what we really are, which is pure love, we are Life.  Human beings by nature are very sensitive beings in which we perceive things with our emotional body.  When something goes wrong with the physical body we have a warning in the form of pain.  With the emotional body, the warning is fear. As children, we listen to these warnings and then move on.  Children live in the moment.  They are not ashamed of the past or worried about the future.  They are not afraid to love.  By the time we are adults we have become domesticated.   We lose our innocence, we lose our freedom, we lose our happiness, and we lose our tendency to love. This domestication has been going on as long as humans have been on the Earth, but more so with our society in the past few hundred years.  "Damn those Puritans" is a phrase JBR and I like to say to explain those beliefs in society that we are not aligned with.

Can Hell be right here on Earth?  I think so.  I think we can create our own Hell right here by our belief systems, that part of our mind that is always judging.  We not only judge others, but continuously judge ourselves.  This judgment is based on what we believe and based on a sense of justice and injustice.  We find ourselves guilty and need to be punished.  This manifests itself by feeling unworthy.  When we feel unworthy, undeserving, unlovable how can we have healthy relationships with others?  Hell has many different levels.

So if I understand where my fear comes from, what my belief systems are, then I can continue on the journey I have chosen for myself.  I can remove my fear-based beliefs and live my life from a place of love.