There's Nobody Out There

Is there someone in your life who gets on your nerves? In your search for inner peace, as well as for world peace, you may find yourself feeling obstructed by the actions and intentions of others. We tend to idealize peace as a pastel vision of children skipping in a slow motion circle, holding hands and laughing… until the phone rings and the person on the other end tries to sell you something you don’t want and younsnap at them. Suddenly something occurs to you. There are other people out there who seem to be messing up your creation. We often encounter these personal stumbling blocks that remind us that we may not be as resonant with peace as we’d like to believe. We start to see that war and crime, which we’d like to blame on others, have their seeds in our very own consciousness. We see their embryos in our reactions to the most mundane intrusions in our daily lives. As long as we hold ourselves in the stance of victim, we hold ourselves in the stance of powerless. As soon as we step into the groove of responsibility, we step into the rhythm of happiness.nnIt’s All You When I first heard about Ho’Oponopono, it rang true for me at a deep level. Ho’Oponopono means to make right; to rectify, to correct. Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, tells us, “If you want to solve a problem, work on yourself. If the problem is with another person, for example, just ask yourself, ‘What’s going on in me that’s causing this person to bug me?’” (from 100% Responsibility and the Possibility of a Hot FudgenSundae: Cat Saunders gets the scoop on Haleakala Hew Len www.hooponopono.org.) This method echoes the message of the Upanishads. It gives us an opening for seeing “all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings” as Verse 6 of the Isopanishad advises. Joe Vitale recounts the story of how Dr. Len healed a complete ward of criminally insane patients by looking within himself and taking responsibility for their illness (from 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life.) Instead of trying to change them, he changed himself. And the concrete result was that the previously dangerous, high security ward was closed because, one by one, all the patients were released.nnStepping Forward If you’ve been on a parallel jou ey with me, you know that we have been ever more deeply embracing the notion that we create our own reality. Cautiously, we have tiptoed onto this terrain of vast responsibility. Gratefully, we have accepted the empowerment that comes with it. In amazement, we have watched our lives flourish as we receive and apply this understanding. Now we can go farther. Recognizing that the people who we see “out there” really live “in here” within the space of our consciousness, we can make corrections within ourselves and see transformations in our world.nnStep 1 It can begin with the simplest step of loving and appreciating the mystery that you are. You can start by considering the incomprehensible expanse of your consciousness itself. Feel the richness of the ground of your being.nnStep 2 As you sense the broad expanse of your consciousness, notice where you encounter discord, judgment, pain or distortion, and release it completely. Offer apology to the ground of your being for creating this tangle and let the resistance be erased. Feel the relief of the open space that replaces the pain. By honoring the ground of our being, even though we may not understand it in the least, we soften the harsh weapons we have been unwittingly using against ourselves, and therefore against each other. By clearing ourselves we harmonize our world. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche tells us, “A great deal of chaos in the world occurs because people don’t appreciate themselves. Having never developed sympathy or gentleness toward themselves, they cannot experience harmony or peace within themselves, and therefore, what they project to others is also inharmonious and confused” (from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior) From Hawaii to India to Tibet we find the same message. With so many speaking this truth and offering tools of all kinds for our benefit, we are the fortunate recipients of the key to all that is good. Isn’t it funny that it was in us all along?