Every day, each of us makes choices, large and small. These choices determine our future. Some affect our short-term future and some have an impact for many years to come. As all of us, around the world, make our choices, the future of humankind is formed.
In J.K. Rowling's book, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," She has Dumbledor say to Harry, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." This is because our choices, to a large degree, determine how we will use our abilities.
It's easy to see, with hindsight, how certain choices can lead to disaster. These choices need not be significant, but they gain significance as other bad choices are added on. Our current economic crisis cannot be blamed on any one choice. It is the result of many bad decisions by different persons and organizations that ultimately created a perfect economic storm.
For us, as individuals and collectively, the problem is that not all of our choices are conscious. The direction of our lives and the direction of humankind will be determined by our unconscious choices as well as our conscious choices.
Wall Street, the bankers, and the Federal Reserve did not consciously decide to destroy the economy. They made choices that looked toward short-term gain. They made assumptions that were unconscious but they should have known better. They say that the stock market swings between fear and greed. These often play on us unconsciously.
What are some of the kinds of unconscious thoughts or attitudes that can lead one to a negative future? Billions of dollars are spent every year on psychiatrists, therapists, counselors, gurus, spiritual leaders, self-help books, and conferences, all designed to help us create a better future.
Most are predicated on the idea that we are all wounded in one way or another, either by our childhood experiences and/or our past lives. The problem we face in creating a better future, individually and globally, is that our past experiences continue to influence or even cause our present choices.
It is not always my present conscious adult who makes the decisions. I may have a fearful child who makes some of my decisions for me. I may have learned not to trust people. I may be a pessimist and expect life to be hard and expect to be betrayed. I may have low self-esteem and not feel worthy of success or happiness.
All of these attitudes and beliefs, and many more, represent the crucible that forms my future. I cannot make my future better than my present without confronting the demons of my past. This goes for nations as well as individuals.
And the key to recognizing the shadows of the past is awareness. Cultivating awareness of self and awareness of the world around us leads to an understanding of self and an increasing ability to make more conscious choices.
On one end of the awareness spectrum is enlightenment (Christ Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, etc.). On the other end is a kind of insanity that has not yet been recognized or categorized. You see this insanity in world leaders and heads of corporations, military leaders and religious fanatics.
When we see some of these people behaving with outrageous hypocrisy, we naturally assume they are simply lying. This is certainly often the case. But this common scenario has a much more sinister twist. What if they are not lying? What if they actually believe what they are saying? Such behavior, I believe, can justifiably be labeled insanity.
Each of us exists somewhere on this awareness continuum. Each of us is a microcosm of the whole. It is clear that humankind can go in any number of directions from the present. We can utterly destroy ourselves or we can create a utopia. It appears that it is the world leaders who will determine this. They seem to have all of the power and we seem to have very little.
That is an illusion. As each one of us frees ourselves from the ghosts from our past, as we find the courage to face our unconscious demons and angels (for we have beautiful and positive ghosts in our unconscious as well), and as we allow ourselves to become aware and conscious, we will change the world.
Every positive thought, every positive feeling, every positive action, however small, has a positive impact on the whole. Our leaders will not and cannot save the world. But we can, by choosing a better future for ourselves, by believing in a better future for all humankind, by acting as if we are in that better future right now.