Nourishing Our Potentials

Great leaders use introspection not only within themselves but within their own tradition and heritage.  Leaders can become great leaders if introspection leads to new perspective and a more global pluralist worldview.  There should not be two sets of rules.  When we find ourselves becoming annoyed or irritated with another’s heritage, behavior, or tradition we need to look inward for that irritation is reflecting back to us some aspect of our own heritage, behavior, or tradition that we can examine.

If we were to grasp a ring as a symbol of possession and squeeze it in our hand, the ring is captured and so is the use of our hand. Imagine holding this ring out in front of you with your palm either up or down.

If our palm is facing down and we sense the ring getting loose, our tendency is to quickly squeeze our hand.  This is natural, we all do this.  But some of us will feel threatened when that ring begins to fall and we find ourselves wanting that ring more and begin to squeeze tighter.  Grasping and squeezing something is an attempt to own it and graspers and squeezers do this because they like to keep things, even if they don’t like them. Giving up the freedom of one of our hands to squeeze something is annoying and it follows that graspers and squeezers would become annoying as well. Graspers and squeezers tend to have lapses in ethics.

But if our palm is facing upward we tend to feel the ring less as a possession and more as a symbol of our own freedom.   Open your hand and the ring is still there.  Now with your imagination allow this ring to become a beautiful butterfly resting peacefully and gently on the palm of your hand.   Enjoy the moment and then with awe watch the butterfly float into the sky taking with it nourishment it received from you and sharing it wherever it goes.

Love with attachment is nothing more than fear emotionally.  To finish this thought I give you this by William Blake:

He who binds to himself a joy,

Does the winged life destroy;

He who kisses the Joy as it flies,

Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

Ask yourself, what ring am I squeezing?  Is it a lifestyle, a title, a person, a job, a house, a car, old perspective, fame, fortune, victory, domination, ego, poverty, anger, hostility, revenge, resentment, jealously, greed, hatred, unworthiness, pain, disease, beliefs, prejudice, restlessness, materialism, inferiority, failure, phobias, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs?  The list seems to go on and on doesn’t it?

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