Education or False Validation?
Our conditioning makes it very difficult for humans to understand that the only real attainment is finding our spirit and allowing that to be expressed through our experience.
Humans tend to be impressed by struggle and scholarly endurance because we have been conditioned to believe that our purpose in life is to be a productive member of society. Instead of learning from curiosity and wonder, we force ourselves to struggle through courses and subjects that are dry, boring, or not even remotely interesting in order to obtain a certificate that validates our intelligence and worth.
Understanding is not accomplished through struggle itself, but though our ability to overcome struggle.
Most of us believe that overcoming struggle is accomplished by enduring struggle to acquire knowledge. But in reality, the more struggle we endure, the more struggle we create. Our ability to learn is not meant to cause struggle, but to inspire a joyful journey of discovery, exploration and fulfillment of curiosity – all of which lead to understanding.
A degree is merely a symbol that we have attained the knowledge acceptable to society in a particular area of study. As long as we do not express understanding that contradicts the taught doctrines, that degree will remain valid, acceptable and society may even consider us an expert on the subject of our study.
Moreover, the one who earns a degree is easily tempted to believe their self to be more important or superior to other people. This is because other peoples’ perception of us gives credence to the self image that we have been creating ever since we developed the mental concept of self as separate from everything else. A degree provides a sense that we are revered by other people, and arrogance can easily become our dominant expression.
But when we learn from those who have gone before with the intent to understand - not for a degree or self importance - we can attain both worldly knowledge and our true Self. No degree can validate that which a person understands, and when we have understanding, no validation is necessary.
Releasing Struggle
Adversity will always exist for the continuous expansion of our being. We cannot change this reality, nor do we want to. For without adversity, there would be no reason for our existence in this experience we call life.
Struggle means to employ strenuous or violent efforts in response to adversity; and it is experienced when we use will to control the outcome of a situation or circumstance.
During a challenging experience or uneasy thought pattern, it is human nature to feel fear, stress, dread, etc. Many of us believe that our own struggle is necessary in order to conquer a situation or achieve a goal; and we balk at the idea that life is supposed to be easy.
In reality, struggle is an emotion which interferes with problem solving skills, burdens our bodies and minds, and attracts more situations that gave birth to that feeling.
When we attach ourselves to expected outcomes in order to justify our efforts, or we imagine possible scenarios, we create struggle within ourselves because we have no real control over the outcome of anything. The feeling of struggle distracts our focus, and often causes the most efficient solutions to be overlooked.
Moreover, the laws of the universe are straightforward and do not deviate – like attracts like. This means that by struggling through any situation or toward any goal, we are attracting more situations that give rise to struggle.
Likewise, if we offer a calm, confident, trusting and optimistic vibration during a challenge or test, we are more open to a solution, we feel better, and we attract better experiences into our awareness. The more often we seek joy in the moment, the more opportunity for joy we will create.
We have the power to release struggle by tuning our feelings to the vibration of that which we want.
Letting it Go:
Releasing struggle begins with evaluation and acceptance of our current emotional set point - noticing the state of our emotions while staying calm and comfortable with what feelings we have. There is no need to judge our emotions as being good or bad, they are simply an indicator of where we are, like a road sign letting us know how far off we are from our ideal point of focus.
The most effective method to assess and transform our emotions is through deep breathing. This is because every feeling is attached to a specific breath pattern. The further our current emotion is from our alignment with joy, the shallower our breathing becomes. This also works the other way around, meaning that when we slow and deepen our breath, we improve our emotion.
Through focused attention and deep breath, we can offer a thought and/or decide to engage in an activity that makes us feel a little bit better than our current emotion. We don’t have to make huge emotional leaps; it only takes small emotional shifts to gradually raise our vibration.
When we consistently aim to squeeze as much joy out of every moment, we consistently think and act toward that directive. If we make it a priority to follow our joy as much as possible, struggle will fall away as old baggage which we no longer require.
The more often we can be present in our experiences with a calm mind and deep breath, the more struggle can be replaced with emotions that more accurately reflect our real selves.
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