CHANGE OCCURS WITHIN

We all know that humankind needs to change a bit in order to survive longterm. What no one speaks of is that this change has to come from a new attitude, a new way of thinking. It's up to you.

           Humanity needs to change.

           We hear that all the time. It’s everywhere.

           There is talk about the greenhouse effect, about wars, about murders and gang rape and fascism. And it’s true. But what people rarely talk about is where and at which inner points we should change. If you ask someone to change and you don’t tell them how, or if that inner change doesn’t come, it’s like giving someone the miscellaneous parts of a vehicle and asking them to create a car. It won’t matter one iota if you recycle your trash, drive with environment friendly gasoline, eat vegetarian food and go every day to visit the animals in the zoo. If there is no inner change, those outer changes will be as effective as a belch during a hurricane. The real change can only begin inside you, in how you think, in how you see yourself and how you regard other human beings. Change occurs within.

And guess what? It all starts with you. Yes, you reading this article. It’s up to you.

Hope. Inspiration. Change. How can you change your life and the lives of other people for the better at the same time? How can you spread hope and inspiration? How can you change the world? This is no cliché. Forget the cliché. Forget stereotypes. You want to change the world for the better? Do it. Be creative, think outside the box, be true to your family and your friends and those who care for you.

           When I say that our attitudes have to change, that means that we have to open to change, good change, respectful change. We have to be able to see the world from other people’s eyes, which doesn’t mean we should forget ourselves.

           In my view, there is a growing stereotypization in our society. We could call it “thinking in terms of black and white” or “boxing the world” or “categorizing reality”. Whatever we call it, a lot of it has nothing to do with reality.

           Of course we need the comfort of the categories. But we also need to be able to think beyond those categories. A person, for instance, is more than his job or his age or his social status. Beyond all that, a person is what he is: a soul. Categories are boxes, suggestions.

We all know that all categories in some way transcend into each other, that things blend together in one way or another. These transitions become clear when we see how many professions have creative elements. Many professions are creative. Many architects are graphic artists, many doctors have also learned homeopathic sciences, nurses have to be creative in the way they inspire patients, psychoanalists create hope in their patients and God knows that insurance salesmen are creative in the way they market their products, for good and for ill. In fact, all professions have some elements of creativity.

More importantly, people are more than their professions, more than their social status, more than their origin.

The global world is in constant transition. There are Asians who marry Europeans, Russians who marry Indians and Africans who marry Canadians. Every person is a puzzle.   

           We have to be able to understand that when a Buddhist meditates, he might in essence be doing the same thing as a Christian. He might just call it something else. All religions pray to a higher being, they believe in truth and eternity.

Everyone is unique.

           What is important to remember is that this really goes for everyone �" without exception. Kings, beggars, tax collectors, bakers, presidents, everyone.

           We tend to generalize, create stereotypes and clichés and even put down ourselves in order to serve those clichés. We believe that some people are more special than others. That becomes a very Orwellian situation. We believe ourselves to be living in an “Animal Farm”-kind of world, one where we have to choose or suffer the consequences. Either we are very special or we are completely ordinary. Now, ordinary is a stereotype that doesn’t exist.

Unique does. And yet, in our uniqueness we are one. We have in common that we are all people, we all live on this planet. That goes for animals and humans alike.

Yes, animals have souls.

           The dangerous thing is that we think we have to exclude some beings in order to please God. I have even heard it said that animals have no eternal souls. That, my dears, is the greatest hogwash of the century. Look into the eyes of a faithful dog and see that eternity resides there. People who have had out of body-experiences, and transcended to what we call heaven for a while, have even said that their pets have come to meet them.

Energy is never lost. A living being is more than just a body. If we were just bodies, we would be machines. We would have no real feelings. Doctors would disagree. Endorphines, adrenaline, testosterone, oestrogen, whatever endless medical terms there are would serve as proverbial proof. That, however, does not constitute a substitute for what feelings really are: a sign of a soul that expresses his or her spirit.

We don’t have souls.

We are souls.

           Having said that, I must point that in our uniqueness we are one. We are not common or all the same, but we are one in the divine spirit. Call him God, call him love, call him eternity. He is life. He, or she for that matter, lives in us all. You can pray to him in a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple or in nature. You can pray to him while kissing your loved one or painting a picture. The great misunderstanding is that religions constitute the highest form of God or that only one religion is the right forum to pray to God.

           Why would that be true?

           I have heard it said, by members of religious faiths, that you can’t pray to God in different ways, that a table can’t be blue and yellow at the same time, that the Christian God is jealous and does not welcome Buddha.

           Why would God be so shallow to exclude anyone, you or me?

           God created everyone in his own image.

           Again, everyone is unique.

           That goes for pharaohs and beggars alike. I have heard it said that the pharoah of ancient Egypt was more than a man. Of course, Ramses II ruled for three generations. Many Egyptians had only known him as a ruler. But basically he was no more or no less a soul on an everlasting journey than anyone else. That didn’t mean, of course, that he was less special than anyone else. That is what I am trying to say.

           Everyone is unique.

           Which somehow leads us back to categories. Uniqueness defies categories. You just can’t box uniqueness. We have to live by categories, follow society’s rules. But we have to realize what they are: compartments that help us define who we are.

Our society is based on categories. People need to box things into little compartments. That is fine, even necessary at times. But our attitudes have to change. Organizing society doesn’t mean boxing souls. We can’t judge people according to what they wear or what car they drive. What are they passionate about? What or who do they love?

We have to be willing to change our attitudes and reassess the situation according to the situation. Our main focal point has to be a positive outcome for all beings. That is possible in a society that trusts his own intuition.

           As I see it, our problem is that we think, for instance, that certain categories of people are different or more exempt from troubles than others. That certain rich people don’t have the daily trudgery of problems or issues that we do. But life is not black or white. It is not even shades of grey. Life is not grey. Life is a rainbow. A rainbow has darker colors, it also has lighter colors.

           More importantly, this is a global world. More than ever, we are getting a wide variety of ethnic varieties. That is wonderful. Cultures and nations and differences are vital for our survival. Creating new mixtures has always happened. It keeps it interesting. It keeps individuality alive. We have to respect each other’s individuality. If we say we can’t be different, we will always end up in a crisis. People need their individuality. We also have to respect other people’s individuality.

           See yourself as part of a rainbow and accept the light and the dark colors. Don’t let those darker colors scare you.

           That is the solution.

           Now, Queen Elizabeth II has to brush her teeth every evening just like you. She showers, she eats, she goes to the bathroom, she laughs, she cries, she sighs, she yawns, she sneezes and she belches. Now, that doesn’t mean that she is less unique than you. Her life is just as extraordinary as yours. You need not have more respect for her than you have for the beggar on the corner. In fact, you should treat him like a king and you should treat Queen Elizabeth like a queen. Don’t envy the rich. Don’t hate the poor. We need them both. Everyone is unique.

           The problem with our society is also that we today aim more for fame than the quality that leads to fame. Becoming a celebrity, for any reason at all, has today become the main goal. Some people tend to think, a life matters only when fame arrives in great glory. But fame and success are relative.

There are famous people, who were huge stars fifty years ago, earned tons of money and were regarded as the most famous people on the planet. Today, no one knows who they are. There are also people, who are famous, fall into the oblivion of forgetfulness and then have comebacks. There are also people, who become famous later in life. F. Murray Abraham was 45 when he played Salieri in the film “Amadeus”. Grandma Moses, one of the most famous naive artists in the world, became a famous painter at 75 years of age. After living a quiet life for seven decades, she became one of the most important naive painters in the world, her paintings subsequently exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

What, then, is success? I have heard people say that you need to reach a large audience in order to be successful. I disagree. That would limit the definition of the term success terribly. In fact, success as such is almost always a personal term. In Germany, there is a term called “Lebenskünstler”. It means “Artist of Life” and signifies someone who makes an art of living, creating art, seeing life as a road, enjoying the company of others, expressing himself eloquently, all in all a Renaissance Man.

The origin is Latin and means “Moving forward”.

That can mean many things. You can move forward in a thousand ways. Successful people have a tendency to think beyond categories.

Henry Maske’s biography “Only those who give up have lost” is an example of what I mean. You define your own success. 

David Bowie once said: “Success is a relative term. If I have an idea in my head and the result is just like the original idea, that is success.” Ask a person that had an accident, who still managed to stand up, walk around on his two feet and become strong, what he thinks success is. He will certainly say that he was successful. I knew a woman who conquered polio. José Carreras conquered leukemia and now spends his life collecting money for research. He did not need anyone else but himself to conquer the disease. Success is moving forward.

The so-called “Grey Zones” are far wider today than ever before. However, while those zones of mixed nationalities and people that defy categorization widen, the stereotypical thinking increases. It is unfortunate that there are too many people that are not capable of thinking outside the famous nine dots.

I’ll give you an example: I recently read an interview with the 65-year-old rock-star Alice Cooper. All his life, he has been accused of being the downfall of the youth of the world. The fact of the matter is that his father and grandfather were priests, that he goes to church every Sunday and that he sees his show as a mixture between a theatrical extravagance and a comedy. Stephen King writes scary stories, but nobody accuses him of decaying the youth of the world. In fact, Alice Cooper is currently involved in a concert project where his songs are being played by a classic symphony orchestra.

Things are not always what they seem, but they are almost always more spiritual.

So, when you walk out of your house tomorrow, try thinking outside the categories. See your fellow being as a spirit, try for a moment to see the world from his eyes. How would the world look from his point of view and sitting where he is sitting? Close your eyes and imagine yourself being him or her? If that was you, what would you do?

           Start with smiling at someone, asking someone a question who has always been an outsider. Connect areas that other people would not think of connecting, follow your intuition.