The lion

If you went to a zoo, and went to the lion exhibit and saw the lions cowering in fear and baaing like sheep, you would think something was terribly wrong.

You would wonder why the lions, with their fierce growls, their sharp claws and their cunning instincts would be behaving so strangely. You would be amazed to see such powerful, energetic animals milling without purpose, afraid to act in their own manner.

When you see people today, you can wonder the same thing. Here is an animal with such capacity for genius, and beauty, and purpose. Yet by and large, such gifts go unused.

Today, people have lost sight of their abilities to shape the future. They have grown accustomed to accepting things the way they are, without any sense that things can change in a positive fashion.

I write this in a world where exploding gas prices, growing shortages in food, and rising casualties from natural disasters threaten to make conditions on this planet increasingly difficult and harsh. It is so easy to look at all these things taking place in the world today — economic turmoil, political apathy, militarism, growing social unrest, climate change and resource depletion — and conclude that nothing can be done.

But this is an answer born of laziness. It is an answer that ignores the fact that the lion can roar if it wants to. We forget that this direction can be changed, if people want it to be change.

Humanity has never before faced the convergence of so many problems at one time. It is not enough that nations still go to war with each other for resources, still threaten each other with nuclear weapons — they do so at a time when ice caps are melting, when there are 6 billion plus people on the planet, when people are starting to riot over food in many places and when oil resources will only be more expensive from now on.

The old ways of thinking — acting like sheep — will not provide any solutions to these crises. Human thinking must advance and evolve to a higher place, a place that allows for more meaningful and lasting solutions to the problems of the present. The lion will have to roar like a lion if it wants to solve the problems it has caused by acting like a sheep.

It is possible to imagine a world with more joy, more happiness, more freedom. It would look very different than our world today. It would be a world where people were taught from birth their true natures, and the power they have to control and shape their futures. The lion would know that it is a lion; and a pride of lions, acting in their true natures, would be unstoppable against any problem, any enemy.

In order for the lion to recognize its true nature, there is one thing it must do. It must confront its fear. It is a scary thing to think that we have more power over our lives than we think. It is scary because we are unaccustomed to thinking ourselves as powerful. The lion who has never roared will be scared to try it out. Yet this is what must be done.

The root cause of all the problems today in this world derive from fear.

If fear can be tackled, then the world will be OK. People will be OK.

And the best place to tackle fear is in your own life. Look at your fears, confront them, lay them to rest. Stop baaing like a sheep and start roaring like a lion.

That will make all the difference.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Alternative Living, Freedom and Spiritualism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.