Why Change?

Change is hard. We humans find comfort in the familiar. Our comfort zones feel safe, secure, and calming. And it's good to have these comfort zones; it's good to have a place, a home, to rest and heal and find peace. Peace is much of what matters in a balanced life.

But peace alone is not enough. Both sides of the equation, the active and creative passion (yang) and the balanced and resting peace (yin), are important to a balanced and fulfilling life in the human condition. The path of active bliss encompasses both peace and passion – and the heart of passion is change.

Change is a requirement for growth. Violent and sweeping or subtle and gradual, change is what moves, creates, builds, sustains. Life without change is stasis. And stasis is not life.

Change requires trust. Reliance on self (ego), on flawed or obsolete beliefs, or on memories of the past, binds us to those things. To be bound to anything holds us back from change. Trust is faith with teeth. Where faith is theory, trust is putting that theory into action.

Change requires an openness to change. In a state of openness, we risk being hurt. Many of us who choose to live the way of openness and love have been hurt deeply. It's hard to trust after being hurt. It's easier to put up the walls again, to build our defenses, to choose not to trust.

Trusting other people is difficult. Sometimes it helps to choose to trust some Higher Power rather than other people. When we fully trust the Universe, we needn't be afraid of being hurt by others. For even if we are hurt, we can realize that under the care of Divinity there's a purpose, a lesson, and growth.

Even if the purpose is not readily obvious, trust in the Universe allows us to know that a higher purpose exists. It's much easier to accept pain, hardship, and failure when we trust and know that there's a higher plan, an underlying purpose, a reason.

There exists in each of us a prompting, a knowing, an instinctual urge to change. When we allow and accept and embrace change, the urge is quieted. When we resist, there is pain. It manifests as emotions, as fears, as sickness, and as disease. But in perfect tune with the inner urge to change, in tune with the flow, all is well.

The pain of change is real. It's scary and fraught with the risk of being harmed as we open to the universe and others. But the pain of not changing is greater – not at first, but in time. The urge to change cannot be quieted. It can be muffled for a time with mood-altering substances and behaviors, but the urging will not be quieted until we surrender to it and invite change.

Embracing change requires courage. Being courageous is not to be completely without fear, but instead, to acknowledge and accept the fear and act anyway. This is where trust is useful. Having trust in Providence allows acting in fear much more easily than doing so alone.

As we choose and learn to trust, we begin to see the positive results. With faith and trust, anything is possible. When we realize this is not only a nice sentiment but an actual living and breathing truth, it becomes easier to live in a place of change.

As we change from self-centered to God-centered to other-centered, we can begin to change in ways that are expected to not bring only personal but also more widespread change. We become willing to set aside our needs and care about others – care enough to take real action in ways that will help them.

Many of us think of ourselves as kind, caring, and compassionate. But if all we do is think along those lines, if we fail to take action, if we don't actually change and serve and help others, we are surely not living according to our ideals. Our thoughts and intents are largely useless when not accompanied by a willingness to change and actual action in the direction of change.

As we learn and accept that we are all connected, that we are indeed one, we are compelled to realize that continuing to resist change stunts the growth of and hurts not only us, but all people.

The prompting, the instinctual urge we feel is also connected to the whole of consciousness. It is not loving to ourselves individually or to the collective humanity to continue pretending we don't feel it and to remain as we were. As the world moves in love and peace, each and every one of us is invited to change and become more loving and peaceful.

We each have free will. That will likely never change. But there is also a global will, and the rising global will is asking us to join the flow that is love.

Beyond self, there is oneness. Beyond oneness, there is one plurality. Oneness never ceases to exist, even to they that deny it. Before we realize our oneness, our connectedness to all, it exists. Realization does not create what already exists.

Likewise, plurality exists as a higher truth beyond oneness. It does not invalidate or remove oneness, but instead supplements it. Transcendence includes both the levels below and above. As we climb the ladder, the lower rungs still exist.

So all three levels of truth, of awareness, of consciousness, of reality exist in harmony – self, one, and many, or ego, oneness, one plurality. The names themselves don't matter all that much. They serve only to help us to communicate and mutually learn and understand. But the truths are undeniable.

As we accept our places, as we grow, as we change, both as individuals and as parts of the collective whole, the world is changed. And it's time for change. Whether prompted by hope or pain, the result is the same. We're changing. We're moving in love and peace. The time is now.