How do you see the world you live in? What do you think people in general are really like? Do you believe that evil is triumphing over good? Is the world filled with egocentric, selfish people? Can the little guy ever get ahead? Are government entities and all their representatives corrupt and untrustworthy? Is life unfair? Is it impossible to get ahead if you don’t have connections?
All of these attitudes emerge from your own assessment of your personal interaction with life. If your thoughts reflect a pessimistic view of the world, then that’s actually how you feel about yourself. If your thoughts reflect an optimistic view of the world, then that’s how you feel about your life. Whatever attitude you have about the world in general is a good indicator of the respect you have for your abilities to intend into this world what you desire. Pessimism strongly suggests that you don’t subscribe to the idea that you can access the power of intention to help you create your own bliss ful reality.
I recall hearing the following conversation after the events of 9/11 in New York City. A grandfather was talking to his grandson, telling him, “I have two wolves barking inside of me. The first wolf is filled with anger, hatred, bitterness, and mostly revenge. The sec ond wolf inside of me is filled with love, kindness, compassion, and mostly forgiveness.”
“Which wolf do you think will win?” the young boy inquired.
The grandfather responded, “Whichever one I feed.”
There are always two ways to look at the conditions of our world. We can see the hate, prejudice, mistreatment, starvation, poverty, and crime and conclude that this is a horrible world. We can feed this barking wolf and see more and more of what we despise. But this will only fill us with the same things that we find so malignant. Or we can look at the world from a position of self-love and self-respect, and see the improvements that have been made in race relations in our lifetime; the fall of so many dictatorships, lower crime rates, the dismantling of the atrocious apartheid systems, the elevated consciousness of the environmental movement, and the desire on the part of so many to rid our world of nuclear weapons and instruments of mass destruction. We can remind ourselves that for every act of evil in the world, there are a million acts of kindness, and we can then feed the second wolf that barks from a position of hope for humanity, If you see yourself as a divine creation, you’ll look for this in your worldview, and the gloom-and-doom naysayers will have no impact on you and your self-respect.
When you have a gloomy picture of what the world looks like, you’re unreceptive to the potential assistance that’s there to help you with your own individual intentions. Why would others want to come to your aid when you view them as contemptible? Why would the universal force be attracted to that which repels it? How could a world that’s so corrupt ever be of assistance to someone who has noble intentions? The answers to these questions are obvi ous. You attract into your life what you feel inside. If you feel that you’re not worthy of being respected, you attract disrespect. This weak selfrespect is the result of an exceptionally rusty link to the field of intention. This link must be cleansed and purified, and that takes place within your own mind.