Clinging onto pride, onto our belief system, the need to be right is what holds many back.

Is this inherited or something that is just in our DNA? Either way there are many character flaws out there that keep man separated and divided. There are many reasons why the world is always at war and we can justify it as much as we want, but when it is broken down it always goes back to stubborn, pride and ego.

Someone has always wronged someone else. Someone always takes things or denies things to someone else. The someone else who has things, who has the power and resources, don’t feel like they should have to share, let alone acknowledge the right of the other parties’ wants and needs of the contested material good. This non-stop wheel of man is sad.

To keep fighting the same fights over the course of centuries is very childish and ridiculous, yet we continue to fight. Stubborn pride at it’s lowest. They say that the world is not fair or just and it is cruel. I do see that and have to ask why is this still so? We keep dancing to the same drummer, to the same beat that our supposed inferior ancestors danced to. We say we are more intelligent, more removed from a primitive mind set yet we are still as barbaric and brutal as ever. This does not make any sense whatsoever.

We claim to know each other, we place the blame of things onto others, yet we still do not know our own selves.

For it is within our own selves that self mastery and the flame of enlightenment live. They reside beyond our belief system, very deep down beyond who and what we think we are. We have to dig down, get into the mucky muck of ourselves in order to become free of the limits that hold us back as mortal thinking beings. To chase the shadows and smoke trails of enlightenment is the greatest treasure hunt we can under take, yet so very few are brave enough to walk down the path the way it is meant to be walked down—without fear.

It is not easy to walk down the spiritual path being open and vulnerable to the truth of our existence. It is not easy letting go the connotations of old, stubborn pride and ways. Letting go of what we think we are and know and seeing what is left is the core of spiritual training. It is like constantly wiping off your internal mirror of snow and ice on a car’s windshield. Every snow storm is different, as there are no two snowflakes the same shape or size. The same is true of any moment of life, yet we try to categorize each moment. We try to relive a pleasant moment from the past only to fall short time and time again.

Letting go of this illusion and seeing through it is not meant to be an easy task. But this task is what we all signed up for when we signed the contract to come into this life. Yet many can not even remember even signing the contract, because we forget who we really are when we are born. The goal, the task is to remember. It is way too easy to get addicted and distracted by the shiny lights and distractions of being alive.

Life is very addicting and distracting.

There is nothing wrong with liking life or having fun while we are here. What is unfortunate is that the majority of us have no idea of why we are here and that is why there are so many problems in this world. We have no focus, no collective higher purpose of why we are here. Too many are addicted to the “I” and neglect the “we.” The “we” is developed to a greater extent when one travels into the small sense of self and begins to work through all the warts and pimples of the ego and that of stubborn pride.

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Matt Rutkowski walks the spiritual path. He loves to make people laugh. He is a writer, a comedian, a philosopher and always does his best to be a gentleman. Email him here.