Looking For Supreme Wisdom of Self-Development!

I was scouring the Internet looking for some news articles that may be a tad related to self-development, self-enlightenment or any of the self-titled articles that may have something to do with someone reaching to get in touch with his/her inner soul. What did I find? The usual suspects, a lot of news about the stars of Hollywood, some sad news about a 19 year old woman allegedly raped by a 15 year old in a train station, the second Royal Wedding, a possible promotional boxing match between Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg for $1 million each, a comparison study that puts Canada in the top three countries for cancer survival rates alongside Australia and Sweden. Not all bad news except for the raping of that young woman, that is totally unacceptable. Why would teenagers think that they could get away with such crimes? Our councilors have to come up with a plan to stop such horrible crimes. Obviously throwing people in jail is a solution but not the best solution. We need much more than that!

You may at times think that you are alone in the pursuit of self-development but you have the power of the universe with you every second of your journey. Mind you, it is always advisable to seek like-minded people seeking self-development so that you can share your knowledge, talk and walk together. The journey is easier when you take someone else along the way. If you can bring your children to the path of self-development and enlightenment do so. A child with a purpose in life will not sit idle; he/she will want to be involved. More youth program should be developed for the sole purpose of bringing teenagers and young adults to learn about how to develop self. The role models that we have these days are not doing their jobs completely. Be it teenagers as model/actor or singers, they are not really reaching out to our children to communicate a positive message. There is too much emphasis on improving the self-image and not enough emphasis on improving the mind of our children. We have to bring more spiritual teachers into the equation, we need to bring real councilors and teachers that can get to the mass and spread the self-development and enlightenment message.

We have grown accustomed to entertainment and fun. When we sit down to watch television we expect to get entertainment, sports and play and if we don’t get it, we switch the channel. We have to be fair to our children and let them know that life is not all about entertainment. We have to let our teenagers know that it is the parent’s responsibility to guide them and nurture them. If we are not doing our jobs as guardian of our planet, how do we expect our children to be responsible and carry on in our path? Actually that is exactly what they will do if we do not change, they will continue in our path and we will be seeing more of the same madness. Any TV shows nowadays that get too serious get canned after a few weeks since we are used to be entertained, anything that get us thinking scare the heck of us because we don’t always want to face reality. There are still some good TV shows about nature, science, etc. There are some paid educational TV channels but we would have to shift our focus and bring them out more into the mainstream, make them the focal point of enlightenment and self-development of our society. The point is, everything revolves around the almighty dollar and that is the price we have to pay.

On my way home the other day, I was listening to CBC radio dispatches and they had a program about the sworn virgins of Albania. That was my enlightenment for the day.
The “burnesh” of the Balkans as they are called; women who live their lives as men as a symbol of pride. The sworn virgins decide to live in the manner of the opposite sex, which give them the privileges that regular women don’t have. The Albanian women are oppressed while the sworn virgin can smoke, attend male-only events, participate in male-only activities, use men's tools like guns and certain musical instruments, and generally obtain the respect of their born-male peers like any other man. They play the man role in the family and they are very family oriented looking for the well being of the household.

As I listened to the program and interviews, I got to think that a woman is willing to abstain from sex and live as someone that she wasn’t intended to be is a big sacrifice. That woman becomes the role model of her close relatives and of the community as well. It must not be easy since that woman may have to take the part of a real man in battle, which her body wasn’t designed to do. We must look at such examples and study them as we ourselves look for personal development and enlightenment. We should always search for knowledge and ask for forgiveness of our wrongdoings and deviation from the correct path. Some of you will ask, what is the correct path? Well it is the path of love and understanding, tolerance and compassion. If we follow the Ten Commandments, we are already on the path of light and understanding.