It is amazing how when we look about us, what we see reflects back our inner state, our anxieties and our fears. I guess most of us grew with parents and media warning that all this ‘free sex’ (What free sex?!) and drugs were taking us to hell in a hand cart. I’m now my parents’ age when they made these pronouncements and I can understand their fears, but I’m not sure that the world is so very different today. The state of the world is a bit like the fashion, in as much as the way it looks keeps changing but the elements keep on being recycled.

I think that what we notice going on around us tells us a lot about our inner world. If we see many things that scare us, I think this not only makes us afraid but arises from feeling scared in the first place. If we see struggle and competition everywhere, this is probably because we feel that we are struggling. It is a simplistic statement, but I think that there is evidence in the way the brain works that tells us that we notice things that are of importance to us¹. It is at once an old idea, and at the cutting edge of physics to say that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm and that quantum physics must square with Einsteinian scale concepts.

So perhaps rather than trying to fix the World, maybe there is value in reflecting a little, and asking what is going on in our inner world. This may help take us forward a step or two on our journeys.

“If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.” Chinese Proverb.

Resources:

1. Reticular Activating System