Andrew's blog at Joyousness

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There is something so sweet, dark and profound about the story of Romeo and Juliet. Inside each of us is a yearning for a deeper union with life, which we look for in many ways, sometimes through another person. What we see "out there", whether a person or circumstances, will always remain untouchable at some level, unable to be fully consummated, while we see ourselves as separate from them, and indeed from everything else. The truth is that Juliet was always a part of Romeo and he was always a part of Juliet; they just couldn't see it. That was their real tragedy and it's ours, too, until we open our eyes and truly see.

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In every moment we should touch silence; then we know who we are. When there is no silence, we are living in a state of forgetfulness and life is no more real than a dream. It's so easy to forget...

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Stillness seems so hard to accomplish, yet it is never absent. It is only the gloss of meaningless activity and thinking we incessantly generate that hides it from view.

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Whatever the motives of the factions involved in the recent violence in London and elsewhere, the riots are evidence of a lack of inner peace within society as a whole.

We may think that we could never act like that but it is a rare person who has never felt anger. It is said that anger is so destructive that its flames extend way beyond anything we could imagine.

Some would argue that we should give vent to our emotions - but that is just what the rioters have done. Expressing anger always carries the risk of it turning to violent rage and we will never find inner peace if we set out to harm others. Negative emotions need to be transformed, and they can be if dealt with intelligently.

Although we may feel there is nothing we can do about recent and current events, the actions within a society reflect the collective consciousness of everyone in it. We have to guard our own consciousness, therefore, and one thing we can usefully do is ensure we bring our minds and emotions to a state of relative peacefulness by living fully present in the moment and breathing peacefully into whatever we think about or undertake. If we meditate, we should ensure our practice is good and regular.

By steadying our own consciousness, we contribute to the stability of society's consciousness, and that is most urgently needed now.

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