Some years ago I came across an article that made me think. It’s called the Green Thing and if you haven’t come across it yet I recommend you look it up. It’s about how today’s generation think they invented conservation and planetary concern. Tony and I put solar panels on the roof of a house we owned in the UK (of all places) in the mid 70’s. In New Zealand the early 1980’s, we joined a global group meditating on world peace. People unknown to each other came together at the same time, local time, to meditate and work together. We all recognized the significance of what was needed.

Although the Green Thing is about conservation, for me, it’s more about appearance. We live in a world that is changing faster than we can keep up with it. Physically, we’re heading into a great period of change. Emotionally, we’re becoming more reactive than responsive and mentally we are so stressed by all we should complete that we have no time for self. That sounds both depressing and defeatist, and yet, unless we look beneath the surface, we will keep sliding deeper.

Why do I say it’s about appearance? Because we worry about how things look and not about how we are. If we focus on what lies within us that we wish to share and how to do so, then we align to the Universe and work in harmony with it. When we focus on what we are told, how others want us to see things then we focus on appearance. Change comes from within and when we understand the significance of events, rather than the emotion generated by them, then we are no longer manipulated by people or events.

So much time and energy was given to the election of a man to the Supreme Court recently. However, it was almost a foregone conclusion since the events around his fitness for office had been so long ago that it was always going to be difficult to prove things one way or the other. People fixated on the appearance. If the energy had been used to bring change to how these elections are held, or to the criteria for election, then we might have changed the future even if we couldn’t change the moment.

Looking at the significance of events helps us to see the bigger picture of what is happening. Looking at the emotion keeps us off balance and easily manipulated.

How well do you see beneath the surface? What’s your bigger picture?