If we want to make something of this life, to give it meaning, we must become graceful, blissful, compassionate, and aware. We must also then serve humanity and help in its upliftment. But the same phenomena that holds us back from experiencing our own Infinity are the same devices that will help us in our journey.

On the dark end of the spectrum of life in this physical body we have self-importance in which we experience total ego identification; our thinking is "me, me, me" or "I want what will benefit me". This is the world in which the greedy live, those who will try to conquer the earth, or dominate others. Of course there has been many such people throughout history,. Although they may be a small percentage of any given society, it has been a result of their actions (of wanting to control, wanting more, wanting to conquer, wanting to punish) that we have a world  which there is so much unrest and fear. The list of such people could include George Bush, certain television and movie producers who don't care what kind of garbage they feed into innocent minds, terrorists, CEO's that see only profits and do not care what damage they cause to the environment, and so on. 

On the light end of the spectrum we have total alignment with the Spirit. Again, those who walk this earth and have attained this state are very few, but their impact has been undeniable. These are the enlightened one's, such as Buddha, Jesus, Guru Nanak, Osho, and so on) whose lives have set an example as to what it means to be a compassionate, loving human being. The sad part is when the "dark side" usurps and twists the words of the scriptures and texts that the awakened ones have left behind and uses them in a cunning way to befool people that death, and suffering are necessary to further their "noble" war.

However, if one chooses to engage his or her intellect surely the conclusion would result in the knowledge of whose actions are benevolent and whose actions are leading towards death and destruction. Nonetheless, it is true that we all grow wiith a certain sense of ego identification, some of which is encouraged by the society in which we are raised. However, if one is fortunate enough to catch a brief epiphany that more exisits within us than a bunch of cells, organs, and blood then ego and desire become useful. Ego and desire must be used as a ladder to get out of the whole that they together have created. The ego must say "I wish to become a better human being" and the desire must say "I wish to experience the bliss of uniting with the Divine Consciousness". If we were born without ego and desire we wouldn't be incarnated into a body in the first place, but while in the body we must choose to use them as a tool, like a ladder, and once we have attained the awakened state the ladder can be dropped.

The ego and desire give us what is known as "divine discontentment": the realization that we are not fulfilled and not blissful, thus they set us out on a journey to find contentment. Via the intellect we learn which things bring joy, happiness, upliftment, and which things bring suffering, sadness, and hopelessness. As we grow in awareness we hone this skill to avoid the paths that do not bring lastin joy. Some people may appear oblivious, but they too are on the path and will lear eventually by virtue of experience and karma. Those who are more aware will learn to catch themselves when they engage in a thought or deed that is not noble at different stages. The first stage is after the deed is done (they may have made a mistake, but at least they recognized it and will hopefully learn the lesson contained within it). The second stage is to catch the error while the deed is taking place and take measures to stop from going any further. The third stage is to stop from engaging in the deed while it is still just a though in the mind, before it becomes an action. Lastly, which takes a lot of work but may be accomplished in one's lifetime, is to align one's actions with the Spirit, or Divine Consciousness. at this level one has given up their ego and has given their will to Divine Will.

While we are on this this planet, in this physical body, in this time and space, the best hope for, for humanity as it is, is top pray and project that mankind will feel that Divine Discontentment and use his ego and desire not for self-engrandement but  as a means to merge with the ocean of love, compassion and consciousness that exists within and with-out us.

Note: this was originally posted in the Question of the Week