To change the world, let’s start with altering our consciousness.
(June 13, 2008)	No.53

Hello, everyone. I’m Fuyo Haruna.

I believe that whatever happens in life has its purpose. In other words, any event in life carries a precious lesson that Nature wants us to learn. But whether people realize this or not depends solely on the person touched by the event.

Fortunately, since I was young, I’ve been in a habit of looking into my heart and asking it what was wrong with it when something went wrong. Now, looking back, I can tell that that was how Nature paved a way for me; I was so cowardly, shy, and inward-looking that I was able to look into myself with great intensity. I was so weak and not sure how long my life would last that I could listen to the voices of Nature with my heart. I believe that Nature invented such a scheme for me to foster my heart.

We all may have experience of?for example?feeling tempted to blame others, or circumstances, for our own mistakes because we are unwilling to admit to them. I could clearly see my inner self trying to make excuses?or even seeking out someone else to put the blame on?to make me look innocent. I was ashamed of such an inner self and thought it ugly.
When we hear someone speak ill of us, we get upset and frustrated. But I was able to look at such an inner suffering self calmly and I asked myself why I was so frustrated over such a thing. It is natural for people to be pleased when praised and to get upset when blamed. But I asked why. Why do our hearts always react this way? Then, I realized that we all love ourselves too much and have a deepest wish to make ourselves look good to others, and that the very ‘self’ or ‘ego’, in turn, causes us to suffer when things turn out to the contrary.

As I’ve been this way?always looking into my inner self, since I was young, I’ve learned to find the causes of my suffering in me, not in someone else. I’ve always believed that there must be something wrong with me―with the way I see things?and that Nature is trying to teach me by providing me with suffering. When looking back on my life, I cannot be more grateful for having felt this way because, otherwise, I couldn’t have made myself grow as I have.

Having attained the age I have, it is now evident to me that the desire we feel to protect ourselves is wrong; selfish love for oneself and the desire to keep oneself whole will become an obsession and the obsession brings more suffering, and the suffering, again, causes more and more of an obsession with the ego.
We can see the faults of others more clearly than our own. This is also due to our ego.
Some say that we cannot live without our ego. But I think it is far more likely to kill us than to protect us in the end.

We never know that it is Nature that lets us live. We are under the illusion that we are on our own and, therefore, we try to protect ourselves with all our might. That’s where we are fundamentally wrong.
Let’s take our bodies for example. We can live our lives because the heart, the lungs, our eyes, and our ears all function. Look around you?your family, your friends, your workplace, and the society?and see how they work; none of them is of your own making. See the earth on which we live. Its water, its air, and all the other blessings existed long before we were born ?hundreds of millions years ago.
Many of you may not know this; but our consciousness itself is a treasure given to us all. Without consciousness, we are just like a machine?unable to embrace the beauty of Nature or to have a sense of gratitude.
Thus, we should be aware that everything has been given by Nature, and, from that greater perspective, we should review the state of our lives as well as the state of the world.

Now, on the earth, different people?all driven by their greed?are pitting their egos against each other and hate each other.

I believe that we can change the world with our consciousness; if we can spread that consciousness that strives for peace by letting it fly high above this world, flapping its wings widely and freely like astronauts moving around freely in space, we can change the world greatly for the better.

People are concerned about the environment of our planet earth. But I'm more concerned about the consciousness of us humans who live on it. The first step towards changing the world is to eliminate our egos?the source of greed and obsession?and to alter our state of consciousness.