In order to take responsibility for our lives, we need to remember that we are more than a body with its features, its senses and the myriad of sensations they allow us to experience; we are more than a mind, its intellectual and cognitive processes that help us decide, reason, calculate, compare, imagine, remember, recognise who we are every day. We are more than our soul, its emotionality, and its mysterious drives. We are, actually, the owner of all these resources, the witness of our processes and the experiencer of our lives' events. We are the coach of our mind and the guru of our heart; the parent of our inner child, and the healer of our internal wounds. With this awareness, we can elevate ourselves from a hungry creature to the chef of our every meal. It is only with this awareness that we can take true responsibility for our lives.

Our dual nature

Human beings have an internal dychotomy, an oposition or division which influences our lives deeply. Two parts: stronger versus weaker; reasonable versus animalistic; good versus bad. Our internal conflict is product of this duality. We repeat patterns and have behaviours we dislike when our dark side (the bad) triumphs over our persona (the way we present ourselves). In deep meditation, when we enter the subconscious, our inner opposites encounter eachother, and there is no good or bad, just being. Opposites melt. We understand our struggles, and can easily resolve. This is how we progressively overcome addictions, change patterns and heal ourselves

Believing that we do things for others, for work, or for the divinity, is an illusion. Through each one of our doings we create our persona, we shape a character, we evolve emotionally and spiritually, and we finally transcend (or fail to transcend) the mundane meaning of life. Each one arounds us is a sacred means for the realisation of the self. All we do "for others" is a precious opportunity to manifest our highest self.

Even for meditators, the act of true forgiveness implies a new lot of soul searching; to be able to first, remember the obvious: that each one was doing the best they could with the awareness they had at the time of the events. It'd be easier if life was like in cowboy movies: the good guys and the bad guys. This black and white definition could help us make safer choices and save us pain (and therefore the learning). But reality is, we are the victims of some, and the perpetrators of others, even for those whom we love the most. Realizing we can also be the bad guy in someone's life can be the start of our forgiveness to others.