2012; The End of the World as You Know It

Welcome to 2012!

Did you stay up to welcome in the New Year?  Did you celebrate with champagne and kisses?  Did you throw confetti and drink toasts to everyone’s good health?  Did you stay up creating your New Year’s Resolutions?  My guess is that no matter who you are and no matter how you choose to celebrate the New Year, it probably crossed your mind to wonder if there is something to all the hoopla about 2012; you know, about 2012 being the end of the Mayan great count calendar and the rumors that the world could possibly come to an end on the winter solstice.

I’m not here to speculate as to the accuracy of the claims made by others or to address the metaphysical symbolism behind the calendar itself.  I’m here to ask a question.

While there is plenty of speculation as to whether or not this year will mark the end of the world (or at least the end of the world as we know it) I have a question for you; if it DOES mark the end of the world, what are you afraid of?

I don’t care if you believe in a Christian God or in reincarnation or in the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, there should be no fear involved in contemplating the end of physical existence.  In fact, the ONLY reasons that you should be afraid of the end of the world (if this IS the end of the world) would be either if you don’t believe in anything outside of the here and now, or if you are not living up to the expectations of your belief system and are afraid of being punished by your god or belief system.

If it is the first – then there is nothing I can do for you, I’m sorry.  By choosing to believe that there is nothing  bigger than yourself– nothing more than this life – you have chosen to live a life of quiet desperation; a life where you have to get all your living in now because there is nothing more than this life so you may as well enjoy yourself in the time that you have, and I understand your frustration, for what is the point of enjoying yourself; getting all of those experiences in if, when you die, they are all gone and there is nothing left?

If it is the second, then there is a question that you need to ask yourself, and it is this; what is keeping you from living up to the expectations of your belief system?  If you are afraid that the world will end and that you are not “ready” then there must be something that is keeping you from following through; something preventing you from giving yourself over fully to what is required of you, and if your belief system is important to you, this would definitely be a good time to work through your blocks in that particular area.

Then there are those who believe in a third way of being; one that does not involve the hopelessness and pointlessness of a chance existence or of living up to the expectations imposed on you by an outside deity or belief system.  Those who adhere to this particular perspective see their life not as a chance product of evolution, nor as something controlled by and under the influence of an outside deity, but who see themselves as manifestations the divine itself; life as the reflection of the creator; who see themselves, indeed who see every living thing as containing a soul, and the soul as being a direct spark of that eternal oneness that IS divinity; who see each and every living thing as having a direct connection to the divine Source.

For those that adhere to this way of being, the end of the world holds no fear, for they understand that this physical existence is NOT all that there is, that they are a part of something far bigger.  As aspects of the divine, they accept responsibility for their actions instead of trying to claim that they are victims of circumstance or cosmic design.  They also accept responsibility for creating the life that they are living and realize that if something about it is not living up to their expectations that they are perfectly free to re-create it by choosing to focus on those things that they want to bring into their life.

It may not be a comforting life, for there is no one and nothing who you can blame for any of the bad decisions that you have made and no miracle quick fix that will make everything perfect for you; you have to accept the responsibility for those but there is always the option of being able to change your life by changing the focus of your thoughts.

There is also the knowledge that as an aspect – a manifestation of the divine – that you are here for a specific purpose; to live in a specific way in order to accomplish that which you came here to do, and that by choosing to live an authentic life; a genuine life – one that is not false, not copied, not the life that someone else wants from you or expects from you, but a life where your physical life and your soul purpose are in alignment; a life in which you can reach a state of enlightened purposefulness; a state of being where you are LIVING your purpose 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What does it mean to live an authentic life?  That, my friends, is something that we will work on discovering over the next few days so that as we begin the New Year by destroying the world that we have accepted or created for ourselves; the world that is based on others fears, beliefs or expectations.  That we can begin 2012 by living an authentic life; our original life; the life that we were meant to live.