Following Our Ideals

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It seems that in this day and age more and more people make it their mission to follow their ideals. For some that means that they make choices according to their ideals ~ for instance becoming a vegetarian, not for health reasons but because one is against animal cruelty. Or buying exclusively local produce. Wearing ‘bio-cotton’. Things like that.

For others, following their ideals goes much further than that as they are willing to give up a lot of things ~ like creature comforts, but also social contacts, privacy, and even their private lives ~ if that enables them to bring their ideals into this world.
In a sense they are willing to place themselves outside of society to make their ideals happen.

And it seems that the more the ideals have to do with helping people, healing people, healing the earth, spreading Light ~ the more there is a tendency to step away from the world as it exists around us and into a space that facilitates that kind of work.
With everything that is going on in the world today ~ a choice that is easy to understand.

Yet it makes me wonder...
Isn’t it so that the healing, the Light, are to be spread in the world in order to result in the desired changes ~ to make this world a better, Lighter, more peaceful place to live. If it is all about the world we live in, then why step back from it; why place yourself outside of it?

I realize my words sound critical to those whose path is guiding them into that direction, however they are written more from my own perspective on my personal ideals than anything else...

The path I am walking is guiding me to bring healing and Light and peace into this world while being a well-grounded part of this world. I enjoy working with light, and peaceful energies ~ and I seek to combine them with simple, practical actions anyone can take in order to make their own lives a little lighter and brighter, and more peaceful.
So rather than stepping away from the world, my ideal is to meet the world at the energy level it has at that very instant, in that specific place ~ to observe it, and then work with the person or people, with the situation at hand to bring more Light, more healing, and ultimately more peace.

The thing is, whichever path you choose ~ and whatever the ideals you want to bring into the world are ~ first and foremost we need to take care of ourselves, our wellbeing, our needs and desires.
This means that in the long run giving up our ‘creature comforts’ ~ or even our private lives ~ because we feel we have to in order to walk this spiritual path rather than because we want to ~ because it truly makes us feel better and is adding to our lives ~ may not work quite as well as we would have thought...
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