Experience is the friend shows you the way ahead in life

The light is just the truth, or that which extinguishes the darkness. The darkness being the thoughts, words and actions that feed illusion and so create pain. As exemplified by the lovely person who thinks himself smarter than everyone else. The light is that, that leads us away from self imposed suffering, propagated by the ego, illusion and the lower forms of understanding in 3rd dimensional reality. We have been living in the darkness for the past few millennia, due to mistakes made by the beings, thought to be God, when in truth, they were only god's small 'g'.

So the experiences of light are in numerous multiplicities, and being very individualized, which is why our spiritual journey is a personal one, can unintentionally create expectations and so leave potential for mind made illusions. This is why enlightened masters must choose to take on a disciple, because it is a huge responsibility to take on someone's karma. This is the case, where people try to meditate or act like the Buddha did, but don't understand the prerequisite work he did to get to that point. But soon after giving up attempts at his six year meditation, fell into trouble with those mocking him. And so he didn't reach enlightenment, and so his endeavour to be like the light worker the Buddha was, turned against him.

So I personally don't typically share personal stories, but I have no problem answering questions about others journey, so as to see the light of their experience. But now here is a real life story from a Latin American country. The phone rang at 1:40 AM. “Hello?” I answered in a sleepy voice. “Mr. Quintanilla?” said the man on the phone. “Who is this? How can I help you?” “This is the sheriff from the local police station. I want to notify you that your building is on fire.” “What a bad joke!” I hung up the phone and went back to sleep. Two minutes later… it rings one again. “Please, stop bothering!” I said now agitated due to my disturbed sleep.

“Do not hang up, Sir, this is the Sheriff's office. One of your tenant’s cars at your building is on fire. Your building is at risk. The fire station has been notified.” I drove to the building as fast as I could. The fire was contained before it got to the building. It was a disaster. Two cars were consumed by the flames and the parking area was devastated. After the fire was out, the Policemen circled the area with a yellow tape waiting for the detectives to determine what had happened. One day went by. We couldn't remove the cars nor start the restoration process. Two days… no detectives. I visited the police station, “You've got to file a report,” the lady instructed. Done. Three days… nothing. Four days… Again, I visited the Police station, but nobody would take care of the case. Five days… another day lost. I decided to call a good friend who is an attorney.

“Hey, Adrian, I need your help to get this solved.” “No problem, Hector, let me make a few phone calls,” he said. Three hours later, “Okay, Hector, I have a solution. It will cost $50,000 pesos, in cash (about $3,800 back in 2009).” I was furious! “No way, Adrian! This is not acceptable. Please help me any way you can. I don’t want to pay bribes to further feed our corrupt people. They must do their job!” “I’ll do what I can, Hector,” he said. “Thank you, my friend!” Twenty minutes later Adrian called back, “I’m sorry, Hector. This fee is non-negotiable. They want the money.” “Oh no! Adrian, how can this be possible?”

“Well sadly, this is how the system works here.” “I will not feed this corrupt system! I won’t pay them anything!” I hung up the phone and drove to the police station again requesting a solution to my problem. I felt so powerless. Two days later I escalated my complaint to the Police chief. This is when my friend Adrian called me again, “Hector, you've got to stop this. This is getting out of my control.” “What do you mean, Adrian?” I said. “They’re threatening me with an ultimatum: either you pay or they will make you liable for the incident and the insurance of the car that initiated the fire will not pay anything. You will be responsible for all the damages, about $1.5 million pesos ($115,000).”

I was in shock. “I’m sorry, Hector, but that is how the system works here friend.” “Tell those miserable rats I’ll give them the money. Thank you for your help, my friend.” I hung up. I felt defeated. The very people in power supposed to protect us were stealing from me. Hours later, a cynical man visited my office, took the cash and in two hours everything was solved. This was the incident that caused me to change how I see the world: Public servants leveraging their authority to abuse citizens instead of taking care of them. This made me understand that there may be things I want to change in the world; but I can't. Cheers!