Any circumstance, no matter how difficult, provides an opportunity for us to choose who we want to ‘be’ in response to that condition. Difficult challenges, even extreme challenges, provide an opportunity for the virtues of patience, humility, compassion, and courage to shine through. The soul, which is alive in the Heart of every human being, has an opportunity to shine in challenging circumstances, including extreme work conditions. The soul is a live Being that exists in the Heart, and each human being is given opportunities to Be this soul, this Spirit….to Be love in the midst of any condition. We can also deny this Spirit of love and be ‘resentment’. We deny the Heart and enter a downward spiral in which Spirit becomes more and more difficult to detect at all.

As more and more of us do take this opportunity to Be the ‘Beings of love’ in this world, we seek to lighten the burdens created by unawareness. We seek to soften the hardness created by ego. We seek to turn work into creativity. Hard work that has transformed into playful creativity provides another opportunity for Soul. An opportunity for the Heart Being to reveal itself as never before. An opportunity for cooperative creativity amongst groups of people who fulfill their human Being potential in ways never before imagined when we exist primarily as human ‘doings’ that literally work as slaves.

There is a new creative potential that is born when humans can put in a few hours of Creative work, and also have plenty of time for rest and play….time to focus on health and balance. There is even the potential for the word ‘work’ to dissolve, for when doors of creativity are allowed to open, and activity is balanced with rest, what we ‘do’ as humans no longer feels like work at all.

There comes a time to reexamine the value of ‘hard’ work. There is a time to look again at what work ‘ethic’ means in the light of an expanded awareness of Self.

There is an intrinsic value to focused effort. When we place energy into a goal, we ‘earn’ an outcome. However the efforts and goals of the ego compared to the efforts and goals of the Heart are like the difference between hell and heaven.

Is the purpose of human existence to work hard and try to become rich? Have the wealthy people of our world really earned this wealth? Are we really meant to earn salvation through good works? Do we earn spiritual awareness? What about tribal peoples who had their land, resources, and spiritual practices taken away? Should these people then try to fight back and earn wealth and work their way up a spiritual hierarchy? If they succeed according to this ‘work’ and ‘earn’ mentality, would they then rule the world and dominate other cultures as proof of having mastered this system? Would Tribal peoples take ownership of land and resources and accumulate as much as possible as a way to demonstrate that they have accepted this system and mastered it?

Please remember that nothing that I write here is meant to create guilt or blame. I also do not feel negative or intend to spread negativity toward any culture by writing these words. Presenting facts is not negative. My purpose is to expand awareness. Awareness is enough to create compassion.

Will hard work solve the current economic crises? Should we all adopt a stronger work ethic? Is a gigantic constantly expanding world economy the answer? For centuries Europe jump started its economy and created growth by colonizing New Worlds. This desire for a New World is not a new thing.

Consider Christopher Columbus. Many are unaware of some of the basic facts about Christopher Columbus. Did you know that Christopher Columbus’ first landing in the New World was on what is now called Haiti? Present day Haiti is the poorest country in the western Hemisphere. Haiti shares an island with the Dominican Republic, another very poor country. That island was named Hispaniola by the Spaniards.

When Columbus landed in 1492, there were 400,000 native people living on that island. Those people were called Taino, or ‘friendly people’ in their own language. Columbus and his men put the Taino people to work as slaves in mines. By 1520 nearly all of the native Taino people had died. It is estimated that only 20,000 remained, which prompted Spain to begin bringing slaves from Africa.

Today the people living in Haiti and The Dominican Republic are nearly all African or Malato (mixed Hispanic and African).

Did Spain earn the wealth that it acquired from this island? Or was it simply taken, even stolen by egos that simply did things that way?

Anthropologists now estimate that the Taino people had lived on the Island Hispaniola sustainably for at least 800 years. They did not have an economy based on growth or accumulation. And yet they thrived.

The growth economies of the world have all found it a necessity to acquire more resources in order to sustain this growth. Yet even while one part of the world had a growing economy, one part of the world was reduced to poverty, or even wiped out. Now, as nearly every country in the world has converted to a growth economy we seem to be unaware why the growth of this enormous world economy is stalling. With every economy trying to grow, and people becoming more aware at the same time, where are the free resources and slave labor? They are running out.

Straight out colonization and slavery is becoming increasingly politically incorrect. However, corporations are still able to operate as dictatorships and ignore democratic values. Do corporations truly earn the wealth that they accumulate? The only way that a corporation can truly accumulate enormous wealth is by undervaluing the natural resources and the human resources that they use.

When people and resources are truly valued, why would we not leave those resources in the hands of the people to sustain their well-being.

“When people and resources are truly valued, no corporation, country, religion, or individual would consider ever trying to ‘own’ them.”

People and the resources of the earth are not something to accumulate. They are something to sustain, so that life can be sustained in a healthy way.

The ego will argue this as a socialist or communist point of view. The ego will call this information evil. The ego will do what is has always done……try to take control of everything….including our Spirit.

As long as we find our Identity through surface level ego, we will continue to view people and the earth as a ‘market’. There is no such thing as defeating this ego. There is no such thing as going to war and winning against this ego which has been warring within us. There is however Awareness, and with awareness of who we really are, the ego dissolves, and the Heart Being shines through.