The power of you

By Taiwo Ajai-Lycett

Hopefully you’ve had a great week this week. I certainly had. On Sunday (June 2) I was honoured with an invitation by my sister in the theatre, Mrs Olanrewaju Hassan Adesina, a.k.a Mama Awero, to attend the shindig at the Blue Hall, LTV Agidingbi, to celebrate her golden jubilee on stage. It was the mother of all parties, attended by eminent personalities – a ‘who’s who’ of stage, film and the music industry. And was I star-struck, sitting with King Sunny Ade, Commander Ebenezer Obey, Kollington Ayinla, etc! In attendance were also the First Ladies, of Lagos and Ogun states, their Excellencies Dame Abimbola Fashola, and Mrs Olufunke Amosun; and former Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Mrs Sarah Sosan. Mama Awero also launched her biography “I will die in Acting” – A Biographical Account of 50 years of Acting Dynamics” written by Edmond Enaibe. It was a swell party.

And as if I did not already have a belly full of music and jollity, I took off for Beautiful Nubia live concert at the Eniobanke Arts Centre, 19 Adekunle Fajuyi Way, GRA, Ikeja, where I proceeded to live it up, big time – dancing away, like the tops, into the night. Well, life’s too short, isn’t it? Didn’t Plato say music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything?

You may remember last Saturday, I wrote about The Power of I AM. I was engaged on several occasions for days thereafter in discussions with one or two people on the potency or otherwise of this power. It seems logical this Saturday therefore to continue with that line of thought, particularly when the discussions touched on issues of selfishness, self-centredness, the ego, and above all, what is meant by, and the real understanding of the true meaning of, “Enlightened Self-Interest”. And so today I have for us some weekend points to ponder.

Most spiritual and psychological experts agree that the ego is the single greatest obstacle to our higher evolution, personally and culturally. They reckon most of us who are trying to change our lives – or the world – are trying to evolve and awaken our best selves. Yet we all have something in common – a big part of us doesn’t want to go there with us. If you’ve met with this struggle on your spiritual or personal growth journey, you’re not alone – we’ve all got this resistance. It’s often been called the “ego” – a pervasive part of our human nature left over from the early evolution of our ancient animal past, so we’re told. It’s practically wired into us – and since it evolved for survival, it’s averse to change in a whole host of ways that take our lives and our spiritual growth off course.

Most of the ego’s impulses have not only outlived their usefulness – they’re antithetical to the higher flourishing we know is possible. They don’t match up with today’s world and our higher aspirations. And despite a certain amount of progress, we haven’t yet fully evolved beyond this primitive “conditioning” that has eons of momentum behind it.  But we are beginning to realise that it is possible to go past our primitive conditioning and stand firm to claim our divine inheritance.

Did you know that by doing an act of kindness for someone you produce the same serotonin levels you would have had you been on the receiving end? And what’s more, observing an act of kindness also increases your serotonin levels. The power of kindness and the strength that comes from choosing our emotion is great. With this in mind, if we all made it our mission to do at least one act of kindness everyday, imagine how this will reverberate and inform our lives. In the end, according to Dieter Uchtdorf, the number of prayers we SAY may contribute to our happiness but the number of prayers we ANSWER may be of even greater importance.

In an observation by Yehuda Berg of the Kabbalah movement, he noted we often think that because we are only one person, the good things we do cannot make that much of a difference in the world. He said we also use this excuse to justify our less-than-finer moments. The concept that one person can make great impact on the world sounds nice to hear, but it can be difficult to grasp.

To understand on a more practical level, we can look throughout history at two kinds of people. There are people, in Western mythology, we label “the bad guys: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Osama Bin Laden; and there are the people we call “the good guys”: Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ. These are just a few examples. (And old Hollywood movies are replete with them.) Looking at these two lists, there is no doubt that one person has within him or herself the power to influence billions.

What’s more, no matter which list they might be on, they were the same in their desire to affect the lives of countless people. The difference between them is that one group was fuelled by selfish desires while the other was driven by a relentless desire to share, to love.

A Chinese proverb said, “If you want happiness in an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a life time, help somebody.”

The truth is, we all have the power to affect the world – and whether we know it or not, we already do. Science has now proven what the sages wrote about hundreds of years ago: There are no small actions. Everything we do has an energy intelligence that produces countless ripple effects. With this knowledge, we can understand that we don’t need to be Mother Theresa for our actions to create vast change in the world, while also gaining a sense of the great responsibility we have to one another. Taking care of ourselves is, of course, an important part of taking care of others.  After all, the healthier the tree, the better the fruit it has to offer. To be a better friend to those around us, it is essential that we also start being a better friend to ourselves. It is so important to know that you not only can, but you do make a difference.

Once we understand how much influence our actions truly carry, we can see the necessity of transforming our selfish desires into sharing ones, and in doing so we become one of the “good guys” committed to creating a better world. As Neale Donald Walsch said, it does not matter what religion you belong to. Love is the only religion.

See you next week.

Email: lycettamore@yahoo.co.uk