Healing Prejudice, Finding Peace

In this audio, we tackle a sensitive topic of our times, and we offer healing thoughts on how to transcend and move beyond prejudice in our world and become part of the deeper solution. We offer a spiritual perspective and deeper insights into the nature of the problem, and how we can all be part of the healing, the soul-ution.

Transcript

Welcome to Awakened Life.

I'm Michael McIntosh.

And I'm Arielle Hecht.

Today on Awakened Life,

We're talking about healing,

Racism,

And prejudice.

So this is a huge topic,

Hot topic,

As the world is plagued with racism and prejudice in various ways.

And our aim in this session is to shed some spiritual light,

Some consciousness onto this topic and really come to some deeper,

More significant transformations that we can all make in our lives to become part of the solution.

And so we're going to be talking about some spiritual perspectives and some very practical things we can do individually.

And if this is done collectively,

It will make a huge difference.

And we're also going to talk about some things which perhaps are not mentioned in the media.

In fact,

They're definitely not mentioned in the media,

Not mentioned hardly ever by anyone.

And call out some of the more shady actors involved in the race relations and the various craziness of the media,

Which is,

As I'm sure you're aware,

Not what it seems.

So we wanted to start with a quote from Gandhi,

Really beautiful,

Wise words.

And this just entered my mind as all of this upheaval was happening in America.

We're recording this summer 2020.

So there's been a lot of riots and racial tension,

Protests.

And so this quote is,

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Meaning,

If we react to violence with violence,

We are encouraging,

We are growing that energy,

That fire of violence,

Of anger,

Of hatred.

And in consciousness,

All that happens is that that energy gets bigger.

And this fire of anger.

And Gandhi was very wise and Martin Luther King Jr.

Studied Gandhi as well,

Gandhi's work,

Because both these wise souls realized that the only way to put out the fires of injustice and anger and hatred and cruelty is with the coolness of peace and nonviolence.

So that which we want to see in the world,

We have to become that ourselves.

We can't expect something just to change one day.

It has to begin with us.

And so,

As we look into this topic,

Let us remember that we are powerful souls.

And the first thing we need to remember again and again,

Is to take a step back,

Because the news,

The media,

Modern life is designed to trigger us,

Designed to get us into this,

Worked up into a spin,

Running around all the time.

And many people,

You know,

When you're in that state,

You can't think properly,

You have to react,

React,

React.

We need to take a step back,

A profound step back.

We remember that we are actually spiritual beings.

We are human beings,

And we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

So I'm sure you've heard that quote,

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

And what it means is that there is the spirit,

The soul,

Consciousness,

The living being,

The one who thinks and feels and has memories and experiences.

And then we come into this world into a womb.

And we are born as a human being to our mother and father,

Hopefully,

Both parents are there.

And as we go through life,

Our parents or our caregivers have a profound effect on us,

And we grow up learning about the world through them.

The way we're treated by our parents has a massive effect on our beliefs about life,

About the world,

About ourselves.

And as children,

We don't think about racism,

We don't think about prejudice and these sort of things.

We're just innocent.

You know,

If you put a bunch of kids together,

They just play with each other,

Little kids.

And they don't think about body types,

They don't think about any of this stuff.

They don't,

Boys and girls when they're young,

They don't even think about any of that stuff.

We're just innocent beings.

And then gradually we grow up,

And depending on what our parents tell us about other people,

About the world,

We start to take those ideas into ourselves.

Right.

And I think it's important for all of us to first of all remember this intrinsic innocence,

This innocence of the soul,

That originally,

Eternally,

We are so pure and innocent.

And that's why that reflects in the child because the soul has just come into that life and is acting through the body of the child and there's this beautiful,

Precious,

Dear innocence.

And when we can first of all connect back to that,

It really helps us to create the space for compassion and love,

Forgiveness for ourselves and for others.

Because with that innocence,

There's also a very impressionable nature,

That purity,

That innocence,

When it's inundated with negative information,

Vibrations,

Belief systems,

Etc.

It goes right in,

You know,

So when we can understand and recognize that,

That,

Well if we were in certain situations,

We would also be inundated with that information and act a certain way,

We can start to open our hearts and minds and our capacity to love,

To understand and to forgive.

So,

We are innocent souls.

And everyone is the same.

So the soul,

The spirit,

When we understand who we really are,

Is that we are light,

We are beings of consciousness,

Beings of light and every soul is the same size,

The same shape,

Beings of beautiful light.

And then we come into this body and the body is different,

Some as a male body,

Some as a female body,

Some is bigger,

Smaller,

The skin might be a different color,

The face features and everything.

And it's really just the same as like a litter of kittens.

I remember coming back when I was about 11 years old,

Came home and I went upstairs and our cat had given birth to the kittens.

And I remember just being in joy and wonder,

Seeing all these little kittens and they were just bright eyed and they just come out and they were happy and they were just looking at me,

Who is this person and they're all there and some of them were black,

Some of them were gray,

Some of them were tabby colored,

Some of them were white,

There was all different colored cats.

And they were all family,

They're all one big family of kittens.

And we're all one big family of humans and we're like kittens and it doesn't matter whether someone has tabby or someone has darker or lighter or whatever,

It's all the same thing.

Exactly.

So when we look to the animal kingdom and other species,

You know,

We see they don't look at the color of the fur or anything like or even maybe the size sometimes.

But then again,

We were talking yesterday,

Sometimes there's a small dog and it has this big personality and then the big dog scared.

So not even always size,

Right?

But the animals,

They actually respond to the energy of the beings,

The energy of the souls,

The kitty souls and the doggy souls and the rabbit souls and everything.

They're responding to the energy.

And we've lost touch with that.

We've become incredibly body conscious,

Which we believe really is the main illness going on,

You know,

The root of so many problems in our world today.

And because we're so body conscious,

We don't even,

A lot of,

Many of us,

We don't even recognize the energy.

There's a being here.

There's a conscious being.

And let me respond to this being based off their energy,

Not the,

You know,

The color of their skin or their eyes or their hair.

So this is really the definition of racism,

Prejudice is to pre judge somebody based on external appearances without actually paying any attention to who they really are.

And so we can be prejudiced against all kinds of things.

And so for example,

We were talking about this the other day with women throughout a lot of history women have had,

Men have been prejudiced towards women and thinking that they can't think the same way or that they're not capable of making good decisions or they can't be leaders,

Etc,

Etc.

And that's prejudice,

You're judging someone based on appearances,

And it turns out,

Of course,

Which is blatantly obvious now that women are just the same in many,

Many,

Many ways and in fact can even do better job than men based on their willingness to become excellent at whatever it is that they want to do.

So it's all about the degree of mastery and the degree of effort someone's willing to put in and not based on their skin color.

Skin color has nothing to do with intelligence.

And so,

Prejudice,

Or racism,

Racism is just a form of prejudice,

There's prejudice towards women,

Prejudice towards different people of different colored skins,

Prejudice towards all sorts of things.

So,

Are we pre judging somebody based upon external appearances?

Right,

And the seed of body consciousness which leads to prejudice,

Which leads to so much negative energy of all forms.

When we can begin as spiritually minded people I'm sure you listening your spiritually minded soul,

You genuinely want to live a life in alignment with the highest good you really,

You care.

And so when we have this spiritual inclination,

We can start to really question,

Wait a second,

Really deeply,

Who am I,

And to feel ourselves beyond the limited identities of our body,

Our personality,

Our culture,

Our race,

Our features.

And if we can start by doing that for ourselves because pretty much all of us are still functioning on some level from that body conscious influence I mean it's very prominent in our world today in our upbringing everything.

So if we can start to really tune in with ourselves and watch where and when we're actually judging ourselves based on our appearance,

Oh my hair doesn't look good today so it's a bad day or you know these silly little things.

When we can start to bring consciousness to that that is starting to heal the problem.

It has to start with myself only when I start to really feel who I am beyond the limit of the human body.

And then when I look at someone else with that loving vision and see the being shining through their eyes and just recognize that the bodies,

It's a costume it's a,

You know,

It's like a kitten it,

You know,

They vary in appearances.

So this is the,

The key transformation in consciousness and realistically,

Nothing is going to really change unless we start remembering who we are.

In the media,

The media is extremely corrupt and manipulative entity.

It didn't used to be it's got much much much much worse over the,

Over the years,

As they pass and part of the reason for this and we're going to do more more podcasts on this topic because it's a big topic.

Just very briefly,

The media,

Media companies are businesses.

So they need to make money,

Otherwise they'll go out business and everyone loses their job,

Right.

In order for them to get paid,

They need viewers,

They need people watching and listening to their content reading it.

In order to get people to watch it,

They need to create stories that get people to see it.

Otherwise,

No one's going to bother reading any of it.

And if they're going to have people seeing it then they need to compete with everyone else because it's not just one news company,

There's tons of them so they all have to compete with each other.

So what they've discovered,

And this is proven fact based on massive amounts of research,

They've discovered that outrage,

The emotion of outrage is the main thing that gets people to share on social media and to engage with their content.

But basically,

In order for the media to remain solvent and not go out of business,

They're kind of living off outrage and fear.

This is a very unfortunate situation and unfortunately the more that there's social media and there's all these everyone else fighting for attention,

It has to become more sensationalized.

So in a sense,

The media has become a victim of its own model because once you expand that out bigger and bigger and bigger,

It gets out of hand.

So the media is just basically promoting outrage,

Outrage,

Outrage,

And it's either fear or outrage.

They're the two primary emotions.

And so people are either being freaked out like the COVID situation,

Freak you out staying in your house,

You're probably going to die in five seconds if you leave the house,

Or outrage.

You know,

This thing happened and we need to be protesting and then back to fear and then back to outrage.

So we're being messed about with and there are people involved in this who are making loads of money.

Politicians have their means that they want people to think certain ways and be afraid of each other.

Everyone's being basically polarized so that instead of us getting along and having love and seeing each other as spiritual beings and having good vibrations and harmony and cooperation.

They're wanting us to be against each other and caught up in all this chaos for their own selfish interests.

So we need to recognize the game being played on us,

The tricks being played on us and go to a higher level,

Go to a higher level.

And Martin Luther King,

He had a dream,

He had a dream and his dream,

Which is very well known now,

Was that his children would live in a world where they were judged based upon the content of their character,

Not the color of their skin.

And that's such a beautiful thing and this is something we need to hold in our hearts very deeply and hold that standard.

We owe it to Martin Luther King and to everyone and all the injustices before and injustices now to hold that in our hearts and keep that as the standard that we have as a society.

Otherwise,

It's going to become more and more and more crazy and everyone loses because an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and we certainly don't want to live in a blind world of riots and chaos.

So what does it mean to live in a world where we judge people based on their character,

Not on their skin?

Well,

Again,

It starts with our own state of consciousness,

Our own willingness to be in touch with ourselves,

To slow down.

I'd say in these days to unplug your internet for some time,

Put the cell phone away,

Get some space away from the inundation of body consciousness,

Fear,

Outrage,

Etc.

So that you can come from a stable consciousness,

An awareness that is stable and rooted in love and security and spiritual power and energy.

And we talk about this a lot,

We have many guided meditations on Insight Timer and a website that you can listen to that are centered on who am I and how can I connect to higher power,

Receive that divine energy.

So when I do that,

My whole view changes,

My whole perspective and when I'm then able to go out into the world and if I'm at the grocery store,

Look in the eyes of the cashier and I see that being as a precious soul.

And I emanate that feeling of love for my spiritual brother or sister,

I feel I love you to every soul that I see.

I don't even have to say anything necessarily or do anything,

But my presence makes a difference,

That soul will feel it.

And that spiritual recognition is the powerful,

The true fire of love.

You know,

There's different types of fire and certainly there's the fire of outrage and anger and fear.

And that grows to be a very strong fire,

Especially when more and more people involve themselves in that fire.

As spiritual people,

We cannot do that.

We have to be so careful,

We don't want to add to that fire.

But this spiritual fire of love,

This spiritual consciousness,

I am the soul,

You are my beloved brother and sister,

We belong to the same spiritual parent,

We are divine.

That fire is the fire that will come over the hearts of every soul and begin to create some healing.

And it might not happen across the board,

I mean,

We're not like saying it's going to suddenly turn into this like rosy,

Beautiful thing.

Yes,

We live in a world where there is negativity at this time.

However,

Our duty is in this solution,

In this healing,

In this new consciousness.

And part of the healing is to hold that vision that we treat people based on their character,

Based on who they are,

Not what they look like.

So for example,

If you're going to go to a dentist or a doctor,

Or you're going to listen to an economist or an architect,

Who are you going to choose?

It needs to be based upon their character.

This is what Martin Luther King wanted is that when we move in a direction of excellence,

Then it doesn't matter what someone looks like,

It's whether or not they're in a state of excellence,

Anyone can become good at it.

One of the most racist things,

Which is barely ever talked about in the media,

Is to assume things of others based on their skin colour.

So for example,

There's many stereotypes like Asians are good at school,

Right?

And there are lots of Asians who are very good at academics,

It's true.

But what is the reason for that?

Is it because they've got special books in their genes?

Yeah,

They're smuggled in there,

They got this sort of special code to things.

No,

It's nothing to do with that.

It's because they have a culture where their parents basically force them to study and they expect them to get grade A's and they expect them to work really hard.

And when they come home,

They are basically forced into studying and they study much more than everyone else.

And so as a result of that,

They have better grades.

It's just not a mystery.

Why is it that a lot of African Americans are far superior at basketball and other sports than anyone else?

It's not because they have special genes.

That's a racist perspective.

The real reason is that they work really,

Really,

Really hard and put themselves through tremendous challenges to become absolutely excellent.

Which is why everyone wants to watch the NBA,

Which is almost all black,

Because they're better than everyone else.

But the thing is,

Stereotypes are that all black people are good at sports and Asians are good at good at maths and things like that.

Realistically,

This is all based upon culture,

Not based upon genetics.

Because you can have math progenies who happen to have darker skin and you can have basketball players who happen to have whiter skin.

And you can have all sorts of things in different cases based upon character,

Based upon excellence.

And so to be free of racism basically means to be colourblind and to hold a very high vision for everyone.

Very high vision for everyone.

And if we catch ourselves thinking,

Oh,

These sort of people are like this and these sort of people are like that,

We're engaged in racism.

Even to think about certain types of people as victims,

Like inherently victims,

Is racist because we're not seeing the greatness they have.

So,

For example,

Ariel recently was looking for a doctor.

And what were your concerns when it came to a doctor?

I was interested in someone who seemed to have a higher consciousness,

Come from a spiritual perspective,

Recognize that any type of healing is far beyond physical.

And someone who had that higher consciousness.

And I remember I was really most drawn to a soul who was African American and he seemed like such a beautiful soul and I actually wasn't able to see him because he was too booked.

But I didn't really mind what the doctor looked like,

What colour skin,

What culture,

What background.

I really was interested in what is their level of consciousness?

Who is this being?

Who is this energy?

What is their perspective,

Their views?

And,

You know,

We benefit from having that perspective because when we value connection based off of higher values,

Character,

Higher consciousness,

Spiritual energy,

Then we have the benefit of being able to connect with beautiful souls.

If we start eliminating connecting with certain people based off of body type,

Then you know that's a huge loss.

It's a loss for us.

It's a loss for them.

It's a loss for everyone.

That's right.

And that's a definition racism that somehow gets ignored by a surprising large number of people,

Especially the media.

You know,

I'm interested in the economy and about how things work and I came across an economist called Thomas Sowell,

Who presents things in the most profound way.

I have not come across anyone in fact in any area who's quite as clear headed as Thomas Sowell is and he happens to be an African American economist,

Right?

I'm not going to say,

Oh,

He's not white,

So therefore I'm not going to listen to him.

But a lot of people,

They put people into boxes of prejudices of any kind.

Women are like this,

Whites like this,

Blacks like this,

Asians like this,

Short people are like this,

Tall people are like that.

Anytime we put someone in a box and judge them based upon the box that they're in and expect all these types of people should act this way and all these types of people should act that way,

We're being prejudice.

And that's the work we need to make.

And it applies to everyone because when we realize we're spiritual beings,

It's not that certain types of people can get away with it and other people can't.

Everyone's held to the same standard.

So if someone is very good at something,

They should be given the award and the prize.

Someone does something that is criminal,

They should be put in jail,

Regardless of their skin color.

A lot of time,

For example,

There might be two people to do the same crime and they get judged differently based on their skin color.

That's not cool.

They should be the same,

The same for both.

A lot of time,

Politicians get away with crimes that other ordinary people wouldn't be able to get away with.

So that's the same sort of thing as prejudice in a different way.

So really racism is just one small part of a much larger problem,

Which is putting people into boxes,

Not seeing the divine spiritual being and operating in the world on the basis of limited perspectives and limited awareness.

So we have a beautiful opportunity right now to really make some deep changes inside our own consciousness.

Because ultimately we really cannot change anyone else.

I don't think that we can make great,

Lasting,

Real change with protesting,

With violence,

With things like that.

So the real change comes from this inner peaceful nature and the spiritual recognition.

And it is contagious.

So even if it just starts with you and then the way that you interact with your family and your friends and those you connect with,

You know,

They may start asking you,

You know,

You seem so peaceful,

You know,

What is it?

You know,

What are you doing?

And so it spreads because we are spiritual beings and deep down we all want to remember that and to feel that and to feel that enormous love and security and power and bliss of remembering our inner nature.

So we're all drawn to that.

We've just become very out of touch with it.

But,

You know,

One at a time it starts with us in recognizing where there is prejudice within our own consciousness.

And sometimes it's very subtle,

Like we're judging us with food these days,

Goodness gracious.

And that's become a huge,

Huge arena for prejudice as well,

You know.

Oh my God,

So and so had some cheese or they had this meat or they had something,

Something,

Or I can't have this because of chemicals or I can't.

And so we're going around,

You know,

Labeling that in the same way as well.

And oftentimes it's not based off of any truth.

It's just some sort of belief system from some book we read.

So we're all doing it,

I think,

And to some degree in our lives,

Even on a subtle level.

So how can we begin to open our minds and hearts to see from a higher perspective and consciousness of love and preciousness and appreciation for life and the recognition of this intrinsic innocence in every soul and to envelop ourselves and everyone we meet with love,

Loving forgiveness,

And love.

Loving forgiveness,

Kindness,

Compassion and healing.

And to be sensible as well because one of the things we were talking about another time was that we need to treat everyone equally in terms of everyone's on the same standard.

We apply the same standard across the board.

No one gets special treatment one way or the other.

And so if we meet somebody who's very aggressive and acting in a dangerous way,

It doesn't matter what their skin color is,

They need to be treated accordingly.

And if someone's very loving and kind,

Then they also are treated accordingly,

Because the media and the world we live in seems to have created many,

Many double standards in many different ways and many different situations.

So if a woman is excellent at coding,

Then she should be paid the same,

Have the same job as a man.

That's a definition of not being prejudiced.

If someone happens to have darker skin and they're good at coding,

Then they should get paid.

And if someone's white,

Then they should also get paid the same.

So sometimes there's a strange sort of reverse racism where things get wiggled about to try and make up for previous issues.

And then that causes a whole range of other issues.

So we just need to level the ground and really start doing this within ourselves with everyone we come across.

And that is basically implementing what Martin Luther King said,

That he wants to have his children and everyone else treated based on their character.

So a few takeaways and things to remember.

First of all,

We're spiritual beings.

We're guests.

We're all spiritual family.

We're on this planet together.

And when we see our brothers and sisters,

We can feel the love for the being,

The love for the being,

And respond to the energy of the being.

And again,

Of course,

If somebody is having a really negative energy,

It doesn't matter what they look like,

You might want to step away,

Right?

So we have discernment and we recognize,

Yes,

We're all souls.

Yes,

We're all beautiful.

And yes,

We have come under negative influences.

And sometimes if someone's really under a negative influence,

You might not want to engage with them.

So respond to the energy,

You know,

We're guests.

Understand the great contrast between operating from a spiritual consciousness and operating from the body consciousness.

Very,

Very limited,

Very superficial,

Very,

Very narrow.

We totally miss the point.

You know,

We're not able to thrive in our lives even.

We can't even make the connections we need to and have the freedom and intuition to be fluid and intuitive and alive.

You know,

If we're stuck in this very body conscious limited point of view.

That's right.

And understand that we're living in a world where things are polarized on purpose by the various elites trying to make people basically ignore the real issues and focus on other stuff and make it out that it's worse than it is or exaggerated or shift it or try and create a narrative so that we actually don't succeed ourselves.

So there's a lot of weird stuff going on.

So the media is highly suspicious.

You have to be careful about that.

And like we're saying the main thing is that we're all light,

We're all the same.

We're all one family,

Not different families,

One family.

And to become color blind,

To become color blind where we don't see people's bodies.

We don't judge them based on their body.

And we are able to transcend that consciousness.

And it's a very liberating experience for each of us.

So there's so much joy and happiness and lightness involved and liberating ourselves from these lower conscious influences.

And to have love,

Have love for the family,

The human family,

The family of souls,

Have love for the divine,

The creator.

And sing that song in your heart,

Rather than singing the song of,

Oh,

I can't believe this happened in the song,

The songs of sorrow of the news,

You know,

And the torment and the horribleness and the hatred.

No,

We don't want to sing those songs.

Sing the songs of love and joy and harmony and I love you and we're in this together and you know,

We're gonna get through and praise the Lord,

You know.

Yeah,

Praise the Lord and have gratitude,

Gratitude like living in the Western world.

We have so many blessings,

So many different comforts and abundances and opportunities and to take advantage of it,

You know,

Because there are people of all sorts.

I heard recently that Kanye West has now become a billionaire.

And why is that?

It's not because he's black.

It's not because of his skin color.

It's because the man is very good at business and he's in a situation that allows him to become very wealthy.

Oprah is a multi billionaire.

Right?

So,

If people can become billionaires of different skin colors,

Then that tells you a lot,

Doesn't it?

So,

There's all sorts of situations going on and we need to take full advantage of all our blessings,

Of all our blessings and as we develop a culture of excellence where we promote excellence,

Where we see excellence,

Where we inspire it,

Where we believe in it,

In everyone,

Then everyone is raised up,

Raised up.

And of course,

People start from different places.

Some people have a hard upbringing and they might need extra blessings,

Extra help,

But we still see them as powerful spiritual beings,

Part of our family.

We'll uplift each other,

You know,

Uplift ourselves,

Uplift each other and we create a really remarkable world.

And I don't know,

Maybe the news and media will go out of business,

But you know,

Fair enough.

We don't want to play those games.

We don't want to be manipulated.

You know,

We want to create a new narrative.

And so we thank you for being here,

For listening,

For being part of this new conversation,

Perhaps spiritual conversation about transformation and transcending and healing.

So thank you for your presence.

Thank you for being part of our wonderful family all together.

And may you enjoy shining your love and light to everyone all around you.

Many blessings.

Many blessings and thank you for your presence.

Reviews

Superb message, no matter your gender, skin color, or political affiliation.
Thank you so much for spreading your light 🕊

I so appreciate your opening this up to a wider perspective. Pre-judging prejudice , the big business of media and how we can be part of the solution by pausing, stepping back and reconnecting to the spiritual beings that we all are.. I do want love to lead the way, Let it begin with me!
Harmony and understanding. Thank you Ariel and Michael. ✨🙏💖