Why We Feel Drained

by Roland Trujillo 

  Every temptation seeks to get us to draw upon our own cleverness and energy to respond. Unenlightened and powerless, the tempted person can only draw on their own life force. And this force (hostility, anger, or excitement) is also an environmental stimulus (temptation) that tempts the other to respond with emotion of their own or more temptation.

   We live in an atmosphere of wall to wall tease. People are becoming drained and increasingly sick today. The terrible school, work and institutional environments are mostly presided over by ambitious motivators and prideful unenlightened people They view truth as a threat. They have no use for real goodness or virtue. They want ambitious yes men and they want those who give without asking questions.

   For this reason, the average person is tempted on all sides by those demanding his energies, money, and allegiance. After years in phony and unloving environments, the person has learned to shut down perception and to suppress expressing the truth.

   When we do not express ourselves, we also suppress the latent powers of the soul. We lose our virtue, courage, creativity, and other powers. We become diseased, sick and preyed upon. Even our immune system which is an extension of the soul’s power to fight off germs becomes depressed. The soul’s ability to throw off unwholesome influence is repressed.

   Even at a purely psychological and physical level, we are so used to responding only after being tempted or upset, that we have become incapable of living from inner motivation. We literally have to be upset or excited in order to function. Parents who pressure or bribe their kids raise kids who need tease or pressure in order to function. To a large extent, this has happened to all of us. The more we are reactive, the more we depend on external stimuli. 

   Having lost control of our powers and having suppressed them so long, that when we do need to act, we need something to upset us or make us angry: in order to bring up energy. While it is true that we draw energy from anger or upset, it also true that serves those who upset us and each time we lose our precious storehouse of energy we are a little closer to death.

   More and more, people are actually becoming unresponsive to goodness and truth. They are unmoved by the sight of a mother and child. They are not outraged by injustice. They are unmoved by beautiful music or a flower. They feel no awe; they have no respect for proper authority. They have no compassion for the elderly.

   Repressed so long, the very sensibilities of the soul are atrophied thorough disuse.

   Increasingly, they need various contrived excitements, such as spectator sports, video games, survivor television programs, gambling, or drugs to stimulate them.

   We should be moved by intuition from God. When we see another person in need, our compassion is awakened and we search our heart for what to do. Upon hearing truth, we are awakened to intuit in the inner Light that it is true. When our family teases us for love, we should respond with calm reason and understanding love that come from within. When others err, we should respond with patience and compassionate correction which come from within.

   Can you now understand the meaning of the phrase “You cannot hurt another person without hurting yourself?”  If another is in need and you turn from them when you intuition would tell you to lend a hand, you must suppress your soul. If another is in need of correction, and you intuit that you should say something, but you turn from them and say nothing in order to preserve some cozy external relationship, you must suppress your soul.

  Not only do you suppress your soul’s sensibilities and harden your heart, you also deny yourself life that would flow through your soul if you obeyed the Creator.

   In essence, also, the life, the light and love that would enter the soul from within in order to help the other person is now also denied yourself. It does not enter, so it is not there for you either. The forgiveness you extend to another permits the forgiveness of the Creator to flow into you. By denying yourself the “pleasure” of resenting and judging, the emptiness is filled by the infilling of God’s grace.

   But when we do not forgive our neighbor, then the grace does not enter and we do not experience forgiveness either.

  When we are patient with our neighbor, then the peace of God can enter from within.