"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."[1]
Heroes save the world and ensure a more prosperous future for all of humanity. Some wear capes and others have superhuman strength, while some look like ordinary people. Although a hero embodies a quality that inspires others and gives hope for the future, I desire not to be a hero or one “of superhuman strength, courage, or ability, favored by the gods…an intermediate between gods and men, and immortal,” but rather I desire to become one who leads “to accompany and show the way…to direct or guide by going on in advance; to cause to follow in one’s path.”[2] At this time in my life, I feel like a lost soul, trying to discover herself and her pilgrimage to truth, with no sense of direction. In order to walk the path toward my own future and ultimate purpose, I must develop my sympathetic imagination, learn to channel my endless supply of energy, and eliminate fear.
Fear. It is the single most powerful emotion and it has the capacity to overcome the spirit. It drives hate, violence, and above all, anger. It is all consuming and once one is shackled by its manacles, faith in themselves and the world is lost. But, once fear is eradicated, it is replaced by love. The power of love rivals fear in that it drives a person to act purely with strength of mind and strength of heart. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.”[3] This ultimate love for self and environment has provided history’s leaders with the ability to open their minds and hearts to accept life rather than resist it. With this inner strength, they worked toward building a more unified, tolerant world, rather than squandering away precious time and energy. Leaders who have accentuated the pages of history challenged their boundaries without fear of the outcome; they possessed faith in a greater power which allowed them to overcome standard human limitations. Such men and women may have lived in accordance with the doctrines of ahimsa, for “The practice of ahimsa will make you fearless. He who practices ahimsa with real faith can move the whole world…” which is exactly what leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have accomplished.[4] My anger and frustration in life are driven by my fear for the future and what legacy, if any, I will leave in the world. I have yet to discover my purpose or my cause that I am willing to fight for, to live for, to die for. But anyone who has learned to trust in a power greater than the individual self has discovered the ability to lead and inspire faith in their followers. As a realist, I often lose myself in the abstraction of my goals for the future. Thus, I desire to let go of my inhibitions and replace them with courage and conviction to seize my ambitions without fear for the outcome. This, in turn, will encourage freedom of thought and growth in self-knowledge to gain a better perspective of my place in the world, and perhaps history. Like Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche says, “The only way to ever be completely at peace is to get beyond both hope and fear, to get beyond the dualistic clinging that allows these emotions to take root.”[5] However, I can only attain this desired freedom from fear once I can gain freedom in my mind.
Leaders are guided by Ahimsa
A penitentiary confines my every
thought, feeling, and reflection. I rarely experience luxuries such as calmness
and peace in my conscious mind. A constant stream of thoughts seems to flow in
every direction rather than maintain a constant, though uncharted, course. My
mind is composed of an intricate labyrinth where every barrier is a new
consideration, focus, or worry. I am always computing, deliberating, thinking,
never feeling stillness. My mind is my greatest ally and enemy; it is my
fortune and the cause of my failure. An internal war is constantly waging
between what I want, what I should want, and whether what I want is right for
me leading me to question myself and my purpose. Rather than focusing so
intently on each separate thought, I desire to “…remain aware behind all
these thoughts, in a state that offers an entirely new level of openness and
insight,” as Ram Dass advises.[9]
Within the tangle of musings a vision of truth is trapped, waiting for me to
liberate it. But right now, my truth is buried beneath layers of anger and
frustration. Once it is unshackled, it will surge outwards with the same
intensity that drives me in other areas of my life. However, my greatest strength
is also my most powerful demon. My passionate 
energy
is waiting to burst through the seams of my skin, ready to rush in every
direction. But I often feel like I am constantly running around with no
direction or focus, only succeeding in wasting precious energy. If I can only
learn to channel my energy so that it is not gushing in all directions, but
rather is focused into a singular streamline, I will be able to devote myself
and my energies to whatever cause is my calling. My future will undoubtedly involve
helping others; however, I will need to learn to tame this beast that controls
me in order to achieve my goals of devoting myself and my attention to
improving humanity.
Mind control
is the key to my future[10]
The sympathetic imagination, which we have explored and developed through the literature of our course, has important applications to my future career and my life. Working in the field of medicine will require a high capacity to empathetically understand suffering from abuse, disease, and starvation, while the ability to “penetrate the barrier which space puts between him and his object…to secure a momentary but complete identification with it” will help me tap into the greater unconscious of humanity.[11] Much of this process will rely on my underdeveloped skill of identifying with an object or person separate and foreign. The first step to tapping into the sympathetic imagination is developing my sense of sympathy as well as empathy. Denotatively sympathy is “the quality or state of being affected by the condition of another with a feeling or corresponding to that of another,”[12] but I feel that John Ruskin more aptly defines sympathy as “the imaginative understanding of the natures of others and the power of putting ourselves in their place”.[13] Similarly, but on a deeper level, empathy requires “The power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation” so that a person can abscond from their own selfishness and connect with their subject.[14] Any doctor who has memorized an anatomy textbook can heal physical disease and pain. However, a doctor who can fully “use all of his wisdom and compassion to help relieve [the patient’s] suffering” suddenly transforms from a healer of sickness to a healer of suffering.[15] Learning to empathize with whomever I come in contact with will require me to release my anxieties and selfish fears. Only when I can learn to let go of my self-created inhibitions will I have the chance to become the person and doctor I envision.
In every generation, there exist
those who carry a torch that burns so brightly, it illumines the dark confines
of the human mind and dispels the shadows that are cast by fear of great
terrors in the world. My personal calling to add to this greater unity is to contribute
my efforts to salvage the beauty of life and the vitality of the human spirit
by eradicating the heavy chains of fear, hunger, and disease. Ultimately, I
aspire to add, in my own small way, to the legacy of those leaders who have
passed before me. Further, I desire to work in the service of something greater
than myself so that when I die, I will become a part of that imperishable ideal
that distinguishes humanity from all other forms of life. Specifically, I plan
to graduate from the
Will this be the path I walk?
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Word Count-Quotes: 1357
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