The Right Balance | Mindfullness

The right balance is the ability developed to not allow the difficulties inherent in your path to take you off track or rob you of peace. This requires knowing how to deal with the subtleties of the road, the weather, the landscape and other travelers. These are the ingredients of magic.

The true warrior makes peace his inseparable premise. Makes nonviolence its transforming force. He knows that only to the extent that he makes changes in himself will he succeed in altering the world; that is why he does not waste time and energy trying to convince others of his reasons, for he knows that just as he is not yet ready to understand many things, many do not yet see what he can already see. He barely reflects in his serene attitudes the wisdom that dwells in him. He knows that if the argument convinces, the example has the power to infect hearts and minds.

Legal or Right?

Life contains subtleties whose lines separating the shadows from the light may seem faint, but they are not. The subtle, by definition, often goes unnoticed, so it is necessary to increasingly sharpen our perception. However, there are more common situations that allow for easier comprehension.

The great conflict between the legal and the just; between legality and legitimacy, is a good example. We know that laws are the dividing lines between civilization and barbarism. At our current level of evolution, it is impossible to live in society without a set of rules that establish rights and duties, which is a very good thing because it brings peace of mind and social security. However, like everything else in the universe, our consciousness is in constant mutation and laws are necessary to accompany this evolution, which does not always occur at the desired speed.

On the other hand, it is always possible to misuse something good: there are established rules based on false moralism or that defend obscure interests, harming sectors or even the vast majority of a people. We cannot forget that slavery and racial or gender segregation, to cite a few possibilities, were practiced with odious legislation.

We must be vigilant so that the law is not misused to feed preconceptions, revenge or to sustain backwardness. The first step is to perceive when the border between light and shadow is crossed, when a good is distorted to be used for unscrupulous purposes, when a legal instrument is used to accommodate manifestations of hatred and intolerance, when the inflexibility of moralism destroys the beauty of morality. Remaining fair and peaceful when the law goes against justice is an important right balance.

How Can I Have a Right Balance?

We must be careful not to let ourselves be contaminated by the huge collective shadows that are formed at certain times, by desiring severe punishments and finding culprits, who assume the particular dissatisfactions that are pulverized in the social whole, in a diffuse and confusing way, makes all the difference. In those moments it is necessary to be like a lantern that illuminates the dark night, without the pretension of being the owner of the truth and always abstaining completely from any form of violence.

The right balance is necessary to act contrary to the blind crowd, which in the illusion of keeping away the shadow, ends up feeding the darkness, thirsty for the moral stoning of any individual. The warrior perceives the collective movement against the light and knows that, at that moment, revenge is disguised in the garb of justice to punish, without the indispensable dose of love that comes with a truly just decision.

Then he refuses to follow the voices of the world, because they are contrary to what the silence of his heart tells him, and assumes firm and serene attitudes at the same time, in full agreement with the aerial ideas that lead you on the path of tolerance, union, compassion, harmony and kindness, keeping on the sunny side of the road. The right balance requires finesse; finesse requires courage.

The individual and the Collective.

Equally subtle is the moment of deciding between the individual and the collective. Of course, the whole is more important than the part, but the part, when incomplete, compromises the whole.

The right balance arises when we prioritize the personal to the detriment of the collective, in disagreement with the general "right" principle. Understanding that there are limits to society's interference with the individual is important in order to establish the indispensable conditions that safeguard broad personal freedom, without ever forgetting the respective responsibilities. A village can do a lot, but it cannot do everything.

Another subtlety derived from this issue lies in the perception that the exercise of the best right excludes any privilege. The winds that drive the advancement of humanity show that any privilege is contrary to good law. Privileges are nothing more than remnants of ancestral feelings of domination, inequality and separation, still present today. If you maintain a privilege, it is because you do not yet have justice within you.

Organize Yourself.

Another fair assessment, even more critical because it is of an internal nature, deals with the delicate issue of selfishness. Things like: when do I stop taking care of myself to take care of someone else? What if I am not well enough to take care of someone else? To what extent should I help so as not to weaken the other person? These are questions that will not be silenced.

It is essential to establish, in a clear way, the limit of the other person over your life so that there is no abuse or excesses,without forgetting that it is impossible to keep the soul in peace without protecting those who cry out for help. This is another right balance. The eternal harmony in taking care of oneself without forgetting the other. Accepting that you can only give what is already part of your being and realizing that in the mathematics of life you only multiply what you know how to divide; two sides of the same coin, an understanding of one of life's most precious lessons.

To do for the other what I would like him to do for me if the positions were reversed, is the sacred response, the greatest lesson and, therefore, the most difficult to execute.

The right balance between the fine wisdom of understanding the situation, with all the subtleties, and the loving willingness to share the best of yourself, without any fear, is your great work of art in the wonderful spectacle of life.