I am sure you’ve heard about the ongoing series of demonstrations in the Wall Street financial district. What is Occupy Wall Street or<strong> </strong>(OWS) for short anyway? A paradigm shift or “blame-game” perhaps? In a nutshell, it’s a growing worldwide movement loosely based upon social and economic inequality. Some consider this movement highly controversial.

Maybe, to some who are reading, <em>this article</em> will seem “controversial.”  But, as they say, “the proof is in the pudding.”  The realization I’m pointing to can only be known once we recognize the open, relaxed, non-separate way of being of what is known as non-duality. Occupy Wall Street, along with the frustration and desire for change that lots of people are experiencing these days, is a prime example of how the belief in separation can be seen as the root of human problems.

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<p align="center"><strong>What is the belief in separation?</strong></p>
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For starters here is a simple metaphor:  the painter and his painting are inseparable.  Translated, this means that the consciousness we are carrying around, which is the belief in being separate people, determines the world we see.  The painter “me” is inseparable from the world I see out there.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is certainly shaking things up, while attempting to provide a much-needed balance in our world. It appears that lots of people are “fed up” these days with corporate greed and the appearance that the rich keep getting richer while the poorer keep getting poorer.  It’s <em>quite</em> natural to want change when this is believed.  And it’s also quite <em>natural</em> to look outward into the world, believing that the problem exists (solely) out there.  In some sense, it does!  In the appearance of life, there are people and organizations who are acting from a sense of lack, fear, and greed—taking more than giving.  It’s much like any addiction.  The taking begets more taking, ad nauseum.

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<p align="center"><strong>Let’s look at it a different way.</strong></p>
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Many times in my meetings I get questions about the financial state of our world.  And almost always, I can sense in the questioner fear or anxiety below the surface of the words.  Yet the focus of the questioner is in pointing <em>out there</em>, in the world (in the “painting”), as if the solution lies solely there.

We can take all sorts of practical steps to change our world, and even improve it in many ways.  But if we are not in touch with the fear, anxiety, frustration, lack, and greed within each of us, then in some ways we are <em>only boxing our own shadows </em>when we point outward to Wall Street.  If the painter—me—is experiencing fear, frustration, anger or anxiety but only pointing outward towards the world, the question is this:  what am I looking to accomplish through that pointing?

What I find time and again when the question of Wall Street pops up is that this outward pointing is the perfect opportunity to go <em>inward</em>.  By bringing someone’s attention—the bare observation of naked awareness—directly to the frustration, anger, fear or anxiety he or she is feeling, this inseparability between the painter and his painting becomes crystal clear.  Although we don’t always see it that way, we are looking for relaxation and well-being.  We are looking to rearrange the world (the painting) so that we can finally relax and not have to feel this frustration, anger, fear or anxiety.

When I suggest to the questioner that true transformation of the world starts with the self (or inner voice), it can appear controversial, counterintuitive, and even repulsive at first.  I’m inviting the questioner to Occupy Awareness first, so to speak.  This means to rest without viewpoints over and over, throughout the day, letting all the afflictive emotions that arise with those viewpoints be as they are, without trying to understand, neutralize or get rid of them.   When we begin to do this, insight begins to arise automatically.  We see that our bodies, when they are troubled by these afflictive emotions, cause a sort of automated response in the mind.  That response shows up as a pointing outward into the world in some attempt to change that world so that the emotions can relax.  However, that outward pointing only goes so far.

For any transformation to happen, it is helpful to see through the sense of self that is identifying so strongly with viewpoints, no matter what they are.  As these viewpoints are relaxed, over and over, we start to feel energy in the body very directly.  That energy is allowed to come and go, bringing about a natural healing in our experience.  This is a deep and profound healing precisely because it deals with the very source of suffering, the ego or self.

As we relax as awareness (or Occupy Awareness), the sense of being a person cut off from a hostile world “out there” begins to soften and relax.   Insights and clarity begin to pave the way automatically.  We lose the sense of an us v. them attitude and this frees us up to take a more comprehensive perspective of our world, illuminating the way in which the painter is inseparable from his painting.

As we begin to relax and heal, the world and the sense of inherent “others” also begin to relax.  We start to move and act in the world with a fearless, compassionate love and peace.  This is not a love and peace that just sits quietly as the so-called others “destroy the world.”  It is not by its nature passive at all.

We can continue trying to point outwardly, believing that the problem is solely out there.  Yet this blinds us to the direct experience of what is happening in our own bodies and minds.  If we look inward, the fear, lack, anger, frustration, and anxiety that we are feeling as separate selves actually creates a sort of addiction for goods or for other vices that we believe will satisfy our suffering.  And so, in a very direct way, we created Wall Street by not experiencing and healing our own afflictive emotions.

The painter is inseparable from his painting.  So, as we change, from the belief in being a<em> separate</em> person, into a more fluid, non-separate, non-referential way of experiencing, the painting (the world) begins to change automatically.  Everyone we meet is then affected by the change within us.  Deep change is very contagious.  We don’t settle for Occupying Wall Street or any other street for that matter.  We occupy every moment with this new-found openness and direct experience of non-separation.  The world cannot help but change at that point simply because the world is a reflection of our own consciousness.

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Furthermore, do not take this as an invitation to stop protesting or speaking your mind about what you perceive in the world.  The recognition of the inward freedom that I am attempting to demonstrate here in no way outlaws taking practical action to change things in our relative experience.  I’m merely offering you, the reader, <a title="An invitation to Living Realization" href="http://livingrealization.org/" target="_blank">an invitation</a> to look in a different way, seeing that what we have created as something out there is a reflection of our own, interior experience as humans.  As that interior experience begins to be illuminated more and more, it’s quite natural for an outward expression of that to take place.  We are only ever tending to the world we created through our own thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions.

Why not start in our own backyard?