"In truth there are no victims", my Teacher once stated.
"Hang on a minute", I protested.
"What if you cross the road and get hit by a bus?"
"Who decided to cross the road?", He asked.
Good point!
And so began a line of enquiry, a puzzling statement for me to ponder, and not an an easy one since the word 'victim' is in the vernacular of most of our news. Everywhere we look we hear about victims of this or that, especially around natural disasters.
If we can momentarily suspend our acculturated beliefs and take a step to a more conscious view, perhaps all is not as it seems.
After almost 20 years of self-enquiry I have come to the conclusion that I am firstly a Soul, and secondly a Soul having a human experience in this body of mine. This is not something I arrived at lightly or quickly, but more as a result of continued experiences beyond merely physical existence. So, on this premise I offer the following observation.
If we are indeed a Soul then at what level of responsibility do we defer to 'someone else'?
Did I choose, on some level of awareness, to incarnate?
Did I choose my parents, my birth, my location so that as choices were presented to me, I could choose to venture onto my life's path and purpose?
Am I in fact responsible for every thing that I think, say, do and if so, am I totally responsible for everything that happens to me?
I have come to the conclusion that all these questions are answered with an emphatic YES!
There is no supernatural 'someone else' who decides whether I'll get hit by a bus today. Only my Soul knows its journey and so if we wish to know and understand our Soul's purpose then we need to find ways to listen to it.
I've discovered that intuition is astounding. If we're in touch with our own deep intuition we only ever act from a profound sense of knowingness, and if this leads to us being in a disaster, then this is as it is meant to be.
It doesn't for one second mean that we should not therefore have empathy or compassion. On the contrary. But what this realisation does do is allow us to view all life's circumstances with a clarity that we are totally and absolutely responsible for everything that we think, say, do and experience. What we choose to think, say and do is our free will and choice, so we can choose to take responsibility for all our choices - past, present and future.
If we do this, we can never be a victim of anything.
The online etymological dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/) explains the origin of the word 'victim' is from the Latin victima or "person or animal killed as a sacrifice."
Do we really believe that someone who experiences death in a natural disaster, car accident, or any other act is killed as a sacrifice? If so, to whom?
Maybe our Soul's journey is to be in that place at that time to experience this exact death.
Those that are left behind and do not die, offer the rest of us the opportunity to see them not as victims, but as Souls having a human experience (albeit traumatic), which allows us the opportunity to see past xenophobic conditioning and illusions of separateness, connect with the finer vibrations of compassion and love within, and connect with the oneness of us all.
Personally I see this as a far more respectful and graceful way of relating to people.
I now deeply realise that my Teacher's comment is a very enlightened understanding and a guidepost of how life is meant to be lived - with the freedom of not being a victim of anything.
