The Ghetto is in the Mind

Sermon

Today, we are going to talk about the ghetto, the ghetto mentality and poverty. Poverty is a state of mind. This brings up a lot of strong emotions for a lot of people. Let it come and let it go. This is topic that is going to make you uncomfortable, angry, and sad but if you fight through those feelings what you will find is a message of hope, help and a way to solve something very debilitating in your life. You are going to feel uncomfortable because you are going to take it personally. Angry because you are going to want to push it away. Sad because you going to come to realize this is about something that you did to yourself. There is hope because its a state of mind, not a condition, that means it’s not permanent. There is help, because there is something you can do about it. You are going to realize that you can be at peace once you accept the simple truth.

Poverty has nothing to with money. Poverty is about not having. Poverty is a fundamental violation of human dignity. It means a lack of the basic capacity to participate effectively. There is genuine poverty in the world. There are people with a severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. However, you don’t think about them when I say poverty. Poverty, the kind I am talking about, is a marketing term. We are not talking about real poverty. We are talking about American poverty. When I say poverty, chances are you think about people of a certain color: “black”. You think of a certain place: the “ghetto” or “trailer park”. You think of a certain kind of mentality: the ghetto mentality. This is the kind of poverty we are talking about. Poverty is not about money. There are lots of people with a lot of money that are still poor and will always be poor no matter how much money they have. n fact, about 70 percent of people who win a lottery or get a big windfall actually end up broke in a few years, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education. Poverty is not a money thing. This is a mentality. A mentality that infects and affects everything in your life.

whose problem is it?

Poverty is one of those things that you may not think it’s your problem. Poverty is about those poor “other” people. If you think that then you have made a terrible mistake. You see, poverty is about you. Poverty has to do with the deepest part of you. The part of you that is scared, impoverished, alone and without. It is the part of you that longs for answers. Answers to questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis. Questions of why? Why do I not have “this or that”? Why was I born this way? Why do I feel poor? What can I do about being poor? What should I do about it? I don’t want to be poor so how can I get out of it? How do I make sure my children don’t grow up poor like I did? What if people found out? How do I hide the fact that I don’t really have what I pretend to? How much money does it take to “feel” rich? How much money do I need not to worry about going back to being poor? These are the real questions that you want answers to. These are the things that the terrorize your existence. They are the reason why you wake you up in a cold sweat. They are the questions that drive you. For some people, they are the questions that cripple you. Poverty and those feelings are what drugs and all manner of escapism are about numbing. It is all an elaborate scheme to cope with poverty. So as you can see, poverty is at the root. Poverty is not other people’s problem. Poverty is your problem. It is under the ground on which you stand. It is under your skin and deep in your bones. Poverty is the thing you fear most. This fear is what the ghetto mentality evolved to cope with. If we are honest with ourselves then we can get to the bottom line. Most people don’t want to be rich, and fewer still want to be wealthy, look that is the truth. The bottom line is that it is about not being poor, that is the core motivation for a search for truth. Poverty is at the root of what you want to know.

poverty begins at home

Poverty is a response to living in a certain kind of environment. Remember I said poverty is not about money, it is about not having. It is an environment of not having. In America, our consumerist philosophy, have led to a brilliant invention, and I say brilliant because you have to appreciate the sheer genius of it, we have redefined the class structure and rebranded the Ghetto Mentality as ‘Culture’. Being ghetto is a thing of pride and once you infuse ignorance with pride then you get the DNA of a cognitive virus. A cognitive virus is a real thing. It has no mass or energy, but it is evident by its effect. Natural Spirituality is based on the philosophy of Quantumism that teaches that even though something doesn’t have mass or energy, that doesn’t mean it is not real. Cognition is a real thing and it controls your reality. A cognitive virus is something that binds the mind, distorts perception and bends the will. The result, many people now live, speak, dress, talk, and breathe the ghetto mentality, even when they aren’t even from the ghetto. The result is being “of the poor” is now something to be proud of. It is an “identity” and a way to identify with others. Being proud of being stupid may get you accepted but the question you need to ask yourself is if that is where you really want to belong? Poverty begins at home. In order to get poverty out of your life you have to leave home, leave your comfort zone.

understanding the dynamic

First you need to grasp the dynamics, the fundamental mechanism of how the phenomena occurs. Poverty starts with how you “value” what you have and what you do not have. Consumerism is all about manipulating that “value” in that it only functions if it can focus your attention on what you don’t have. You may live in the Projects but your focus is on a $300 pair of shoes that you don’t have so you can “feel” better about yourself being in the Projects. You may live in Beverly Hills but your focus is on the new sports car you don’t have so you can “feel” you belong and connected. Money has nothing to do with poverty. Poverty is a mental thing. Because the focus is what you don’t have you then have to cope with “feeling” poor. Being poor or feeling poor is just stage one. This is not a problem in and of itself. The problem is how you react to stage one. What do you do with feeling poor? For the majority of people, the best idea they have is the same idea everyone else has, which is to distract yourself, move away from the feeling, in any way possible. Whether that is complaining, commiserating, feeling sorry for yourself, constantly talking, getting deeply vested in other people’s lives, keeping busy doing nothing, drugs, alcohol, romance, there are any number of ways to distract yourself. With the advent of information devices, this is another layer on which consumerism thrives. It is all about not feeling what you feel so deeply about. If you don’t think deeply then you don’t feel deeply about anything. You don’t want to get into that deep “sense of self” state because, frankly, it makes you feel helpless and stuck. Anything that triggers that state of deeply feeling about something you avoid at all costs. It is the “I just want to be happy” philosophy, which many people use to guide their lives. Happiness is free so there isn’t anything that you need for happiness. If you want to end the vicious cycle and the impact poverty has on your life then you must excavate the dynamic of “ when I feel this” then I believe “it means that” and I react by doing “what I know”. You have to change what you know to do, get insight into what it means, and that is how you change how you feel, permanently. If you are serious about lasting change then you have to make a commitment to stop using your imagination for evil, that is a weapon against yourself. When it comes to poverty, what makes you poor and keeps you poor has to do with the makeup of your mind. It is more about how you deal with poverty — the state of not having and the next layer, which is your reaction to that feeling of poverty. The only way to end poverty in yourself is to make up your mind to change the makeup of your mind.

stop using your imagination for evil

Not everyone uses their imagination for evil, that is a device to generate stories designed to stop and enslave their sense of self. Some people take this same poverty dynamic and use it as powerful motivators. Instead of treating being poor and feeling poor like a weight on their shoulders, a blight on their life, something to protect against so much so that they need to numb themselves, or something they need to get away from. Some people use poverty as fuel for their internal fire. It is something that drives them. Poverty is nipping at their heels as they run and so they run faster.

The ghetto is not outside, it is inside. The ghetto is a place that is inside you. Having nice things isn’t going to change that. Poverty is an internal thing. If you don’t change the mentality then you will pass it on to your children. No amount of money, job, school, any of that is going to make any difference. Now this is the insight: Coping with poverty, whether in a positive way or negative way, all that is something you learned how to do. You were not born with that. Mental strategies are something you learn and they are something your children copy. Children mimic, they don’t listen and learn. Children mimic you that is how they learn. So if you don’t change the way you think then they just do what you do. Much in the same way that you picked it up from the people around you, whether you wanted to or not. Now this isn’t bad news. It is not about finding someone to blame. It is good news. It means you have a choice. It is actually completely and solely up to you and you alone, as to what you are going to do with what you now know.

ok! now what?

First things first, you cannot have known what you don’t now know. To expect that you should have known and react to that is immature. Regret is a poor motivator. The important thing to focus on is this. Now that you know, now what? Natural Spirituality is not a way to cope. It is a means to succeed. Identifying and defining the problem is important but that is just step one. The important step is what to do about it. Specifically, what are “you” going to do, by yourself, and for yourself, about your own poverty. Poverty is about not having. The insight is coming to realize that whosoever controls the value of what you have and what you do not have, controls your reality. Either you are going to take responsibility for your reality or you are going to surrender that part of yourself. If you choose to surrender that part of you then all you can do is complain and feel sorry about the state of your life. You are powerless over your life. What you need is an answer to the question of “why”. If that is what you choose then Natural Spirituality has nothing to offer you. You need a guru or savior and we don’t have any of that here. If, however, you accept that it is on you, up to you, and only you, then you want control over your life. If that is your choice then what you now need is the answer to the question of “how”. This is where Natural Spirituality can help.

the deal

You have the power to transform your experience of life. All you have to do is accept the deal. The deal or covenant, that you get from Natural Spirituality is elegantly simple: accept the simple truth, put aside the once way, awaken and become. The simple truth is you know not what you do. If you can accept that then you have a way out. The next step is to put aside the once way. This means stop doing what your doing, stop thinking the way your thinking. Awaken means to become aware of. This takes effort, hard work and vigilance. For most people the hard part of this step is finding the humility to be taught, and to listen. Become means begin to be. You learned to think, to act, to feel and that means to change that you have to relearn it all over from the ground up. What you need now is an education, not something old or new to believe in. Becoming is about getting the knowledge and developing the skill. It is about preparation and commitment. This is about making the necessary effort to form new habits because habits maketh the man or woman. The key word is “necessary” effort, not the effort you are willing to make, not the minimum effort, not the effort you are not willing to make, but rather the “necessary” effort. All who accept this covenant and testament is given the power to receive. This is not some kind of magical mystery or oneness of totality, magical energy alien thing, it is not a metaphor or a myth, it is literal. What the religion does is show you how. There is a promise asked of all who would be Que … Never doubt that accepting an idea can change your world. It is the only thing that can. It is the only thing that has and it is the only thing that ever will.