Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Thirty-nine years ago the top song in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand was a catchy new-wave tune by the English pop band Tears for Fears. The song Everybody Wants to Rule the World is a driving shuffle rhythm in 12/8 time; you can’t help but groove along to its beat.

Yet far more engaging are its lyrical themes of power, ambition, and desire. While not everyone aspires to autocracy, we most definitely want to rule our world. Every emotion a semi-veiled proclamation of how the world ought to be.

Yet deeply hidden from awareness lies the source of such longing: a reaction formation to the belief in helplessness. Cruel twists of fate and the headlong approach of inevitable death speak to our tenuous hold on life. Having any sense of control helps mitigate such despondency.

But the truth is that everyone can indeed rule their world. Once we realize what causes it.

While it may seem like the world is an objective reality into which we find ourselves unwittingly thrust, in reality it’s a projection from the mind. Much like nightly dreams, seemingly so real yet nonetheless dreamer projections. This understanding is the gateway onto the path of awakening.

The mind is the realm of choice, for either remembrance of the perfect peace of oneness, or the dualistic desire for selfhood. One returns awareness to heaven, the other an experience of lack and wanting. As we read in A Course in Miracles:

To hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to death. (W-pI.68.1)

Returning attention to the mind and making a different choice transforms all pain, all sorrow, all suffering into blissful serenity. A world ruled.

Join me in Thursday’s class where we’ll explore practices that lead us back to the mind where we can choose peace. I look forward to seeing you then.