TRANSCRIPT:
"Thanksgiving, a time to give thanks.
I was saying to a friend today that I try, I do my best to give thanks every single day, to feel gratitude every single day. I can honestly admit that sometimes I miss and sometimes I do it really deeply and that's when I understand that I need to do it more often. A day like today where the whole day is dedicated to feeling and to giving thanks to all the abundance that we have in our lives, then I feel that it's the perfect day to go a little bit deeper in our thanks and in our gratitude. I was thinking today that I need... that's what I need to do. I need to go deeper into my giving thanks.
Today I want to give thanks to the suffering. I believe that the suffering as we experience it is not necessary, but it is holding a really strong message. Every single time that we suffer and every single situation that we can imagine where we feel the suffering, basically it's for one thing. It's because of one thing. It comes from the fact that we're holding on to the pain that should be temporary, that also comes with a message, with a lesson. When we hold onto the pain, then it becomes a suffering. I believe that the suffering is there to remind us of one thing, one important message, it's the message to let go. Obviously, it's not that easy, and that's exactly why we tend to suffer. I believe that even though suffering is unnecessary, I believe that every one of us suffers a little bit, some a lot, in our own ways.
I came to the realization just recently this year that I've been suffering for years and years on different subjects that are not relevant. I've been identifying myself and I've been holding on to past pains for absolutely nothing. There are so many ways that we can free ourselves from that suffering, and one way that worked for me through the years and now it's going to work in so many ways in the future: it's self-knowledge, self-discovery, self-acceptance, self-knowledge, and the understanding that suffering is not part of the equation. It's when we don't understand the message of the pain and we hold on to it and we identify to it, then suffering comes to remember, to make us remember that we strayed a little bit off the path, and we need to come back in the path, in our path.
When I see and I hear of different catastrophes and different horrors that happen from the human race and throughout the world, when somebody like in recent Las Vegas shooting, when somebody decides that his or her only option is to express his suffering by making other people suffer, it brings me back to the idea that this cannot happen without suffering. It's all part of the pattern that we're into -- I mean like a global society in a global human race -- that as soon as we accept to suffer, as soon as we accept to hold on to some pain that we have, little pains, big pains like humongous life altering pains, when we accept to hold on to them, it accumulates, and then it accumulates, and it accumulates even more. Every single time that on a world wide basis, there's terrorism, there's violence, there's aggressivity, there's anything like that, it all comes down to a person or a group or a society or whoever creates that madness, it comes down to each individual person is really and deeply suffering.
Obviously, when we suffer and when we decide to express that suffering, whether it's with words or with actions or with guns or with anything, then the only thing that we can generate is suffering into other people. In those situations, I have to come back to I would say the basic moment, the basic emotion that would transform that and transcend that suffering, which is obviously love. Every part of these suffering patterns are based into fear, and the only way to counteract the fear is with love. I feel that now with what happened in the last few years that those moments of terror just keep multiplying by the dozens. We have to come back to love.
I know it's not easy. When I see, let's say the Las Vegas thing or there was a few in Europe the last few years, there's suffering everywhere on the planet right now. When I see somebody that for him or her the only option is to make other people suffer, to somehow to reconnect or to completely disconnect and then take their lives, either as a Kamikaze or a shooter or whatever, it just brings me back to the idea that that person or that group of persons must be so deep into suffering that that's the only thing that they can generate. I can admit that for me it doesn't happen super fast. I have to reconnect with myself and I have to really, I'd say maybe disconnect for a while to numb out and then, reconnect to try to understand what's happening. When I do reconnect, then I can reach deep down inside into the compassion and the love and the understanding and the empathy that I can muster up to offer to the people around me, and to the situation and to the victims and even to the perpetrators.
I believe that suffering, like I said, is irrelevant, if we make it a point of understanding the message of pain and when we do, when we take the time to slow down and even to stop to understand that message, and then we appreciate it and then we can work with it. Then, suffering doesn't have its place. Obviously, it's a work of days, months, years to free ourselves from the sufferings that we accumulate throughout the years. When big events like that gets created, then obviously the suffering is on a massive scale, but I think it's the same idea to come to love, to come back to who we really are as human beings to be able to share the compassion and to reconnect with each other.
I find it sad and heartbreaking that really big massive terrors have to happen, and at the same time I'm so deeply grateful for what it creates afterwards -- the reconnection between people and the people holding hands and bringing love as a mass movement to whoever is suffering the most at the moment. I feel that if we had an ongoing movement like that, of love, of support, of connection for everybody, maybe, maybe there would be a little bit less suffering in the world.
On this day of Thanksgiving, I invite you to give thanks to your past, to give thanks to what happened to you because it happened to you. In a certain way, it happened for you to be here in this moment. I obviously don't know you yet. Whatever you're going through right now, I can tell you that I'm thinking of you and I'm sending you love. I am grateful for this connection that we can establish. I know it's not the perfect way. I would love for it to be love and joy everyday of the week and everyday of the year. I strongly believe that because we have challenges, because we have suffering in our lives, then we are meant as individuals and as a society to step up and deliver something even more powerful than all that suffering. Obviously, what I'm talking about is love. I invite you on this day of Thanksgiving to share the love, give thanks to who or what you love, and reconnect with others and primarily with yourself.
I think it's the only way, by reconnecting with ourselves, by deeply reconnecting and by getting to know who we really are, then that's the first step of freeing ourselves first and then as a big movement, everybody, to free ourselves from our suffering. In moments like this, I feel kind of... there's a strong power that pulls me one way that when I see people suffer, it breaks my heart, and I sometimes want to just check out and quit and just leave. At the same time, there's another power in me, like a deeper power that helps me step up and stand up and do something about it. I invite you to do the same. You and I and everybody in the world, we are the answer to the problem that we're living right now. We have to step up as individuals and as a big movement to really take the necessary steps to free ourselves from our suffering, and then by doing so, as Marianne Williamson says, "By doing so then we give permission to people around us to do the same."
I invite you to be the light. When the times are dark, be the light. Ignite your light, you inner light, and then share it with the world.
I hope that your day of Thanksgiving is filled with love and thanks and connection and really good moments and memorable memories, really good memories. I hope that you take on my invitation and free yourself from the suffering, share the love, and hopefully we will connect and see each other maybe in a short while.
I invite you to leave a comment under this video, to share it with somebody that needs to hear that message. Hopefully by one person at a time, one video at a time, one connection at a time, one message at a time, this wave of self-love and self-esteem and self-knowledge and freedom of our suffering will move across the country, the world, the planet, anything. I don't think that love has any boundaries. Let's make it happen.
I'm super grateful to be part of this, and I know that you're just eager and waiting to do your part. The time is now. Let's all do this together. #StopTheSuffering and #SpreadTheLove. I wish you all the best. I love you. Namaste."