The Roman Empire is the perfect example of how it subdued the known ancient world and eventually collapsed after a 1500 year reign.

What we see in today’s western society is something similar, the cycle is almost complete but it will give  rise to something new, a spiritual rebirth is happening right now. I talk to many people from many countries of the western world and many times they seem very concerned of how much things have changed and that in the near future there will be a complete collapse of the western world.

I understand every person’s concern on this but I will say this: People have their own plans but the Lord has His own. Any form of agendas of any sort shall not prevail!

Our world is in the midst of a spiritual battle, the battle of within! We need to reestablish the two most important pillars that built our core values in us as people and the western world.

These two pillars are:

1. “Know thyself” (Greek Education)
2. “Love thy neighbour” (Jesus Christ)

“Know thyself”:

The ancient Greeks always emphasized on a person’s education, this mindset literally changed all the ancient world in 1000 years and set the foundations of today’s society. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle emphasized that knowing yourself (by asking discreet questions about our selves) is the beginning of all wisdom in the world. But we have to understand that the ancient Greeks had a different form of education than our own today. They didn’t have tests or exams, or any kind of stress that would prohibit their intellectual growth. So what motivated them to learn?

Passion for curiosity!

Off course I need to say that the ancient Greeks were not a perfect society (they also did mistakes like every other human society), but then again was there ever a correct one in human history?

But what the ancient Greeks taught us is to ask questions, and to not accept arguments from authorities unquestionably, off course if we start asking questions we will see that there are many wrongs in our world.

So what should we do?

Should we start going out and protesting in the streets for various issues? (e.g. high crime rate, political and religious corruption, police brutality, etc). Going against the system is like going against the stream of a big river. When we are young and strong, our blood boils and we want to change the world, and thats completely understandable, but once we get older we start getting tired and wonder what is the point of all this? Will our efforts ever pay off? And soon after, we give up and compromise with the status quo…and the system has won as we drift away by the river stream, tired, old and defeated. I am not saying we should not try and make the world a better place. We definitely should! But there is a better strategy…and that is changing the system from within by changing ourselves within and through prayer, adapt in the real world and make a difference without compromising our ethical values. This way, we go with the flow of the river but slowly and steadily we change its route to the way of the Truth.

We have to understand that the outer reality reflects of how we think, our beliefs, our thinking, our emotions, so once we start changing within by getting to know ourselves as for who we are, our life will start changing in an almost metaphysical way. This starts happening once we face ourselves in the mirror and see our faults, our gifts and talents. I am not saying we shouldn’t praise ourselves or not build our confidence, but when we look ourselves in the mirror we should see the whole picture, when we get to know ourselves of who we really are, we ‘ll start accepting our selves, and when we accept our selves then we start to humbly love ourselves, and when we start loving ourselves, then we start loving the people around us, we ll start associating with them. We ‘ll start feeling their pain, their concerns, their problems, their joy and as human beings we will mourn with them, and we will celebrate with them.

Self knowledge is a never ending journey, and every time you discover something new about yourself its cathartic, it gives you peace…no more insecurities, no more uncertainty, no more of what others think of you, you are sure of your self, you know who you are and you are in touch with your feelings and what you want, yes, there will be challenges and thats part of life, but you ll know who you are and nothing or anyone can shake you out of it.

A very important part of knowing yourself is finding your self purpose!

Your self purpose or life purpose is your soul’s purpose, its the reason why God brought you into this world to do!

When you find a heartfelt goal its the one thing that makes you not sleep at night, you long for the next day to come to do what you love, and everyday doing it is a bliss!

Everyone has their mission in life! A heartfelt mission! Some of us are made to be cooks, bus drivers, farmers, teachers, musicians, ministers, businesspeople, etc. If you feel satisfied or somewhat content with your job or what you do, be prepared to come at some point in your life where you wont take it anymore due to stress, anxiety, mediocre results at your work and lack of fulfillment, and you’ll wonder….”Where am I going? What am I doing with my life?” Am I really happy?

Many of us think that the solution to fill this emptiness comes from the outside…we assume that happiness will just happen out of the blue, it will just creep out of the horizon, our true destiny will simply bump into us around the corner.

We say to our selves “I feel sad and depressed…I ll just have a drink, or eat a chocolate bar, or go and have a one night stand, or just find any kind of substitute that will make me quench my emptiness, something that will make me forget my stressful and boring life that aimlessly keeps going through circles”.

We are talking about serious existential problems here guys…! Do you really deserve that?

Self knowledge helps you realize of who you truly are! Its the key to claim your life and be a master of it.

Self Mastery is Life Mastery! In the route of your life you will meet naysayers, people who will try to take advantage of you or even put obstacles against you, because they see you as competition or even a threat.

Your enemies/competitors haven achieved mediocre results in their field (in which you excel due to your divine destiny) so they see you as a serious threat plus the fact that they are bitter and they say this to themselves: “if I cant achieve any success in my life then no one else should! Let everything burn in hell!”

But picture this:

The american eagle…look at his face…he is fearless…because he knows who he is…the true king of the birds.

The crow is the only bird that will climb on the eagle’s back and will bite his neck…but he doesn’t get frustrated, he doesn’t react, he starts flying even higher above the clouds and due to the lack of oxygen the crow passes out and falls into the void.

So when you journey through your self discovery, do not react to any evil thing turned against you by your enemies, naysayers, or competitors. Just ignore them, show kindness and stay focused on your dreams. The Lord is proud of you cause you are doing exactly what He made you for and He has already given you the victory! Just don’t give up!

To be continued….

© John Kakalas

The post The Decadence and Rebirth of The Western Civilization (Part 1) appeared first on John Kakalas.

in I didn’t know my self purpose or be fully aware of God throughout my life.

When I was seventeen, becoming a musician was my dream.

Playing guitar, writing songs and getting involved with artistic activities was a bliss.

Soon after graduating high school, my family and relatives gently pushed me towards a tourism career.

The lack of guidance and the lack of support from anyone led me to compromise and I started feeling lost and unhappy.

I was a young and a peaceful kid that didn’t want to upset anyone so I avoided conflicts.

Every time I tried to react, I would get more in trouble. So I tried to be as much as diplomatic as I could and I never confronted anyone about anything.

When I moved to Canada right after my graduation I tried to enrol to the music faculty for guitar at the University of Western Ontario.

Due to lack of basic music knowledge and half finished classical guitar studies I didn’t have any solid foundations to get in.

I should have gone to a local music school first to get the credentials needed first.

My family though didn’t know how to support me on this. And they decided that the tourism career seemed like the easier choice for me to have a more secure salary.

As I felt trapped and miserable…the environment where I lived also was negative and honestly soon I stopped loving life.

I felt lost…my parents where on the other side of the world and they thought that everything was fine. The lack of self purpose and the mental abuse led me to start working hard to make others happy but myself.

I tried to find answers but I still could not find myself or who I was….so I started reading esoteric philosophy and mysticism. The mystical path led me to experiences that I would never advise anyone to follow.

After an early tourism career full of stress and anxiety, my relationships with women was also not good. I mean really…how can you have a happy relationship with someone when you are not happy with your self.

Gradually I felt more confused and unhappy I didn’t know where I was going.

All of this led me to depression from the stress and daily struggle to go towards the wrong direction. I even attempted to commit suicide due to spiritual confusion and psychological pressure.

My relatives saved me from the whole devastation and took me to doctors, my mom travelled to Canada to see me.

I still felt lost, I didn’t know what to do, I even felt that my relationship with God was in turmoil, as if He wasn’t happy with me or that He didn’t appreciate me.

Because of that I didn’t have anything to do with churches or religion for years.

I recovered after a year and I started working in the hotel industry again. It built me up psychologically in the first year but soon I felt that I wasn’t evolving as a person. On the other hand I started having a deep thirst for music again, every time I played guitar I felt amazing.

Due to lack of knowledge to write a complete song though…as the years went by I decided to take classical guitar lessons. I started performing guitar for hotel guests, and one year I decided to take online music career consulting courses. I learned alot as I met other musicians who were far more experienced than I was.

One day my tourism career ended abruptly due to a serious burnout and I tried to make the shift from tourism to music. My dad called me to see how i was and I told him about my decision. Needless to say that he freaked out!

I told him that if I reached 35 years old and I wasn’t not happy with my life, I would leave my family and they would never see me again, and I hung up on him!

He called me back in a calm manner and told me that we should talk when we meet.

So I started pursuing a music career…!

I met great challenges on my trip to Europe to find a good location that I can make money to to finance my music studies.

Finally I started going for the classical guitar degree back in Greece, awhile after doors started opening up, my guitar teacher was well known for her teaching and things started finally happening!

The second time I moved to Canada, things were becoming even more uncertain in my home country due to the deepening of the financial crisis.

Slowly I started building my music career (website, making connections in the local music industry, making recordings, applying to the Provincial Music Teachers Association although my relatives still had doubts about my music career I was happy and later on they started seeing the fruits of my labour.

Now I am at the point of my life where my self purpose has been realized…

I ‘ve never been more confident, strong, happy, loving towards others and my self.

I feel like I am in touch with who I really am, I manifest my heartfelt desires and dreams with much more ease.

Self purpose….(whatever it may be) is the purpose of your soul, the reason why you are on this earth! Thats why God made you! So that you can fulfill your destiny in life.

Some are made to be doctors, others to be teachers, others to be bus drivers, or farmers, or whatever you feel in your heart to be, whatever you feel compelled to do in your life, whatever drives you, whatever you feel excited to do every morning you wake up.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have enough skills, education, experience for it, you can be completely mediocre at it but if you deeply love it you will search for information and approach the right people that will guide you. And why is that? Because God is leading you to it! God will give you opportunities, information and the right people that will build you up and make you of who you are destined to be!

When you chase your heartfelt dream God is proud of you! He looks at you from high above and He says, thats my boy! Thats what I made him for! Thats my girl! She is doing exactly of what I made her to be in life!

A lot of people you meet will disagree with you and thats because they still think we live in the industrial age. In the industrial age people who had machines (Ford e.g.) made lots of money!

And people who worked for these people worked from 9am to 5pm had a steady and secure salary, and since in those times money had alot more intrinsic value than today.

With one single job they could afford to buy a house, a car, raise 2-3 kids, educate them and still have money saved up in their bank account.

Those times though are now over. due to the increasing inflation in the economy, a young person 20-30 has to work 3-4 jobs to make the same amount of income, but for how long though can he/she can keep up working all these jobs? 1 year? 2 years max?

Many times I find it difficult to explain this to the older generations, many times they agree with me but in reality they stay the same.

We live in crucial times that only your self purpose will help you to not only survive but also thrive!

Next question is: What if your passion doesn’t bring you money??

Remember that Money doesn’t bring you happiness! Happiness brings you money! Happiness comes from love and self purpose

On the next post I will explain to you how to make more money with your self purpose and work on your finances.

Yours in prayer,

John Kakalas

© John Kakalas

The post Our Self Purpose and God (My testimony) appeared first on John Kakalas.