Core beliefs are our own attitudes about ourselves.

We engage with the world from our own perspective and so we have differences of opinions to outright conflict due to our beliefs.  Core beliefs that are held by youth can differ depending on the cultural context and our conditioning.  In Kansas City where I am living we have a lovely and swanky area called the Plaza.  It used to have a supermarket that was more upscale than price chopper for sure but it went out of business several years ago and not has been replaced.  A core belief that I have is that there are disparities based on race and culture and that the ones who have had the good fortune to earn the most money are ones with the cultural connections and families who inherited wealth.

We saw a rebellion in the Plaza earlier this year when a thousand young African American youths descended on the area to hang out and create conflict due to their mere presence.  A core belief held by people who are mostly white is that they have the right to shop in peace and enjoy spending their wealth on goods that are for the elite minority.  I believe that we have the right to earn money and I am all for it.  I don't like poverty and don't like it when you have to exist in a society where there are barriers to becoming wealthy.  It's called the old boy's club where depending on who you family is or who you know carries more weight than your talents.

Each generation has some distinguishing characteristics that make a statement about their core beliefs.  Generally I believe due to peer pressure individual thinking is not as common among youth as being part of a wave of new thoughts and the resulting expression of those thoughts via their behaviors.  When I was a youth just by following the Rolling Stones and The Beatles meant that you were counter culture to the older generation.  I adapted the same core beliefs as my peers that sexual freedom was a way of opening up and relating to the world of taboo and ending a systemic cultural conditioning that sex was reserved for marriage.  I for one didn't want to get married and when the time came when I felt the pressure to get married I had an opportunity to move to the Midwest, USA.

A core belief of the young people who invaded the sanctity of the Plaza where it can be viewed as sacred ground for the wealth of the area is that they deserve to be respected.  They are looking to enjoy the same freedoms as others but haven't got the doe (money) and pedigree to go along with their ideas of being free to enjoy the fruits of the good life.  They are pushing back in much the same way that I see the everyday French people who are pushing back at those who have taken over streets in Paris to kneel down and pray.  Here again we have conflict resulting from opposing sets of core beliefs and it's territorial in much the same way that the African American youth choose a territory to exhibit how they felt about the rich in Kansas City.

The Indian Spiritual Masters whom I have studied with help transform us individually through their talks which are based on philosophy and science to help us to realign our thinking and become better people.  We have all been conditioned by our families and culture and loose touch with our true identity and our  inner home of the heart which we share with God.  Through meditation and other spiritual practices such as jappa which is the repetition of a mantra, or God's name.  You can use whatever name that God is known to you and that is pure, holy and dear.  My Teacher has given a Sirnam which is a set of different names of God that are repeated silently.  The Master gives the names to the student and it is something which is kept as a sacred and significant bond and tool for the spiritual journey to sound and light meditation.  Meditation is not merely a method of using silence and stillness to feel calm and increase concentration.  It is a vehicle whereby you are enabled to connect with God and experience your own greatness. 

One of the core beliefs that most of us are taught and conditioned by our culture, is that to think of one self as great is not good and anyone who would share that personal core belief may find themselves ostracised by others.  We even have labels for people.  Big head, self centered and so on and so on.  The truth is that we are all great in God's eyes and the Bible even says that we are created in God's image.  My Teacher said during a New Year's talk that we should learn to put ourselves first because we can have all the zero's in the world, but unless there is a one first they don't amount to anything!  My Teacher's Master who came to the United States in the seventies said that we should honor, respect and love ourselves because God dwells within us as us.  A core belief that we are taught in the West is that God exists some where up in the heavens.  Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is within.  Another Saint whom I love so much said that we should go into our hearts and roam because there is no other place that is as sacred.

I believe that youths today are seeking to find happiness in much the same way that most of us start to at least, through external sources.  True joy and happiness happens on the inside and it's not necessary to have luxuries and money to feel blissful.  I personally would rather not be poor and that is the way my personality is.  I am not comfortable going to fancy places because I am more likely to align my attention and concern for those who are working in such places and I never feel comfortable being on beaches where other's can enjoy because they are isolated in some ghetto like part of the town.  I noticed a parallel town in Naples, Florida where I used to visit my sister with my daughter when she was young.  It wasn't until we went to a store in a part of town that her husband was looking for bathroom fixtures or something that I realized that there were duplexes that housed a poor African American community.

My core belief that got me to this country was that I would be free to choose the type of lifestyle that I wanted.  I worked hard and completed my education at The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, graduating with a Master of Science Degree in nursing.  Being an entrepreneur I opened a business and then closed it due to issues with the state board of nursing.  A core belief of mine is that it is both good for your own personal development as well as helps others through volunteering.  I volunteered in prisons where I helped inmates manage their own spiritual programs and support each other as they served out their time.  Since I returned to Kansas City after working in the Bay Area, California I cleared up the issues had come up with the state boards in my absence and have found once again that the board posted something untrue about my standing on their web. 

A core belief that I may have in common with the African American youths is that they have the right to have the support and use of resources.  I think that the event caused enough of a stir that leadership has been putting their heads together to come up with some solutions.  I hope that one of the solutions is to educate everyone about respect.  I don't think that my spiritual Master's would condone behaviors that are disorderly.  However, I do note that they pay an immense amount of time and attention toward the youth and developing programs to support leadership among them.  I think that it is time that people learned to grow and expand their thinking to incorporate the whole community.

At my grandson's Christening I was moved when the Priest asked the congregation to open up to the African American community who lived just blocks away across the boulevard that seperates one section of town from the other.  I hope that their community embraces this idea and welcomes African Americans especially their youth.  It begins with each one of us to take the responsibility to stand up one by one when we experience things in our lives that aren't just and spread kindness wherever it occurs.  Just yesterday someone wrote on my facebook wall in a nasty way about children from a certain minority.  I am thinking of finding a way to keep a statement posted on my wall to the effect that I do not believe in being unkind no matter what the political issues might be.  I personally am quite conservative but I again responded to the chatter that had been going on over a picture of The First Lady taken from behind that they needed to "drop,"the thread. 

I would like you to start with yourself and write a list of what your own core beliefs about yourself are.  Negative ones that typically drive peoples self critical inner dialogue are ones such as (I'm ugly, stupid, not good at...., not likable ect.)
Once you learn to identify what they are you can then challenge your thinking that is driven by these sets of beliefs like an inner engine.

Meditation is the key to the engine so that you can turn off this useless nonsense that goes around inside peoples heads.  Meditate daily and eat a vegetarian diet.  Think good thoughts about yourself.

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