Interesting title, don’t you think? What is it about the word “victim” that is so interesting? I’ve noticed many times that the biggest news stories are the ones that involve victims. The most popular books and movies are those that involve victims. The most popular causes or passions in the world also involve victims. What is it about victims that moves people? It is sympathy? Or an overwhelming caring or desire to help others?
People are always moved by victims of circumstance. My whole life, I have felt the pain and agony of people’s suffering. In school as a child, when the other kids were humiliating another, I could feel his pain as if it were mine. I would feel more, actually. Often, I wished they would pick on me instead of the other helpless one they had chosen to torture. Somehow, I knew that I could probably deal with it better. Many times, I would step in and help the individual. Many times I was beaten for interfering or standing up to the bullies of the school yard. Then, I too became the victim as well. But that was much less pain to bear than the pain of watching someone so helpless be tortured and humiliated.
Now, as an adult, I live in a world of increasingly hideous violence, constant and relentless disasters, and unimaginable pain and suffering. And still, I have compassion for these poor souls that are victims to circumstances. The difference now is in the feeling. I no longer feel their pain and suffering. I am no longer compelled to step in to protect or help, although the desire is often present. There are many reasons for this change in character. Not because I have become hardened or jaded. Mostly because I now have a better understanding of what I am seeing in the world and a better understanding of myself.
What I feel and experience now is compassion. What I felt and experience then was sympathy. There is a big difference between the two. To sympathize is to relate, to share their experience and to identify with them. To only see the surface of the situation without understanding or know all of the information. Thereby, making a judgement based upon a limited perspective. Compassion is to understand the person’s circumstances, pain or suffering. This understanding comes from experience or knowledge. Knowledge of life or spirituality. This knowledge or understanding gives one a higher perspective, and the ability to see the whole picture. In other words, the ability to see on all levels (physical, mental and spiritual), of what is truly happening and why. When one has this understanding, then the perspective changes. By seeing the entire picture, and by truly understanding what really is happening in any give circumstance, it is not possible to go into sympathy.
People have sympathy in almost all cases with people that are hurt, killed or are suffering some way. The constant dynamic behind sympathy is that there is a victim. A victim of some sort of circumstance. Without a victim, there is no sympathy. For example, who would you have the most sympathy for: a person who whips himself with a belt on his bare back or a person who is tied down and whipped by another man? Most people, I am sure, would feel for the one that has no control over his circumstances. If you choose to be whipped then you are not a helpless victim. You may be a victim of some sorts, but you are choosing your circumstance, and this does not inspire as much sympathy, if any at all. The key ingredient is victimization, and many groups of people fit into this category: the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the children, the sick, the handicapped, the insane, the minorities, the third world countries, the gays, the abused, the senior citizens, the Jews, and often even the women… and of course, the list is endless.
Today, there are more special interest groups than ever before. Everyone now a days, who see 
themselves as different, feels that they need some sort of special treatment, benefits or help. They feel this way because they feel that they have been victimized. Being a victim in today’s world is always accepted and most of the time almost glamorous. Tragedies become big news stories, then novels and then movies. The worse the tragedy the more rich and famous the person becomes. Victims have become the heroes. People today walk around wearing their past suffering like a badge of honor and an identity bracelet. They compare and measure each other by the size of their emotional scars rather than actual achievements. And everyone today seems to have some emotional scar that they carry like a cross to bear. To me, this is like a disease. I call it “Poor-little-me-itis”.
The condition seems harmless on the surface. But I must tell you that this condition id deadly. Deadly because this cross becomes a block, an excuse, and an emotional barrier to life. Seeing one’s self as a victim is the single most dis-empowering state of consciousness a person can possess. And seeing others as victims is almost as bad. Let me explain…
What most people do not understand is that everything that happens in life is for learning purposes. This planet is nothing more than a school-house for human beings. This is a pure and simple truth. Your sole purpose for being here is to learn the spiritual laws, to learn about life and most importantly, to learn about yourself: who you are; what your true nature is; what your first loves are (what do you love to do…etc.); what your talents are; what your mission is on this planet; what your strengths and weaknesses are and how to transmute those weaknesses into strengths and how to express your strengths more consistently; and to discover what it is you are to do in the spirit world when you graduate from this school. Because of this fact, everything that happens to you, (good or bad) is designed specifically to teach you something that will fall within one of the above categories. These lessons are constant and endless. As long as you have a body, you have something to learn.
Therefore, it is important to take responsibility for your life now as it is, and for everything that has ever happened to you throughout your life on this planet. You must realize that there are and never were any accidents or coincidences. And you must realize that you were never a helpless person or a victim of circumstances. That you not only agreed to everything that has happened to you, but that you helped to create those experiences. The reason this is so crucially important is simple: As long as you shift the responsibility to another person or a circumstance, you have shifted your power away from yourself. This loss of power erases your ability to learn from the experience. If you have the perspective that these experiences are for your good, then you will investigate and discover the value of the lesson at hand. In addition, you will then realize how, as a spirit, you created the circumstances for the experience. Thus bringing you a better understanding of how you as a spirit creates in this world. Understanding that will bring to you not only the needed information from the lesson, but will also bring to you more power as a spirit in a body (which you are!)
Now here is where you are probably asking “What about the little babies who do not know what is happening to them?” And that is where I say “What makes you think they do not know what is happening?” Babies are far more aware than people realize. Just because they haven’t learned to communicate like the rest of us yet, does not mean they do not know what is going on around them. Remember, we are talking about spiritual beings. Until the age of fourteen years, children are guided and protected, and given only the experiences and lessons that are important for their development on this planet as human beings. Everything that happens on this planet is done by spiritual agreement. Everything! No exceptions. Many of you might say “Well, I never agreed to be so abused as a child”, or “I never agreed to contract this disease”. Yes you did. You just are not conscious of your spiritual agreements yet. But someday you will be. Not only did you agree for these things, but your energy and actions created the experience.
Everything comes through the law of Cause and Effect. Everything has a direct traceable cause. The agreement is just part of your creations, your actions are what manifest your agreements. So anyone can look at any situation and see clearly how they caused it. These actions can be physical, mental or emotional. Physical actions are obvious. The mental and emotional are not so obvious, therefore the person must do some intensive inner study to see these causes. But know that they are there and as it says in the Bible, “Seek and ye shall find.” This takes courage, focus and a strong desire to be free.
Another cause is simply by allowing the experiences to take place. For example, someone is walking down the street in Los Angeles and suddenly there is a gang war gun fight and this person gets caught in the middle of it and is shot. What action did he take to cause this? It could have been many, such as: fear and an obsessive worry of being shot, a negative perspective and belief about surviving, or possibly other actions on an emotional or mental level. Or, through allowing it to happen. Maybe he agreed for this to happen for learning purposes, so his action was to put his body at that place, at that exact time and then to do whatever is necessary to get shot exactly as agreed upon. This too applies to babies. As spirits, they have chosen their parents and situation on Earth. They make sure that they are in the right places at the right times, they inherit the physical limitations that are needed for their lessons.
Where I used to live and work in Berkeley, CA, there were a great number of handicapped people. Literally hundreds right near the Institute because one block away was a center for the handicapped. Consequently, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know many people who are blind or in wheelchairs. The one common thing that I have learned is that they really do not want or need our sympathy or to be treated like victims. They all respect me because I treat them like anyone else. I see them as healed and whole and somehow this makes them feel better. But this is just on one level. Spiritually, when you see someone else as a victim or powerless, you are feeding their weakness rather than their strength. It says in the Bible, “Where two agree, there I am.” This is a spiritual law. When two people agree upon anything, then it can manifest. Think about your past conversations with people when someone was feeling victimized… Notice how the more people the victimized person can get to agree that they are a victim, the more of a victim they become. When someone is feeling or seeing themselves as a victim and you also see them as a victim, then together you quadruple that power in the negative or make them that much more handicapped, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally.
In addition to this, there is another spiritual truth to consider: “What you see, what you think and what you say, is what you create.” Seeing, thinking and speaking are actions. If you see people and yourself as victims, then you will create that reality for yourself through your own belief and through the energy created through thoughts and words. Therefore, it is important to completely erase your belief in victimisim altogether. It is too dangerous for yourself and for others, even deadly.
Through the media, victimism is constantly being promoted. People are now on talk
The fastest way to heal yourself is to first admit that you are responsible for your entire life. Then look to see why you created certain lessons. Once you can do this, your life will change for the better. Never being a victim again is a big step for the great majority of people, because hardly anyone now a days wants to take responsibility for their hardships – only for the good things. Few will want to admit that they have created such a mess in their lives, or have repeated the same blunders over and over and over again. It is easier to put the blame upon someone or something else. Thereby 
appearing spotless in the eyes of others. But there is no power in this game and this promotes continual hardships. We say, “If you act like a victim then you will become one, but if you act like the Master of your life and destiny, then you will be!” You cannot have it both ways, you must choose one or the other. It is only a decision away.
At this moment what do you want to cry or complain about? Try to imagine an Avatar whining about his or her past or present conditions. You have now come to a fork in the road. You will choose one path or the other: the path of the worldly way, weakness and blame that leads to death; or the path of responsibility, power and self-mastery, which leads to life eternal. A difficult choice. The right one requires strength, perseverance, persistence and patience. I pray you make the courageous choice, give up victimism and thrive through life.
Written by: Michael Fikaris
Founder: Foundation for Spiritual Freedom, International