Do you really believe that you can carry the world on your shoulders? Yes, it is true that you are responsible for everyone and everything, but, beloveds, think a minute. If you are responsible for everyone and everything, are you not also responsible for yourself? That you are responsible for the world does not mean that you are to carry all the troubles of the world on your back. Responsibility for the world does not mean that you go under the wheel. It does not mean you are to give up happiness. It means you, too, are to give up suffering.
If you have told yourself that you cannot be happy until everyone in the world is happy, you have made yourself a burden on the world.
You do not wait to eat until the whole world is fed, or you would not be alive in human form to serve the world. You would become the hunger that you meant to relieve the world from.
How different is the field called happiness then? When you forswear your own happiness, how much happiness do you lend to the world? What makes you think you are doing a good thing in carrying all the world's suffering on your shoulders? It is not an either/or choice you have. Your choice is not between being Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders or being a shirker who shrugs the world off his shoulders and says, 'Never mind about the world."
Beloveds, you have to come to peace with yourself, or you will not be granting peace to others. I am not telling you to be selfish. I am telling you not to be a martyr, for whom do you help then?
The Great Ones cared about the world. They wished to end world suffering. They did not make themselves miserable, however. They did not go around feeling guilty. What kind of model would they have been then? They served what was before them. They did not serve the world by cutting their own flesh. They did not serve the world with a sense of overwhelming failure. How would their hands be free to help the world when their arms were full carrying the burdens of the world? They had to set down burdens so that their hands and hearts would be free to serve the world. Your heart has to have the freedom to serve.
If you carry the guilt of the world, whom do you serve? If you carry guilt, you are accusing yourself. When you carry guilt, you are serving ego, for ego has told you that you are supposed to be the Savior. Ego tells you that you are to serve soup to the whole world, and unless you do, you have failed. Ego is not always a booster. Ego beats you over the head. Ego lays you low.
The Great Ones served the world, and yet they served a Higher Master, and that is I. They took joy in serving Me. They looked to joy. They did not riddle their hearts with suffering. They did not beat their chests. They gave themselves a break.
They did not give up on the world. They gave up on suffering. If they were to relieve the world of suffering, they had to relieve themselves of suffering. They did not carry the weight of the world. They carried light instead.
They served those they could serve. They counted those they fed, and took joy. They did not count all the hungry ones they were not able to feed.
Beloveds, somehow you must let go of the suffering in your own heart. Your jaunt in life is not all about you, yet it is something about you. Bless and love the world, and bless and love yourself enough to let go of the oppression of guilt once and for all.