In the comments to the last post Dan asked a great question, "What gift are you ready to share, Nick?" I fudged my response slightly, because it warranted a fuller answer. I'll try to answer this and another related question here.
My first reaction to that question was to say that from time to time I get the urge to write a book. But with over a million books being published each year (a fifth of them from the UK -- more than any other country) you have to wonder about motives when yet another Englishman wants to join the fray. Do I really have something to say that hasn't been said before, or would I just be adding to the slush pile of data we have to wade through to find anything original. Surely it would it be more worthwhile to look for a better way of dealing with all this complexity than becoming part of the problem.
Right now I'm trying to be ruthlessly honest with myself about where my moment to moment attention goes (attention follow interest, right?), to resolve the competing interests in my life. And in doing so I see this tendency to accumulate knowledge and need to 'leave our mark' everywhere. When I look through my Del.icio.us bookmarks I can see the tell tale signs. Why do I have bookmarks that are little more than good intentions, like 'to_do', 'to_read', 'project_ideas' and 'hot'? And more telling still... why are they rarely, if ever, revisited!
It would be easy to put this down to a lack of clarity, but it's not that. The 'tug' in me pulls me in a different direction.
Whenever I've set my sails towards just one place this has invariably been my nemesis. I don't give my best when I'm orientated towards an objective or the future, only when I'm 'playing' -- just doing what I'm doing for the joy that the doing itself brings. And besides, whenever I'm focused on one thing I tend to overlook all the little joys and unexpected opportunities that we only really see when we're fully present.
So I've pretty much had enough of goals. I'm much more interested in seeing what's here for us now than being distracted by any imagined future. What I really need is an in-the-moment grappling style [1], like a modern day Samurai's swordsman, that would let me cleave all the stuff that merely entertains me from that which is real.. the stuff that brings me joy. It's not about the interesting anymore, because for me that's unbounded. I want a way to clear a path, to be able to respond in each moment in away that serves us best [2]
An in-the-moment grappling style
So this is what I've come up with, cobbled together from insights I've gleaned so far. This is what it appears to take for me to cut through life's seeming complexity to stay happily centred in the moment.
It starts out as a little 3 part mental process, but with a little practice it soon blends into a single lovely serendipitous way of being -- 'Flow', for want of a better term.
- Awareness that there is a part of me that is always certain...
I'm learning that my perception of life's complexity, of an infinite array of choices, is not true. It is simply an illusion of powerlessness my mind holds up that masks my one real choice -- the ability to call upon the part of us that has no doubt how to respond to anything for our common good. Whenever I find myself weighing alternatives I can be sure I am concerned about effects... and by doing so I deny myself the recognition that we have the ability to choose a different cause by turning to our Self within to respond as Love.
. - Courage to let go of my 'own' plans to enable me to listen and receive...
For so long I tried to discover what my unique gift / path / vocation was. It used to aggravate me to hell that I didn't know. As soon as I got close to defining it, the thing that 'floats my boat' would change and slip through my fingers again. Haha - what a fool I was, trying catch such a slippery fish! There is no 'one thing'.. and by looking for it I was putting a precondition on my own happiness. 'The thing' changes as fast as we allow our everyday life to teach us. What we enjoy is simply the path through our next lesson. The 'not knowing' that troubled me was actually the gift in disguise -- the bridge to being able to listen and receive. 'Not knowing' was the way itself, the way to hold a clean and open space in which inspiration's script can be heard.
. - Trust.
Confidence builds with success. So it requires trust at first, until our experience confirms that changing the inner script does change the outer play, and that our decision to trust is well founded. We usually think of trust as something that is earned, as in - 'Joe has proved to be trustworthy'. But the trust we're talking about here is purely a decision, as in - 'I choose to trust Mary'. The later type has all power in it, the former none.
Given life's temptations this sounds easier said than done, doesn't it. ;)
But not really, because once started down this path it becomes just too much fun to return to old tired ways. This is how we learn -- by comparison. It's how we feel about our learning experiences that determines whether we accept and integrate them. So, even though we falter, the joy of Flow is so compelling it keeps drawing us back... as if life is teaching us to let go of what we think we are, so the truth of who are can shine through.
But there's really nothing to learn here -- no prerequisites at all, except our willingness to trust this place within us that knows us as only Love, a place of complete and unchanging safety. Seen from this perspective, enlightenment is simply the shift in our attention from what we think we need, to what is already here.
This now answers the other question that came up: How do you differentiate the thoughts that come from our Self from those that arise from our limited self-perception?
Just ask, "Do I feel peace in this thought?" Peace is our road home. And if we have difficulty in accessing our right mind (perhaps some form of fear or confusion), here's a thought that can wipe the slate clean for us: Just for a moment, assume that we are already free - that we are the light of the world; and then ask what this Love would have us think and do. In our willingness to relax and trust this inner guidance, we soon discover there was no call for pretence at all. :)
Our work is our love made visible".... Kahlil Gibran
So back that question -- "What gift are you ready to share?"
What I'm finally seeing is that there's a light in us that the Universe longs to behold. When the world sees us truly happy it will wonder at itself. It will think: "Is what I value all that valuable?" ...and then this the inspiration to make a radically new choice.
So perhaps this is our most valuable gift -- to simply be a mirror, and give the world the opportunity to see that what it really needs has never been lost at all.
.
Credits: 'Bipolar Bears' by TundraComics.com; 'Temptation' by Elisa
Notes:
[1].. by 'grappling style' I simply mean a way of getting what we really want, and making no distinction between anyone's best interests. Like the Samurai, this can only be effortless... all power arising out of this quiet place of rest within us.
[2].. I have to admit this is actually the second time I've considered this (although the first time I didn't follow through on the idea). Ten years ago, my youngest son got into trouble at school and, trying to find a way to help him choose his actions wisely, I suggested that in facing any choice he asked himself 'what do I really want here' and then to ignore his initial impulse in favour of that wee small voice that speaks second, but always for our best interests. Simplistic advice I know, but I thought more useful for him than having to judge the circumstances or those involved each time. Looking back, I was probably wiser than I realised. There are many times since that I would have done well to take a dose of this medicine. ;)
Recent Comments