(This is Part 9 of a series. Go back to Part 8.)
A final problem, very generic:
—This (friend, enemy, situation, dimension, part of the world, etc.) is on the wrong track.
As Byron Katie would say, can we really know that? Can we absolutely know that it's for the highest good of this universe that this part of it should be different?
And what's the reality of it? That it is this way right now. So we can ask: How does it feel to have this part of the universe be the way it is while we're feeling that it should be different? Most likely, stressful and isolating.
To cease our argument with the universe doesn't mean that we condone hurtful things. On the contrary, we do whatever we can to amerliorate them, harmonize them, soothe them. It simply means that we're no longer making war on what is.
As discussed elsewhere, we accept that existence has a dual nature, and must have a dual nature in order to exist at all. What our human minds see as "day" and "night", "summer" and "winter", "victory" and "defeat", "light" and "darkness" are actually and always just two faces of one phenomenon, existence itself.
Also as discussed elsewhere, falling in love with reality-as-it-is doesn't mean that we don't engage in action. On the contrary, we nurture as best we can, we play our part in watering the garden as best we can, but do so without insisting that the outcome must look a certain way. The outcome of whatever is going to be whatever it is.
What's different is that our action then arises from inner guidance, or more accurately, action arises from nowhere. We don't even know why we're doing what we're doing, just that it feels aligned because we're letting action express itself.
At first this feels like following inner guidance—"do this, call them"—instead of trying to figure it all out rationally. Later it feels like nothing is happening, because we see that it's all happening by itself—just as our breathing and digestion and blood circulation is happening by itself even when we aren't aware of it. Everything is happening "by itself". It's not personal.
Things happen and we tell a story that "we" did it. We build an empire and say "I did it". We create a work of art and say "I did it". We raise a child and say "I did it". But maybe all is happening by itself, as itself, as the oneness expressing itself.
How can we condemn the world or feel that it's not right when we are that world. Not that we are "part" of the world, because at the deepest level there are no "parts" at all, there is only existence itself—whole, one thing, one energy, the oneness.
This process of falling in love with existence is the ultimate cure for all problems. Let's look at the most dire example we can think of; let's say we're in a prison, cold, wet, hungry, dying, in pain.
Yet we look around us and we're completely in love, because we're in love with the oneness that is everywhere. We're in love with the spider crawling up the wall; we're in love with our jailors; we're in love with the intense light or the intense darkness of our cell.
We're just in love with reality however it wants to show up because we can't be fooled anymore—we know that the face of the Beloved is behind every face, behind every leaf and star and grain of sand.
So let's imagine that that is our situation. Would we be unhappy? Not at all. Joy would be in our hearts. True happiness is simply a function of how much love we're feeling. Note: not how much we're getting, but how much we're feeling towards reality, that is, towards ourself.
Action arises, and "we" do our very best to nuture that perfect seed we call "the world" or our corner of it, and yet at a deep level we're willing to let the "outcome" of it all and of our "personal" life be whatever it is—knowing that it will be that way anyway.
Ironically, within this willingness to hold our outcomes lightly, our actions tend to become more powerful, more effective, more aligned, more loving. Will we always be that way? No; we'll always be part of the fabric of duality, "winning" and "losing". Yet that increasing internal love will indeed have a tendency to show up externally.
We could even say that the story of the universe is reality learning to love itself through our eyes. Or we could say that the story of the universe is existence gradually being able to love itself—which happens in the awakening light of your heart and mine.
—jim sloman, 8.27.04 for Sep 9
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