Monday, 04 January 2010 15:23
I wrote the following in an email to someone:
Life is going to unfold however it unfolds and there is not a lot we can do about it, but still we can do a little to affect how it unfolds, and that is also just part of the unfolding. So when I suggest you check what is true, it is to affect this little bit that we can do and that we can choose.
And they wrote back the following question:
Who could do this? It seems our view of this affects everything, so who is this you are referring to? It seems the I is only a thought. Please help me see how you see it in regard to this question.
And here is my reply:
This question about doership is of course a very fundamental question. But humor me for a minute. Before you read any further, reach up and tap the top of your head...
The you that can determine what is true and what is not very true and the you that can make choices and take action is the same you that just tapped the top of your head. Ultimately you are an illusion, but within the illusion you have choice and free will.
The bigger truth is that life will unfold according to the will of the divine. If you leave out this truth, then you suffer from thinking it is all up to you, which is a set up for either a sense of failure or a sense of false pride.
However if you leave out the smaller truth that you still need to choose and act, then you suffer from thinking there is nothing you can do. If this incomplete view is taken all of the way to its logical conclusion, then there is no one to ever do anything and you might as well just sit where you are right now and starve to death. But even then you have not escaped the smaller truth, since you will find that you must choose to keep sitting there, even as you get hungrier and hungrier.
The balanced view is to leave everything up to God, except what is right in front of you to do in this moment. If you are hungry, eat. If you are tired, sleep. If you are sick, find a way to heal. If there is a choice to be made, check what is truest to do and then do it. Then you can forget about the results of your actions because that part is not up to you. That part is up to the bigger truth of God's will. There is a line in the Tao Te Ching:
Do your work
And then step back
Which again points to the truth that our actions are up to us, but the results of our actions are not up to us.
There is much more about this topic on this website including the blog post entitled Choosing in a Predetermined World and the article What to Do When There Is No Doer.
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