The Best We Can Speak Is Half of the Truth

Q: I read where you say, “The good news is that even before you trust this deeper knowing, it has been working perfectly all along. The difference is that when you trust it, when you surrender to it, you don’t suffer anymore. When, instead, you pay attention to your ideas about how things should be or how you want things to happen, this innate wisdom still gets you where you need to be, but because you are so busy with your ideas about it, you suffer. The good news is that this innate wisdom is not something you add or something you do or something you need to master but who you are.” Does this mean that life is happening by itself through me as it desires, and I can do nothing to create the life I want or block life expressing through me?

A: The limitation of concepts and thoughts is that whenever we speak or write about something, we are only speaking part of the truth. I would even say that the best anyone has ever done is communicate half of the truth! This is true of everyone, even spiritual teachers. And so the quote you refer to offers some truth, but really only part of the truth. Perhaps the value of it is that it offers a part of the truth that is often overlooked or not even considered by most people.

The deepest truth is that there is an innate wisdom unfolding this life that always gets you where you need to go. It is also true that this innate wisdom moves through you as your desires and, even more importantly, as your deepest drives and motivations. It appears that the Mystery that is unfolding this life loves to play and create so much that it even gives you the power to choose and act as an apparent individual. So the ego, or false identity we form, makes choices and takes life and awareness in directions that sometimes cause problems. The ego wants to create what it wants regardless of what Being wants! There’s no mistake in all of this. The mystery loves the unpredictable ego that it has created! There is also a deeper movement in us of our essential selves that moves in harmony with the wisdom of Being and yet is still an apparent individual acting and choosing, only we are moving as essence and in alignment with Being’s wishes.

Sometimes we are moved by the ego’s desires and, at other times, we are moved by deeper drives coming from our essence. Paradoxically, we can even choose what is already happening. How we choose is not often completely one way or the other. There is quite a dance going on between the ego and essence, which allows Being to create unpredictability and surprise within itself. Maybe that’s the only way that something that is already infinite and eternal can create and play—by allowing something new and unpredictable to be created within itself.

Again, there is no final truth in anyone’s words. If you are enjoying creating and expressing through your desires, then go for it! You can also rest sometimes and explore what life is like when you surrender your doing or, even more simply, notice that life is unfolding beautifully even when you are just observing it. Surrender is not something we do really; it is more a result of the observation of the bigger truth that everything that happens is already a part of the intelligence of Being at work. This recognition naturally leads to a balancing of our tendency to overdo our doing, which is where our suffering lies.