“When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn’t let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by means of the daemons. Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.” – Hermann Hesse, Siddharta
This is a tough subject to talk about, because of the limitations inherent in words. As a subset that cannot describe a set, language as a construct cannot easily convey feelings, emotions, or reality. It’s a masculine construction that attempts to describe these things; so it loses a lot of its cachet when putting forth anything from the feminine realm or anything that is really useful in reality. It’s all that most of us have, however. So we will muddle through.
I’ve been debating this on and off with my Spirit Brother Gregory about the nature of choice, decisions and the way we make our way through the world. I am probably misinterpreting his position when I say that he’s focused a bit lately on finding a way to make better choices and decisions in order to get a better outcome from the world – but that’s my impression, chatting to him every day for the last few weeks. He has got me on to several new techniques to make better choices – one where you flip a coin to decide the outcome, and rather than let the outcome be decided by the coin instead you do whatever you hope it lands on, because that’s the path your heart wants and is best for you. The second is where you write a page about the topic with your left hand, and the answer will come up because it disengages your logical brain, and you put it down on paper.
It’s a good way to be – why wouldn’t we want to make better decisions? Why wouldn’t better choices serve us as we move through the world?
My position is this: because it’s all part of the illusion.
In the eyes of the sage, the nature of making a choice implies several delusions:
The first, is that there is a position in the world, separate from where you are now, that you can navigate to and you / the universe will be objectively different;
This implies a position in the world, separate from it, you against the universe.
The second delusion is the nature of the choice implies past / present / future; it requires there to be something other than The Now that we are currently in. It’s a literal “If-Then” statement; if I do this, then this will happen.
The third delusion is contained in the nature of the “you” that is making the decision; you are actually a part of a larger whole (your higher self) that has way more information than your current self and is fully connected to every other part of the universe. How can you ever make an informed decision when you sit at the table with so few cards, no idea about the rules and everything on the line?
Fourth – the root of many choices is desire, which enforces lack within your universe and is automatically working against you from the start.
Fifth – the decision making process is one of the mind, not the heart or the being. All thoughts stem from ego. The process of choice is an ego process for use within an ego matrix.
Hmm. This is turning into one of those legalese tracts that Buddha dictated to Ananda on the 17 facets of not-self-ness.
Let’s try a different tack. The nature of the choice or the decision is inherent with separation; what are you choosing for / against? You literally are the Universe. There is nothing to choose from apart from your Self. If you choose different aspects of your Self, you are still within the boundaries of your Self. You are always within the boundaries of your Self. If you choose something that you are not, then that train of thought is inherent with lack; how is that possible, when you already have everything you could ever want inside you?
The world is perfect. Any choice between different aspects of perfection adds to the distortion within that perfection, degrading it; and there is nothing to choose between, because regardless of the outcome, you will have Perfection. One is as good as the other.
So that got me thinking about the best (and probably the only) way to effectively change your reality; to attain a different facet of perfection than the current one.
When the sage, who understand that his nature is God nature, and that his Self is the entire Universe, decides to attain a different facet of perfection he will remain entirely in the present. There is no past-future, do this then that. He simply makes a movement within his very nature, and reality changes accordingly. There is no process of decision making, there is simply a new reality that he has moved to. He just is, and so is the Universe.
So too can you do this. Understand that your nature is God nature, and that your Self is the Universe; and be the change you want to see in your reality. Just be it. Surrender to it. Let your being awaken to your wholeness, and make movements in your new nature.
In typing these words, and when they were inspired earlier in the day, I was inspired to change my nature and therefore my reality; I was inspired by the words that came to me and was within a hairs breadth of walking out of the door of work and into a different world. Then it stopped me: fear. Some part of me I was afraid of the change I would make. I was afraid I wasn’t enough. I teetered, on the brink of surrender; I held on to a rope over the banks of the river of my new reality. All I had to do was let go.
I guess I still have some clearing to do.