Friday, August 11, 2006
what dO yOu expect?
When I re-read the "Strive and let go" post I wrote earlier, it occured to me that it may seem a tad un-optimistic to some folks. It seems that even if we act out of good intentions, trying to change a bad situation into something better, we can't hope for much. This is not what I intended to say. Of course it matters very much if we act out of good intentions or bad -- it's just that we can't be certain when and how the outcomes of our actions hit us. While the rules of cause and effect that balances out the actions and reactions of all the people in the world are acting all the time: there is nobody (ok, we're talking about non-supernatural, non-superhuman folks here) whose mind is so broad to be able to comprehend it all. It is naive, delusional, to act thinking we are in absolute control of what happens ultimately to us. So trust that if you move out of kindness and generosity each day, the kindness and generosity will be returned to you. . . you just have no idea when nor how. I am optimistic this way. And I think this is the beautiful part of life. But this is a faith that is grounded in many many real life encounters I have had. So act with the best intentions, live in hope.
And hope is very very important in our increasingly cynical world. What we want to do really is to place our hope in the right place, where it will continue to motivate us, where it cannot ever be extinguished.
Everytime I run close to being flat broke, I want to write a book. Not because I expect the book to make me money! But because I learn so much about what you really need to live well and happily. . . and I learn about hope. We have to admit as long as we have money, it is hard to learn this. When we run into a problem, we think we can buy a solution to our problems. Even if we can't, we can buy pretty good distractions form the fact that we can't buy a solution to our problems! This works in degrees of success until we happen to run out of money. Then we have something of a crisis. . . then if you're not in panic, you will be lucky enough to experience something of a revelation. The solution to your problems is not out there, it is in here, within you, within all the resourcefulness and patience that is you. There is a primal ability of endurance that is the human spirit which is the source of a hope that cannot die - there is always something you can do, there is always a way out of the darkest night. Ah! When you hit this, you start to really dig deep into yourself for solutions. You start to see that the problem itself, as Krishnamurti says, is the solution. Like this wise sage wrote, what we do when we "solve" a problems is that we are really attempting to get rid of it. That, according to him is not solving it, it is running away from it. We want to face the problem as it points to something we need to resolve within ourselves to become the great human beings that Krishnamurti urges each of us to be.
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And hope is very very important in our increasingly cynical world. What we want to do really is to place our hope in the right place, where it will continue to motivate us, where it cannot ever be extinguished.
Everytime I run close to being flat broke, I want to write a book. Not because I expect the book to make me money! But because I learn so much about what you really need to live well and happily. . . and I learn about hope. We have to admit as long as we have money, it is hard to learn this. When we run into a problem, we think we can buy a solution to our problems. Even if we can't, we can buy pretty good distractions form the fact that we can't buy a solution to our problems! This works in degrees of success until we happen to run out of money. Then we have something of a crisis. . . then if you're not in panic, you will be lucky enough to experience something of a revelation. The solution to your problems is not out there, it is in here, within you, within all the resourcefulness and patience that is you. There is a primal ability of endurance that is the human spirit which is the source of a hope that cannot die - there is always something you can do, there is always a way out of the darkest night. Ah! When you hit this, you start to really dig deep into yourself for solutions. You start to see that the problem itself, as Krishnamurti says, is the solution. Like this wise sage wrote, what we do when we "solve" a problems is that we are really attempting to get rid of it. That, according to him is not solving it, it is running away from it. We want to face the problem as it points to something we need to resolve within ourselves to become the great human beings that Krishnamurti urges each of us to be.