PART 6: TO BE AND NOT TO DO
(Continued from “When Is Enough Enough?”)
The very energy of life is dynamic. We hold on tight to the notion of our selves “doing” to grab onto some sense of solidity, some sense of control, some sense that we, our perception of a divided self, matters. From that perspective, we fear that if we were to be, we would turn into a puddle and do nothing. We fear we would not know how to even get out of bed in the morning because we would melt into an amorphous oblivion.
But as we start to let go of the idea of i-dentity, the i-dea of being i-solated i-slands, separate, each fighting for our own sense of self-importance, we begin to touch a sacred dance that has been carrying us all along. We then see that the fear of doing nothing, if we were to let go of the idea that I am the doer, is in fact not at all possible because all that is, is dancing. When we are in non-resistance to what is, we are all like cosmic dancers, dancing within life’s sacred dance.
When we live on auto-pilot and do not question the nature of reality, we believe that we are the doers. We believe we are in control, in charge, creating our lives. But do we really have control? Perhaps it seems so, for limited times. We feel we made it this far and got the job we wanted or we succeeded at completing a daunting task. We feel puffed and proud until we find ourselves fired from our job and our sense of accomplishment from completing a task unravels as things start to go awry.
What is it that moves life forward? What force propels evolution? Mystics will say that this is the force of life and it is divine. We have no control over it. It is our folly, our misperception due to our limited senses, to think that we are doing, when in fact we do nothing at all.
The mystic Nisargadatta Maharaj says through his non-dual teachings in his classic book “I Am That” "Doership is a myth born from the illusion of 'me' and 'the mine'."
The Buddha is quoted as saying, "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof."
We think we are separate, so we need control to try to regain connection. But we cannot find a solution to a problem with the same thought patterns that created the problem. From a divided mind, we cannot find connection.
We must learn to see beyond our attachment to separation and see ourselves as part of a whole. We must not identify with our actions, but see ourselves as servants to the divine, vessels for the energy of the sacred to move through us.
It is when we get out of the way that our lives flow. The tighter we hold on, trying to get it all perfect and right, the further we move away from the reality that all that already is, is perfection. We squeeze the life right out of life.
When we pause, when we open, when we begin to truly see, we feel immense power in the reality that we have no control, not because we are not powerful, but because we are powerful beyond belief. We have no need for a finite sense of control. We see that the idea of “I” is finite, a limited lens though which we see life, but is not the whole picture. We begin to understand that “I am” is more than enough. It is all that is.
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