No Guarantees of Being

After writing my last blog entry, and reflecting on the message therein, I happened to glance up to the Evolver logo and read "It's Our World to Change." I immediately found myself, uncomfortably, I suppose, nestled between a contradiction; on the one hand, I see through my own experience, and hear in the teachings of many ages, the necessity of allowing a spiritual transformation to take place within myself free from the tampering of ego, essentially, to be open to change without clinging to results, or preconceived ideas, of what that change 'should' be. On the other hand, one has only to look around to see that we live in the midst of incredibly abnormal conditions, and the screams of Earth Mother beckon us to change our ways of life. Well, what's the solution?

I find myself looking more deeply into the crux of the matter. In the west, we are led to believe through unconscious conditioning, 'education' and the instruction of our society, that we are ultimately alone in this world; pull yourself up by your bootstraps, dust yourself off, try again, and don't come crying to mommy. You are entirely responsible for your fate in life and don't blame anyone else if you end up unsuccessful. From the point of view of society, other people only exist to get in your way, or help you achieve your goals. Even if we tend towards the latter, it's still a dualistic approach destined for the suffering of self and others. Alright, I'd agree that in some senses we are alone; at the end of the day it's really up to each individual to DECIDE for themselves. This decision ... now, that's where I find myself looking.

It's been said that man does not have free will, so much as the ability to choose his influences. In a way, we are born into a river with many currents, whirlpools and eddies. Until a man has an aim, a connection to his purpose, his fate is simply to be carried from one current to another, never truly navigating his own life, and all the while he is rationalizing, justifying, making up clever explanations for the "decisions" he is making all along the way.

Though we CAN put ourselves under another influence, something intrinsically disturbing to the western mentality. We're trying to FREE ourselves from other influences, right? Perhaps. One thing is for sure -- here we are, in these bodies, and there is work that needs to be done, which cannot be done by ourselves. 'Freedom' in the western sense has become synonymous with, from an objective view, giving oneself over to impulses of desire; all the sex I want, all the food I can eat, all the stuff I can buy. In a way, our sense of freedom is very much like slavery! Could it be that true liberation moves in the other direction? True freedom ... bondage to higher influences (bondage, of course, when we perceived through the eyes of the ego). Like all the great teachers have said, liberation comes through change of how we identify.

I have been greatly influenced by the Sufis, among other spiritual groups. One sufi adage says, "If ever you wish to know what to do, simply look to the ego and do the opposite."

The decision, therefore, the one which causes us to begin navigating through those currents of incredible magnitude, which opens us to the change which is just waiting to take place, both within and without, is a decision of servitude. Not for oneself, and not for another, but to the unseen, the unpredictable and the unknown. Allow yourself to be affected, to be touched on a sensitive level. With that kind of openess, the cries of Earth Mother can be heard by that representative of the Creator within, and it, that spark, can be called into action.

It takes courage of Being to become something without seeing what that something is ahead of time. But here, in the west, we want guarantees ...