(This is Part 20 of a series. Go back to Part 19.)
I heard a true story about a woman who lived in a San Francisco apartment and left a suicide note there. The note was found by police after her death.
The note said that she was going to walk toward the Golden Gate bridge and if no-one smiled at her along the way she was going to jump off. And jump off she did.
At the level of existence where it appears that we make "choices," the universe is a responder. It responds to us; it is a perfect mirror of us. The universe was waiting for her to smile; then it would smile back. It has to, because it is we ourself—part of the same process, like the turning of the earth that produces both night and day.
"The flying geese have no mind to cast their shadow;
the water has no mind to give its reflection." —Zenrin
Existence is a mirror. Whatever vibration we're putting out gets reflected back to us. If we smile at others, they smile back. If we scowl at others, they scowl back. If we're in love with the universe, we feel loved back. It all happens instantaneously.
In that respect I disagree with the idea of karma. Karma exists, in my opinion, but it happens instantaneously. It is always paid off at the instant the debt is incurred. The very act of being brutal to someone shapes us, molds us in that very moment to who we are. The act of being kind to someone also shapes and molds us—and our experience of life—in the very process of being so.
Everything we do has an instantaneous feedback inside of us that not only shapes and molds who we are, but deeply affects how we feel about life. As part of that process, it affects our view of the world. And of course, our view of the world is the world that we get to live in.
Nothing above is meant to make, say, a cancer victim feel guilty. This is not a "We create our reality" kind of thing. "We" don't even exist as a personal something; with what are "we" going to create?
No, it's more subtle than that. Essentially, everything we do is controlled by how we "choose" to see it. At the deepest level everything is being done by the one energy and there are no "choices" whatever, but at the level where we appear to be personal beings making "choices," the really core choice is how we choose to experience what happens.
That in turn has a lot to do with surrender. It has a lot to do with acceptance, love, gratitude for this existence just as it is, in all of its splendid and necessary duality. Even the duality doesn't actually exist, but to our human minds it appears that existence contains endless duality—good and bad, beautiful and ugly, up and down, light and dark, summer and winter, on and on.
When we love and accept the world as it is, we are loving and accepting ourself at the same instant. Because there is no separation—the world is us, we are it, it is us, it is itself—"choose" your phrase.
So, if you are feeling dissatisfied with your life or your current situation, "try" asking yourself these questions: Who do you think is running the show? Where do you think your real security is coming from? Do you trust it/you or not?
Of course, if you realize your own non-existence, the whole issue of security immediately goes out the window. Because who is it that's supposed to be made secure? The question becomes unanswerable, because you forget to be concerned with asking it.
Again, this doesn't mean that we don't "take action." We might very well be a whirlwind of action, but we also see that there's nobody doing anything. It's all just happening, by itself, as itself.
Reality becomes awake to itself when we become awake to it. We, as it, are also the vessel through which "it" moves. To talk about the Mystery, paradox is essential.
(This is the end of Part 20. Go to Part 21.)
—jim sloman, 1.30.03 for Jun 8
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