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A Modest Proposal Uncommon thinking
about common experiences inspired August 11, 2003 What I resist persists. “What I resist persists” is an expression rooted, as far as I know, in the personal growth and development work of the last half of the 20th century. When I look back on my life and apply this admonition, I can see that the same “stuff” keeps cropping up until I do something about it – or not depending on my degree of stubbornness, reluctance, and even fear in dealing with my stuff. “Ignore it and maybe it will go away,” nice thought but I cannot claim that it works. “What I resist persists” seems much more powerful. I wonder why? Of course, I know why – just teasing a bit. For me the answer lies in understanding karma. Karma is a much misunderstood and often maligned spiritual law (and there are few of them). Let’s look at what karma is not. 1.
There is no bad or good karma, just karma. Assigning a human judgment
of good or bad to karma does not serve to benefit fully from it. What I resist persists. Karma. From a karmic perspective, what I fail to learn from the lessons karma places in front of me (resisting of sorts) will be repeated (persistence) until, when and if, I choose to learn the lesson. “Oh my,” you might say, “I have so many karmic events in my life, how can I possibly learn ALL of those lessons. I didn’t do that well in school. No wonder I have had so many lives!” Well, there is happy news and the other kind. The good news is that there is only lesson. The other news is that it is usually difficult to learn. Most of us go through all of a lifetime without getting what the lesson is much less solve its “mystery.” The ONE and ONLY lesson is to learn to love myself with unconditional acceptance. It is a one-stop shopping center. All I need is in that simple (but not easy) task. Anytime I achieve that self-loving state, I start shedding karma like someone on a water only fast looses pounds. There is unfortunately a lifetime of telling myself (and having the telling reinforced by others) that I am unworthy of their love and acceptance so how in the heck could I love myself when all around me are telling me the opposite. The weight of public opinion is, well, weighty. I bought into it early on, and chances are, you did to. Karma is the mechanism that keeps on working to focus me on the fact of my self-assessment of being unworthy, and giving me the opportunity then and there to lovingly accept myself. How do I know I am experiencing a karmic opportunity? Simple. Anytime that I don’t like myself and/or what is happening around me, judgment is taking place and I am in the throes of a karmic moment. I will inevitably choose one of two responses. One, I will ignore the fact of the karmic moment and act out whatever fear-ego-based behavior I think will work to bail me out of the situation without revealing my unworthiness to others and myself. The ego runs the show with this choice. My karmic debt gets debited or... Two, I will understand what is really happening (a karmic moment) and take action to exploit it by unconditionally accepting myself and the event. My spirit calls the shots with this choice. My karmic debt gets credited. That’s it – a total of two choices. I know – it may seem easy for me to say. So where do I stand in this karmic accounting scheme? I can tell you this. I obviously understand the mechanism since I just described it above. I have a released a LOT of the karma that I piled up over a half-century of doing time in this life. I do not, however, have a zero balance. I have my karmic moments in which I walk through door number one and pick up some more “k’s” – my personal measure of accumulated karma. Don’t know the value of “k’s” – they simply fit with my left-brained need to keep score. I don’t think that I will ever have a zero balance. I would need to live in a state of loving acceptance 24 x 7, and that does not appear to be realistic for anyone running around in a skin suit. My biology and conditioning demand too much attention. Truth be known, it’s also fun being a “bad boy” now and then. Regardless of who or what I regard myself to be, I came into this life for one purpose, namely, to experience a break in belonging with the One, the Universe, the All There Is, and to find my way back to once more belong. I hold that this happens to everyone. The reason for this inevitable human experience is another subject, one that I discuss in my book, A Tao Of God (small plug). Karma (what I resist persists) is the facilitator and scorekeeper of my purpose. The rest is window dressing: jobs, governments, religions, wealth, power, beauty, physical ability, intelligence, station in life, education, law, commerce, and family. To be sure, these are the game tokens on the board of life; they are not the game. If you are still with me at this point, you might say, “OK fine, for the sake of discussion, I accept what you say, Ron, but how do I love myself with unconditional acceptance so that I can release karma?” There are two methods: the simple one and the complicated one. The simple method is: just do it. Each of us has the innate ability to drop all of our facades, posturing, and masks by raising our faces to the heavens, opening our arms and hearts, and saying, “Dear God fill me with Your love and light, and release all of the judgments that I hold about myself and others. Fill me with compassion and humility and by Your grace reconnect me with All That Is,” or something to that effect. The exact words are not important. Your intent is everything. Because this is simple, it is also difficult. Just works that way. The complicated method involves finding and using a process (and there are many of them) that enables me to revisit the events that caused my break in belonging and to heal me inside of myself – in the dark place that has seen no light for a very long time. Each us has the only key to our dark place. I cannot give the key to anyone else to do the work for me. I am, with God’s help, the only person who can heal me. Others can help or facilitate, but only I can do the job that opens me to loving acceptance. Fear, hate, frustration, anger, and all heavy emotions dissolve in the light of self-healing. Which method did I use? I healed the complicated way, and now that I know the simple method, I often turn directly to God to help me tidy up a bit down there in the cellar. Am I perfect? Good heavens no! Am I enlightened? By my understanding of enlightenment, no I am not. Am I spiritually evolving? Yes, most definitely, and it is my intention to make some progress every day along my path. May you discern with compassion,
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