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A Modest Proposal Uncommon thinking
about common experiences October 11, 2003 Life... I choose it. What does it mean to choose life? Often, I feel as if life chooses me; that I am a leaf blown about the Earth at the whim of unknowable winds. If so, why am I here? Am I some divine play that was scripted without my agreement much less participation? What? Why? How? The questions arise within me to be answered outside of me. Really? Actually, I think not; although a lot of my time is spent living as if life chooses me. This commentary is not, however, about the “why” of life. For those of you who are interested in that speculation, Chapter 6 - The Design, of my book, A Tao Of God, appears at the end of this commentary. This commentary is about the nature of life, not the why of life. The nature of life is that of a grand laboratory, an extemporaneous play of such gigantic scope that it needs the Earth as the stage for its enactment. That’s a mighty mouthful. The extemporaneous play is a wonderful analogy. Such plays are built around a broad, brief plot structure such as the classic boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, and they live happily ever after. Within that broad plot structure, there are an infinite number of variations; so many in fact, that hundreds of thousands of poems, complete plays, movies, books, stories, and songs have faithfully followed the outline, each with its own variation. The “characters” consist of leading and supporting characters that appear and disappear during the course of the play. The opening scene is birth and the closing scene is death. They are the only two givens in the play of life. The in between scenes are those of our choosing. Life…I choose it – no way! I could say, “If this is really true, I did a pretty poor job of choosing.” The Universe chimes in rebuttal, “To the contrary, you chose perfectly.” Huh? But… but, what about all of the angst, pain, suffering, disappointment, anger, fear, sorrow, frustration - do you really mean that I chose all of that? Phooey! The Universe’s response is complex and lengthy, consisting of, “Yes.” Well, that seems kind of dumb. Why would I consciously choose all of that negative stuff? Oh, maybe it was not conscious. There’s a thought. I run on automatic a lot of the time. What if during those automatic times, I am unconsciously choosing to make myself miserable? Now there is something to think about in my moments of spiritual lucidity. Maybe I did do all of that to myself – the wrecked relationships, the addictions, the failed jobs and businesses, the unhappiness, the loneliness, the regrets, and the dreams that seem they will never be fulfilled… and all along I thought that they resulted from being singled out by the fickle finger of fate. Life…I choose it – well maybe... OK, for the sake of discussion, what if I do choose my life? How do I break the grip of unconscious choices that are self-destructive? You know the ones that ultimately take people out of the play through cancer, stroke, and other fatal or debilitating dis-eases. Surely, no one would consciously choose that fate, so why do so many contract them? Listen carefully for I will only say this once. We make these horrible, unconscious choices because deep down, we believe that we deserve them. Here we are, children of a loving and benevolent God, and we think we deserve these awful fates. How ludicrous – only it is not ludicrous to those who are so afflicted. The pain, sadness, and helplessness are real, not make-believe. Why do we unconsciously believe that we deserve life to be painful and miserable? The answer is simple. People, well meaning and not, have told us, in one way or another, that we do not deserve to be happy and fulfilled. That state, we are told, is for a privileged few, and we are not a part of that group, so take your lumps and be content with what you have that does “work.” Oh my… Calvinistic Protestantism is alive and well. (It is not fair to hang all of this on Calvin; unworthiness was around long before him; he simply got associated with it.) Most of us at some level, bought that story. If unconscious choosing brings on a woeful existence, what would happen if we consciously choose? I can say that by consciously choosing that my world shifted to one of fulfillment and harmony. Did I become as rich as Bill Gates? No. Did I become as handsome as Mel Gibson? No. Did I become as wise as Gandhi or Einstein? No, but my world does provide for me such that I live my life in my passion. Friends and neighbors, it doesn’t get any better than that. I choose consciously, and that makes the difference. Life…I choose it. Now the big question: how do I consciously choose life? From the catechism of spiritual evolution: “It is simple but not easy.” Oh darn! The simplicity lies in having the awareness to choose. It doesn’t get much simpler. Presented with any situation in which I need to act, if I am aware of the choices, then I gain personal power in the moment by consciously making a choice. Sometimes, that requires opening the circuit between my brain and my mouth, or to think first and speak second. “Ready, fire, aim,” although popular, is not very productive. (The war in Iraq illustrates that quite well. Uh, sorry, I forgot that we are officially no longer at war, never mind the body count.) Awareness precedes conscious choice. If I think before I act, then I can put the demons of my unworthiness at bay, and make the choice that is in my highest and best interest, not the disharmony that my history of perceived lack of self-worth whispers as being all that I merit. You and I deserve to be in our passion, and we alone have the only means to being so. The “not easy” part is rooted in not being aware of our choices. Every opportunity that we have in which to act always has more than one choice. At the most fundamental, the choice is to take action or not. Inaction is a choice. The power of choosing is in knowing that there is a choice. Consciously make the choice and be satisfied with it, for it is your choice, your life, and you own it. May you discern with compassion and live in harmony... Ron
McCray A Tao Of God
The dilemma God faced is that God could not experience Itself as there was no contrast to Itself. Since God is everything, how could a contrast be created? The solution was brilliant (not surprising). The solution was human beings. The design of the human experiment is God’s solution to knowing Itself. Here is the way it works. Since God is everything, so we too must be God. So what’s different? In the process of birth (materialization limited to the third dimension), God “veiled” us from the awareness that we are God. We are born into an existence in which we perceive that we are less than what we are and quickly learn that we are not automatically blessed with unconditional love. The creation of the illusion of not-love gives God the contrast that enables It to know Itself. There is more… There are rewards to playing the game of life. If I can find a way to remember who I really am and learn to love myself unconditionally, I can create heaven on Earth until I return to the other side of the veil. This is the highest message of A Tao of God. Here
are my rules to the game of life:
I am committed to having the awareness that I am God, and as is everyone and everything else.
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