It turns out that we are far from able to create our living completely. Humanity is as yet quite immature and in need of help from those angels (for want of a better word to call \u201cthem\u201d)—forces, energy fields, guardian spirits, agents of the Great Creative Source, whatever—that are mysterious and yet incredibly capable. Those who have lived long enough and reflected on their experiences will be struck by the number of occasions in which \u201cgood luck\u201d or \u201csynchronicity\u201d has played an important part in their fates.<\/p>\n
My hope is that there may be something useful here for you, this \u201cbelief\u201d or mythic way of expressing a sense that has been increasingly impress-ing itself on my consciousness\u2014not without resistance \u2014over the course of two decades: When things are \u201cmeant\u201d to happen, they do. (Well, in retrospect, though I did not at all feel this way about it, this principle applies to my whole life—eight and a half decades!)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that simple, though: We participate in this as a co-creative process; our deeper beliefs, expectations, attitudes, also form this reality. (I know, this is a lot of new age positive thinking stuff, but there\u2019s an old Christian hymn that has the lines, \u201cI am persuaded\u2026.\u201d Innumerable contemporary witnesses to something like this approach—in books and such—have been written that support this emerging idea that we co-create our reality. It\u2019s a long haul, going against the hubris of a couple of centuries\u2014far from the mere superstitious surrender of will to those who presumed to speak for the self-styled official interpreters of the old-style father-god, yet finding the opposite, mere atheism, shallow. More is going on in the cosmos than either extreme of God does it all or God does nothing. This is sort of in-between.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve found that if you step up to the plate 33%, do 1\/3 of the work, really do it, the angels or helping forces will meet you. They want to help with your goals. If you do 25% or less, it\u2019s too flabby, they can\u2019t reach you; if you do 40% or more, you\u2019re too over-controlling, and again they can\u2019t reach you. Too much flack. The game is to give it your all while at the same time knowing that you need to surrender\u2014at the right moment\u2014and expecting and asking in your heart for help. Now puny humans who in their immaturity tend to think of all or nothing, control or let go, have difficulty realizing that it\u2019s a mix, a balance. The game is to hit that \u201csweet spot\u201d of optimal responsibility mixed with the right kind of surrender. In this sense, \u201cfaith\u201d is a full willingness mixed with a spirit of humility. I find it useful to imagine angels who really love you and want to help you get what you want. They do have some bias towards the Tao, towards what\u2019s meant to be. They can think a thousand times faster and in more clever and complex ways, so arranging for those events we call \u201ccoincidences\u201d is no sweat for them. Knowing they work this way is good, but beware the temptation to expect them to do much before you\u2019ve done what truly needs to be done.<\/p>\n
What needs to be done includes really planning out what you want, identifying elements specifically, and going to work while in a way taking on full responsibility. The balance is tricky in faith-ing, because if you don\u2019t do your part fully, \u201cthey\u201d can\u2019t help. It\u2019s not that they withhold because you\u2019re naughty\u2014it\u2019s not a matter of approval or punishment. They really can\u2019t help, can\u2019t reach you, until you\u2019ve pretty much done what you need to do.<\/p>\n
When is it over-control? When you expect no help and flip over into worry, into doubt, into feeling hurried and annoyed by others who aren\u2019t pulling their weight, when you are a bit stubbornly attached to your presuppositions that it has to be this way or else. We\u2019ve all met such bull-headed-ness in others and have felt frustrated that we can\u2019t get through to them. Life is more of a give and take, and delusions of righteousness don\u2019t help things. But there is a difference between optimal confidence, good faith, and bull-headed-ness; yet I can\u2019t put it into words. May it suffice to know that one should attend to this discrimination. <\/p>\n
A similar lack of discrimination on the lax side can be seductive. We want to regress towards child-like-ness and want to avoid taking charge. We\u2019re lazy and we don\u2019t want to admit it, disguising it as phony faith. But really it\u2019s laziness. This is tricky, because I\u2019m affirming not no-faith, but full surrender-faith, asking for help, giving it over, taking refuge, while at the same time suggesting full engagement, stepping up to the plate, doing what you can. It\u2019s a balance!<\/p>\n
I confess that I am not great at this and sometimes get overly lax, and on occasion perhaps over-controlling. So I\u2019m workin\u2019 on it. But I\u2019m pretty sure this is the way the game is played.<\/p>\n
Metaphysically, this is a world-view change! I was raised in a materialistic age and if humanity doesn\u2019t do it, it won\u2019t get done. But I\u2019ve become a bit despairing of the cumulative follies of my species and my contemplations of the many progressions we\u2019ve made \u201cby the skin of our teeth\u201d has convinced me that there are movements in the cosmos that are working to help humanity evolve. I don\u2019t guarantee that they\u2019ll succeed, because folly can be intense and compound on itself, and if often does. Folly can be entrenched with doctrine and self-righteousness and if all else fails\u2014and this threshold is lowered by easily available, easy-to-use, familiar, cheap weapons\u2014violence. Of course, that only makes things worse, setting up eddies of revenge and all sorts of other bad karma. But that\u2019s the world we\u2019ve been living in so it\u2019s not easy to proclaim this new understanding of metaphysics\u2014of how it all works beyond our seemingly highly-sophisticated knowledge of physics. But folks don\u2019t get much support in recognizing that excessive cleverness can be misleading.<\/p>\n
That has hampered philosophy in the last two hundred years: people have thought that we can figure it out\u2014figure it ALL out. Ha ha haaa! Nope, no way. It is and will remain mysterious and truly, truly beyond us. But try telling a philosopher that! They\u2019ll feel that you\u2019re saying, \u201cForget it and let yourself go into flaccid, lax, loose, nothing-ish-ness. But that is not what we\u2019re saying: We\u2019re saying: Yes! Think! Think hard, think critically! 94% of human thought is illusion, folly! Most of that is self-destructive, so we need some good philosophy, we need better philosophy. Oops, not that much, that\u2019s too much philosophy!<\/p>\n
The idea that there can be too much philosophy, too much of an attempt to coordinate everything according to the rules of logic\u2014this seems unreasonable. If some is good, more is better, right? That\u2019s the point, though. There\u2019s such a thing as too much. There\u2019s the idea that too much logic and clear thinking can squeeze the humor, love, mercy, sweet aesthetics, human sensitivity, music, juice, and the like out of whatever is being though about.<\/p>\n
Of course that goes against the rules of philosophy. I mean, isn\u2019t philosophy harmless and good? But the Nazis thought that the good of the state, the collective, was the highest good. And indeed, most evil comes from the human assumption that they can know what is the highest good for everyone, not just what seems to work for them. Also, there\u2019s this tendency towards not recognizing that idealizing a single \u201chighest good\u201d is a form of idolatry. What if there are lots of high goods for lots of folks and we need to let go of our over-controlling-ness about all this? In effect, I\u2019m saying that there\u2019s danger also in too much philosophy!<\/p>\n
What then? An un-remitting obligation to be both responsible and, more importantly, to be kind. The faith slips in that juncture, a relaxed letting go. The kindness is a clue: Where in the process do you seem to be putting other people out, pushing them beyond their comfort levels? When are you doing this to yourself? It\u2019s hard to express the idea of working out pretty well without yet getting to the point of acute discomfort. It is not \u201cno pain, no gain.\u201d But neither is it easy. That in-between point of optimal responsibility tempered by kindness. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s it for today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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