Masculine and Feminine principles in a creative process by Eva Pierracos

The Masculine And Feminine Principles In The Creative Process

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my friends. Blessings and love are extended to you and reach you in your deepest being to the extent you open up toward them. You receive it; you let it come into you.

I would like to talk tonight, in direct sequence to our previous lectures, about some more specific elements in the creative universal power. I have often said that each human being not only possesses this power, but expresses this power. Coming into your own means the deliberate and conscious, purposeful use of the creative power, which you are and which emanates from you. For, unconsciously and unknowingly, without realizing it, you constantly create your life circumstances with this power. What you think and feel, what you believe and conceive of, what you secretly wish and fear -- all this shapes and determines creative substance. And all of this is the motor force of this power.

What a tremendous difference it is when you deliberately express and create your life, your fate, as it were, rather than unknowingly creating it. In the latter case you do not know why you go through certain experiences and ascribe them to some obscure fate, which seems to have nothing or little to do with what you are, what you feel, what you wish, what you believe in right now, and with what you choose to "do" with all of these thoughts and feelings. The self-realized individual knows exactly how he creates his life. One interim state toward this final realization of the human consciousness is when man connects with his unconscious blocks and, subsequently, comprehends his obstructions and unhappiness in life. This is a great moment, when an individual understands that he has done it, how he has done it, and what is the secret attitude that has produced the unwelcome fate, so that it is no longer blind fate and he can connect cause and effect. From that moment on, man ceases to be helpless. He has never been helpless in regard to any force or power outside himself. But he is helpless against his own inner processes, until he recognizes and changes them.

This is the way of the path. As you discover the root of your negative experience, you become capable of changing it. In order to proceed from here and deliberately create positive fate, it is also necessary that you understand more of the creative force of the universe, and how you can personally use it. The comprehension of this is essential. Now I would like to discuss certain very specific aspects of this creative power.

There are two fundamental aspects with which the creative process works. The one aspect is activation. The other aspect is letting it happen. First, you activate, then you get "out of the way" and let it happen. This creative principle exists throughout the entire universe and manifests in everything in your life -- whether good or bad, desirable or undesirable, important or unimportant. From the mundane, little occurrence to the creation of a universe, these principles exist. If what is created is constructive, fruitful, joyful, and pleasurable, then these principles must interact in a harmonious way. They must complement one another and be in harmony with one another. If what is created is destructive, painful, wasteful, and unhappy, then these two principles must also be at work, only they are distorted and misunderstood. Instead of complementing one another, they interfere with one another. Instead of two aspects making one, unitive whole, a dualism makes two mutually exclusive opposites out of them. When duality is conciliated, two apparently opposing forces work together toward one goal and complement one another. I have discussed this facet of unity versus duality in many other respects. It pertains to all of creation: where an entity is removed from the center, and is therefore in ignorance and error, dualism comes into existence. The entire earth sphere, that is, human consciousness, is in that state, so that all perceivable creative functions are split in the middle. It is no different with the principles discussed here.

Those two fundamental principles in creation -- the activating and letting it be attitudes -- are universal laws. As I said, everything that has ever been created must contain both aspects of creation. Only these are not mechanical laws, like, let us say, the law of gravity. Although all laws, even impersonal, physical ones, have come into existence from, through, and by consciousness, and must have been created in the same manner of combining these two aspects, direct creation, with its own specific laws, is always an expression of consciousness. Whether this consciousness stems from an individual brain or personality, or whether the consciousness is the great Universal Spirit permeating all life, does not matter. The principle is the same.

The conscious attitude expresses whether or not you activate, or whether or not you let it be. These two aspects deserve much closer scrutiny. To activate means that the conscious entity deliberately issues, claims, sets in motion, moves toward, causes, determines, makes happen, and uses purposefully the forces at his disposal. He does so by knowing of these forces and calling them into action. He does so by removing all possible obstructions and by doing himself whatever is necessary. Effort and endeavor are an integral part of setting the creative forces in motion. This is active doing. We may say that this represents the masculine principle in creation.

The attitude of letting it be means to be receptive and waiting. It is also a movement, for nothing that is alive can possibly be not moving; but the type of movement is a very different one from the movement of the activating principle. The activating principle moves itself out toward another state; the spirit of letting it be is a movement within itself. It is a pulsating, involuntary movement, while the movement of activation is deliberate and self-determining. Words are insufficient to explain these facts and you have to listen with your inner ears and use your imagination and your innermost faculties to perceive what I am telling you here.

Now, the consciousness of the attitude of letting it be is one of trustful waiting, of letting a ripening process come to fruition, one of surrender to a force set in motion. This may be called the feminine principle in creation. As I said elsewhere at various occasions, the masculine and feminine principles exist in every endeavor, in every creative act. The self-determining, voluntary act expresses self-confidence and knowing of one's divine nature. The going with the creative forces, the trustful surrender to them, expresses deep trust in life, in the state of being that does not require one iota more movement than to activate the very powers one trusts in. Everything that functions well -- in the universe as well as in the smallest manifestations of mundane life -- combines these two aspects of life and consciousness. Nothing can be created without these principles being at work. No union between the sexes can be fulfilling unless these principles function as they are meant to. Pleasure supreme is possible to the degree these attitudes are healthy and to the extent trust in self and life makes both attitudes possible.

Both men and women represent these two principles, only in different arrangement, emphasis, degree, proportion, and relation. But this does not mean that the healthy, integrated man represents exclusively the activating principle, or that the healthy, integrated woman represents exclusively the principle of letting be. Both must express both, but, as I said, the emphasis differs and the areas in which both principles manifest or apply differ also with men and women.

Each act, each happening in the world must express both principles. Once you begin to think about this and look at life with this slightly altered vision, you will see and understand a lot more about creation as such, as well as about world events. Whether you create a business, whether you create a situation between yourself and another person, whether you create your fate, or whether you create a universe, it all depends on the extent to which you understand and use harmoniously the masculine and feminine principles of creation. It depends on the degree to which you are conscious of both and allow them both to unfold out of yourself.

Both these principles are often distorted and thus create confusion and disharmony. Destructive occurrences are a result of these distorted creative principles being used in erroneous ways.

A man cannot dare to be fully a man, and to activate the creative force in a deliberate and purposeful way, when his unconscious is still steeped in hostility, rage, and anger. For, the activating principle then threatens to express these destructive impulses. There are many people in this world who are still so undeveloped that they have no compunction about expressing their destructive impulses. They do not mind activating the masculine principle, even though it brings forth the most violent and negative actions. Only when the development proceeds further, and the individual no longer wishes to express violence and destruction, will he become frightened of his own active principle and therefore hold it back. This is why a man cannot be fully a man unless he first comes to terms with his negative emotions and desires. When he fully faces them, they will lose their power, as you all know full well from your experience on this path. But as long as you are unaware of their existence, they will control you and force you to act upon them without even knowing what you are doing and why. You will then rationalize and find reasons why you do these acts. Or you will turn the destructiveness upon yourself in your desire not to let the activating principle out into the world and sow negative seeds. Thus, in a transitory state of evolution the individual prevents himself from using the activating principle, for all activation would be based on negativity. This explains why so many people find themselves paralyzed in inactivity and stagnation. Temporarily, he will hold himself back and prevent himself from using the creative principle; therefore, healthy activation, self-assertion, autonomy are also temporarily bound and must wait for release until the personality has settled his difficulty with his own destructive nature. He may have to go through a number of appearances on this earth plane in which the activating forces must be dimmed in him, so as to no longer express the distorted creative principle of activation.

You all experience on this path the necessity to contact hidden cruelty, brutality, sadism, vindictiveness, malice, etc. As you learn to see, understand, and accept these emotions, you can subsequently come out of these feelings. For only then do you become genuinely convinced that there is no need for destructiveness. As long as it is not squarely faced, this conviction is lacking and the holding back is motivated almost entirely by fear of retribution and consequences. Only when you have the courage and honesty to fully see and accept these damaging emotions and desires, only when you totally comprehend and evaluate them, will you see, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are superfluous as a defense and serve no other purpose either. As these feelings become superfluous and you need no longer to be on guard against your own spontaneous reactions, you will be free enough to activate the greatest power in the universe within yourself. You will no longer fear this power, for it will be free from pollution, perversion, distortion. You can then claim your birthright. You can then call into being your own creative forces. It often happens that a person is sufficiently cleansed of the destructive distortions so as to safely use his own inner powers. But the old habit pattern of holding back is so firmly rooted in the personality that he will needlessly forego the use of the activating principle. He is not yet aware of this possibility, that he can afford to use these powers. Although some destructiveness still exists, it is no longer dangerous because he is sufficiently conscious and alert not to allow it to rule him and drive him into negative actions. He does not know yet, however, that the power to handle the remaining aggressions also enables him to use the greatest forces in the universe within himself. He can now become God-like and use the activating power to create circumstances according to his own choice.

So you must differentiate between him who rightfully dims his creative activity because he is justifiably afraid of its negative facets, and him who dims this power simply because he does not know of its positive potential. It is like a person who has been asleep for a long time, and when he wakes up he has not yet discovered all his faculties and the scope of his unfoldment.

The masculine principle is outgoing, active, and leads to action, with its consequences. The act following the driving force or motor force or impetus actively builds, affects, causes, determines. When the personality is fully aware of no longer needing, and therefore fearing, the destructive forces, he also begins to know, eventually, that he can create. He discovers the powers at his disposal that his mind can bring into activation.

The feminine principle of receptivity, of letting it be -- that is, letting the activating forces work their lawful way toward fruition -- is distorted when the entity refuses self-responsibility. If self-activation is relinquished and instead of surrendering to the self-activated forces one surrenders to another person's authority, perversion of the creative feminine principle is taking place. By the same token, a woman who surrenders her autonomy to a mate because she is too fearful and lazy to assume the consequences for her own actions makes a travesty and caricature of her femininity. Her surrender to the mate will never be motivated by love and trust in him and the aim will not be to experience ecstasy by uniting these two creative principles in this particular manifestation. Instead, she surrenders out of fear of life, refusal to assume her obligations in life. Thus this distorted surrender cannot bring anything favorable to either partner. When a woman wants to be a parasite in life and burden her partner with the brunt of her responsibilities, it amounts to cheating life. And life cannot be cheated. The result is that she must increase her fear of life, as well as her fear of man, who is supposed to be her authority. She must fear her self-determined enslavement. Thus the feminine principle is often wrongly associated with helplessness, passivity, inferiority, while masculinity is often wrongly associated with brute force.

In reality, a woman cannot truly be a woman unless she is self-determining. To put it in terms of this lecture: only when she is secure in her selfhood, as a result of activating the creative principle within herself; only when she is accountable for her mistakes and willing to accept and learn from them, can she be strong and self-responsible. Then, and then only, will she be unafraid of total surrender, of letting go, of allowing the involuntary forces in herself to guide her.

Conversely, a man cannot be truly a man when he is not free from destructiveness, when he is not willing to let the activating principle go to work in its own fashion. In other words, he must observe the feminine principle in order to fully activate the masculine one, just as the full woman must activate the masculine principle in order to give herself to the feminine one.

The interaction between man and woman expresses the two facets of the creative power in a very obvious way. The union between the sexes can be satisfactory only to the degree there is harmony within each partner in regard to the two facets. Only then can harmony be established between them.

As man is justified to fear the activating forces as long as he is unaware, and therefore not in control, of his destructiveness, so is woman justified in fearing her self-surrender as long as she makes herself helpless, for whatever distorted motives. If she is not in possession of her inherent powers, surrender must be debilitating and dangerous. Since both men and women express both the masculine and feminine principles, they must both cleanse their activating powers of violence and hostility; and they must both learn means to ascribe the cause for all happenings to the self, rather than blaming outside factors for one's suffering.

This is why you find on this path that both men and women come across the identical patterns of false activity (aggression, hostility, violence, overactivity, impatience, not waiting for the powers to lawfully come to fruition), and false receptivity and letting go (denial of self-responsibility, laziness, the line of least resistance, seeking another authority to shoulder the brunt of accountability). They must both work out the same problems, but they interact on a complementary level, rather than on an identical one.

No self-realization is possible unless you become full men and women, in the deepest possible sense. This is why the human problems are always primarily concerned with the relationship between the sexes. No matter what other problem a human being has, it is, at least indirectly, connected with a person's masculinity and, respectively, her femininity. The expression and handling of the masculine and feminine creative principles permeates the whole personality. Let us take, for example, a work problem: how can one's work be successful if the activating principle is lacking, is dimmed, and the person is not sufficiently outgoing and healthily aggressive? If he does not activate his own creative powers, if he holds back on them? Or if the activating forces are hostile and antisocial? He must get into difficulties with his environment, no matter how accomplished he may be in his trade. If the spirit of love is lacking, he will not want to contribute to life with and through his work. Therefore there can be nothing creative about it. Therefore the deeper spiritual powers cannot manifest. If, however, he wants to enrich life, he can safely enrich himself by and through his activity, without falsely feeling guilty about the latter. The creative activation will do justice to both -- enriching others and the self in every possible way.

These laws are applicable for all endeavor. Whether you do menial work, are an artist, a scientist, or whatever, the law is the same, although the degree may vary in which these principles must be at work. Simple menial work can be done mechanically and yet relatively efficiently, although it can also be a creative act if or when it is done in the spirit of creation mentioned here. Artistic, scientific, spiritual work can never succeed unless it follows these laws.

Thus, your success in your work must fail, as your human relationships and partnerships must fail, when the masculine and feminine principles do not properly interact and complement one another. Needless to say that in all these areas the relationship between the two aspects of creation varies, the emphasis varies, even at any given time or phase.

If one of these two principles is healthy, the other must also be right. It is impossible that one be healthy and the other distorted. Hence, the man who has a problem in self-activation must, in other ways, be unable to let go and let himself be carried. It would be false to assume that the man who is not sufficiently active and aggressive is so all the way in his total personality. He will inevitably discover an area where the feminine principle should reign. Or, the man who expresses an exaggerated extreme of masculinity must harbor areas in which he is too passive and where he expresses the distorted feminine principle. Both these examples are also applicable to women.

Because of the importance of the manifestation of the masculine and feminine creative principles in the inner life of the individual, as a substantial part of self-realization, this pathwork must be particularly concerned with this entire topic. True spirituality must make fuller men and women out of you -- in the best sense and on all levels of your being. To what degree and in what way the off balance exists varies in each case and must be found by self-search.

When you become capable of truly loving, these principles will be perfectly expressed in you. Or, to put it the other way around, when you can deliberately and knowingly activate the creative power to its highest potential because you have come to terms with and no longer fear your own destructiveness, and when you trustingly allow the universal powers to finish lawfully what you have deliberately set in motion, because you do not fear to surrender to a greater power than your willful ego self, you will be capable of loving. Whatever you do then will be creative and will combine these two aspects of creation. The desire to enrich life will never appear as self-impoverishment -- on the contrary. Then the loving man will activate a sublime power in him and his mate for the purpose of enriching them both. He will warrant trust in him, which makes her self-surrender justified, dignified, and enhances her individuality. Giving up the determining ego will be for her a desired experience that need not be feared. His activation becomes lovingly enriching to both. This is quite different from the kind of activating the pseudo masterful man issues forth. In this attitude he puts her down for his self-aggrandizement, so that he makes her fear of surrender reasonable. Thus he hinders her fulfillment as a woman.

The loving woman will surrender in the spirit of enhancing the mastery of self-activation in her mate. She will encourage his full selfhood by not competing with or rejecting it because it no longer appears a threat. Her receptivity must not be confused with paralyzed passivity, which is but a distortion. The pulsating activity of the soul in the receptivity of letting it be, in the state of being, of self-surrender, is a vibrating force that contributes to her mate's selfhood and to his strength.

When the letting go means a deliberate choice of foregoing the active principle because the person recognizes that at a certain point other faculties must take over, an enormous difference is experienced. The activating principle deliberately causes to happen; the being principle is self-perpetuating and involuntary. Its effects occur indirectly.

The pathwork itself consists of the blending of these two aspects. I have discussed this previously in different terminology. I wish to show you right here how it works. No obstruction can be removed, no unhappiness eliminated, unless the person involved -- man or woman -- uses the activating power. It is necessary to "get up," as it were, and claim his possibilities, his right to become a happy person. Nor must he shy away from the effort involved to find the cause of the unhappiness within himself. In other words, he or she must be moving in the direction to cover, doing in the direction to correct, and, at the same time, deliberately calling upon a higher wisdom and power, deep within the self, to make this endeavor meaningful. The mind issues the will and determines the steps, as well as calling upon a greater aspect within. All these are truly activities, each in its own fashion. But then the other principle must be at work. Once these forces are activated, the entity has to let them come to fruition, must let them go to work. He who cannot wait for this to happen, but wants to connect immediately with the desired result, to attach this result at once to the activation, violates the feminine principle in his creation. Thus he will not be successful, or only to the degree to which the two creative aspects were able to function. When man sows a seed into the soil, he cannot at once pull out the plant. He must give it time to grow within the earth, until he can see the first shoots of the plant. Agricultural law demonstrates beautifully the wholeness of these two aspects of creation. The pathwork itself is such a purposeful creative act.

Now, my friends, this is very important for all of you to understand, to ponder about, to meditate with. There is a great deal of material here, which is bound to help you in the most vital way in your further efforts to find your true nature, and thus your happiness as a co-creator

On not knowing

In my daily life my actions are driven towards achieving specific results. Sometimes there are results that I expect. Sometimes there are no results or results different from what I expected.

Sometimes I wait for the results. It is a state of not knowing.

In this state I stay between an action and its outcome as expected of me. This is a moment where Time enters with its merciless torment. The mind which is expected results does not know how to wait. It pushes me for more activity. More follow ups.

What do I do here? Do I continue activity because for some reason activity takes the pressure off. The pressure of waiting.

But how do I approach staying and waiting. What is the force that allows me to wait because as I am right now, I do not know what the future holds.

How long to wait? Will the energy of hope turn to despair and then anger ?

Then I think – best thing is to surrender to the forces of the universe. Do what you wish with me. But don’t keep me in the dark. Get it over with soon.

There is something very potent when I am waiting in the unknown zone. Can I wait without hope on one side and surrender on the other? Can I just wait and taste this pain of anxiety inside me? Can I taste the emotions of considering, a feeling of being treated unfairly,  that I am currently experiencing ? Can I do it without the relief of tears that are largely excretements of self pity.

Can I stay at the threshold of the unknown simply and with courage?

Question of money

Personal Gain and the Gift of Existence

In the concluding chapter of his book, Dr. Needleman converses with a businessman whose views and vision made a deep impact on his understanding of our relationship with money.

What I have tried to do in this book is to call for the inclusion of the money problem in the search for a consciously regenerate life. This means to include in our search all that we usually judge as evil, selfish, violent, and harsh. The other world, the “higher” world, is, as Rilke tells us, this world consciously experienced.

The following is the gist of another conversation I had with the businessman I spoke of in the Introduction.

“Tell me,” I asked him. “You yourself have been in business all your life. What’s your secret? I don’t mean the secret of making a lot of money, but how have you managed to make being in business something that’s really what you call ‘interesting’? What does it mean to you, when you say that making money is interesting? I’m sure you mean more than piling up material things or having people envy you.”

“Outer life,” he replied, “can support the inner work when the demands of life are taken as a challenge to one’s attention, as a reminder that one needs to cultivate the question of who I am and what in this moment is devouring my attention, taking more of me than I need to give it. In this world we live in, nothing brings that challenge more often and more dependably than the adventure of money.”

A long silence followed.

I then spoke to him about my plans for writing this book. He listened to me in a way that made me feel I was being weighed in a balance scale.

“The problem of writing about living,” he said, “or even speaking about living, is that it makes it sound too easy.”

Slowly and semiautomatically, I nodded yes.

“Of course,” he said, “as you know, the subject of your book interests me very much. Because the money question is the only thing that wakes people up these days. You remember the conference you invited me to in Wisconsin some years ago—what was it called?”

“‘Money, Power, and the Human Spirit,’” I said.

“Yes; money, power, and the human spirit. By coincidence, one of the people who was at that conference wrote to me last month. You probably wouldn’t remember him—he wasn’t one of the speakers. He was in the circle of spectators and he didn’t participate much. It seems that something I said touched him and stayed with him all these years.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Well, do you remember when that young woman who had worked in Central America mentioned the fairy tale about the fisherman’s wife?”¹

“I remember it very well,” I said. “She was using it as a symbol of American capitalism and you finally lost patience with her characterization of all wealthy people as greedy and selfish.”

“Apparently, what touched this man was my interpretation of the fairy tale.”

“Not only him,” I said. “It struck me, too. You interpreted it as a story about the need to know what one wishes from life. You said, if I remember correctly, that greed is inevitable in the absence of an inner aim. You said that greed in one form or another tends to usurp the place of the inner wish to understand, and that almost every vice in human life represents a lower function trying to imitate the work of an undeveloped higher capacity within man.”

“You have a good memory,” he said.

“Not good enough,” I replied. “I remember ideas, but in the midst of a life situation, especially when money is involved, ideas don’t help, they’re not there, I forget.”

“Because,” he said, “the inner wish is not an idea. It’s a force.”

I took that in.

“Is that what you meant when you said that speaking or writing about these things makes them sound too easy?”

Another silence.

“I agree,” he said, “with your main thesis—that in modern society money enters into every aspect of human life. That means that it enters into every aspect of ourselves, yes? Every impulse, every perception within ourselves is related to the money factor—or, to be more exact, the principle of personal gain. That follows from your thesis, doesn’t it? Personal gain, or the ego principle, is expressed through money in this society—I think that is what you’re writing about, isn’t it?”

He went on:

“When you say that in other cultures money was not as pervasive as in this society, you’re surely not saying that in those societies men and women were less dominated by egoism, are you? You are saying, as I see it, that it’s through money that the ego manifests itself most centrally in our culture. And that the ego is more, far more, than just vanity in its obvious forms. It’s the belief in one’s power to do, to be safe, happy, and fulfilled by one’s own efforts—without the help of a higher influence, yes?”

Again, I nodded. “But the question,” I replied, “is, how to remember in the midst of a money situation that there are higher purposes and forces within ourselves.”

“No, you go too fast. If you put it that way, you are lost. To put it that way only brings the whole spiritual quest into the realm of the ego. Of course, you can speak like that, you can even write books like that. But the fact is one forgets. There is no method that works. Money is just too powerful, life is just too powerful. I will be very interested to read any book you write about this, if you ever actually write it, but I am sure that after people put down your book, they will still be devoured by money situations. It will be good if you can help people come to a new attitude toward money; it is indispensable as a first step. But the question you are now bringing goes beyond change of attitude.”

“The fact is,” he said, “it is only through forgetting that you can remember. Or, rather, that you are remembered, if you see what I mean.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“The point is,” he continued, “that money is modern man’s instrument of the personality, the instrument of his emotions, his adaptive thought, his action. Falling man is continually reinventing himself and modern man reinvents himself through the technology of money. Evolving man is discovered by himself; falling man invents himself. It’s like that, isn’t it?’

“Please explain.”

“What more can I say? Remembering the true self is not an act of the mind or the emotions or the physical body. The evolving self does not care for money or sex or time. But the ego invents itself out of money, sex, and linear time. If you can find conditions and companions among whom you can study how the ego continually invents itself, imagines itself, you’ll understand what I mean. You’ve studied ancient traditions, but no book can give you the direct experience of how the ego invents itself, how it uses material things and ideas and energies continually to imagine itself.”

He paused for a moment, and then continued:

“There is in man a wish that does not come from the ego. There is a wish that is not invented by the ego. It is an energy, a movement that exists outside of linear time. Only when you are ready to experience the complete breakdown of the ego without the slightest impulse to reestablish it again, only then will you experience the wish of the evolving self. It is a certain kind of suffering that is mixed with joy of quite a special taste. Money and linear time and sex all enter into everything that is of the ego and so one needs to have a very specific study of money, sex, and time.

“I say study, because truly to study oneself introduces into life an element completely alien to the ego, yet which the ego can accept. The ego has to become gradually convinced that what it wants—safety, happiness, existence—cannot be obtained through mechanical thinking, personal emotion, or instinctive action. The mind has to become convinced that the only source of its well-being is consciousness. The work of studying oneself introduces a motivation that is free of personal gain, egoistic gain. Study, without the impulse to change anything, motiveless study, choiceless awareness is like the breath of the true wish, the true aim of evolving man. Do you follow?”

Without waiting for my response, he went on:

“The fisherman’s wife is the desire of the ego, life in the absence of the wish for being. You know how the fairy tale ends?”

“The man and the wife are put back in their lowly shack.”

“And they live happily ever after?”

“I don’t believe the fairy tale says that.”

“Well,” he said, “it should. All fairy tales end with ‘happily ever after’—which is fairy-tale language for the state of inner freedom, freedom from the illusions of ego.

“In any case,” he went on, “and fairy tales aside, one needs to discover a wish that is stronger than the ego, and to which the ego can assent. And when you are willing to see how you compromise everything of real value because of the force of money, then it is possible to be remembered by the higher forces within. The point is that, since money has entered so deeply into the formation of the contemporary ego, then it is necessary for us to play the money game with our best abilities, but with a new intention.”

“How would you describe that intention?” I asked.

He paused before replying. I suddenly felt as though I were in a cathedral.

“There is an action, an allowing, a surrender within, that has always been the birthright of every man or woman. The ego experiences it as a kind of stoppage. It is a special quality of silence. In that moment, you know why you are on earth and you know that as you are you cannot serve. You know you must change your life and that this can only happen by searching for companions and conditions that will support the appearance of this moment of opening. On the basis of that moment, a new intention enters into one’s life, a new morality. It is the morality of the search. Whatever supports that search is good; whatever hinders it is evil. One begins to understand that it is only through that opening that one can love as one wishes to love and as we have heard of love in the teachings of the masters. Then, truly, the world and life in this world, with all its pleasures and pains, with all its obligations and difficulties—just this world that you and I live in now—this world becomes my monastery.”

¹ From Grimm’s Fairy Tales, “The Fisherman and his Wife” recounts the story of a fisherman who catches, and then throws back, a fish who can grant wishes. The poor fisherman himself does not think to take advantage of this, but he and his wife live in a hovel and his wife asks first for a cottage to live in, then for a castle, then to be emperor, then to be pope, and finally to have power over the sun and the moon. Each time, as the man goes to make a new request, the sea is more and more threatening and the fish is increasingly annoyed. Rather than granting the last, ridiculous request the fish returns the man and his wife to their hovel, where they live to this day.

The Struggle called Life

The key struggle for life is because the future is uncertain.

No action will issue from me without a purpose or ambition.

I had started my life with big dreams and high ambitions. However I find that things don’t pan out to be as I had planned.

This began a beginning of a series of negative emotions starting from disappointments to despair at one end and of course violence in the wish to achieve the goals at whatever costs.

The society itself does not approve  ‘giving up’ .

Therefore I, and every man is pulled into a series of painful sufferings.

If I now go back to the beginning, I see that without any desire there is no action.

If action has to be done by passion, then it needs the fuel of desire and ambition. Atleast at my level of being. I can go through the motions of action like de-motivated employees of government companies.

It does not appear reasonable that the universe would create a pain machine.  This is a key assumption. It is not easy to assume this.  There is no empirical evidence for this as everything appears as an accident. Yet we pray and hope prayers come true. The assumption can therefore only come by Hope which is a key chemical to be present in assuming that the universe is compassionate. I would also assume that since as human beings we do show compassion, it must represent an element that is already present in the universe. Or for that matter Love.

It therefore appears as if our desires or ambition manifest to create some momentum of action in us.  The mistake we make in our ignorance is that we believe once we think or dream of it, it will come true if we work hard. Or that we need to achieve it hook or by crook.

We don’t realise that the desire is for us to break the interia and start an action. Once we start the action, the momentum is then controlled by the forces of the universe. There are obstacles and there are encouragements. We are so focused on the outcome that it is the single force that drives us.

Thus if the effort succeeds we are happy. If it fails we are disappointed. We seem to not “see” that disappointment only comes because we had  goal or an outcome in mind. As though disappointment chemical in us is created with a combination of goal and effort.

The other chemical that is created is Fear. All action seem to stem from fear. Fear of not meeting goals. Or Ambitions. So our life is led with pain – comprising largely of fear, anxiety and disappointments.

To add to this, the moment we get what we planned, we now want something else. Till we reach the level of failure.

 The one way out of this seems to be to use desire and ambition to start the initial action and then stick to doing “what is right” and forget about the goals. Because for us again its not the goals – its what “WE” get once the goal is achieved.  If things don’t happen then It meant that the Universe meant the action for something else. This of course is tricky. One needs to grapple with a problem before concluding on its outcome. One needs to watch if there is passivity involved.

This is probably why Gita said

1. “Renounce the fruits of action”

2. “Struggle without agitation”

There are two other forces which will not make this an easy exercise. One is the force of “Money”- at some point one is tested against money. Rents to be paid, bills to be paid, school fees to be paid.

The other force is Time. It is relentless and with the Force of Money pushes one/me I am tested against the above hypothesis of “struggle without agitation” and “renounce the fruits of action”. The demand for the fruits of action comes from Time and Money which needs to be fed with the fruits for survival.

And if Time and Money were not there as forces, there would be no fear and anxiety or disappointment in connection with Action. But these forces do exist.

So then how does one deal with the fact that one continues to plan and puts efforts and yet nothing comes off it and the forces of Money and Time take you to a point where survival is at stake? Does one extend the wait beyond this point?

Here is where faith comes into play –  a belief that in the last minute I will be saved. This has happened to me a few times. And then maybe if the faith is strong fear will cease to exist. But one needs to let go completely and let the universe take over. Let the laws take over. Let the human being in me, step aside.

Faith and trust in the Law then become antidote for Fear and my very act of not giving into fear or desperation can then open new doors and even newer possibilities.

How do deal with dreams continuing to be crushed

" “People die everyday. Washing dishes. Mopping floors. And you know what their last thought is? I never got my shot.."  - Million Dollar Baby.

Crushed dreams. 

Is there any escape from this?

Who put the dreams..the ambition in our head anyways? What is the scent that we pick and chase this dream? Each dream that I have chased have always had a beginning that seemed to indicate that the universe favoured this move. And yet, as I work towards this, it becomes elusive. Its a scary place . to be right in the middle. Where each time you want to give up and make a fresh start, some other breakthrough comes and you go back working again. As though the moment you decide to drop it, something in the universe wants you to continue. Like being condemned like Sisiphus. 

When then give those dreams to chase? It chills my spine when I read about people who worked hard all their life but did not get a break to making riches while many made their fortune quite by accident or without much effort. Like they did not get their "shot". 

Will I die like that? With all my dreams unfulfilled and me really not seeing that I dont deserve to make my dreams a reality but contine working for it? Gita say inaction is not an option. Struggle but without anxiety or agitation. 

When can I stop running and plant a seed that I can harvest and rest? Even though I try to see the laws and act according to it I dont get any where. Which is for me the cause of loss of faith. WHen the law does not operate "as I thought it would". Loss of faith also comes when I compare my fate with others and wonder what wrong did I do to deserve this? 

But what is the way out of all this ? Not dreaming or creating a cause for action will render me passive. DOing things as a duty will always help to do an action without desire. But how do I hold the forces of life - the rent cheques, the school salaries..from eating me alive? If I am responsible for my family's welfare how can I not fight back to make sure they have a roof over their head and food on the table? 

If I have been given intelligence and ambition I have to work with what I have. My intelligence comes in my way of God wanting to help me because my intelligence keeps trying to give me solutions. And till I stop tired I will never get help from GOd. But inaction is not an option as Gita says. Also I am scared to strop struggling and trying.

If I do end up on the death bed, and realise that I did not get my shot - how will I deal with it? Should I stop dreaming and instead look at my life completely differently? Like its not mine to be lived? I follow my dreams..and when they get shattered..watch the material called " disappointment" or "feeling crushed" or "beaten down" being created. Then slowly as I watch it will find that material no longer gets created. Something will die inside me. THen I will go through the motions of life. Compromise and say maybe this was meant to be? Or maybe find a meaning in life by just chasing my dreams and not about their fulfillment. One dream after another. 

So when I die, I dream about what to do next?