Flat
World
“I've
had clear, decisive people come to me who, after meditating for some
time, found themselves becoming less and less certain. Close
examination revealed that their previous decisiveness came from being
locked into rigid models of reality. As these models crumbled and
they began to see the relative nature of the world they once thought
they knew, it became more difficult to make decisions.”
Ram Dass
(Journey of Awakening)
There was a time in my
life when my world was flat. Like the people of Columbus's day, I
believed I could go only so far in any direction before I fell off
the edge into who-knows-what. Anytime someone presented an idea to me
that did not fit my flat-earth ideology, I dismissed it out of hand.
They were simply wrong. They were deluded. Certainty requires
rigidity. Setting my foot on a spiritual path messed up my certainty
principle. I began to see, as Einstein did, that all things are
relative, and, as Heisenberg postulated, in all things there is a
degree of uncertainty. Nothing in this world is one dimensional.
Now, if you don't want
your certainty screwed with, you should never put your foot on the
path of Spirit. Spirit will show you that every story has at least
two sides and usually many more; that there are often no clear
divisions between right and wrong; and that the good guys have some
truly bad traits and the bad guys are sometimes good. If you fight
her, Spirit will clearly demonstrate that you, yourself, are a
churned-up mess of good and bad, right and wrong. She'll turn your
concrete world upside down and leave you with a little pile of
rubble. I know this from experience.
We humans want certainty.
We want to believe things are one-way, and that is our way. We want
to impose on others the correct way, which, of course, is our way.
And when others tenaciously cling to their own way, we feel angry and
upset. It would be good for all of us to take a deep breath, maybe
even several deep breaths, and let go of our vice-grip on certainty.
Other people have a right to be their way, to think their thoughts,
to live their lives in the way they choose. The fact that it is very
different from our life does not make it wrong, or even misguided. In
fact, in the best of all worlds, we would encourage others to live as
they see fit, we would embrace their difference, and even celebrate
the diversity of life that exists on this planet.
Watch out for Spirit.
She's always present. She will grab hold of your eyelids and pry them
open so you have to see what is right in front of your face—the
world is a beautiful, passionate place, and a hot-mess all at the
same time.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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