* The controlling self * The principle of least effort * Avoid obstacles in your way * Trust the flow of life *
There are days when everything works so perfectly: things are going well, success follows success, you're on friendly terms with everyone, you're happy and joyful, surrounded by love - it's as if the whole Universe is supporting you. At other times, trouble comes in droves, unexpectedly unpleasant events happen, a series of failures, losses, not being understood, even unfriendly - as if the whole Universe is conspiring against you.
The little "I" in us (the Ego) loves to be in complete control of every aspect of life, when exactly what we want happens. When life supports your ideas, your desires, you are content - you feel master of Life. But when things don't go according to your expectations, you feel you have to be more in control, stronger, more persistent, more resistant to what happens.
When you resist what is happening, you are declaring war on yourself and on all of life.
You cling to your ideas, you try hard to make everything happen the way you want it to - but the more you try, the more you force the natural process of life, the more unhappy and unsuccessful you become.
"In existence, no one is superior and no one is inferior. The blade of grass and the star are perfectly equal...But man wants to be superior to others, he wants to conquer nature, so he must fight all the time. Everything is so complicated because of this struggle. The innocent man is the one who has given up the struggle; who no longer wants to be superior; who no longer wants to show, to prove that he is not just anybody; who has become like a rose or a dewdrop sitting on a lotus leaf; who has become part of the infinite; who has melted into the ocean, has become one with the ocean, and is now a wave; who has no idea what the "I" is. The disappearance of the 'I' is innocence." (Osho)
Everything in nature follows the principle of least effort. Birds fly softly, and when they get hungry, they land on a bush and nibble berries. They do not worry, they do not strive, they do not want. The grass doesn't struggle, it grows by itself, and the rose, too, grows from a tiny seed into a beautiful, fragrant life form. A blade of grass bending softly in the raging storm bends but does not break, while the old trees with stiff trunks resist and break.
Watch out for a forest stream! The fresh, crystal-clear water gently trickles down the hillside, and if a large rock or boulder stands in its way, it will bypass it continue gently trickling on its way. It doesn't resist, it doesn't kick the stone, it doesn't try to force it to pieces, but gently avoids it and continues on its way - while it caresses the stone and the stone melts under the long caress of the water: the soft water wins, while the hard stone resists and wears away. The soft, easy flow with life makes us happy, joyful, multiplies our strength, while facing life, 'being hard', saps all our life energy.
I didn't learn to swim for a long time. I suffered, I tried to conquer the water by force, I flapped my arms and legs, because I thought that the more I resisted the water, the sooner I would learn to master it. But each time the water showed me that it was the master: after a few fleeting seconds (which seemed endless) of dying underwater, I would emerge from the water dripping, coughing and choking. Until one day someone wisely advised me: just lie in the shallow water and relax: pretend you're meditating. So, I did, and as soon as I let go of my fear of death and relaxed, I began to float effortlessly on the back of the water. This floating taught me not to want to control the water, but to float in it and with it, embracing it like a friend.
"Be like water, my friend!" said Bruce Lee. If you pour it into any container, it will take the shape of the container. And when you dip a pitcher into a well, the pitcher is submerged, the water permeates it from the outside as well as the inside - like the only consciousness that permeates all life forms.
According to one story, a huge flood swelled the once peaceful, quiet stream. Above it floated a bridge made of small lianas, which a Zen master wanted to cross. The storm, however, thoroughly damaged the bridle, causing it to break under the weight of the Zen master and he fell into the muddy, swirling stream. Witnesses watched in horror as the waves crashed over the master's head - and the master did not emerge. They had already given up on ever finding his lifeless body when a wet, muddy figure appeared, cooing merrily:
- Hello! Here I am!
- Master! How have you managed to survive this whirlwind?
- So that when I fell in, I let the water take over. I did not resist it, but let go and let it guide me. The current led me towards a small bay where a strong and long tree branch reached out towards me. I seized the opportunity that appeared like a tree branch in front of me, and so I reached the shore.
In every moment, we have the freedom to choose: to swim with the current of life, floating effortlessly, or to swim against the current, struggling and suffering. The choice, the decision is ours. Lao Tzu, the sage of the Tao Te King, said, "The way of the Tao is the way of flowing water." Learn to swim with the current of life, let it flow and don't swim against the current. Be like water: water is your master.
Do not control life, because it is impossible to do so. There are 7+ billion individual people on Earth who want to realise their own dream, their own world - but 7+ billion contradictory realities cannot be created. Most of us are not doing what we want to do, but are drifting in a confusing whirlpool of our desires and expectations: we want to get ahead by the shortest route, we push and bulldoze our way through the obstacles in front of us.
Life is in fact serpentine: sometimes things happen that seem to be in line with your ambitions, other times things happen that seem to hinder you. However, these apparent difficulties, roadblocks, problems that arise are valuable teachers and helpers. Whenever life does not support your ideas and throws problems and obstacles in your way, you may find beyond the surface that your plans and ideas are not in harmony with the Whole, the All, with life, but are merely the willfulness of the greedy and selfish ego. We label something as "good" and label anything that is not, as "bad", and we cling convulsively to the realization of what we think is "good".
For the most part, it always turns out that what seems good today will be bad tomorrow, and what we call bad luck today will be good luck later (when the dots connect and make sense).
Once the master's son was given a horse, and the master's friend said:
- How great that your son got a horse!
The Zen master replied:
-Really?
A little later the boy fell off his horse and broke his leg. The master's friend was so sorry:
-How terrible that your son's leg is broken!, and the master said again:
-Really?
Then war broke out and the master's son was not conscripted because of his injury. So the friend enthused:
-How lucky that he didn't have to go into battle because of his injury!
The master then said:
-Really?
The mountain stream does not follow the shortest path, but snakes: if it can pass without an obstacle, it follows the straight path, but if an obstacle is in front of it, it does not make an effort to destroy the obstacle, but gently avoids it.
Most people do not do what they would really enjoy doing, but what they imagine they can do to 'prevail'. They do not create the "opportunity", they expect the "opportunity to create them". They take on jobs in which they find no pleasure, in which their material expectations are the only thing that hovers in front of their minds: they do what they do bored, almost robotically, and so they soon become bored and burnt out.
To make sense of your actions, of your life, you need to find something that you do with joy, even enthusiasm: something that is more than a hobby for you. If you find it, you will also discover your purpose in life, your mission.
Your mission crystallizes as a crystal-clear vision in the space of your consciousness, and then you do not need to know "how" and "how" to realize it, but it is sufficient to choose the "easier" way: to trust yourself completely to the flow of life.
You just let yourself go with the flow of life, where everything flows effortlessly, effortlessly. Because you are not straining, you are alert to the opportunities that come your way, which bring you closer to realising your vision. If an obstacle is in front of you, you recognize the nature of the obstacle, which also points out your mistakes, the falsity of the ego's ideas.
You don't resist the obstacle; you gently go around it: you find the path that takes you on... that lets you flow on.
Be like water in every moment! Be alert, flow with the current of life and enjoy the journey!
Excerpt from the book "The Mysteries of Consciousness” by Ervin Kery