Good morning, all!
We had an interesting conversation yesterday morning in group about how to make conscious, centered decisions. I planned to report in on what everyone said, but it’s just too much to put into a post like this. So instead I’ll just offer the guidelines I’ve come up with myself.
Here are the guidelines I use:
- Never make a decision before it’s time to make the decision.
- Never make a decision before all the information that’s required to make the decision is there.
- Once all the information is there and it’s time to make the decision, the decision makes itself.
In actuality, in my experience, there’s no such thing as ‘making a decision’. If I am ‘making a decision’ then I am a ‘self’ within conditioned mind attempting to control life in some way. If I am present and aware–or, to say it more accurately, if I am presence and awareness–then the Intelligence that is Life acts freely and spontaneously through my mind, and action flows from that intelligence without ‘my’ influence or interference. We all know that experience, don’t we? The joy of simply going through life, taking care of what needs to be taken care of, doing what needs to be done, spontaneously from our authentic nature, is so good as to make life worth living. And the results tend to be way better than anything I might concoct as a separate ‘self’ who is trying to manipulate and control life in order to get what he wants.
What we are conditioned to do instead, of course, is to go up into our heads and allow conditioned mind to make the decisions. It’s interesting to consider that I’m not ‘making a decision’ in this place, either. Here conditioned mind is making the decision rather than the Intelligence that Animates. Either way, though, this thing that I call ‘me’ is an empty vessel.
In order to make conscious, centered decisions we have to be able to see the difference between our authentic nature and the ego-self that calls itself ‘me’, and we must be able to let go of the desires that the ego-self generates. Both of these things are extremely difficult to do, of course, and especially the latter, but these are things our practice will train us to do if we are willing. If we can let go of egocentric desire, then a way opens to cooperation with Life Unfolding, in which Life makes decisions through our individual body, mouth, and mind. This is the place where all our needs are met, where life works perfectly, and where true joy and happiness resides.
Something good, beautiful, and important to practice, if you will!
In peace and gratitude,
David