Good morning, good people!
I’m remembering a friend who was terrified that he did not or would not have enough money. This was several years ago. It was in his mind much of the time that he was bankrupt, or very soon would be, and that scared him enough to keep him up at night. As a result, he worked hard, and harder than was good for him or his body, in order to make sure that he had enough money and would not go broke. All the while–this is the fascinating part–he never looked to see how much money he actually had. Isn’t that amazing? He was scared of what he would find if he looked into the state of his finances, and so he just didn’t look.
One day while we were talking I pointed out the obvious problem with that approach, and soon afterwards he summoned up the courage to look into his finances to see what was actually going on. And of course he found that he had plenty of money, and always had had plenty of money. He had suffered all that time, for years, for no real reason.
Knowledge is power. If we are going to live as free and happy people, we need to know what’s actually going on. Wherever there is is a gap in our knowledge–wherever we do not allow ourselves to see what is actually happening in our minds, in our hearts, and in our lives–there is a place where we can be manipulated by conditioned mind. That’s what was happening with my friend, of course. Conditioned mind told him that he would go bankrupt, and simultaneously told him not to look into his finances to see if that might be so. Total manipulation. And of course the desired result of the manipulation is the same as always pertains to conditioned mind, which is to create and maintain an artificial self that suffers.
Let us look to see what is truly happening in our lives. Let’s look beyond our unexamined beliefs about what is happening to see what is actually here. And let us live in response to what is actually here, so that our lives may unfold with Life, moment by moment, in awareness.
There’s something to practice with you today and all days if you feel so moved. Be well, friends, take care, and do good work!
In peace,
David