observe
We often think that if we could just [insert something to improve: time management, nutrition, exercise, meditation, etc.], then it would all be better. Our anxieties would vanish, and we could just chill. It never works out that way.
As a recovering maniacal planner, goal setter, human performance optimizer, and self-improvement junkie, this “if only I could…” is quite familiar. This is deeply conditioned in us from the time we’re born, as I can attest from raising my daughter. If she’s upset, she’s probably hungry, thirsty, tired, or needs a diaper change. Helping take care of biological, developmentally appropriate needs are totally understandable, but at some point in our growing up, we begin to worry about more and more abstract concerns. Our society rewards this, and the ability to delay gratification is glorified in most circles. We attempt to exert our control to better our circumstances, be it today or in the future.
Ultimately, control is an illusion. It’s a thinly veiled illusion if you’ve spent any amount of time meditating. But the illusion of control is what’s rewarded in most circles. For example, if I write a strategic plan and execute it flawlessly, my banker loves me. (The converse is also true, as I learned last year.) It’s not that the relative world doesn’t operate in a cause-and-effect manner but that the world is so interdependent that we can’t begin to understand all of the forces at play. If the world operated according to human notions of ethics and morality, then good people wouldn’t get sick, honest people wouldn’t be robbed, and only psychopaths would get killed in car accidents.
Control is an illusion and planning is worthless, right? Then what the hell am “I” supposed to do?
I keep returning to the words “observe” and “surrender.” Before you can hope to be in a position to know what’s “right,” you’ve got to be a world-class observer. This isn’t about staying current with the news and plugging into the “latest and greatest” out there (in the external world). This is about vigilantly watching your self (ego) and learning to differentiate between self (ego) and no-self. The ego is the mechanism by which we seek to exert control in the world. The ego tells us how the world should be, whereas the Self (no-self) experiences the world as it is.
For a long time, I got tripped up around the concept of self and Self. What’s the ego versus what isn’t the ego? If all thoughts are just thoughts, then which ones are the real thoughts that should be listened to. When I was introduced to nonduality via Advaita Vedanta a few years back, I did my damndest to understand things conceptually. The problem with the self/Self paradox is that concepts are worse than useless, they’re harmful.
Observe the motion of the mind. If you’re trying to change your current circumstances, you’re probably operating from the “wrong” place. My experience tells me that you’ve got to become hellbent on watching your inner dialogue. You’ve got a neurotic voice that worries about what to wear, where to eat, etc., etc. That voice is not your friend. You must become so intimately familiar with the ego’s (voice’s) tendency to impose its will on the world that its futility amuses you. When you value the inner monologue’s opinion the same as a four-year-old who believes in Santa explaining how presents are delivered on Christmas, you’ve reached the level of observation necessary to move to the next step: surrender.
If you enjoyed the above rambling, check out the post flow and obstruction.
