Prepare, or Die

While I was working out in the gym the other morning I saw a very disturbing sign.  Well, actually it was outside of the gym, and disturbing may be pushing it, but there was something that got my attention and it took me a bit to discover what it was and why it hit me the way it did.  In the gym the treadmills face windows which look out over the Pacific Ocean.  They also look out over pacific coast highway, and as I was warming up, a bus happened to drive by with an advertisement on the side, reading, Stop! Preparedness is the key to survival. 

I used to play a game with my daughter when she was only a year or two old as we watched tv together.  When the commercials came on we played the game of "what are they trying to sell us?"  Then when she got a little older, the component, "and how are they doing it?" was added. For instance, for a bacterial soap commercial, the product being sold was soap and how they were doing it, when you got down to it, was through fear.  There was certainly an underlying message that bacteria was something very bad and something you did not want on your body under any circumstance.  There was an underlying subconscious message that we would surely be sorry, most likely get sick, if we didn't buy the product. It may seem a little over the top to take it that far, but for someone who does not consciously question things, they may not be able to see the extent to which they are being subtley brainwashed by the many ads, and their underlying implications, that they are exposed to throughout the day.  So many in this country claim freedom, and get quite offended at the prospect of it's loss, but are doing not much more than acting out a lifestyle that has been dictated to them by corporations with lots of money, or by other opinions and perspectives of "experts". In regards to bacteria, or fear in general, there are those that travel to countries where malaria pills are recommended but opt not to take them, myself included, not out of rebellion, but out of the sense that there just isn't a need for them. When you start to come out of the matrix of the mass majority, and on a larger scale, the illusion of ego, bacteria, malaria, and everything else that would formerly bring fear, no longer has the power to do so.  In that awareness you are truly free to live from a space of joy and exploration. Back when I used to play the commercial game with my daughter the mind blowing revelation of who I was as a spiritual being hadn't come about yet, and the game turned out to be a fun one that kept us both "awake" to the underlying intentions, beliefs, and lifestyles which were being promoted.

It was Goethe who said,

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

I'm not even sure what the ad on that bus was for now that I think about it, but it was obvious that "how they were doing it" in this case again was through fear. Stop! Preparedness is the key to survival.  It immediately created a little feeling of, Uh oh.  Stop everything. My God.  Am I prepared?  Prepared for what?  Whatever it is, I better do it.  If I don't, I am in trouble.   Not only am I in trouble, I will die!

Preparedness. The key to survival.  So, as I jogged along on that treadmill, the thought came, if preparedness is the key to survival, survival being ego based, what would the key to real living be, real living being Soul based? 

The ego, living in a world where survival is the name of the game, in a land of illusion where there is such a thing as death, where there is such a thing as failure, needs to prepare and feel prepared for a future success it has imagined.

But what of the Soul? 

What of the part that lives in the eternal present, in the Now? The part that knows nothing of death, of failure, or of a limited idea of success?  The part that  knows nothing of an imagined past or future and therefore is not limited by it?  If preparedness is the key to survival, what is the key to freedom?  To true living?  To "thrival", if you will.

And as these questions rolled around in the mind a word swooped in.

Surrender.  Yes, that's it.  Surrender.

Surrender is the key to "thrival". The key to joy.  The key to freedom.  And, in a strange irony and paradox, the key to dying.

The statement in that ad is absolutely true if you think about it.  Preparedness is the key to survival.  If you are prepared you can personally be in control of the situation. Or, at least remain under the illusion that you are.  And, in theory, there is nothing wrong at all with being prepared.  It is helpful to be prepared when we have a certain mission to accomplish or a goal we have set for ourselves. It is helpful to have a sense of what direction we are heading and to be prepared for what we do. It would be impossible to plan an event without preparation.

If you think about it a minute though, we usually take preparedness to a whole other level.  And that is where we find the traps to being prepared. The desire to be prepared supposes in itself that you know what lies ahead in the future. And how would you know what to prepare for unless you had an idea of how something was going to be?  Or, on a deeper sense, it actually supposes that you know exactly what you will encounter and how you will react to that encounter.  It is living in the future.  Since in reality the future does not exist, it is living in fantasy. And when you get right down to it, it really isn't living at all.

In a surrendered life, even though a plan may begin to make itself known through dreams, visions, synchronicities, etc. and you act when you are called to act, there is no longer any solidified plan to adhere to.  A deep faith and trust in the direction that is being laid out before you is what is ‘adhered' to. 

You may have had an experience in your life where there was no real time to prepare for something, maybe an opportunity that was ‘thrown in your lap' so to speak, in which you had to just trust and wing it.  You saw it for the opportunity it was, you felt it was right, so you jumped in even though you had a sense you may be getting in over you're your head. You may have noticed that if you continued to trust and surrender that things seemed to work out in a way beyond what you ever could have prepared for, beyond what you could have ever imagined.  In that space, since you were unprepared, you had to rely on a power or force greater than yourself to do what needed to be done.  You had to give up any ideas of how it should or shouldn't be done, since you knew you were in over your head and you knew you didn't know, and in that sense you had no choice but to just trust that it would be taken care of.  And, if you were truly able to let go and just allow your intuitive sense to guide you, you were probably shocked by the miracles that transpired and by the grace that flowed through you.  Things probably didn't go ‘perfectly' and this was a gift as well, as you were able to realize the immobilizing and imprisoning effect of the ego's idea of perfection.  You probably received the gift of the realization that you didn't have to be perfect, you just had to be yourself.  What a relief!  What a weight off of the shoulders!  You realized that you never had to be perfect according to some little idea of perfection, according to the advertisers images, according to your parents, or your peers, you only have to be authentic and true to your deepest self and inner knowing.   

When we are unprepared, we are not in control, and since we are not in control there is a space for the larger dimension of Self to express.  The mind is free and clear of mental ideas, of rights and wrongs, of shoulds and shouldn'ts and that greater Self is free to act through it.

You can feel the difference between the planning mind and the surrendered heart. 

There is a huge difference between knowing what to expect and creating that expectation, and between not knowing what to expect and having the freedom to create without expectation or limitation. When the mind convinces itself that it knows what is coming in the future it actually creates that illusionary scenario for us, and, when things don't go the way the mind has imagined it, it causes suffering. 

How different it is to live in a space of ‘unpreparedness'!  Of course not in the normal sense of the word as you can see, but a divine unpreparedness, a sacred opportunity to surrender to any ideas, plans, or agendas the small self, the ego, may have held as the greatest possibility for our lives, and allow ourselves to be taken by the divine plan and the divine flow beyond what we can personally can even begin to imagine. To live freely and without restriction in that sacred space of divine possibility and eternal flow is a gift beyond all others.  It is a way of living beyond all others.  In this space, the ego, the conditioned mind, does not exist.

Since it was not prepared, indeed, it died.

But, as Gomer Pyle would say, "supriiise, supriiise, surpriiise", this turns out not to be the  punishment, the fate of damnation that the ego had imagined.  Since it had to surrender, since it had to trust in a power greater than itself, it ultimately let go to the point that it became that power itself.  It let go of it's own ideas and imagined outcomes, and in that letting go it had the opportunity to allow in an idea that was so beyond itself it's only option was to disappear in it's presence. 

In that disappearing act, you become aware of the ever present knowingness of who you are as an eternal being.  In that moment you realize that this divine energy of who you really are, the love, the peace, the joy, may be filtering through a channel, but you are no longer under the illusion that the channel is who you are.  Although you can certainly appreciate and love the container you no longer identify with the it, but with the pure source energy that fills it, breathes it, carries it, lives it.  In this space, this experience, there is no time for suffering, in fact, there is no time period. And in the end the container and the presence are one.  There is no other.  There is only One.

These states of expanded awareness and freedom generally do not come by doing what we have always done, by holding onto ideas and expectations of ourselves, others and the world, they come by letting go and being willing to do something completely different.  They come by faith and trust and by having the courage to follow that feeling deep within us.  To follow that love that is nudging us in new directions.  That wants to express on greater levels.  These states come from following that creative idea that won't leave us alone. In that impulse to try something new.  They come by exploring things that possibly make us a little uncomfortable. Sometimes very uncomfortable.  These openings and times of growth usually come through times of struggle and pain since that is usually a time when we are finally willing to admit that what we are doing isn't working so well.  When there is a crisis in our lives we are willing to let go of our positions and explore new possibilities.  We unconsciously create crisis in our lives in order to move forward spiritually.  But, the good news is that we don't need to continue to create drama and crisis in order to wake up and to continue to grow and awaken.  We can do it what they mystics have called dying daily, by surrendering everything we thought we knew, everything we have known before, and opening to something new.  We can do it by un-preparing, and by surrendering to a possibility and a greatness within we can't even begin to imagine!  And instead of trying to avoid death through an underlying fear based preparation, we will consciously prepare to die, knowing that in order to truly live, there is just no better, or other, way.

Dying to Love

Die! Die! Die in this love!  If you die in this love your soul will be renewed.

Die! Die! Don't fear the death of that which is known

If you die to the temporal you will become timeless

Die! Die! Cut off those chains that hold you prisoner to the world of attachment

Die! Die!  Die to the deathless and you will be eternal

Die! Die! And come out of this cloud

When you leave this cloud you will be the effulgent moon

Die! Die! Die to the din and the noise of mundane concerns

In the silence of love you will find the spark of life

                                                                                                ~~Rumi