"Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe.” C. JoyBell C.
Someone recently mistook my kindness for weakness, my need for peace as feebleness, my lack of anger for lack of strength. This person did not want me to be taken advantage of and mistakenly saw my desire to remain calm as a disadvantage. What they did not realize is that my power need not be paraded around with loud rumblings of what is mine and what is someone else’s. In fact, quite the opposite, an aggressive show of force, drawing an invisible line and insisting it must not be crossed would have been weakness. My strength lies in that I know in my heart of hearts, no one can disrupt my trajectory in life unless I give them that power.
Love, compassion, vulnerability and surrender are often mocked in today’s culture yet they are in actuality virtues essential to creating peace as we make our way from cradle to grave alongside seven billion people with hopes, dreams and obstacles just as challenging as our own. Celtic legend states that before a person is born they select the struggles they will experience on this earth, they choose the challenging circumstances which will most aid in their soul’s growth without ultimately defeating them. This is a concept I have mulled over for decades and it has always made more sense than not. As I struggle with health issues and other trials, I see the massive blessings that are also a part of my existence and imagine a deal I may have made before I came here to teach myself and others. In other words, I trust that what is, is supposed to be.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Shakespeare alludes to that which is larger than us, that which is beyond our control. When we cling to something that feels like hitting a brick wall over and over, we may be missing an unforeseen beauty trying to manifest that we had never dreamed of.
Shifting our perspective feels unfamiliar because we are usually more comfortable with the devil we know, even if that devil is anger. If we surrender control we can ride down that river of infinite possibilities and be open to accept whatever life has to offer. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to have my aha moment after I die. I would like to have it on this side so I can learn my lessons and move on. My biggest fear is to reach the other side and realize I have missed out on my biggest lesson.
How some people can argue that all of this is for naught is beyond me. There must be some method to the madness. There must be something going behind the curtain that is outside of our intellectual capability to understand. We must surrender, because as a drowning man knows, to panic and swim to hard is to drown. We must stop struggling in order to float to the surface. Meditation is the practice of floating above the intellect, above the norm and understanding of what some refer to as a profoundly sick society. To practice silencing of judgements and preconceived notions is to be receptive to the wisdom that lies above the intellect. If that looks like weakness to some, so be it.
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