Ok, So What’s The Possible Life?
August 9th, 2007 by Ernie
Well, it’s been a while, and I apologize for my too-long absence from posting. It has been a very interesting summer, including most recently an incredible workshop experience in the Seattle area. A truly amazing group assembled there with care and openness and something lovely occurred. Indescribable by me, but maybe others present might comment. It was a learning experience for me as well. I am realizing afresh how ready we are to begin living a truly different life. I could not have imagined the loving willingness that shows up when there’s a chance to tell one another the truth about what’s going on inside us.
We held as a subtext to “The Possible Life†that nothing has to change, (and that changes everything – my dear Holly’s addendum). What an amazing dance to watch as we held hands with that challenge and whirled about until we found ourselves in step with it. We also danced with ‘it’s easier than you think’, a favorite of mine since it brings such glee along with it.
Here is the in-the-moment mechanism of “The Possible Lifeâ€: Living attentively in the moment with whatever there is, including movements of the “meâ€. No resistance, no judgment, no trying. Sounds like a daunting task, but it’s really just exactly what we truly want. What happens then? What’s the response to life? Not ‘my response’, but THE response. There is one and it is an intelligent motion that can lead a person’s life and is wholly different in experience and consequence from the unsupported reactions of thought. The very first effect is to disarm the “me†which is exposed for what it is, a false sense of identity. We realize that we are actually a learning, responsive curiosity.
This is The Possible Life. Its leading edge is ever and only in the present. It turns out to be an intelligent, responsive aliveness that loves life, dare not resist it, but flows easily along, participating in it. The alternative on our earth has been living in time from my ideas, ideals, reactions, knowledge, etc. with all the angst and drama that creates. Now we know we can be free of that life.
There’s a great deal more that can be said about this, but I’ll await comments and questions…
Ernie, I really like this part: “There is one and it is an intelligent motion that can lead a person’s life….” This is so much my own experience, and it is rich and ever-changing.
I feel different since attending the seminar. My life feels different, and the people in my life matter more to me than ever. Ernie, could you explain to me why you have said before that sometimes when our “stuff” starts dropping away, we “may have to quit our job”? I have heard you say that before, and it is seeming more applicable to me since returning from the seminar. I feel less engaged at work, like it is in the way of more, or like it is taking the time away from what matters. Since returning, I think the ego is getting her two cents in as well, as I have felt frantic and totally disorganized, having spent most of my time looking for things instead of doing things. I’m trying to tease out what parts of this the ego is taking advantage of, and what parts may be simply related my change. Work feels different, life feels different. It kinda gets confusing.
Hi Pam!
“You may have to leave your wife and quit your job” was a joking caution Holly would use when she’d refer workmates to me. It meant that if you’re contorting yourself by some beliefs to fit somewhere you don’t, you’ll likely change things when you see clearly what you’re doing.
You don’t have to quit your job, yet there are times when that’s just what wants to happen. There’s certainly no rule. Waking up puts things in perspective. Love especially gets a whole lot more attention. Ambition wanes because getting somewhere so you’ll be somebody, have more or be better simply doesn’t interest you so much anymore.
But nothing is ever “in your way”. Things are simply as they are and you get to do whatever you want with them (though ‘you’ & ‘want’ mean something different). If, in moving with the external realities in your life, quitting a job shows up as the way to go, you go that way. Some remain where they are, same spouse, same job, etc.; some move on to other situations. They are just situations, not what makes you happy or miserable, which is an ‘inside job’. But the outer level of life usually wants to comport more accurately with the inner and that’s a dance only you can find the steps to. There is a subtle pressure to express the inner movement of love and expansiveness in the outer life. This can take many different forms, from creative expression to moving cross country to begin a new career, to making no change at all. This is felt as what you want to do and not as something that you must do to be happy. Wakefulness re-aligns the outer life as secondary to the inner, and engagement with life ‘out there’ comes from a state of fullness rather than from need (aside from the basics of survival). That makes all the difference. Life feels full. Then you are free and you move. Or you don’t. Your happiness no longer depends on it. I suspect consciousness wants its way with us and tricks us into thinking it’s what we ourselves want!
And, of course, ego will use anything to convince you that you have to do something ‘or else’…! Unless you’re under attack from a wild animal or some hooligan, this is rarely the case. Ego (“meâ€) is not the agent of our happiness, but rather the creator of unhappiness. Wakefulness is its undoing. “Me†motives are always about pleasure and pain, fear and hope. It lives on the time-line, where what happens ‘out there’ (a job, say) is so terribly important. What’s truly important is living with peace of mind, loving & being alive, all of which are available only in the moment. Then how to move in the world suggests itself outside of time and results. There are outcomes, of course, but that isn’t where your attention is. Attention remains intimately in the present, the only place from which accurate response is possible.
No one could tell you what you truly want to do about your job; you have to look for yourself to see. Stay intensely curious about what’s happening inside, without any motive to “feel better”. Don’t look for answers, just look to see what’s so. Find out what you can and see what you really want to do with what you learn. It may not be about the job at all, or maybe you’ll move closer to us! In any case, you’ll be at peace.
I hope these musings are useful to you, dear Pam. Thanks for the chance to sail around in these waters…
It was wonderful for both Holly & me to be with you during the weekend and marvel at the changes taking place in all of us. Who’d-a-thunk-it when we met those many years ago…