(Vermeer, c. 1664)
"Mastery of life is the opposite of control." Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks, p. 23.
These words made me do a double take, and then I instantly felt their truth. My efforts at controlling myself and others, my efforts at controlling life have amounted to a fight against life. Control tends to be a fear-based activity, and fear does not lead to freedom or joy.
Maybe abandon is the opposite of control. Sweet abandon to the movement of life in this moment, in every moment. Maybe it's not a sin to relax and be happy. Maybe that's more genuinely productive than all the grim attempts to arrange everything perfectly.
Jack, my 9 yo, and I hiked a mile on a nature trail at twilight this evening. Harmony, alignment, connection, oneness- with my deeper self, with my son, with nature, with the Totality- is not a future goal. Harmony is being in alignment with life in this very moment. From this harmony right action unfolds of itself. Right action is mastery.
For me the key is noticing where there is a sense of being
out of harmony. Not to judge myself, but to bring attention to that little (or large) sense of hurry or impatience or dissatisfaction that is pulling me out of sync with the life flow in this moment. The simple noticing of resistance tends to trigger a spontaneous release of that resistance, like noticing a hot potato in your hand would trigger the release of that potato. But there have been plenty of times that I have been so busy running around or so caught up in my head that I haven't noticed the hot potato in my hand, and therefore I've carried that hot potato unwittingly for a long time. Silent, benevolent
noticing of what's going on inside the mind is an unspectacular but surprisingly powerful action.
When I slow down and get quiet I start to feel all the feelings I've been avoiding. Boredom, self-doubt, insecurity, like a flock of little birds they all come out, and they are allowed to breathe. I'm allowed to be out of sorts. I'm allowed to be out of harmony. After all, what other option is there...forbidding myself to be out of harmony has never produced harmony. Harmony can't be forced. But in noticing all the little frictions and mental complaints against what is, there is a softening. The lungs relax and can take in more air.
In the honesty of seeing and feeling the contractions in the mind and body, something happens. Surrender is the opposite of control, and there is a sense of giving up the fight against what is, giving up the war against myself. There is a sense of noticing and releasing that hot potato so long clutched unnoticed in the hand.
For me this is a very slow, gradual, gentle process. The contractions are many and deep and they don't become unknotted overnight. Peace is not a quick fix. But harmony is possible, and I have the inbuilt wisdom to feel my way into harmony with the life flow. There are moments of waking up out of the story in the head and recognizing alignment with life. Everyone has that inbuilt compass pointing toward harmony with the life force. Mastery is the flow of harmony.
~
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