You are a freak if you think you control Life

When your Life’s design begins to go against what you have planned, recognize that it is yet another affirmation that you are not in control.

Someone wrote to me a while ago saying his failing business was causing him much grief. He said he was consumed by worry and fear. He wondered if his business would ever be back in his control? I am not sure I can say how things may work out for my friend. But a simpler way to deal with Life will be to stop believing or imagining that you are, or were, ever in control of anything!!

We humans make a virtue of our ill-founded belief that we are in control. You want your mind, your body, your spouse, your children, your employees, your neighbors and your government to work according to your whims and aspirations. Nothing wrong with the want per se. Except that it will not be fulfilled! Your mind cannot be in your control unless you anchor in silence (the practice of ‘mouna’) for at least an hour daily. Your body cannot be in your control unless you have your mind trained to being still. People, and governments, will continue to do what they want despite what you think or expect of them. Still we kid ourselves into believing that we are in control? Someone does something rude, nasty, harsh to you, like a colleague quits in a huff leaving you and your project stranded, you begin to wonder how-dare-he? This thinking spurs another thought that you must avenge this act. That leads to yet another thought that makes you plot and want to wish the worst for your detractor. So much negativity. So much grief. Step back and ask yourself, is this all worth it?

What do you, or I, control? You can’t even control your heart beat. It beats so you are alive. Can you control its stopping to beat? And what if it chooses to? Can you do anything about it? Fundamentally, you are a freak if you think you control Life. This doesn’t mean you and I should feel diffident about Life and resign ourselves to a master controller’s actions. Instead learn to act in the given moment with the circumstances that have been delivered unto you. Accept what is, do what you think you can best do in the situation with peace and joy, and just do it. Then deal with the next moment similarly. And so on. If each time, the thread is pulled away from your hand and cast on the floor, pick it up again and wind it up, slowly, peacefully. Be patient. Be accepting. Believe. Be. When you live Life this way, Life may not exactly be what you may want it to be, but your ability to be in bliss will be sufficiently enhanced and enabled!