Levels of Control

Written on January 13, 2010 by Tom Stine

credit: extremeezine

Previously I’ve written about the lack of real control that we have in our lives (see No Control, No Control, No Control and Who Is in Control? and many others). To properly discuss control, however, requires a bit more to be said on the subject than I’ve said in the past. In this article I’m going to attempt to provide some clarity on a somewhat confusing topic.

I think control is confusing and also quite problematic for most people because of the essential issue confronting everyone (and by everyone I mean everyone, not just spiritual seekers). That essential issue is the answer to the question, “What are you?” That’s the key to the whole control question. If you are convinced that you are the little human body with a little human brain, then I think I can safely say that you have virtually no control over your life.

I say virtually no control because there is no doubt that the human mind has some sort of influence on how the body functions and moves through life, so there is a semblance of control. But even then, this influence is nothing more than that: influence. But control? Forget about it! The amount of control that the human mind has over the events, actions, decisions and details of a human life is laughable at best.

I know that many of you have watched The Secret. For that matter, you’ve grown up in a either a western or a westernized culture with it’s emphasis on self-determination, hard work, and “going for broke.” You’ve been taught over and over again that if you simple dig in and try harder, exercise your will, your inner strength, etc., you can make anything happen. But I’m sorry to tell you that every bit of that is a farce, a deception, a belief system that has no resemblance to actual experience.

First of all, you have no control over your thoughts. You can’t decide what you are going to think. If you will sit for even a moment and watch, your thoughts simply arise and then fade of their own accord. They are based upon your experience, your conditioning, the sum total of your life. Even better, notice how irrelevant they are 99% of the time to what you are experiencing right now.

At this moment, you are reading this article on control. If you pause, close your eyes, and watch your thoughts for a few minutes, notice what will come: the guy you met last weekend at a party, the bill that is due next week, the dog you saw running on the beach, the fact that it is 0 degrees outside (although it is toasty warm inside). But none of that is what is happening right here and right now. Thoughts arise, thoughts fade, and there really is no controlling what you are going to be thinking from moment to moment.

Secondly, let’s get real for a moment: even if you could control your thoughts, do you honestly think that your mind can manipulate external reality and cause new cars, new houses, new jobs and new women (and/or men) to enter your life? Just because you “held a thought” in your awareness for a few minutes each day? Now don’t misunderstand, I’m talking about “your mind”, that little hunk of energy that contains the thoughts specific to the body called Tom or Bob or Sue or Helen, the thoughts that are tied to the brain and nervous system of that body. Does that have control over new houses, new cars, etc.? Influence, sure, but control? Control? Real honest to God control? Okay, didn’t think so.

As an aside: I know that I’m not going to make a lot of spiritual and new-age people happy with the above. Oh, well. Someday I’ll write more about the effect of mind on experience. There certainly is some sort of process going on, something that sort of looks like the mind giving rise to our experience, something that seems like a “Law of Attraction” or something similar. But the key point above is this: that little bit of energy you call “my mind” isn’t the force driving your life and experience. My advice: give up trying to manipulate Life and to attract goodies into your experience. It isn’t going to work the way the Secret folks would have you believe.

Okay, so at the level of the seeming separate human being, governed by his thoughts and residing in a body with a brain and nervous system, there is no control over life. It is a fantasy at best. But, thank God for you and me, that little human body and brain has nothing to do with what you really are. What you are is none of that. The human body and brain are contained within what you are. That human body and brain are simply part of your experience in the manifest world.

So, what are you? You are Life itself. We use many fancy words in spirituality to attempt to describe what you are, words like Consciousness, Life, God, Awareness, Awakeness, The Now, Presence, Brahman, you name it. All just words attempting to get a grip on what it is that you are. But they point to something far larger, far more immense, and most assuredly more powerful than the mere human being you have come to think you are.

Let me bring back a diagram I used in a previous post:

What’s looking out of your eyes, what you really, truly are is the Void at the top of the diagram. You are the very source of awareness and consciousness, and as these you experience a Universe or maybe even many universes. All that you see, all that you hear, all that you taste and touch and smell, all this arises out of what you truly are. Everything in the manifest world, everything around you, is you!

So, from the only level that really matters, the level of Consciousness, of Life, it is quite pointless to discuss control. In a certain sense, you could say that you have complete and total control over everything. But that isn’t really the right way to phrase it, because that implies that there even is such a thing as control. Control is just an idea, a concept, that minds create. But in the reality of what you are, there is nothing to control.

Look at the dictionary definition of the word control:

Control: to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.

The very word control implies manipulation, an attempt to change things so that they will be “better” in some sense. But look at the reality of life: everything, everything, everything is Life, is coming out of the unmanifest, the state of pure potential, spirit. It is all arising not by accident, not by some grand cosmic mistake. It is arising from the very substance of what life is. How can there be a mistake anywhere? How can there be a single, solitary thing that Life wants to change right now within its creation? Or to ask it another way, what would God want to change in His creation at this particular moment?

All is as it is. Right now. Perfect. Whole. Complete. Part of awakening is the recognition of this unalterable fact. The very idea of awakening would indicate that this recognition is so. You are awakening to what you are. You are coming into a full, complete understanding of what you are and everything else is. You see everyone and everything as this whole, full and complete.

And finally, I think that many people get the notion that somehow there will be some sort of perfected, absolute, ultimate blissful state at the end of the spiritual path, a state where nothing changes. Well, it may or may not end up being blissful, but it will certainly not be unchanging. While everything may be perfect right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t change into yet another form of perfection. Change is what makes us believe there is time, for change is always occurring. Always change.

There is a much better way to live life. I will write more about this topic later, but suffice it to say it involves that interesting word flow. Spiritual people are always paying lip service to the notion of “going with the flow,” but wanting to control is the exact opposite. There is a movement to life, a flow, and if you relax into it, cooperate with it, this flow can flower and blossom in your experience. It’s called miraculous for a very good reason!

So drop trying to control what you never could and never will control. You’ll be infinitely happier for doing so.

Willingness Is the Key to Spiritual Awakening

Written on June 20, 2009 by Tom Stine

credit:
bortescristian

The further along I go with this awakening that has happened and continues to unfold, the more it becomes apparent that the real key to waking up is wanting to wake up. I know it is a radical idea, but it just so happens to be the truth of the matter. Technique is almost always given top billing in the world of spirituality, but the “how” will always come whenever you are truly willing. But willingness, that’s the crux of the issue.

You may already think you are willing. That’s why you meditate, read books by the spiritual giants, read this blog, talk to your friends about spirituality and awakening and enlightenment, go to retreats, all that good stuff. You have a very convincing case to prove how willing you are. But the truth is, if your willingness were electricity, you wouldn’t have enough to power a night light. A firefly could outshine you. Sorry, but it is true.

Look inside for a moment. Feel into this subject of willingness. Can you feel the resistance? Can you feel how much “you” don’t want to really wake up? Something inside of you knows this awakening thing is going to be different, really, really different, and it is frightened about that. Something inside wants to feel better about life, but it doesn’t really want what awakening entails.

Why not? Because the “something” resisting all of this, the “something” that is not willing to awaken, is the very thing from which one awakens! The resistance you are feeling, the UN-willingness, is simple the energy of thought, the “mind” as it were, resisting what is its eventual undoing. Well, maybe undoing is too harsh. Let’s just say that the mind gets to go from being the dominant player in your awareness to being second fiddle.

So there is a massive resistance to awakening. The natural question to ask at this point is “what do I do about it?” Ah, good question. But the question itself is just more resistance. Notice that the question is about doing and about “I”. The “I” is the very thing doing the resisting! The doing is how it resists.

Going beyond this resistance, becoming more willing, is the simplest of things: let it happen. What you are wants this awakening to happen. It is what is waking-up to itself. It IS awake, and is looking for this awakeness to transform everything. So, simply pause and let it happen. It will anyway.

As far as “you” are concerned, I think cooperation would almost be a better focus for the mind. Cooperate. Don’t fight what is happening. Give in. Allow. I think you’ll find this mindset to be a better one. It is far more in alignment with what is really happening anyway. Remember that whole “not in control” issue I’ve discussed many times? You aren’t in control, so why not just let that realization sink a little deeper. Cooperate with the inevitable, and you will find your willingness going up, up, up.

Be well. Namaste.

You’re Not in Control

Written on December 4, 2008 by Tom Stine

credit: nicolasnova

I’ve recently written quite a bit about the topic of control. Over and over, as I look at my life, as I watch others experience their lives, I keep coming to the same simple realization: we don’t have control over our lives. We are lived by something, a force that operates through our bodies and conditioned minds. We are lived by LIFE itself. And whatever “we” are goes along for the ride.

Interestingly, as I was in the midst of writing my recent posts on control, I got to travel to San Francisco to hear Adyashanti give a weekend workshop. And guess how he started his first talk? Yes, of course, he started discussing control. I smiled when he mentioned control that morning. It was a wonderful talk, and as so often happens, I remembered almost nothing from it, even though it had a profound impact upon me. A good spiritual talk is memorable for its effects, not for its words.

Fortunately for me, I ordered a recording of the weekend, and after it arrived the other day, I began to listen again to the talk on control. It was even better the second time! Let me share a bit with you:

You’re not in control, but your desperate efforts to keep control actually does alter the way existence moves for you. It doesn’t move in the way your controller wants to, but it does have an effect on existence, your effort to control it. It doesn’t have the effect you want it to have, but it does have an effect. And you only know that when that control is totally let go of. Because when it is totally let go of, and you are no longer putting that energy out to existence or to consciousness, then existence starts to change.

Yes, of course, our efforts to control do effect the events of our lives, but not how we want them to. That explains so much. But as we let go of attempting to control, life then begins to flow. Ah, yes, perfect. It makes complete sense to me. Nothing to be but let go of one simple false belief: that we have control over our lives. So easy to say. So difficult fun interesting to do.

No Control, No Control, No Control

Written on September 23, 2008 by Tom Stine

credit: brett.wagner

It seems to me that blogging tends to come in 2 basic flavors. One flavor is where the blogger writes big, long, complete essays on a topic. For the most part, my articles have been of this type. The other flavor has the blogger firing off short, to the point items. These posts never try to be complete, but they nonetheless often communicate something vital to the reader. I’m going to start experimenting with these types of posts. And here is the first one for you.

When you get right down to the nitty gritty of spirituality, you find a very stark realization staring you in the face. And that realization is: you are not in control of your life. “What?” you ask. “How can that be?” Well, just pay attention to one very simple “fact” of your existence thus far: how often do things go your way? From the big to the little, from the important to the trivial, how often does life cooperate with your thoughts, ideas, plans, goals and beliefs? Not looking so good, is it?

We like to think we have control, or we like to think that we have at least some control, but in point of fact, we’ve got none. Hell, we can’t even control the thoughts that flow through our minds, let alone the turning of the wheels of life. And, to get right down to it, there isn’t even a you who is or isn’t in control! How’s that grab you?! No you, no control.

So, who or what is in control? What if I said no one? Or what about everything, the totality of Life? Same thing, really.

I know that this may sound scary to some of you, and downright crazy to others, but the simple truth is this: life has only gotten more delicious and fun the more I’ve come to accept the truth that we have no control. Much like a surfer riding a wave: you have no control over the wave. Your only job is to enjoy the ride! Namaste.