Do you believe everything happens for a reason? I used to subscribe to the saying that “Coincidence is God’s way remaining anonymous.” I used to believe “everything happens for a reason” but I find myself questioning it so much that I am not sure I believe it anymore. Would it alter my behavior to really get into relationship with how every choice I make has a ripple EFFECT? What would happen if I fully accepted the law of Cause and Effect? Don’t get me wrong – I wish more than anything that “everything happens for a reason” I imagine that to feel really freeing. But after I settle into that idea and get beyond the romantic sounds of destiny - it really isnt all that freeing. Though I love the idea of giving it all up and surrendering to a power greater than myself to govern everything - this idea no longer leaves me with the same sense of peace it once did. That powerlessness combined with lack of culpability seems illogical at best. Moreover – it feels really damaging. If we say – everything happens for a reason – we are really saying that we believe there is some order, some entity that has a “grand plan” - in some way – this entity has decided the end result -before we even started off. If we follow the logic that “everything happens for a reason”, then that means that our lives are predestined and there is no free will or choice. The “Reason” has been pre-determined and the “Will” is that of the “Reason”. If we have no choice or free will then at the end of the day – it is not us who can be held accountable for our actions – “it was meant to be”. It is the “Universe” or “God” or some entity greater than us that is “in charge”. There is no one to “blame” because God is “All Good” so it must be “for our good” in a way we don’t understand. Trouble is, I don’t buy this idea right now. I don’t think it is for some higher good that bad things happen or people get hurt. I think we are all making choices that inherently alter the course of our own and other peoples’ existence. If you choose to drink and drive and kill someone – it wasn’t “meant to be” – it isn’t part of some “plan”. No –- You Screwed Up. Your choice to drink and drive led to someone being killed. It was not “meant to be”. You screwed up and caused someone’s life to be ended early. Done and dusted. You. Screwed. Up. Big Time. You made a terrible choice that has horrific consequences for more people than you could even begin to comprehend. You have altered the course of your life and the world by your choice. If you steal from someone -that choice determines a multitude of outcomes for you and the people in your life – but also for that person and the people in their lives. Maybe the person you stole from lives in fear for the rest of their life and because of this they teach their children that the world is not safe. Maybe one of their children feels such anxiety because of his parents belief the world is not safe that he decides to end his life. You have accountability for your actions and the effects of your actions. Maybe someone sees the child of the person you stole from take his life and decides to dedicate her life to children. But maybe that same person is at a point in life where seeing that child commit suicide sends her into a spiral of addiction and violence that affects all her relationships in devastatingly negative way. I believe we have some accountability for the result and any other results that follow each choice we make. And hopefully at the end of our lives – the karmic debts incurred will be offset by gains – but we have no control over this – we have control only of our choices. It’s a gamble. (I am aware that following this logic – one might say that you should only do bad things to good people because then you have a greater chance of good people choosing good in the face of bad experiences. But you don’t ever know what someone will do with a bad experience. It is a gamble. Every choice is gamble.) The best bet is to choose the highest good. Anything less and you have actually become part of the destruction, part of the suffering. The first of the Four Nobel Truths: Life is Suffering. To see the second – you must feel the pain that you wish to avoid in order to notice the desire that leads to the pain. To notice the desire you must first feel the pain. In feeling the pain – you find the desire was an illusion. Once the desire is gone – there is only one path. This is the fourth piece of the Four Nobel Truths – to choose Right. Just because something good can result in something bad doesn’t make the bad less bad. It just means that we are resilient and find ways to go on – it means there is hope – the hope is in the choice made. The hope is the possibility. Hope is the Choice before it is chosen. Hope is the woman who saw the boy kill himself and DECIDE to CHOOSE to make a difference by dedicating her life to children. It doesn’t mean there is a reason for the bad. It means that woman was choosing Right – choosing the highest good despite the choice you made to steal. Your choice to steal which led to the fear modeled by the parent of the kid who killed himself had devastating consequences. Are you entirely responsible and accountable for that kids choice? No – but you definitely carry some of the weight of it. In this way we ARE all interconnected. Choosing from a place of Desire instead of Right leads to an infinite number of actions and reactions that result in further devastation until someone CHOOSES stop the cycle of pain and destruction by choosing Right. We are at choice in every moment and every action – every breath – has a consequence. This is a law like that of gravity – the law of motion – a law based on the laws of this realm called Earth. It just Is. If you lash out in anger and hurt someone you love – that pain isn’t “meant to be” in the esoteric sense – it is what happened because you have anger management issues. Sure – the person hurt can try to find a silver lining in the pain and learn to set better boundaries so you aren’t allowed back into their world in a way that makes them vulnerable to your anger management issues, but that is called finding the silver lining - not that it was meant to be. You were not MEANT TO BE HURT. Being with this concept is incredibly uncomfortable because it puts a tremendous amount of responsibility, accountability and potential blame on our own shoulders for the pain we have inflicted on others. In short, it really sucks to face the shame and guilt. Furthermore, there is no grand “lesson” in a beautiful and brilliant 29 year-old woman having brain cancer. There is no “reason” for all the pain and chaos inflicted and felt except for the action that precipitated the consequence. And sometimes there is no human action - it is the action of a certain combination of genes or dna. It just is. There is no sense to be made. Being with this concept requires we feel the panic associated with how incredibly vulnerable and susceptible we are to random chaos. We don’t want to feel like we have no control in this area. And yet we gladly cling to the idea that we have no control over the consequences of our actions so we don’t have to feel the pain of the results. But there are consequences to everything. Even silence has an effect - sometimes more powerfully than anything else. Even no action. Every moment is born new again and therein lies the possibility of rebirth – a sort of resurrection, if you will. At the end of the day – we all have a choice and every choice leads to a result. Every action has a reaction that affects the outcome, which has a ripple effect - on the planet. We avert the pain of guilt and shame and the panic of our vulnerability by saying “everything happens for a reason” so we don’t have to feel the panic or the pain. The final stage of grieving is Acceptance. Bypassing this Acceptance stage by telling yourself that there is a “reason” your loved one died doesn’t bring true peace – it invalidates the depth of your grief and allows you to bypass the darkest crevices that lead to true Acceptance. To the ones who have found their lives devastated by someone or something – I have seen you pass through darkest grief and emerge stronger and wiser – I do not wish to diminish this experience by passing it off as part of some “great plan”. It was not “meant to be”. It sucked. And you survived the Hell of that experience. Yes, you are stronger. Yes, you are wiser. And yes, you know more of who you are – but that is not WHY you went through it – why you went through it is because of whatever action precipitated that result – whether yours, some DNA or some person. You have gained something from the experience because it is the result of having gone through it – the silver lining. But that gain is not why you had to go through the experience. Your pain and your experience of that pain is not diminished by the silver lining. You did not have to experience that pain to gain that silver lining. The silver lining is a byproduct – not the reason. I think sometimes – bad shit just happens. People get sick. Loved ones die. Life happens. We dont have control over these things and that is scary. So we put the fear in the hands of something bigger and call it part of the Grand Design. We avoid the panic in a spiritual bypass of denial. By passing it off as some higher good or grand design we avoid the totality of our panic because sitting with the sense of helplessness and powerlessness is too much to bear. We sit for a moment and then shift too early into a place – of False Acceptance – accepting what happened for a reason beyond our understanding. Trouble is – we rob ourselves of true Acceptance by avoiding the panic. The bypass is one lane highway with no exits – just an onramp back onto the wheel of life – samsara – the never-ending cycle of suffering. If you don’t go through the pain, the panic, the loss, the guilt, the shame – the wholeness of the human experience – you cannot land in true Acceptance of it. If you have not been swallowed by your grief and guilt and shame and remorse – if you have not drowned in the panic and the pain – this part of you has not died. Therefore – you are not in true acceptance. And if you do not accept it – you become it. When the ache in your heart is so deep and so core – and there is no solace, no refuge from the pain – you die a death of some kind. On the other side is that symbolic resurrection - there is grace and beauty underneath it all - I believe that - I have witnessed it, experienced it. But you have to really go through the pain to get there. You cant take the spiritual bypass and expect to find real peace in the idea that you are part of some cosmic plan and your choices are predestined - because then we actually become the realm - become part of the problem - a spoke in the wheel of samsara – craving, delusion and aversion. If we avert ourselves from the pain, are we not destined to stay on this ever-circling spiral? Where is free will then? Can we step off by simply making a different choice? By going into it in the panic and the pain rather than averting it? To my dear friends who have walked roads of addiction and found your way to sobriety one conscious choice at a time, feeling the hell of each step burning into the “souls” of your feet – I say – you are my living proof. “The universe is a kaleidoscope: now hopelessness, now hope, now Spring, now Fall. Forget its ups and downs; do not vex yourself. The remedy for pain is the pain itself.” – Sarmad
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 20:58:02 +0000
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