Beginning by Listening

The falling away of personal will is something I never heard of before it started to happen, but I have since read much about it by one of my favorite teachers, Adyashanti. At times I felt confused, lost, falling and floating into the unknown, no more plans, no more goals, wondering where my ambition had gone. Illness provided physical reasons to lay off trying to control much beyond my immediate needs and those of my children. I figured the lack of self drive was one more symptom, but as I got stronger the self drive didn't come back. I experienced it as an absence of an old way of being, without it being replaced by any sure way TO be.  I didn't see it as a positive thing until quite a ways into the dissolving, after I realized I could stop taking what was happening as a sign of personal failure or a condition to be overcome. Part of what "helped" was that even when I did try as hard as I could to make something happen, there was often no success, or no durability, unlike the past where there were results to be proud of. It felt as if the rules of "how life works" had been changed for me.

I often read quotes on facebook about following your passion and striving to make your dreams come true, but these no longer speak to me nor seem true in an ultimate sense. I do see that there could be a useful phase to go through, leaving behind a stage of victimization, learning that one has a capacity for making some choices and taking responsibility for some actions. There certainly were many years in my life of striving and perfecting and trying to make certain things happen and not happen, I could write pages about all that I have done that I used to give myself credit for. But eventually the energy to carry on like that dissolved. There was no more energy to "push" and no more personal conviction that pushing was "good" or going to "get" me anywhere or make the world a better place. (If a person is feeling the urge to push, then go for it! Everyone's part is important. I'm just describing how it changed for me.)

It doesn't feel the same as passivity or inactivity or giving up in frustration, in fact there is less frustration now than ever, less railing against, more resting in what is. There is still plenty of activity, only it's generated from a different place, the gesture feels smoother, and that gesture could be described as attentive listening. I'm no longer acting as if I am the teacher in charge trying to get the world/my class to do a certain thing a certain way, I'm more in the position of the humble student who is attentive  to, or resting in a larger presence than the (seemingly) separate "I". Activities flow, the days are full enough without being too much.

Today, out of the blue, I'm suddenly inspired to start this blog, and I really don't know where it's going, I just heard/saw/felt the ideas come to the fore and an upwelling of readiness and availability to share them. So I'm showing up to do that. To sit up and type. There is a personal thought that it could be cool to have a post to share while it is still Friday the 13th. That's where what remains of personal will comes in. But there is no feeling of "have to", no personal drive that will remain unfulfilled until the task is done. No pressure. I don't have to struggle to figure out what to generate, I can simply begin by listening. It's felt as more of an invitation, to which there is a yes, an acceptance, and there is trust that I will simply know what to write, when to write it, and that it will somehow serve a purpose, even if that only purpose is to give me an outlet so that I stop bugging my son to write his paper!

There's an example of how this lack of personal will is not simply leaving me like a jelly-fish out of water. I can still put on the mom act, I can still nag at him to do his work and brush his teeth, (so far.) But that, too, is coming from a different place, not so personal as it used to feel. I'm able to be a responsible parent and guide my child in the practical daily life activities that he will benefit from since he's living in a time and place that values literacy and expects dessert and thus learning to write and brushing one's teeth is practical. But there are plenty of moments when I'm listening for guidance as a parent, too. A difference now is that I almost never seek that guidance from outside, from reading someone else's "expert" advice. Instead I live in this moment with a keen sense of what authenticity feels like in the bones. It will look like whatever it looks like, and that may have little resemblance to some outer ideal that I might have striven for in the past.

It's so much simpler now. There is so much less fighting and arguing. There is so much less worrying about whether I am "living up to my full potential" or "expressing my passion" or "living the life I was meant to live." It's so much simpler. I'm just here now, that is all. And now it's time to go fix dinner.