Your Life Cannot Go Wrong

Waiting at an airport to catch a flight, I stumbled across a book by Paul Williams. I opened the book and my eyes fell to a simple sentence- "Nothing happens by accident."  For many successful years I lived by the belief that everything happens for a reason. Flash forward 40 years...I have just come through 2 years of darkness, confusion, sorrow, brokenness and pain. I questioned everything I believed, and thought, perhaps that I was at the end of the line.

I am currently back in the sunlight, and humbled by everything I went through.  I spent a lot of time over the past 24 months quietly sitting and getting in touch with the vulnerability I was experiencing. Instead of pushing my thoughts & feelings away, I embraced them. I embraced the changes, the insecurities, the sadness, the anger, the betrayal...the unknowing...all of it! Then something amazing happened. People started showing up in my life who needed love, compassion and hope. The experiences I had just been through had softened my heart and made me able to love and serve others in completely new ways! I started showing up for them!

I made two major shifts in my way of thinking which also helped me back. One shift was realizing that sometimes we miss the mark...it actually happens a lot! And when we do, it's an opportunity to re-boot, re-frame, forgive, and re-invent! The second big shift happened very gradually,. It had to do with realizing that we are constantly changing, and so is everyone else! I decided to adopt gentler, softer, more forgiving embrace with others...in realizing that as I've given myself permission to change, I give others their space to change as well.

I guess, when I read your article, it nudged me to share, because it felt like a very important thread had disappeared for a while, and then wove its way back in! Yes, we are always being given love and grace. Even in the darkness, we might be trudging for a while, but then...we get to appreciate other times when gravity lightens up and our steps become a dance.

 I would like to believe in this view of life, and can see, and have learned, at least partially, its validity and truth. But having lost 5 members of my immediate, sane, and loving family to murder, AIDS, an accidental drug overdose, an accidental drowning, and a hospital-acquired infection after supposedly "routine, minor" surgery --  in addition to the loss of my own physical health and operatic singing career to auto-immune disorders, please forgive me for my heart-level skepticism. Yes, I have learned much, but those who have not suffered this kind of repeated trauma, loss, and pain, please go easy on the universal rejoicing for the "lessons!" There are many things to learn, and many, many things that also break us, and that even compromise our ability to work with all these lovely "lessons!" For many years, I have been working vigorously on my spiritual practice, and have pursued several different kinds of therapy. Human suffering is a great, ineffable mystery. Please, let's not pretend we have easy answers.

 I will agree with what Jeff Foster says, “… that nothing happens to you, but everything happens for you - …”   The hard part for me, though, is recovering from the horror and shock of life.  Maybe I am being weaned from any reliance on my feelings and I am now to find faith in being powerless and even in hopelessness.  It feels like I am to find the heart of faith in being emotionally paralysis, as I know the 110 volts of electrical shock is coming again and again.  I am tired of the intense shock from life and now in my own body’s inability to function.  Could it be possible to find the heart of faith at that point I am being shocked into awareness?   Could this moment be faith of the awareness create stillness, and then the courage to accept the shock?   I just feel my deepest shock is recovering from my disbelief and it is like I am recovering from the Supreme Being.  It seems this awareness is a moment learning to accept my shock as for me and not to me, as Jeff says.  A faith in what is painful and disturbing, and then for a self living in the moment of the shock, where faith becomes courage and for the courage to accept.    
 

 Jeff offers an interesting and refreshing perspective on life and living. I feel close to this  teleological perspective. I also relate to the causal perspective. Bad things have happened to me for a variety of reasons. Some of them seems to be largely beyond my hands and control. The prostate cancer that I developed at the age of 85-I am 88 years old and still going- seems to have a genetic basis. What caused it I do not know. I have some ideas about it-the toxic conditions I have been (like most of us are) exposed to, chroinc stress I have been going through like most other go though and a a lack of adequate exercise and a lack of hundred percent wholesome food that I should have eaten consistently and on and on. I have not given up on living. I have learned a few good lessons from this happening and I am doing the best I can to treat it. I have been learning a lot from my illness and I am sharing my lessons of living with many I come across. So, there is also a purpose for me going through this somewhat devastating experience.

And there have been a few self-caused emotional sufferings and regrets I have had due to my own foolish and narrow sighted ways of pursuing my desires, needs and wants. These experiences have caused suffering, humiliation regrets and remorse. I have learned from my mistakes and wrong doings and have become a little wiser . My sufferings have made more empathic and compassionate and kinder to others.

I believe we all are here for a variety of reasons. Remaining awakened, mindful and aware of myself and other in my life is a way of growing and fulfilling of our purpose of being in this world. Knowing that and living that way keeps me going on my path.

I am grateful to Jeff Foster for creating an inner space for me to contemplate , reflect and share myself with many  of my fellow travelers.

Jagdish P Dave

So simple, yet so profound. I love the line that "loss of faith in the show is part of the show"...and what a wonderful show it is! The selection reminds me a lot of the work of Byron Katie, and brought to mind this quote by her: "When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time." This piece is such a good reminder to stop arguing with reality and instead embrace it. In my own life, as someone who is self-employed, I have learned to really lean into the fear and unknown aspects of life - particularly where my next source of income is coming from, after many years of being in the corporate world, where I felt a perceived sense of security (which I recognize to be an illusion) and a regular paycheck. It never ceases to astonish my limited mind that as much as I may worry, things always work out...in many cases without much (or any) effort on my part. I give away so much energy examining my life circumstances and trying to "figure everything out" and have really tried to make my practice much more one of receptivity, trusting that life is unfolding perfectly, even if it doesn't match the well-laid plans in my mind.