God's Will or Our Will?
Consciousness in Its freedom manifested the universe. It didn’t have to. Nobody called or emailed saying, “Why don’t you do this?” Creation is the result of God exclaiming, “Look what‘s coming out of My center!” The universe is what emerged—because of the desire, the will to express and experience freedom. This is worth remembering. If this Divine magnificence created the universe out of Divine will, what does that say about you and me? We are here because God willed it.
What does that say about our will? We should surrender it to God’s will, which is far wiser than ours. We all know that we have a will of our own, and we all experience what happens when we exercise it. The results are not necessarily pretty. That is why I suggest that your life, in its highest, is not about “you.” It is about Ĺšiva saying, “Let’s dance . . . and I need some partners.” We are the partners. Stop trying to control the steps. Learn to follow.
Even when we deeply surrender it doesn’t mean that some trace of our own will won’t start to crop up. That is where consciousness comes in. We can become aware of our state and hopefully self-correct from that knowledge. However, every one of us has had the experience of feeling that we shouldn’t be doing something and then proceeding as fast as we can to do it anyway, not listening to the deepest place in ourselves.
THE MANTRA OF STUPIDITY VS STILLNESS
When we see our own will beginning to emerge, the common experience is that we recognize our willfulness, but, in spite of that, we continue down the same road. Why would we do that? The clue is that we get hooked by the perpetual obsession, What’s going to happen to me? This has been called the mantra of stupidity, and it’s the fundamental fallback position of the ego.
Our ego adamantly believes it is separate from its Source, and it will fight until the end of time to defend that position. If you are not sure if a thought or action is the expression of your will instead of God’s will, just get some duct tape, close the orifices of speech and action, and listen for this mantra. If you hear it, you will know that it is not God’s will.
How many times do we really get quiet and listen to find out whether we’re acting from our own self-interest? Not that often! We unfortunately get caught up in trying to fulfill our needs. Consciousness is everything, but as It unfolds our individuality, our own awareness can become very limited in focus. So much of the early years of spiritual work is getting over the fact that our stuff isn’t that important. Even who we think we are is probably not correct—so we have to let go of all preconception. Then, what we think we need (based on who we think we are) has a lot less strength of conviction.
The only way to rise above the mantra of stupidity is to center ourselves in stillness, to recognize and rest in the Divinity that lives in our heart. The ancient text Pratyabhijna Hrdayam states that the highest mantra is Aham, which translates as “I Am.” The awareness contained in I Am is total and complete and doesn’t need to worry about “what’s going to happen to me.”
The sound of the mantra is the resonance of Ĺšiva and Ĺšakti in unison. “A” is Ĺšiva, “ha” is Ĺšakti and “m” is the union of the two. It is the sound of existence, the supreme couple proclaiming their eternal freedom. Aham is Consciousness and energy, simply resting in Itself, and being aware of Itself. From this Source, everything manifests, including us. When we experience this, we too are complete. No longer engaged in the endless search for something to fulfill our needs, we can surrender our will to God’s.
RECOGNITION: FINDING FREEDOM
As we engage in the world, we have the power of will to create the life we want—and it is always on the field of God’s will. Divine will is an expression of God’s freedom, and it is therefore ours as well. The question is, are we experiencing our limited perspective, needs, and desires, or the unrestricted field of Divine will? Are we using our will to free ourselves from the illusion of separation? If we truly attempt to allow Divine will to express itself through us, our own willfulness is going to be exposed. We then have the choice to surrender so that our mantra becomes, May my will be Your will. May I live in Your Grace.
If we don’t surrender our will, we get bogged down in our limited field of vision. It is like going to an extraordinary buffet, finding a bowl of peanuts at the first table, and getting stuck there. We don’t look further than what’s right in front of our nose. We only eat peanuts and still we haven’t figured out why we have constipation and indigestion every day. That’s why we must choose to get our face out of those peanuts and begin to see what else there is.
We have the same experience again and again in our lives. What’s more, we repeatedly do the same things, trying to change the experience, to pull more happiness from those peanuts. As the saying goes, “If you keep doing what you have always done, you keep getting what you have always gotten.” Who will change it for you but yourself? We change by expanding our vision beyond the ego’s comfort zone, beyond its fundamental belief in duality and separation. And we can do this because we have free will and the capacity to be conscious.
The bottom line is that your life is your means to liberation. The same Divine Consciousness that unfolds from within Itself to create the universe is within each of us. God’s inherent Consciousness and freedom exist in us every moment of our lives, and from that freedom we create our experience.
Be grateful that you have the possibility of expressing Divine Consciousness in your life and choose to live in freedom. If your consciousness is the means to your liberation, use it for that, and don’t accept anything less.