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Living creatively depends on the willingness to take responsibility.
In fact, this is such an important feature of our practice that we go a step further: the responsibility we take must be radical.
This means that we’re willing to regard our consciousness as cause even in situations where the situation we’re facing appears to be caused by the will of others.
Now, some students have an intention that equates responsibility with blame.
This is something expected of very young children at a certain developmental stage, but it can hinder us greatly as adults, because it can deter us from willingly accepting the prerequisite of conscious creatorship.
A person may not realize that he or she intends such an equation, but it’s obvious in how he or she shows up in the world.
There’s always an excuse.
Someone else is always at fault.
There’s always a ready justification, a rationalization,
a fall guy.
Such an intention establishes us firmly as the effect of conditions, and how can we take up causal authority while we’re busy being the effect?
A great deal can be learned by pondering the notion of collusion.
The idea here is that nothing makes us a victim without our permission, without our tacit cooperation, and this is the theoretical foundation of radical responsibility.
A person may be in an abusive relationship with someone, be hurt repeatedly, and desperately desire a better situation.
Yet, the victim is not without responsibility, for he or she stays there, tolerates it, participates in it, and to this extent, gives it a green light.
Remember that it isn’t desire that creates our reality but willingness.
As long as we’re willing to have or be less than the good we want, that willingness sets the bar of our suffering.
But once we put the universe on notice that “I am this, and nothing less,” and our good becomes a requirement of our being, then nothing can stand between us and the greater good we desire.
“We can be whatever we want, the moment we’re unwilling to settle for less.”
This week, you may find it useful to look at any situation in which you feel stuck or are struggling, and ask yourself how you might be colluding in the matter to keep things exactly where they are.
Perhaps you’ll even explore the subtle way that you’ve been giving tacit permission to the very conditions you so want to see change.
If you do this even for a moment, you may see a new opportunity appear, a new door that you can open and walk through to a better reality.
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note to self: ... relax and breathe
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