Seeking to Be Non-Disturbed

“The disintegrating factor in man is the pursuit of illusion.” - Rhondell

Have you ever noticed that most everyone is seeking a life of some kind of ease, comfort or leisure? That our entire human system is based on an assumption that if we can simply remove the need for effort, then all would be well? Isn’t that at the root of much of the pursuit of wealth and acquisition? Having someone else to do the scut work of our lives? The desire for more leisure? Or even our sometimes human insistence that someone must serve us?

Physics teaches us that nothing can happen without the expenditure of energy, so how ironic it is that we seek to defy one of it's cardinal rules - to eliminate effort. These are the thoughts that resonated with me on a vacation to Acadia National Park. (Not surprisingly I was seeking leisure, though to be fair it did include a lot of physical activity.)

Our first sensory impressions occur in our mother’s wombs as we float in amniotic fluid - our first experience-based understanding of reality as a human being is akin to a timeless meditation.

It should be no surprise that our deepest drive may be simply to regain that non-disturbed state that created our earliest impressions. No wonder the pursuit of relaxation and leisure, and comfort and ease is something most of us seek.

It is this pursuit of non-disturbance that Rhondell described as the source of our disintegration. We bridle against reality.

At the same time, it is our energetic expressions of discontent and discomfort that fuel all of our creations and innovations. Interestingly enough, it is the effort to avoid effort that produces a great deal of progress.

What a design for life and living: as we are propelled to escape reality, we push reality forward.

So, what does this all mean?

What if we were to accept life as an effort-filled proposition in the same way that we accept the terms of gravity? We don’t fight it; instead, we work with it. Where we can take advantage of it, we do so. Where we can cooperate with it, we seek to align ourselves. When it presents opposition, we can minimize its effects in whatever ways are possible.

That is not an illusion. It might just produce greater freedom.

Seeing True™

“Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.” ~ Alcoholics Anonymous

Seeing True™ in Action

For the most part, we cannot merely accept when we are in non-acceptance. We must examine the ways in which we are unaccepting, then determine another way.

· At the source of our discontent, what is it that we find unacceptable?

· What would need to be done for this situation to be altered?

· Is that feasible, or actionable?

· What would need to be changed within us for acceptance to arise?

· Why might we be unwilling to let go and find a better way?

· What is the cost to us of holding on versus the cost of letting go?

Updated June, 2023