My daughter watches the way I live my life and she is sure that I am doing something wrong. I am not "energetic" enough somehow. She is concerned that I am not active enough, as though the very fact of ‘being active’ has some innate goodness. I suspect that if I began to run around in circles she would get the idea that simple activity isn’t necessarily the key.
I am convinced that we shouldn’t be attached to the results of our labor, no matter what that labor may be. We want to accomplish something and so we set off to do it. We want a new car or to put together a college fund for our grandchildren or we want to lose 30 lbs. or whatever we desire to accomplish and so we begin to plan how we are going to accomplish that goal, that desire. What we do not realize is that having the desire, acting to fulfill it and believing that the act is creating the fulfillment of that desire are keeping us in Maya, illusion, attachment. As long as we are attached we will have ups and downs. We will experience the sine wave of our emotions. We get happy when we acquire what we were after or reach our goal or succeed at something. We attach our happiness to that thing.
It is like the difference between playing football and dancing a ballet. In football there are goals to accomplish (no pun intended but the coincidence is not without cause). You have a long term goal and shorter term goals. You get emotional highs and lows all through the game when your team gets a first down or you are forced to punt or you score a touchdown or fumble the ball. You are susceptible to the highs and lows because you are attached to the end result of the game. In ballet the best dancers aren't working for a goal at the end of the ballet. They are in the moment all the time, striving to simply do the best that they can with the particular move they are in the midst of right then. There is no score to achieve at the end of the ballet, only the moment by moment best that they can give. This is the way to live life. Do not be attached to the results of your actions. Just strive to do the actions as best as you can and leave the results up to God.
You don't need to worry about where your next meal is coming from. Didn't Jesus say "Take no thought for what you shall eat or what you shall wear. But rather seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added unto you." What he was talking about was not irresponsibility, nor inactivity, (I am certainly not recommending a life of sloth), but rather to maintain non-attachment to the results of our labor and to trust in God for all of our needs. We think in our human minds that this is unrealistic. We don't see that happening to anyone including ourselves and so we dismiss it as possible only for those few special "saints" that we read about. But saints are no different than us. They are simply people who made the leap of faith. You don't need to force this leap. If you do it before you are ready you may very well fail but you can slowly work your way along the path to complete faith in God until you get to a point where your faith is already great enough that you won't have to fabricate that belief. It will simply be a part of your life and you will step into the practice of completely relying on God with no effort.
Think of a child and their parents. A child doesn't wonder where the next meal is coming from. A child knows that the parents will supply it. It is the same with our heavenly parents. (I will keep coming back to the image of parents with their child because it is fitting in so many ways.) "It is the Father's good will to give us the kingdom." We don't have that happen in our lives because that isn't our prayer. Our prayer is fear that what we need won't be there when we need it so we have to work so hard to create it in our lives. We assume that we are ‘on our own’ when it comes to supplying our own needs. But if we let go of fear completely and trust in God entirely then that is our prayer. Our prayer is that God will meet all of our needs. And it is so. But of course, we must keep the energy moving so we remain active, doing the dance always so that the energy can keep moving. It is like the water in the plumbing pipes of a house. As long as you keep the tap open and the water running then more water will come in to fill the pipes. But when you turn off the tap, when you stop the activity then the flow of energy, the supply of water, ceases and you need to kick start it again. But as Baba Ram Dass might have said, “You need to be very high to make this happen”.
Now I started this out by saying that my daughter is sure I am doing something wrong. So, I strive to do the dance in such a manner so as to not cause her concern. I strive as well to not be attached to the actions that I do that she can interpret as being the product of desire, my "effort" to earn a living and be active which she sees as important. She worries about me sitting home alone and getting "spiritually constipated". So, I strive to act in such a manner so as not to worry her. I am not sure that this is the best solution because it inhibits my ability to be unattached but I never said I was a master teacher. I'm just another traveler climbing the mountain - trying to get by in this life best as I can. But the reason I bring this up again is to tell you that there are those around you who will always interpret your actions from a "human" viewpoint and you need to do what you can to keep from having that be an impediment to your growth. I am hoping that in my next life, (should I have to return), I will be even more 'crazy' about God than I am in this life.
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