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We are all burdened by the notion that life is a problem that needs to be fixed. Certainly there are problems in life that need fixing, among them such biggies as war, poverty and global warming. Then there are our personal problems: health, finances, relationships and whatnot. As troublesome as these problems may seem to us, we are additionally afflicted with the thought that if we just had our act together, our problems would go away. And so we cast about for some nostrum that will enable us to change our lives for the better.
The current favorite among New Age types is the belief that you create your own reality through carefully channeled thoughts and feelings that are eventually manifested in your experience. Without challenging the underlying premise, I would point out that much depends here on what is meant by "you." One might also argue that the chief problem in life is the notion that life is a problem we need to fix.
The New Age proposition that you create your own reality is actually age-old. In the biblical creation story, human beings are created in God's image and given dominion over the earth. The word "dominion" comes from the same Latin root as "domine," or lord. To have dominion means to exercise lordship over creation. As with other spiritual principles, dominion poses a fundamental paradox, because lordship is manifested by surrendering our will to the will of God. Since only the Lord can truly exercise lordship, we can have dominion only by allowing ourselves to be absorbed into God. In other words, reality is not created by us but through us.
While it may be true that consciousness rules reality, dominion is not arrived at through incantations or mastery of esoteric techniques. Dominion is the opposite of striving. Even to say we must surrender to the will of God is misleading to the extent that surrender implies an act of will on our part. You can say that breathing is an act of will when we decide to take a breath. But we breathe naturally simply by allowing it to happen.
We cease striving once we realize there is literally nothing to strive for and no one doing the striving. When we abide in the still center of being, we discover that reality unfolds effortlessly of its own accord from one moment to the next, like breathing. To be still does not mean you don’t have thoughts; you just don’t chase after them and disappear down some rabbit hole. You let life come to you. “You need not leave your room,” wrote Franz Kafka, of all people. “Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
No choice? The mind recoils at the thought. Life seemingly presents us with a thousand choices, and we are hard-pressed to decide. And yet if only we learn to pay close attention to what is happening right now, we find ourselves gently guided at every turn. There is really nothing to think about, nothing to worry about, nothing to decide. We don’t have to be afraid. And when we are no longer afraid, life comes together as a seamless whole. To say that we create our own reality seems beside the point somehow, since everything just is.
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