In this thing called life, chaos can erupt on a micro or macro level; in our own immediate lives, or on a national or even global stage; as a cancer of the body, or a cancer of the culture.
It’s all the same in the sense that it stirs up fear, anxiety, anger.
There are only two possible responses: turn without, or turn within.
To turn without, which is what 99.9999% of the human population does, is to add to the fear and anxiety and anger. And oh how tempting it is.
Because, hey, I’ve got MY version of the truth, of what’s going on, of what is wrong with those people (whatever ‘those people’ may represent). And because I am anxious or afraid or angry, I’m gonna add my $.02 on social media, going to agitate over it with family and friends, going to turn to the ‘experts’ to help me make sense of things, or the ‘authorities’ to help allay my fears.
Everyone busies themselves ‘doing something’ about it. Yet all we really do is stoke the flames, and come away feeling empty – and anxious, afraid, angry.
And so the world burns until it exhausts itself of fuel or destroys the whole thing.
Nothing will be learned, the ‘lesson’ to be repeated again and again. The well-intentioned will urge the world to change, to grow, evolve, improve. The angry will demand justice. The fearful will retreat.
The circumstances of the next round of chaos may change along with the faces involved, but human nature is what it is and has been for thousands of years and will be for thousands of years to come.
But there is another way. It is the way of the sages and the mystics, those who have tried, largely to no avail, to break through the mental din and be heard. That way is to turn within.
To turn within and ask who or what it is that is experiencing this fear, this anxiety, this anger? To inquire into the one who has his or her own version of the truth, the one who so desperately wants to share her or his explanation of the problem and its solution. To ask where such beliefs, such thoughts, originated.
If we do, our ignorance is gradually exposed. All of ‘me’ is seen to be inherited, learned, a hand-me down from those who came before, the very same kinds of people agitating and fearing and lashing out.
So, which path do you choose? It is nota simple ask. The thought-train is the only world, the only me, we’ve ever known. To inquire into it, to simply observe it, to ignore it, is no easy task. Again and again these past days and weeks and months the mind here has risen and agitated.
But, perhaps due to lots of surrender or self-inquiry, quite often comes with those thoughts a grace, a reminder that ‘of my own self I can do nothing,’ and a whispered urging to leave the world alone. The world must and will do what it must.
And with that simple recognition comes a tiny bit of light, of peace. Which means it must be there for us all.
