What Am I To Do?

A young teenaged boy tells his father, “Daddy, I have been thinking about my future and what is best for me to do to have a future I want. And, I have decided it is best for me to go to college and get an advanced diploma which will enable me to get a much higher paying job because it costs an awful lot these days to live well and I want to live well. It will cost even more in a few years. So, it is very costly for me to attend college. I will need a loan which means I will be in debt for quite a few years after college. But I think it is a far better thing to do than to get a low paying job now and be stuck in a poor lifestyle all my life. Do you agree?

The father was silent for a little while then spoke to his son this way-

“My boy, I have listened carefully to what you tell me you think to be the smartest thing for you. Now, I want to ask you to consider just how reliable your thinking is and whether you want to follow your best thinking in a life plan for yourself. So, it is important to find out if there is any other approach that is superior to thinking. Is that not so?”

The boy was confused by his father’s response but said, “I guess that is possible but I really doubt it. I must do what I think is best or just gamble. I want a good life, Daddy.”

Said the father to his son, “ I see what you mean. I did that very same thing when I was your age. I regret it. For that reason I wish to encourage you to find out for yourself whether there is a better way. However, if you go the way you have described and do what you think to be best I will support your decision as far as I am able but if things turn sour for you remember I suggested you look to find if there is a completely different way to live and check it out then. What do you say?”

The boy was pleased his father was so kind to him in the matter so he said, “Father I would like to hear more now about the “other way” to go. Will you tell me more? I do not wish to regret one day that I did what I thought to be right.”

The father spoke thusly,” Son, I suggest that you ask yourself whether there is an intelligence available to you that is superior to “thinking”. We all think. It is my view that thinking is quite a limited tool and is good for what it is good for and terrible as the master of a life. I discovered in me as a fact that a much more reliable intelligence is there. It comes from a perfectly still mind having no thoughts at all. But, Son, it will do you no good to accept what I say. It must come from your own investigation so it is your truth. It was that way for me. Nobody could teach me the truth. It is in me. Its is in you. 

However, I do want to give you this- what I depend upon is that for me to live today fully engaged in the moment that I am in doing what I naturally am drawn to do now, what interests me now, from within a still mind that is not concerned about time and is open to the whole of life is going to be the most reliable course to follow. Does that make sense to you? If so, dig into it and find out. That is a real education! You have told me your God is money in that it alone is going to provide a good life. I will go so far now to say to you that rather than deciding to go into debt just now find another person who needs help today and help that other person, not because he is worse off but because he is you.

“Huh?”