IS AMBITION GOOD FOR HUMANS?

The lack of any ambition at all does not prevent the love of doing. These two are not dependent upon each other. They are entirely separate. In fact, conflict in one’s life is most damaging to health and ambition is a great source of conflict and confusion among people. Actually trying to become prevents freedom.

A wife with ambitions of her own married to a husband who has ambitions of his own will conflict often. It must be so. What is ambition? I want to become. I am not enough now but later I will be. The moment  I set my sights on a goal I set a most terrific limitation that excludes all other possibilities. They say an archer will miss the target until she lets go of any need to strike it for a reward or prize. Neediness blurs the vision. One is nervous. Do not agree with me. Question everything. Find out. It is your life. Ambition is an eight-letter word. What is really written here goes deep and includes every possible action a human will take in a lifetime. Good to know the way that works for you. But you have to do the work necessary to find it. Nobody else can give it to you. A friend knows this about you. 

I want to say a bit more. I did not need to write this. It was in line with my purpose. My purpose is not laid out before me as a plan into the future (which is nonexistent) it is felt now. See, the past and future are in the now. Understand the archery example and grasp the message…the shot is now and the future is now. There is no separation. The shot is a whole work, a part of which, is the role of the eye. It follows that the shooter and target are one. And the purpose is felt now. The most admired performers of any kind are the ones who say I do not do what I do to be rewarded because it calls up the love of doing in all people.

 My note: It seems when anyone grasps that the past and  future and present are in the now there’s no going back. The whole being comes awake to live. Love is present. Time a servant. All things work together for good. Anything is possible. A coded message may appear unconsciously to carry the truth of it to the same unknown place inside others. (2022)

 HERE GOES

So, here goes. If I am simple and I cannot plan that, to be simple, it happens or it does not, but if it happens I will hear someone insult me or feel someone is ignoring me or recognize a look of disapproval or an absence of any attention at all and instead of being upset about it I respond with “what can this person actually do to me, hurt my ego?” Immediately I know that to hurt my ego is no loss but a gain. I am thankful for that benefit I might otherwise have hurt over. When hurt there is no telling what response will follow. Then I know, by golly, this feels so nice and I remember I have at times suffered pain in this circumstance and here I am happy as a peacock. Following that will be some deep rejoicing for the simple fact I am just me and I have nothing to lose. When in this place I am creative and being creative is not anything I can plan to be and anything is possible for me. I want to share this. There are two of me, both present. Which is going to be the priority? I cannot plan on a result with any effect so…what is it I learn about freedom here? I see a bit of something in me that wants freedom but on my terms and know that is not freedom at all. I want to share this. What is that about?

Seems to me life is not about "what do I get" but "what do I have to give".

 A Book Inside 

Do you read books? Do you know there is a different sort of book inside you? Do you know inside you is the whole history of humanity from its beginning right up to this moment? Not the history of kings and queens and wars and dates but the entire record of life as it has actually been experienced by all of us is recorded in each of us. There are more links in your brain than there are atoms in the observable Universe!

Can you read the book of life in you? Do you? Are you in touch and current? If not, your own life is lopsided. Any life lopsided is not at all reliable, is it? 

The education system today is about memorization and  is lopsided. So, we can either stumble along as best we can or, sensing a great responsibility to do so, we can make it a real priority to learn to read the book of real life inside us and benefit from a wholistic education. Anyone is free to turn from the lopsided world at any moment to let the sunshine in. 

Education as practiced is exclusively geared to the preparation of a child in a way to become a participant in a competitive game of earning a livelihood as an employer or an employee in some career field. It is deliberately lopsided in this way. Educated people will actually participate in the system and gladly receive compensation for doing so knowing it is lopsided. That requires them to be lopsided human beings everyday they live. It cannot be viewed as anything but a dishonest betrayal to all that is beautiful about being human. It must create suffering in all who do it for what is missing, the sunshine, is what in a child is psychologically sensitive to beauty, love, kindness, generosity, tenderness, tolerance, and all which arises from the truth the child is inseparable from the whole of humanity for all time. It is written inside each one as a hunger and thirst.

Humans are suffering all around the earth. You and I are inseparable from that suffering. Reading the book inside with clarity can bring understanding and liberty. It is so important. Too long we have depended on others to read the book for us. Nobody who has read the book will read it for another. That is a law. It is written. Find what your work is and do not let anything dissuade you from it.

 THE ART OF LEARNING

Real learning, let’s call it the “Art” of learning, is like a river always flowing, never memorizing, never static. There is a big difference between memorizing and learning. In learning one is never stuck. Never bored. One is always original. Today’s point of view is new and precisely in point. One might say real learning as opposed to memorizing is keeping pace with the real challenges of a life. For sure, one need never again say, 

”Well, that didn’t work so let’s do it again only try harder.” 

Or, “It’s time for another war, boys!”

Or, “I quit.”

 LOVE SOMEONE

The solving of any grievance leads to another grievance. What is it you and all others…all others…are sorrowful about? 

What is the nature of your sorrow?

 Yesterday I overheard a woman tell her companions “Now, don’t get me wrong, I do want just one producing oil well in my backyard. Then I’d be secure.”

Is it that you cannot have some status you so much desire? Is it status you are after or is it really that you need to be loved and accepted as you are?

Do you see a difference? Can that be the same for every human on Earth? Is it simply obvious to you that it is so? Is that the big picture you see? If it is, take a chance. Love someone. 

 FURTHER COMMENT ON WHICH POWER 

Lust is not passion. They are entirely different. A passionate commitment can come into play in the smallest of matters or the largest. I know a man who agreed to occupy a house at an agreed rental not after having been sold a bill of goods concerning his selfish interest in shelter but by listening to a fellow who owned the house talk about the whole picture of housing for all people on Earth. The tenant joined the dialog eagerly and became passionately committed to the house and the ground upon which it stood as if it were his very own. That man loves his home, the landlord and his family, and his neighbors. And that landlord and that tenant are all the time doing favors for the other out of love. Why cannot all human interactions be of the same nature as that? Nothing is preventing it but fear. And the fear is caused by a separation that is not even there. Rather than more policeman and more defense spending we, all people of Earth, need to put an end to  the nonexistent separation. 

It comes but alone not by agreement, oaths or swearing and handshaking or by protesting. It’s an inside job not a display of false pride meant to bolster a reputation as a caring, righteous  person. Bob Dylan has been criticized from the beginning for not joining protests in the streets which always carry the odor of "look at me be better than the bad guys I am against" which only strengthens  the false ideas of separation and keeps the misery we actually oppose firmly in place. What is being suggested here is that the cause of war is division among humans and it can be ended by ending the cause and will never be ended through what divides. This means we are all responsible for the mess. A living change, not words, that is required.

Consider this everybody! If I see misbehavior in any other it is caused by the system of thoughts in my own conditioned brain and by thoughts and words from my own mouth. Otherwise, I would see only a suffering human, like me, as me, who needs my love. We are in the soup together.

A final note. Instead of telling myself, "I should have..." why not admit, simply, "I could have..."