The Tao Te Ching from 64 “…the Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. He has nothing, thus has nothing to lose…”
But I want “this” to be faster, bigger and more! Like my business, my bank account, my bicep muscles, my dance moves, my wedding, my children.
And I want other things to be slower, smaller and less! Like the flu, cancer, my neighbor’s noise, bills, natural disasters, problems, my journey to death.
I have found that questioning these concepts one by one, page after page of concepts I’ve written down, I find it pretty amusing the way my mind is so interested in piping up around what there should be more of and less of in my world.
Letting things take their course is revolutionary to this voice that loves to evaluate and diagnose everything it sees.
But wow, is it worth it.
One thought I had recently was that I should have more money. I chuckle to think of this thought right now….but if someone knocked on my door within the next five minutes and said “would you like some more money?” I would probably say yes. If there was no catch.
How amazing, though, to really ask myself, is it true that I want more?
I ask this in my teleclass on Money, Work and Business…and it’s an exercise I’ve heard variations on before in studying money and our beliefs about it: What do I really want more money for? I mean really? Security? Peace? Freedom? Joy? Power?
What do I want more of anything for? Or less of something for? And if I want it to be bigger or smaller than it actually is, if I’m not relaxing and letting things take their course, all I get is the Not Relaxing part.
It turns out things always take their course. I don’t get a vote.
This does not mean I have no importance, I have no influence, that all is random chaos and it’s terrible, meaningless.
In fact, when I find who I am without the thought that I need something to be MORE or something to be LESS, for anything to run a different course than it’s running, at first I catch a glimpse of excitement.
If I let myself really see who I’d be without the thought that I want more money, all afternoon, all the next day, and let my mind work with this idea, this imagination, this picture…
I see how all I really thought I wanted that money would give me is either already here, or perhaps impossible. I don’t have to go “get” it. There is no security that can be guaranteed by money, there is no peace that money brings, or freedom, or joy. I cannot keep it or pin it down. I have no control over it. Money does nothing, is nothing but a story. I can’t even keep it, if I had it I would put it out there again. It comes, it goes…it runs its own course.
What is here, is peace, joy, silence, love, security, freedom, a great hum of unknown. Just here, with me listening. Can you hear it today?
“The master has nothing, thus has nothing to lose.”
Much Love, Grace