Deciding for the Greater Good

Earlier this week I had been running some ideas around my Level 2. I was on a trip so I was pretty much by myself and that gave me a lot of time to process this. I was mulling over a particular situation in which a decision needed to be made. Much deeper than "do I go shopping for knock off watches or hang around the room and read" kind of decision, it required a lot of thought. Or at least I thought it required a lot of thought. But as I thought about that, I realized that thought is a process of lower consciousness. Thought is not exclusive to Level 1 (the Ego), as I definitely have thoughts in my lightest Level 2 moments. But the deeper I get into Level 2, the more heightened my awareness and therefore more aligned with divinity or the Tao, the less things come to me in words and the more they come to me in a sense of knowingness.

Have you had a time where you just knew something is right? You don't know why, and if you tried to explain it in words, you know that you would inadequately describe it. But you intuitively knew that you were right. This is not the same as when people are just adamant about being right because they just want to be right. What I'm describing is more an innate sense of "ahhhh," as a sense of correctness, almost a relief of perfection, that the essence of what you are holding in consciousness is just right. It is because it is. It is because it is flowing with the Tao.

Leading up to my awakening, I read and listened to a reasonable amount of Taoist oriented material. Of the major religions and philosophies, Taoism is one that I draw the most major concepts from as I have built my personal paradigm of understanding. Certainly, the biggest one is going with the flow of the Tao. On the surface, that concept might be easy to understand, but that simplicity might make it easy for you terminate your examination of it, and to do so you would miss some of the beautiful subtleties about it.

The basic idea is that there is a natural unfolding of space and time. This can be visualized using the popular "leaf on a stream" metaphor. You can go with it, or you can try to go against it. If you are a leaf on a stream, you can only go with the flow of the stream, and it takes you where you should be going. If you fight across the current, you will find it hard going, and if you try to swim up stream against the current, you will find it impossible.

With that in mind, when you make a decision, it is up to you as to whether you let your Level 1 make the decision or you choose to open up to the Tao, let divinity flow through you, and the decision comes to you without thinking.

For example, let's say you get pulled over for a speeding ticket. As the cop comes to your car, you can decide to try to be like Ben Kenobi and use the Jedi Mind Trick "These aren't the droids you're looking for." You can attempt to use your energy to influence the cop to not write you a ticket, and often times you'll find that you succeed.

When your Level 2 gets humming, you find that synchronicity really starts kicking in. Synchronicity, a concept created by the very interesting Carl Jung, is when a non-causal connection between two events has a low probability of randomly occurring, and yet they do. Many people write these things off as "coincidence," as if they no longer need to appreciate how amazing that they occurred simultaneously. The deeper you get into Level 2, the more you find synchronicity happening, and you find that you can steer things to happen the way you want. As in the case of the speeding ticket, you will find that where most others might get the ticket, you didn't. Can you prove it to anyone? No. Do you need to prove it? I don't think so. It works for me, I really don't care if they think it works for them. So much the better for my individual Level 1, right?

This is the crux of the manifestation and Law of Attraction material that is so popular these days. But how do you know what outcome you should be focusing on? I want a million dollars, I want a Mercedes, I want to never have to work again. These are all very Level 1 concepts, very concrete, very me oriented. But are they in accordance with the Tao? How would you know, especially if you are there thinking words in your mind, isolated in the me of Level 1?

So when you move from Level 1 into Level 2, you get away from the me stories and you take more concepts in consideration. The deeper you get into Level 2, though, the less you are thinking in terms of words and the more you are thinking in terms of feeling and intuition. The closer you get into the absolute now, the farther you get from "me" and the closer you get to the Tao or the source of divinity.

It seems the trick is to hold on to the essence of the issue that requires a decision, and then get into the now as much as possible. So you're doing two things here, holding the essence and becoming present. At my level of experience with being present (in deep Level 2), if I go too far into being present, I "forget" the essence of what I was trying to resolve. (Getting into real deep Level 2, into real deep presence, you start to forget all the issues of "the world" that you have built in your Level 1 mind. And yes, it is blissful, which is why we want to go there!) So it seems there is a sweet spot where I lose as much of my Level 1 as possible but I retain enough of a separate entity as to be a container for the essence of the issue. From the other side, I let divinity come through me (the Tao flow through me; the Christ mind to act; the Holy Spirit to affect me) and observe that which is in the container. And then innately, purely, the proper resolution becomes obvious and the decision is made.

How do I know it is correct? It is a knowingness. Once I'm out of the deep sense of Level 2 and more into a symbiotic "Level 2 observing my Level 1" awareness, I can "try on the decision." I start to become more present but now I hold the essence of the decision in mind (as opposed to the essence of the whole issue as we did before.) Does it feel right? Do I sense any red flags? Likely not because it seems that the Tao has a pretty good track record, but if you do, perhaps you weren't as purely present, truly devoid of the influence of the ego as you might have thought. So if the essence of the decision feels good, then what more could you ask for?

Back to the speeding ticket. You could focus on the cop not writing you the ticket. Or you could choose to not focus on that but focus on the greater good. Focus on that which is with the Tao, and what ever comes is what is supposed to come. It could very well be that you don't get the ticket and I will naively say that you probably wouldn't get the ticket, but then again maybe you were meant to get the ticket. Maybe you getting the ticket will cause you to slow down so that the next time you are driving that stretch you didn't hit a kid that was in the road. There are myriad reasons that getting the ticket could be in line with the Tao. Do you think your measly Level 1 contained brain could analyze everything that is going on with the entire Universe? By tapping into the Tao, by allowing the divinity to come from within you, you are able to tap into the infinite resource of the universe, everything manifested and unmanifested, the grand network of life itself. To say it is like tapping into the internet is like calling the Pacific Ocean a pond. It is like tapping into everything that has been or will be. How can your eight pound brain compare to that? If you focus on not getting the ticket and don't get it, or you focus on the greater good and don't get the ticket, then the greater good was that you don't get the ticket. But if you focus on getting the ticket and you were supposed to get the ticket, then you are unwittingly trying to fight against the Tao. Why guess at what you should be focusing on when it is always right to focus on the way of the Tao?

I know what you're thinking. It sounds too easy. Don't have my Level 1 think about it, just let something pop into my head and then go with that decision. That is not at all what I am saying. If you are grounded in Level 1 and have no capacity for Level 2, no awareness at all, then you can't do this. It is necessary for you to open up to Level 2 so that your Level 1 can give up the responsibility to make the decision. This is because Level 1 won't let divinity flow through it and it will taint the decision making process. If you can't get into Level 2 and let the Tao flow, then you are better off sticking to your Level 1 decision making process and all the issues that go along with it.

Even when you are able to get into Level 2 it does not mean that you shouldn't put in an effort to analyzing an issue. I flew with a guy who is one of the few pilots that are open minded to this kind of stuff. He said to me that judgment is wrong and that all decisions must be made by feeling. He then told me how he had bought this investment property. Instead of using spread sheets to analyze the cash flow and looking at what the market rent rates were, he went out, looked at houses, and this opportunity spoke to him. He had said he had owned it for a few years so I asked him how the investment was going. He said was awful. He had had issues with the renters, there were maintenance issues that were a pain in the ass, and it was consuming time that he'd rather use elsewhere. Is there any surprise?

Now, I find two interesting things there. The first observation is obvious. Going with the flow does not mean that you throw your hands up and guess. You still need to analyze things. The Tao isn't just letting go of everything. The Tao does not expect you to live ignorantly. If it is according to the Tao that you will invest in a property, then it will happen. But it could be (and probably is) just as much with the Tao that you were to analyze them. Going with the Tao does not mean taking your hand off the tiller and bouncing off the sides of the stream. It means going down stream with it, gently guiding it through insight and grace.

When you go with the Tao, though, you can go with it automatically, or you can go with it integrally. The Tao is the Tao, and everything that unfolds is intended to unfold with the Tao. Everyone, whether they are in solid Level 1 or if they are deeply present, are in the Tao, it's just the Level 1's are going along with it automatically, unwittingly. So if you throw your hands up and allow things to happen, that is going along with the Tao. If it happens, it was meant to happen. But you can also open up to the Tao, to become one with the Tao. To do so, you do so honestly. You slip into the sense of the Tao, allowing it to take you over, allowing you to blend into it. And when you honestly wrap yourself in the Tao (and you know when you do this), things just unfold.

So it is okay to look at a situation from all angles to try to get an understanding of it. But once you have analyzed it, once all the data collection is done, then you can get yourself out of Level 1 as much as possible. Get into the present moment and allow Level 2 to take over. The more you get into the Now, the deeper you get into Level 2, the more freely you allow divinity to flow through you. Shut that left brain down and let your right brain take over. If it is right, and more often than not it will be, then an answer will come to you. An answer that you just know is right. It might not be the answer you thought it would be, and the results of following the answer might be different than your Level 1 might think it wants it to be, but it is with the Tao, and that is the best decision that you can make.

That brings us back to the second observation of the pilot investor. He was right. He could make the decision to buy the property without any form of analysis and it would be according to the Tao. It would just be that the Tao had something different planned for you than having a successful investment and the financial gain that you might have thought you wanted. The Tao would have meant for him to go through the frustrations of crummy renters and a run down property. Had the Tao meant for him to analyze and pick another property, it would have been so. Don't fall in to the trap of thinking that going with the Tao means a laissez faire Level 1 life free of responsibility. There's just as much work (at first) in learning how to properly and truly opening up to divinity as there is to the way we do things now in Level 1, so there's no free ride.

As we emerge from being sunk in a Level 1 dominated way of functioning and start to allow Level 2 to take over, we need to learn to not take everything to extremes. The pilot clearly took the idea of not judging and "letting the Tao decide" to too much of an extreme without incorporating the basic function of connecting with divinity before letting go of the tiller. It has been my experience as my Level 2 has gained dominance in the Level 1-Level 2 relationship that the more gentle and parental my Level 2 is with my Level 1, the better things have gone. Rather than being the strict parent and having my Level 2 force it's ways upon my Level 1 (except, of course, the initial awakening which no Level 1 will like going through), have a more genuine relationship with your Level 1. I have a great relationship with my 10 year old son, Tristan. I am still "in charge," but we work together to raise him. I find if I inform Tristan about why he needs to do something or why he can't or shouldn't do something, he is more receptive. He sees that I respect him as a person and knows that I'm not making decisions without full consideration. The same goes for my Level 1. It knows that my Level 2 has it's reasons and that Level 2 is respecting him to the extent that it can, so my Level 1 is pretty compliant.

So when you are learning to allow divinity to flow through you in order to make decisions based on the greater good of the Tao, show your Level 1 that you are taking it's world into consideration, respecting that in which it lives. There are many philosophies out there and some of them consider the world of Level 1 to be false or unreal or just a dream. That may very well be, but it may also very well be that all dimensions and universes and levels of conscious are just as real as the next. If reality is nondualism, the oneness that contains everything, manifested and unmanifested, then every aspect is part of that oneness. So what makes this level or dimension any less real than any other. It is what it is... it is.

With that in mind then it does make sense to continue to function normally in this world and that there is meaning enough in this dimension that your decisions merit a fair analysis. But once you have done as objective of an analysis as you can, if you learn to open to the greater intelligence of the combined consciousness (ultimately the Oneness or the Tao or God) your decisions will be made with the greater good in mind, and that objective sounds rather decent to me.

By the way, overcoming the inertia in making your decisions this way is the hardest part. There is something called the Quantum Zero Effect that says the more you choose something the greater the likelihood that you are to make the choice next time. You have to consciously work to make this your process, but once you do it only a very few times, it starts to become more natural. And I'm only talking about doing this with three or six or nine major decisions, and then all of a sudden you find yourself using this process almost automatically. If you start to focus on the greater good in every situation, life becomes entirely much easier. Rather than having to think about and fret over all the different decisions and they trying to pick one, you open yourself up to infinite wisdom and let it decide for you.

To summarize, here is what needs to happen so that you can start making decisions based on the greater good. Recognize that you have a decision to make. Analyze the situation as objectively as possible. Doing this from a light Level 2 perspective is much better than from an isolated Level 1. Once you feel that you have adequately taken all things into consideration (but have not excessively toiled over it) it's time to turn it over to divinity. Get into the now as deeply as possible while maintaining the essence of the situation (not words about the situation, just the feeling about it, the knowing about it). Just like a thought or memory pops into your head in your old Level 1 world, divine inspiration will come to you, more likely in a feeling rather than words. You will know it is right when you "try it on" again to feel it. If it still feels right, and if you were genuinely in Level 2 it will be, then you have a winner.

Sean