Gilbert Ross – Imagine for a while that you are in harmonious participation with life. You don’t understand the word ‘struggle’ or ‘hard’ anymore.
Your life flows easily and things seem to come to you effortlessly. You are not tumbled by the crashing waves of your emotions or the tidal changes of life. You feel supported by a divine presence you constantly carry within you but which you do not try to label, understand or doubt. You know it’s just there in bliss and stillness. You wake up every morning motivated by the fresh excitement of knowing you will do something in line with your life purpose and divine will. You have acquired a Masters degree – the mastery of your own life.
Even if I do not know each and every one of you reading this article, my guess is that you have sought or tried to achieve this life mastery in some way or another whether it was a defined goal or otherwise. Perhaps you have read some books on personal development, spirituality or philosophical systems. You might have attended some workshops or seminars or tried some practices that are aimed at helping you achieve improvement in some life area – motivation, self-discipline, habit forming, coping with stress and emotions are all possible candidates. In short you have done something about it and I applaud you for your drive and effort. You have done well.
“The real path to mastering life is though non-action”
What I’d love to share with you, however, is the idea that when you distill the essentials of all the perennial philosophies, ancient wisdom and spiritual practices, you come to understand that there is a very common pattern in the tapestry and this pattern is one which tells us that the real path to mastering life is through non-action.
This is something which the western mind finds hard to reconcile with culturally installed beliefs such as ‘hard work is rewarded’ or ‘stop sitting on your butt and go out to get it’. The Taoist concept of ‘Wu Wei’ or ‘action through non-action’ has very little correlates in our action-oriented modern societies.