“Perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure. Such evenness of mind is called yoga.” – Bhagavad Gita 2:48 (Hinduism)
That statement, “Perform your duty” – somehow penetrates my core. For I can see where “my doing” seeks some flavor of future success or seeks to avoid some peril of failure. Underneath all that seeking, there is the invitation to simply do… what I am here to do.
- To do what I am here to do, and release the outcome of what might or might not be.
There is a sort of solace here, a comfort in knowing I do not need to arrive anywhere.
We know, do we not, that the future is rife with mystery, uncertainty, and pathways beyond our capacity to comprehend? Yet, this moment, the life we lead here and now, seems… abundantly present and available.
Available in the sense that, here and now I can act, I can do, I can engage and have impact. All of which, any concept of the future does not contain. I am powerless in the future, for the future is nothing but a distant idea well beyond any real control I have.
If I were a betting man, is it not wiser to bet on the present – rather than the future?
If I take care of the present, does that not give the future a better chance than if I tried to hope my way there?
Discover Your Duty
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Buddha (Buddhism)
The world will attempt to define your duty. Others will, consciously or unconsciously, want you to help them hide. Others, in their innocent fear, will want you to not be you, but to be someone that helps them avoid what they fear.
This is all deeply understandable, innocent, and to be expected. We even do this ourselves, to others, even if we are not aware of it.
There comes a time when we must detach, even if only for a moment, and get deeply in touch with the raw reality of our sovereignty. We must know ourselves more deeply, independent of all the projections of how, or who, others want us to be.
This temporary detachment is not only letting go of what the world wants from you, but it is also letting go of what you want from others.
If you are to know yourself, to discover your… sovereignty, your soul blueprint – so to speak, you must let go of all else.
Know Thy Self
“The Self is the source of all; know the Self, and you will know the universe.” – Upanishads (Hinduism)
Why are you here, really? What is it you are here to do, be, discover, and share?
You see, this is not about an outcome, it is not about arriving anywhere. More so, this is about an opening up to what is deeply sincere, and allowing that sincerity to flow freely from deep within what you are, and out into the world.
This is the great offering of your sovereignty; your duty, your purpose, the primordial gift of what you are. Undoubtedly, it will be some flavor of service – where you discover that your human is designed to serve.
Not – to serve in a way that gives up your sovereignty, your dignity, or allows the world to simply take from you. Rather, to serve in a way that… when you give, it gives back to you the deep acknowledgment that you are living on purpose.
When you share an authentic and genuine Love, you are the one who feels that love. When you give what is true, what is true is given back to you; not from another, but from yourself and to yourself.
Of course, when you give what is false, what is false comes back to you as well. Such a statement as that speaks volumes to a painful emptiness we might feel within.
Letting Go
“The more you let go, the more you can receive.” – Ramana Maharshi
Yes, I know that for some, even for myself sometimes, we want so badly for this love to come from the outside. We want to attach ourselves to some “thing” or some “other,” and hope they will be the source that gives us what we crave.
Yet, the more I investigate such patterns of longing, the more impossible I see they are. I simply cannot have both: I cannot “be what I am” while also demanding that others, or circumstances, not freely be what they are.
I must let go, I must return to the source of all that is—which is to deeply know what I am. I cannot know what I am if I am clinging to what I am not.
Breathe…
The mind will want to race around, thinking the answer is some thought yet to be found. It is not that. The real answer is more about letting go of all answers sought after, and simply getting in touch with the deepest sincerity of your present moment being.
Start there.
You are loved, you are whole, and you are supported beyond what the mind can see.
