The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [42]
Life is self-correcting in just this way. As the choice-maker you can act on a whim; you can follow arbitrary or irrational paths. But the underlying machinery of consciousness doesn’t alter. It keeps following the same principles, which are:
• To adapt to your desires
• To keep everything in balance
• To harmonize your individual life with the life of the cosmos
• To make you aware of what you are doing
• To show you the consequences of your action
• To make your life as real as possible
Because you have free will, you can ignore these principles entirely—we all do at one time or another. But you can’t make them deviate. Life depends on them. They are the ground of existence, and even as your desires come and go, the ground of existence is unchanging. Once you absorb this truth, you can align yourself with any possibility that comes your way, trusting that win-win is the attitude that life itself has been taking for billions of years.
Finding the stream of joy: My fancy was caught by an episode in the adventures of Carlos Castaneda when his master Don Juan sends him to a witch who has the ability to adopt the perception of any creature. The witch allows Castaneda to feel exactly like an earthworm, and what does he perceive? Enormous exhilaration and power. Instead of being the tiny blind creature that a worm appears to human eyes, Castaneda felt like a bulldozer pushing each grain of dirt aside like a boulder; he was mighty and strong. Instead of feeling like drudgery, the worm’s digging was cause for elation, the elation of someone who could move mountains with his body.
In your own life there is a stream of joy that is just as elemental and unshakable. A worm knows nothing but itself, so it cannot deviate from the stream of joy. You can disperse your awareness in every direction, and by doing so distract yourself from the stream. You won’t really let go of your self-image and your restless mind until you feel, without question or doubt, a palpable joy in yourself. The renowned spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti once made a passing comment I find very moving. People don’t realize, he said, how important it is to wake up every morning with a song in your heart. Once I read that, I performed a test on myself. I asked inside to hear the song, and for a few weeks, without any further willpower on my part, I did notice a song as the first thing that came to mind when I woke up in the morning.
But I also know that Krishnamurti was being metaphorical: The song stands for a sense of joy in existence, a joy that is free of any good or bad choices. To ask this of yourself is both the simplest thing and the most difficult. But don’t let it slip your mind, no matter how complex your life becomes. Keep before you the vision of freeing your mind, and expect that when you succeed at doing this, you will be greeted by a stream of joy.
CHANGING YOUR LIFE TO ACCOMMODATE THE SIXTH SECRET
The sixth secret is about the choiceless life. Since we all take our choices very seriously, adopting this new attitude requires a major shift. Today, you can begin with a simple exercise. Sit down for a few minutes and reassess some of the important choices you’ve made over the years. Take a piece of paper and make two columns labeled “Good Choice” and “Bad Choice.”
Under each column, list at least five choices relating to those moments you consider the most memorable and decisive in your life so far—you’ll probably start with turning points shared by most people (the serious relationship that collapsed, the job you turned down or didn’t get, the decision to pick one profession or another), but be sure to include private choices that no one knows about except you (the fight you walked away from, the person you were too afraid to confront, the courageous moment when you overcame a deep fear).
Once you have your list, think of at least one good thing