The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [81]
2. You aren’t paying attention. Your mind is caught up in distractions. This is especially true if there is too much external stimulation. Unless you feel alert inside, you won’t be able to pick up the hints and clues being sent from the one reality.
3. The environment won’t support you. When you try moving forward, circumstances push you back. This kind of thwarting means that there is more to learn, or that the timing isn’t yet right. It also can be true that at a deep level you don’t see yourself moving forward; your conscious desire is in conflict with deeper doubt and uncertainty.
4. You feel threatened by the expansion you would have to make, preferring the safety of a limited self-image. Many people cling to a contracted state, believing that it protects them. In fact, the greatest protection you could ask for comes from evolution, which solves problems by expansion and forward movement. But you must own this knowledge completely; if any part of you wants to hang back in a constricted state, that’s usually enough to block the road ahead.
5. You keep seeing yourself as the old person who adapted to an old situation. This is often an unconscious choice. People identify with their past and try to use old perceptions to understand what is happening. Since perception is everything, seeing yourself as too weak, limited, undeserving, or lacking will block any step forward.
The full implication is that Dharma needs you to collaborate. The upholding force is as much in you as it is “out there” in the universe or the realm of the soul.
The single best way to align with the Dharma is to assume that it is listening. Give the universe room to respond to you. Start up a relationship with it as with another person. I have been a doting grandfather for two years now, and I’m astonished that my granddaughter Tara has no problem talking to trees, rocks, the ocean, or the sky. She takes for granted that there is subjectivity everywhere. “See those dragons?” she’ll say, pointing to an empty space in the middle of the living room, naming a blue dragon here and a red one there. I ask Tara if she is afraid of the dragons, but she assures me that they’ve always been friendly.
Children inhabit imaginary worlds, not for the sake of pure fantasy but to test their creative instincts. Tara is a creator in training, and if deprived of her relationship to trees, rocks, and dragons, she would be cut off from a power that needs to grow. At her age Tara’s life is all playtime, and in the role of grandfather I try to immerse her in as much love and pleasure as possible. Her Vasana is going to be white if I can help it. But I also know that the great challenge for her will be to go beyond every tendency, good or bad. She will have to remain alert to stay in the Dharma, and for those of us who grew up to find that life is a serious business with few time-outs for play, the Dharma awaits our return to sanity.
CHANGING YOUR REALITY TO ACCOMMODATE THE ELEVENTH SECRET
The eleventh secret is about escaping the bondage of cause and effect. The universe is alive, and imbued with subjectivity. Cause and effect are just the machinery it uses to carry out what it wants to do. And what it wants to do is to live and breathe through you. To find out the truth of this, you need to relate to the universe as if it were alive. Otherwise, how will you ever know that it is? Today, begin to adopt the following habits:
Talk to the universe.
Listen for its reply.
Be on intimate terms with Nature.
See the life in everything.
Carry yourself like a child of the universe.
The first step, talking to the universe, is the most important. It doesn’t imply that you go around muttering to the stars or that you begin an imaginary cosmic conversation. The habit of looking at the world “out there” as disconnected from you is entrenched; we all share a cultural