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FOOTNOTE
SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN DESTINY OR FATE, that things don’t just
happen randomly. I understand it as karma – cause and effect.
Nothing just happens. We cause it to happen. Everything that you
are, that is happening to you in the present, is an effect of a
cause you have made through thought, word or deed in the past. Everything
you think, say or do today is the cause of what you will be, what
will happen to you in the future. For instance, someone who continues
to respond angrily or slanderously to the people and events around
them is making the cause for more people and events in their environment
to make them angry and unhappy. Someone who lives dominated by fear
is making the cause to attract situations that perpetuate that fear.
Someone who makes others suffer is making the cause to suffer themselves.
But someone who strives to see the potential for change, for joy,
in everything they encounter in life, and grabs it with both hands,
is making the cause to be happy and fulfilled. Once you understand
cause and effect – karma – you are master or mistress
of your own fate.
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I have not changed my basic nature. I’m still scatty, an emotional
volcano, prone to occasional bouts of massive self doubt. I still
love to live in a fantasy world and have a child’s outlook on
life. What I have changed is that nowadays, it all seems to work in
my favour.
The kind of tapestry we weave of our life depends on the relationship
we have with our pure inner selves. I think of the warp of the cloth
as our spiritual understanding and the weft as the day-to-day happenings.
How we deal with tragedy, success, loss or gain, depends on the extent
to which we develop and reveal the depth and strength of our spiritual
life. The tapestry can be rich and warm with rewarding experiences
and relationships or impoverished and restricted with lost opportunities
and bitterness.
Although I believe in angels, that we have the power to transcend
anything, I don’t believe in fairy stories any more. I don’t
believe there is someone out there who’s going to wave a magic
wand and make everything turn out fine. I do believe we are able to
change our destiny, and that of the world, ourselves. This is the
greatest challenge, the final frontier, the ultimate personal adventure.
All it takes is wisdom, compassion and courage – and the all-encompassing
desire to do it. |
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shavian
