Nothing Works!

"Nothing you do will do. Now what will you do?"

-- Shin'ichi Hisamatsu

Have you ever felt like you've tried everything and you're still not getting the results you want? You may be looking relentlessly for a job, but you get no offers, or even interviews. Or maybe you're trying to save, or spark, a relationship and the other person is indifferent, aloof, and cold. Or maybe you're really trying to make your whole life work on multiple levels and no matter what you do it just isn't working! Now what do you do?

Nothing. Sit down, shut up, and watch your wild and crazy mind spit-out all sorts of hare-brained thoughts. Just watch it. Don't attempt to guide it, control it, or repress it. Merely observe. Let things calm down internally, and they will begin to calm down externally. Because when you've done it all and none of it works, surrender is the only logical path.

Surrender your manic mind. Surrender your dreams and schemes. Surrender, most of all, your fears and desires, the two driving forces behind most of our frustration and craziness. Sooner or later, you'll see that when nothing works, nothing works!

Yes, the only thing that works is nothing because from the vast emptiness of nothingness, new possibilities emerge. Possibilities that have nothing to do with your old way of thinking. Possibilities that may even have nothing to do with your old idea of you.

When you move from nothingness, you don't move at all. The Universe moves through you. and the Universe always works. Maybe not the way the old you wanted it to, or anticipated it would, but the Universe always works.

Many people never realize that nothing they do will do. They keep banging their heads against the walls of reality until it comes time to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Others realize their personal powerlessness and sink into deep depression, ennui, or the bottom of a bottle.

Lucky are the few who can unclench the tight fist of ego long enough to let the Universe work through them. They know nothing works. And they celebrate that fact everyday.

The choice is yours -- keep on keeping on, doing what doesn't work, or do nothing and see.

Turning Within

"When a person turns inside towards that true self, the necessity of any scriptures and scientific theories will never arise for that person."

-- Ramana Maharshi

Scriptures are statements of belief. Scientific theories are educated guesses. For the spiritual aspirant, the mystic-in-training, beliefs and speculations, no longer hold any appeal. Divine ignorance is seen as a a gateway to realization, as well as a state of grace. 

All that we can really know in the physical world are facts and names, anyway. The exact temperature at this moment, the 33rd president of the United States, the name of the flowering bush across the street. Neither beliefs not theories are really knowledge, though many people mistake them for such.

Turning within we enter the realm of intuitive understanding. The dictionary defines intuition as "a non-cognitive way of knowing." This mean you know that you know, you just don't know how the hell you know! The intuitions granted the spiritual seeker are neither beliefs nor theories nor facts. They are, instead, deeper understandings of Reality. When you begin to be graced with those intuitions, beliefs seem like child's play and speculations adolescent infatuations. 

Identifying with the "true self" rather than with the physical body, social persona, or psychological and emotional states, is what opens you to these intuitive whispers from the Divine. When you give up attachment to the egoic sense of self, all the beliefs and speculations that the ego held so tightly as truth begin to naturally unravel. You are no longer bound by them. And in that new state of freedom, Divine ignorance and intuitive knowing peacefully coexist in an emotional milieu of awe and appreciation. 

It's a process described in every spiritual tradition. But descriptions are merely signposts pointing the way. They can bolster your courage and make you realize that you are really not alone, but the journey you must take is all your own. And the journey, while uniquely yours, is always in the same direction -- within.