The Promise (Part Two)

Ann K Gryczan

​In the last post we looked at a few pieces in the puzzle of life.

One was a doorway to happiness. The doorway represented life itself and life’s promise to us: to know who we are.

The next piece was responsibility. It hardly seemed to go on the same page as life’s promise – one was bright and full of potential and the other duty-bound and inconvenient, like waiting in a long line with a big package.

So we looked into the roots of the word “responsibility” and found a hidden message. The hidden message was, “promise back.’ The message implied that life required something of us, and by fulfilling the requirement, we could find the wholeness of our own lives.

We observed that since we live in a world of form, every form we encounter must somehow be part of life’s promise and a clue that will help us to answer the question: who am I?

Finally, we acknowledged that this must be especially true for the original forms: our family, circumstances and the things that happen to us.

Let us proceed and see more deeply how responsibility and the promise of life are intimately connected. Let’s see how we can accept one to receive the other.

Shangri-La

Let’s say we have a chance to go to Shangri-La. Do you remember Shangri-La? It has many names: sometimes it is called The Promised Land or Nirvana. It is a symbol of infinite peace and beauty, the source of being and one’s true home. It may be forgotten now, but deep inside, maybe deeper than conscious awareness, it is what we have always been seeking.

So we have a chance to go to this beautiful, wonderful heaven. We show up for the journey and randomly, it seems, we are assigned a vehicle: a belching, rusted falling apart car. Other people get the latest, coolest models or they even get to fly. Why? It’s not fair. Or maybe we’re the ones in a sleek new convertible or boarding a plane with fancy new luggage. Now, are we guilty?

And this is the first fork in the road. This is the first of a zillion diversions into the maze of the ego/mind. This is where we forget who we are and our real purpose: the journey to Shangri-La.

We may not be in touch with it now, but there is nothing more painful and bleak than losing our way in life. The ego/mind is a good distraction though. It is infinitely engaging – a kaleidoscope of dazzling features, dramas, scenes, feelings, stories, costumes! The mind is so immediate and compelling and Shangri-La so vague and far away. Where were we going and why?

But however endlessly engaging the ego/mind may be, there is always an underlying emptiness, there is always something missing: us. We’re missing out on our own lives.

Fortunately, we can correct any wrong turn – especially the first one that led smack into the ego’s trap. We can always get back on the road to Shangri-La and remember who we are and what we are doing here.

So let’s start with the original form, in case that was the first wrong turn.

Form is a Tool of Consciousness

If we want to fulfill our purpose in life it is a good idea to use the gifts life gives us – starting with the original form: our family, circumstances and the things that happened.

The particular vehicle we got is not a judgment on our fundamental nature, what we deserve or not, what we should or should not get, or whether we are good or bad – but the ego/mind often sees it that way.

Form is a tool of infinite consciousness and it has within it everything we each uniquely need to advance on the road to Shangri-La. Why not assume everything is a clue that will help us find our way home? Why not assume everything we encounter is perfectly placed for our benefit?

Not by a great being who has taken a personal interest in our progress, but by the perfect order inherent in the infinite wholeness of All That Is.

We are Part of Infinity

We are part of infinity, not separate from it (of course, right?). And therefore, we are governed by its laws.

As physicists continue to discover, the highest order and perfection prevail in the interaction of energy and matter, even though to the mind, life and space can seem like chaos.

The Key

The key is to use the forms we find in our lives, but not let them use us. The shape of the form – especially our original circumstances – requires of us something that we don’t yet know we can be. Like courage or fortitude or love or forgiveness – or all of it. And by becoming what the shape requires us to be, we move beyond it.

Then we have risen above our circumstances and that is the whole point. Life gave us the perfect leg up to a higher view. We just had to take it, that’s all.

Otherwise, where are we? Trapped inside a shape we don’t like, banging on the walls, lost in the very thing that would help us transcend it.

The form presents us with the next piece of the puzzle we need to solve the question: who am I? It shows us how to take our own personal next step on the road to Shangri-La. It is almost always uncomfortable, and usually requires something we don’t have a clue how to do or be. Of course we don’t like it! Of course we think if only we could have started out differently, our lives would be better!

Back to Shangri-La

So how do we get back to our journey to Shangri-La?

We start by assuming there is something we don’t know. The first thing we don’t know is how the forms (like our parents, believe it or not!) are perfect for helping us become what is within us to be.

This requires some humility and faith on our part, which is tough (actually impossible) for the ego/mind. So we have to reach deeper and touch into the maybe almost forgotten longing for the meaning of our lives.

Back to Responsibility

And now we have circled back to responsibility and our chance to find our way home to Shangri-La.

These are the three steps that open the door to finding our way in life and fulfilling our purpose:

1.  Accept life’s promise, including the original form in which it came. This is a short sentence, but can feel like a very great task. It goes something like this: “Thank you, Life, for this vehicle. I don’t know why I got it or what it means, but I know it is a clue for answering the most important questions: who am I and what am I doing here?”

2. Accept the responsibility that comes with the promise. This one goes something like: “By some perfect order within the wholeness of infinity that I can not yet understand, this vehicle is mine. Since this vehicle is mine, I accept that I am now responsible for it.

Accepting responsibility is our first step in realizing we are not the vehicle and not our circumstances – it is actually the ticket to our own lives. And we don’t want to throw that away or we’ll be lost!

3. Make a promise back. Something like this: “I don’t yet know how, but I will do my best to discover and fulfill all this vehicle requires of me."

Here’s the thing: we can’t see the perfection of the form until we fulfill what it requires – and then it is obvious because we have become that perfection. Isn’t it brilliant of Life to set it up that way?

Now We Have a Chance!

Remember the secret message in the word “responsibility” is “promise back?” This is how responsibility and the promise of life go together; this is how we say “Yes” and meet life’s promise with our own.

Now we have a chance. And now we are back on the road to Shangri-La.

Next Time

In the next and last post we will talk more about life’s promise – and especially how to use the vehicle that comes with it.

In the meantime, do you see what you have already achieved and become as a result the particular vehicle you got? Has it given you any clues? Tell us – we would love to hear it!