فصل 13

Section II

The Great Experiment Begins

13

The Experiment of a Lifetime

Thus far my entire path to inner freedom was focused around my meditations. That was where I went to become filled with a deep sense of peace and serenity. And it was working, to a degree. I could sit for hours with a beautiful flow of energy lifting me upward, but I couldn’t break through to where I longed to go. Furthermore, the personal mind always returned once I got up and became active. I needed help, and it came one day in a flash of realization. It dawned on me that perhaps I’d been going about this in the wrong way. Instead of trying to free myself by constantly quieting the mind, perhaps I should be asking why the mind is so active. What is the motivation behind all the mental chatter? If that motivation were to be removed, the struggle would be over.

This realization opened the door for an entirely new and exciting dimension to my practices. As I explored it inwardly, the first thing I noticed was that most of the mental activity revolved around my likes and dislikes. If my mind had a preference toward or against something, it actively talked about it. I could see that it was these mental preferences that were creating much of the ongoing dialogue about how to control everything in my life. In a bold attempt to free myself from all that, I decided to just stop listening to all the chatter about my personal preferences, and instead, start the willful practice of accepting what the flow of life was presenting me. Perhaps this change in focus would quiet things down inside.

I started this new practice with something very simple, the weather. Could it really be so hard to just let it rain when it rains and be sunny when it’s sunny without complaining about it? Apparently the mind can’t do it: Why did it have to rain today? It always rains when I don’t want it to. It had all week to rain; it’s just not fair.

I simply replaced all that meaningless noise with:

Look how beautiful; it’s raining.

I found these practices of acceptance very powerful, and they definitely served to quiet the mind. So I decided to push the envelope and broaden the range of events I would learn to accept. I clearly remember deciding that from now on if life was unfolding in a certain way, and the only reason I was resisting it was because of a personal preference, I would let go of my preference and let life be in charge.

Clearly, these were uncharted waters for me. Where would I end up? If my preferences were not leading me, what would happen to me? These questions did not scare me; they fascinated me. I didn’t want to be in charge of my life; I wanted to be free to soar far beyond myself. I began to see this as a great experiment. What would happen to me if I just inwardly surrendered my resistance and let the flow of life be in charge? The rules of the experiment were very simple: If life brought events in front of me, I would treat them as if they came to take me beyond myself. If my personal self complained, I would use each opportunity to simply let him go and surrender to what life was presenting me. This was the birth of what I came to call “the surrender experiment,” and I was totally prepared to see where it would take me.

You may think that only a madman would make such a decision. But, in truth, I had already experienced some amazing things that the flow of life had done. I had witnessed firsthand what happened when I let go and followed the subtle events that led me to the hills of Mexico and then to those wonderful experiences with the Mexican villagers. When I got back to the States, I had been led to my beautiful new property, and look what happened with the house. I just wanted to build a simple hut, and that turned into an unexpectedly rich experience. It was clear to me that I had not done these things—they had happened to me. In fact, if I had not let go of my initial mental resistance, none of them could have happened. I had gone through most of my life thinking I knew what was good for me, but life itself seemed to know better. I was now going to test that presumption of nonrandomness to the max. I was willing to roll the dice and let the flow of life be in charge.