2007/10/29

What was I given to do - & did I do it?

This title came to me as I walking my dogs recently. Am I in tune with the profound purposes for which I was given life? Am I clear what they are? To what extent am I accomplishing what it's my role to achieve?
In the daily plod it's hard to be sure whether the steps we take are carrying us towards our goal or away? For the path often twists and when we find ourselves not obviously proceeding in the direction we think we should be, it takes a lot of faith to maintain belief that it is our correct route – but OTOH if we're already lost, maybe better to backtrack immediately ...?
Here's what I think. The key lies in keeping your inner motivation to serve the light within you high and strong. If your heart burns with that love, then the light shines, and provided you ensure the link of faith keeps your inner & outer world real and grounded, you are on the right road, because that is itself the right road, and because it is what all the goals & vicissitudes are designed to teach.
That's where trust comes in. To know intellectually where you should be heading, or to have a plan, is the surest possible way to lose the way &/or the plot. It's that trust between your self and your 'inner otherness' that is itself the 'intunity' which we all seek throu external means. And yet the way to find it was always within, smaller than the eye of the needle, a whole world made small. The very greatest gift of all.
Sometimes we have to accept that we're simply called to walk in the dark, at such times the bible verse 'whatever thy hand findeth to do: do it with all thy might,' is appropriate. This concept is well rendered by John Updike in his poem Midpoint
"Cherish your work, take pleasure in your task,
For doing's the one reward a man dare ask."

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