True Authorship

We are none other than Cosmic Consciousness in human form. We are the expressions of Source, God, Allah, Brahman,The Absolute or (if you prefer a divine feminine name), Bhuvaneshvari, the great Vedic Mother of the Cosmos. We are the creations of the Quantum Field of infinite possibility, microcosms of the macrocosm, little self and Big Self. We are the universe seeing itself with our eyes, listening with our ears, experiencing through our thoughts, words and deeds actions.   

We are like a funnel; the big end being our higher self, the narrow end being our ego self. But we are still the whole the funnel, Cosmic Consciousness experiencing both ends. So, every decision we make, every choice we choose, is ultimately the decision of our higher self, the Divine Mind. Our individuated selves may have the sense of free will, but because we are both the individual and the cosmos, we paradoxically experience free will and determinism all at the same time. The polarity is transcended when we realise that we are both ends of the funnel. In Taoist thought, this is what is called ‘paradoxical unity’.   

When we forget that we are the whole funnel, we invite all the pain of duality into our experience. We believe that we are the sole authors of our stories. Yet the truth is, we do nothing without the consent of our higher self, for S/He is the true author of our lives. This is why Buddha said: 

 “The roof of all suffering is the authorship of desire”.  

In a gross distortion of his words, the ‘authorship’ part of the Buddha’s proverb has been left out in our modern vernacular, but this is in fact the truth behind all suffering. We suffer when we do not listen to our higher self, when we believe our egos are the ones calling all the shots.  

Liberating ourselves from the pain of duality requires spiritual practices where we take a deep dive into the wide end of the funnel and experience ourselves as pure consciousness for a while. Connecting with our true nature, basking in the peace and spaciousness of our I AM presence, we align ourselves with our higher self and can then make intuitive choices from the heart, so that we are in tune with cosmic intent.  

When we make choices from the head, the part that only experiences the narrow end of the funnel, we limit ourselves by doing what we ‘think’ we ‘should’ do. We make rational decisions from the part of ourselves that feels separate, that has forgotten that we are one.  On the other hand, when we make choices intuitively from the heart, we are in alignment with the cosmos (which is the Greek word for ‘order’) - we are coherent with the wide end of the funnel.  

A litmus test of our coherency is to see how rigidly attached we are to outcomes and timings. If we desperately need something to happen at a certain time in a certain way with no room for error, then it is likely that we have succumbed to the desires of the ego. We are striving, goal oriented, inflexible and stressed – our attitude is the ‘my way or the highway’ kind. 

If, on the other hand, we feel inspired to go in a certain direction, enchanted by the possibilities but nonchalant about specific outcomes, our desires are more likely to be coming from the heart. Nonchalance does not imply having no passion – quite the opposite in fact, as the more heartfelt we are, the more likely we are to feel energised and uplifted about our desires. Being nonchalant means going where the charm is, wherever that may lead, while remaining unattached to the how, the why or the when, which means letting go of trying to micromanage the universe. This is the secret to the famous ‘flow state’, which the Taoists call ‘wu-wei’ – effortless action, where we do things for the love of it, for the action itself, not the fruits of the action.   

Yet interestingly, whether our desires come from the head or the heart, the universe is ok with it all. Cosmic Consciousness wants to experience what it’s like to be out of sync as well as in sync, to feel the contrast, to make mistakes, to learn lessons and evolve in a myriad of different ways. This is the whole reason for creation in the first place, the reason why humans exist, with all our fabulous flaws and perfect imperfections. The universe wants to have this diversity of experiences, so that it can rediscover the joy of re-membering and coming back to unity. This is paradox of unity and diversity, which is where the word ‘universe’ comes from.   

The purpose of this evolutionary process is to feel all the delight that comes when the narrow end of the funnel finally realises that it is in fact the whole funnel. When we realise that we are one being seeing itself from a multitude of different perspectives, the Universe gets to have all the fun of remembering itself again, having had a fleeting moment of amnesia. Cosmic consciousness gets to write, direct and star in the play of life where the fool becomes a sage, the ugly duckling grows into a swan, and the beggar woman is revealed as a Goddess. We all have a role in this grand story where duality is transcended, where the manifest is one with the unmanifest, and where the divine energy flow of life celebrates itself in the ecstasy of dance and play.