MAY 1, 2021
What is the most Right Thing?
Well. as you can imagine, the past few weeks Puran and Isha and myself, we have immersed ourselves in ‘the most-right-thing’. Discussions of how do we do it? How may we know it? How can we find it? How might we encourage it? What is it? Actually, is it? We spoke of love and of action; of enlivening and of surrender. Sometimes we just shared silence knowing there was nothing explainable.
When I contemplate the most-right-thing, when I take it inside and hold the experience of it, rather than unwrapping the words, what arises in me is, it just happens. Even when I believe it has come about through a consciously made decision, that I made; me; when I look back, the decision was made for me, the decision had already happened – I just cottoned on to it, and in that instant the way forward revealed itself to me. The only choice I had, was whether or not to turn up and take a step. Once that first step was taken, the next became clear, the movement simple.
Sometimes the most-right-thing arises with an experience of gnosis. That feeling inside, that deep knowing, like an insistent premonition. You can keep avoiding its call, keep resisting the move it wants you to make, but that knowing will just keep coming right back at you until you go with it and resistance finally falls away, like birdsong, dissolving into air.
In my experience, the most-right thing isn’t necessarily what we would like or what we would long for. It’s not about hopes and wishes, or dreams and imaginings. Also, the most-right-thing is not necessarily the most sensible thing and it might not seem the most logical choice at the time. It might involve hardship, difficulty, pain, awkwardness, challenge, and it certainly does not always meet with the approval or the acceptance of others.
There are times when I feel outside of the most-right-thing field of play and I just don’t know how to get back in. Caught up and entangled in my own confusions. One of the things I do is speak with an oracle. I don’t pretend I understand what the oracle wants me to do. The only ones that work talk in riddles much of the time. But that’s their purpose for me. They help me drop into the ocean of being. The spaciousness of my being and non-being. A place of stillness, the silence in sound, a presence, available and present in the timeless moment.
And for me, that’s the most-right-thing, happening right-there. Inner presence not outer construction. I believe that the most-right-thing is available all the time, present, ready for me to find it and step into.
~Suzanne Inayat-Khan
The River Clarion
Sunday May 1, 2021
A charm bracelet; he, she or it is charming; Prince Charming, once upon a time there was a ‘charm school’ for young ladies; allurement, attractiveness and attraction; a manifestation of magic, protection; the snake charmer; a lucky charm (for me as a child it was a rabbit’s foot) and for a little fun: a fundamental quark holding an electric charge (also the flavor characterizing this particle), and there are, of course, many more. But let us set all those aside, for now.
For today, Charm is something entirely other.
Charm is one and a multiplicity: it is noun, verb, adjective, subject and object; subjective and objective.
Charm is the way towards and a state of being
Charm is the movement of the wave and the moment of the particle
Charm arises as a synchronous flow of events resulting in an embodied awareness that in all this mysterious world, we are where we are at the right time and all is in its place.
This awareness is not a metaphorical imagining but an actual potency, a charge that activates within our body. The imagined becomes real.
When we find/do/are that most right thing, we sense a lightness of being; as if the world is enlightened from within. Grace arises all at once, unbidden, as the Charm of that moment manifests, embracing all as one.
That lightness of being is both the cause and the effect. It is both the way and the destination manifesting in the most right thing. Our experiential will include three contemplations to approach this charmed state.
CHARM
Two windows with a view into the most-right-thing
“Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors—people who have a certain hunger to know what is true—feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
- Pema Chödrön
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
The Sweet Spot of Action
There is a spot on a baseball bat where contact with the ball is optimal, enabling the ball to travel the farthest in relation to the energy of the swing. This sweet spot also minimizes the vibrations of the impact (which can be transferred painfully to the hands). We could see the-most-right-thing as an action sweet spot where good timing, right intention, perceptual precision and harmonious action converge.
The sweet spot of action not only increases the probability that an action will ultimately be beneficial for all concerned, it reduces the “karmic reverberations” (like those painful vibrations of the bat) generated by the act. If by “karma” we mean the energetic field spreading, like ripples, from any act—the feedback generated by everything we do—then we could say that the-most-right-thing is the source of “good karma”. Better yet, because “good” is not truly helpful in this context, lets call this “here”. The closer we move into the sweet spot of the-most-right-thing the more present we are and vice versa. Likewise, we could say that being “not here” creates a field of entanglements, unforeseen negative consequences and “baggage” that spreads in relation to how far we are from that sweet spot in our actions.
What’s important is that the batter does not try to hit that sweet spot, knowing there’s no way to do that purely through calculation and will. Rather, his intention is to embody, in a fully relaxed-alert moment, all that he has become through his athletic training and experience. Like this, the-most-right-thing occurs not because we try to do it, but because we can, in relaxed alertness, embody the guidance and grace of our spiritual journey. This suggest that we cannot deliberately do the-most-right-thing. What we can do is allow ourselves to be transmitters of the “music of the moment”—the wisdom, goodness and “higher” purpose embedded in every situation.
How? Rather than by thinking that there is one perfect thing which can be said or done and that our job is to hit that target, by realizing that we operate within “behavioral zones”; that each of us has a relatively predictable range of actions, reactions, responses in any given situation based on our inherent and learned tendencies. Let’s picture this as a circle of probabilities—the things we are most likely to say and do. Our job then is not to figure out which of these is the “most right” in this situation but to move that circle of probabilities toward— into alignment with—the sweet spot.
How do we know which direction that is? By yielding to the magnetic force emanating from the-most-right-thing, which is always pulling us toward its fulfillment. This is only possible when we see that the-most-right-thing is not something we do but an intrinsic potential of the moment longing to be realized. Unless we are listening for that call, our circle of probabilities will only align with our personal desire, need, understanding, likely missing the sweet spot. So we might say that the key to the-most-right-thing is listening—as purely (and lovingly) as we can.
EXPERIENTIAL
In the imaginal theatre, envision a recent situation in which you feel that the-most-right-thing didn’t occur. Observe the situation and your action or response in the most neutral, objective way possible—no judgements, no “I shouldas”, no emotions (keep breathing).
After a couple of minutes, draw a star (the sweet spot) in the center of your paper with at least 5 lines radiating out from its center. Imagine that you can see a light glowing in the star to which you address “How can I listen better”?)
Write a word or phrase that conveys each answer you receive on one of the lines.
Stand Like a Tree
Stand like a tree
Feet strong
Toes reaching into the ground.
Balanced.
Holding your own weight.
Nourished, by your roots.
Through knees and hips,
with back and belly,
Bending with the wind
Gently, this way and that way
To the left and the right
Turn your face towards the sun
Open your arms, wide, wide
Reaching out this way and that way,
And allow them to sway side to side
Air moving through your fingers
Like leaves in the wind.
Breathe as you move
breathe out all that you are
Breathe as you move
breathe in, all that is around you
Breathe
Breathe and now hush
let your arms rest
all movement stops
Listen
And in that silent still space
step forward.
Step into what is yours. The most-right.
