APPLYING THE LAW OF "KARMA" OR CAUSE AND
EFFECT
I will put the law of karma
into effect by making a commitment to take the following
steps:
(1) Today I will witness
the choices I make in each moment. And in the mere witnessing of
these choices, I will bring them to my conscious awareness. I will
know that the best way to prepare for any moment in the future is to
be fully conscious in the present.
(2) Whenever I make a
choice, I will ask myself two questions: "What are the consequences
of this choice that I'm making?" and "Will this choice bring
fulfillment and happiness to me and also to those who are affected
by this choice?"
(3) I
will then ask my heart for guidance and be guided by its message of
comfort or discomfort. If the choice feels comfortable, I will
plunge ahead with abandon. If the choice feels uncomfortable, I will
pause and see the consequences of my action with my inner vision.
This guidance will enable me to make spontaneously correct choices
for myself and for all those around me.
THE
LAW OF LATEST EFFORT
Nature's intelligence functions with effortless
ease . . . with
carefreeness, harmony, and
love.
And when we harness the forces of harmony,
joy, and love, we create
success and good fortune with effortless ease.
An
integral being knows without going, sees without looking, and
accomplishes without doing.
-Lao Tzu
The fourth spiritual law
of success is the Law of Least Effort. This law is based on the fact
that nature's intelligence functions with effortless ease and
abandoned carefreeness. This is the principle of least action, of no
resistance. This is, therefore, the principle of harmony and love.
When we learn this lesson from nature, we easily fulfill our
desires.
If you observe nature at
work, you will see that least effort is expended. Grass doesn't try
to grow, it just grows. Fish don't try to swim, they just swim.
Flowers don't try to bloom, birds don't try to fly, they fly. This
is their intrinsic nature. The earth doesn't try to spin on its own
axis; it is the nature of the earth to spin with dizzing speed and
to hurtle though space. It is the nature of babies to be in vliss.
It is the nature of the sun to shine. It is the nature of the stars
to glitter and sparkle. And it is human nature to make our dreams
manifest into physical form, easily and
effortlessly.
In Vedic Science, the
age-old philosophy of India, this principle is known as the
principle of economy of effort, or "do less and accomplish more."
Ultimately you come to the state where you do nothing and accomplish
everything. This means that there is just a faint idea, and then the
manifestation of the idea comes about effortlessly. What is commonly
called a "miracle" is actually an expression of the Law of Least
Effort.
Nature's intelligence
functions effortlessly, frictionlessly, spontaneously. It is
non-linear; it is intuitive, holistic, and nourishing. And when you
are in harmony with nature, when you are established in the
knowledge of your true Self, you can make use of the Law of Least
Effort.
Least effort is expended
when your action are motivated by love, because nature is held
together by the energy of love. When you seek power and control over
other people, you waste energy. When you seek money or power for the
sake of the ego, you spend energy chasing the illusion of happiness
instead of enjoying happiness in the moment. When you seek money for
personal gain only, you cut off the flow of the energy to yourself,
and interfere with the expression of the nature's intelligence. But
when your actions are motivated by love, there is no waste of
energy. When your actions are motivated by love, your energy
multiplies and accumulates – and the surplus energy you gat her and
enjoy can be channeled to create anything that you want, including
unlimited wealth.
You can think of your
physical body as a device for controlling energy: it can generate,
store, and expend energy. If you know how to generate, store, and
expend energy in an efficient way, then you can create any amount of
wealth. Attention to the ego consumes the greatest amount of energy.
When your internal reference point is the ego, when you seek power
and control over other people or seek approval from others, you
spend energy in a wasteful way.
When the energy is freed
up, it can be rechanneled and used to create anything that you want.
When your internal reference point is your spirit, when you are
immune to criticism and unfearful of any challenge, you can harness
the power of love, and use energy creatively for the experience of
affluence and evolution.
In the art of the
Dreaming, Don Jaun tells Carlos Castaneda, "…most of our energy goes
into upholding our importance….if we were capable of losing some of that importance, two
extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our
energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur;
and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to…catch a
glimpse of the actual grandeur of the
universe."
There are three component
to the Law of Least Effort – three things you can do to put this
principle of "do less and accomplish more" into action. The first
component is acceptance. Acceptance simply means that you make a
commitment: "Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances,
and events as they occur." This means I will know that this moment
is as it should be. This moment – the one you're experiencing right
now – is the culmination of all the moments is as it is because the
entire universe is as it is.
When you struggle against
this moment, you're actually struggling against the entire universe.
Instead, you can make the decision that today you will not struggle
against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. This
means your acceptance of this moment is total and complete. You
accept things as they are, not as you wish they were in this moment.
This is important to understand. You can wish for things in the
future to be different, but in this moment you have to accept things
as they are.
When you feel frustrated
or upset by a person or a situation, remember that you are not
reacting to the person or the situation. These are your feelings,
and your feelings are not someone else's fault. When you recognize
and understand this completely, you are ready to take responsibility
for how you feel and to change it. And if you can accept things as
they are ready to take responsibility for your situation and for all
events you see as problems.
This leads to the second
component of the Law of Least Effort responsibility mean?
Responsibility means not blaming anyone or anything for your
situation, including yourself. Having accepted this circumstance,
this event, this problem, responsibility then means the ability to
have a creative response to the situation as it is now. All problems
contain the seeds of opportunity, and this awareness allows you to
take the moment and transform it to a better situation or
thing.
Once you do this, every
so-called upsetting situation will become an opportunity for the
creation of something new and beautiful, and every so-called
tormentor or tyrant will become your teacher. Reality in this way,
you will have many teachers around you, and many opportunities to
evolve.
Whenever confronted by a
tyrant, tormentor, teacher, friend, or foe (they all mean the same
thing) remind yourself, "This moment is as it should be." Whatever
relationships you have attached in your life at this moment are
precisely the ones you need in your life at this moment. There is a
hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning is serving
your own evolution.
The third component of the
Law of Least Effort is defenselessness, which means that your
awareness is established in defenselessness, and you have
relinquished the need to convince or persuade around you, you'll see
that they spend ninety nine percent of their points of view. If you
just relinquish the need to defend your point of view, you will in
that relinquishment, gain access to enormous amounts of energy that
have been previously wasted.
When you become defensive,
blame others, and do not accept and surrender to the moment, your
life meets resistance. Any time you encounter resistance, recognize
that if you force the situation, the resistance only will increase.
You font want to stand rigid like a tall oak that cracks and
collapses in the storm. Instead, you want to be flexible, like a
reed that bends with the storm and survives.
Completely desist from
defending your point of view. When you have no point to defend, you
do not allow the birth of an argument. If you do this consistently –
if you stop fighting and resisting – you will fully experience the
present, which is a gift. Someone once told me, "The past is
history, the future is a mystery, and this moment is a gift. That is
why this moment is called 'the present'."
If you embrace the present
and become one with it, and merge with it, you will experience a
fire, a glow, a sparkle of ecstasy throbbing in every living
sentient being. As you begin to experience this exultation of spirit
in everything that is alive, s you become intimate with it, joy will
be born within you, and you will drop the terrible burdens and
encumbrances of defensiveness, resentment, and harmfulness. Only
then will you become lighthearted, carefree, joyous, and
free.
In this joyful simple
freedom, you will know without any doubt in your hear that what you
want is available to you whenever you want it, because your want
will be from the level of happiness, not from the level of anxiety
or fear. You do not need to justify; simply declare your intent to
yourself, and you will experience fulfillment, delight, joy,
freedom, and autonomy in every moment of your
life.
Make a commitment to
follow the path of no resistance. This is the path through which
nature's intelligence unfolds spontaneously, without friction or
effort. When you have the exquisite combination of acceptance,
responsibility, and defenselessness, you will experience life
flowing with effortless ease.
When
you remain open to all pints of view – not rigidly attached to only
one – your dreams and desires will flow with nature's desires. Then
you can release your intentions, without attachment, and just wait
for the appropriate season for your desires to blossom into reality.
You can be sure that when the season is right, your desires will
manifest. This is the Law of Least Effort.