Nonduality and Accomplishments?

Nonduality and Accomplishments?

People have used visualization to accomplish things, like Roger Bannister running the mile in less than four minutes. But isn’t there an inherent conflict between experiencing the nondual space where nothing is needed and using visualization to accomplish things in my life? Anonymous Reader

When we feel incomplete or inadequate we quite naturally long for and strive for completion, a return to wholeness. We’ll struggle toward whatever seems to offer hope of satisfaction. Unfortunately, whatever we accomplish – running faster, growing our bank balance, winning positive attention – always fails to provide the satisfaction we seek. At best it may provide a brief respite from the search, until we realize this victory, like all our past victories, is hollow.

What we’re looking for, the experience of belonging here, of being at ease in our skins, is not found in accomplishments. It is found by directly exploring its apparent absence. All the ways in which we tell ourselves that we’re not what we’re supposed to be. And all the feelings and energies of the body that we withdraw from and try to be rid of, utterly convinced that they shouldn’t be here.

Am I good enough or not good enough? Am I broken or whole? As we look at these questions we can see how much we have to make up to answer them. What measure of goodness or wholeness will we use? What we are is beyond measure, beyond good/bad, broken/whole.

If we’re free of the burden of compensating for imagined deficiency, will we cease to accomplish anything? When our past accomplishments were driven by fear and shame it can be easy to believe that realizing the natural ease of existence will mean inactivity. But this is just another fantasy of the mind.

When we’re done with trying to justify ourselves our natural creativity and gifts can flow forth without hindrance. All the energy tied up in trying to correct imagined deficiency is released to serve a greater purpose. We are free to hear and follow the call of our hearts as it comes, without the distortions and confusion involved in “trying to be good” or “trying to be loving.”

When we relax into what we are and where we are, we cease interfering in the process of life moving through us. Even as we’re moving and changing we’re not engaged in a fantasy of how we really should already be somewhere else or different from how we are. We’re able to nurture the young parts of us as they develop rather than condemning them as slow, stupid, or hopeless.