Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.
--from your direct experience right now. (not from what other people say about it) Do you have personal control?
Deciding, intending, choosing, controlling events:
For physical events it seems like this is one area where I can exercise control. It seems that I can force things to happen the way I want. For example I have an exercise routine that I'm "supposed" to do 3 times per week. Sometimes I think I am applying my great willpower and control when I get through a few weeks of staying on schedule. Then for some reason the schedule just stops happening. It was not my egoic intention, or decision, or choice to skip the exercises. The ego's plan is simple - do it 3 times a week, period. For some other unknown reason things just go a different route. If it were solely up to my egoic control everything might get done perfectly! (Duh.. right)
Last night I decided I was not going to do the exercises. "Its too late, I'm too tired, I'm considering quitting the whole thing anyway." That type of reasoning usually causes me to skip the exercises. Ultimately I wound up doing the exercises anyway (don't know how or why, just did it). So I may be intending to do it or I may be intending to NOT do it, and then whatever happens happens. I'm not really controlling it apparently.
But as usual the egoic mode has no problem with any of this. It just comes in afterwards and claims control of it all and adds on whatever rationalization that fits. It doesn't care which option was played out. It will claim it one way or the other. But the key thing I'm noticing is that it always does its thing after the fact. It had no control when it would have mattered - before events happen. Its claiming always gives it the sense of control, but its not really controlling. It spits out its opinions before, during, and after events, but the bottom line is that it is not really controlling things.
This scenario above is applicable to practically everything in my life - doing some work, doing some project, having some fun, going on a trip. I have my preferences and intentions, and I make my decisions and choices and then whatever happens happens. Usually things happen close enough to the original intention so that I do get the sense of control. If everything always went completely haywire it would be noticable and I would catch on faster. Apparently its that sense of control that happens just enough to fool me. But I am catching on now. My guess is there will continue to be enough continuity in intentions versus results to cause the appearance of control, but I have seen enough to know something else is going on.
Deciding, intending, choosing, controlling thoughts:
At this point in the spiritual journey I can see how the ego illusion works. There is a central character known as "me" and there are thousands of stories supporting every aspect of his imaginary life. The most aggravating stories are the ones involving anger, rage, resentment and etc about various painful issues and events of my life - failed relationships, bad jobs, failed endeavors, deaths etc. (Not that thats all there is. There are positives too :-)
I am now getting some relief from these mental storms as I can see that they are all about the phantom character - not who I am. Whats happening now though is that the stories keep playing anyway, sometimes with even more intensity! They do tend to fizzle out much quicker since I recognize them for what they are, but the point is I am not controlling them. I don't control thoughts. If I did they would obviously be different.
I don't control the good thoughts either. They pop up spontaneously and I enjoy them while they're here. Then they fade away and some other thoughts come in. Just watching them come and go is interesting.
Thanks for listening,
Rick
