There is this story about Buridan's donkey. He is faced with the dilemma of having to choose between a haystack and a pail of water, but he can't decide whether he is more hungry or more thirsty. He stands there contemplating his options and is paralyzed with indecision. In the end, Buridan's donkey dies of both starvation and thirst.
I've been thinking about this story, because I have felt paralyzed with ambivalence for some time, unsure what to do and where to invest my energy. I think incessantly about options and come to no conclusion. It is both yes and no at the same time... Things look equally appealing and unappealing, and I end up feeling stuck.
However I have now made some decisions in the past months, such as taking a break from an office job and going travelling. I had many options to keep working in Ottawa, and I chose not to. What the story doesn't say is if you give a donkey a haystack and a pail of water, it will both eat and drink at the same time until the hay and the water are gone.
This is the story of Buridan's donkey and how he moves from indecision to eating and drinking all he wants. The first stop is a Vipassana retreat in Sutton from July 1 to July 12.
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Bien faire et laisser braire, c'était la devise du journal des étudiants de Laval, le Carabin, du temps passé. Je ne sais pas si c'est encore le cas, mais cela revient rapidement à propos comme commentaire à te faire. Un autre serait une recommandation, lire Raimon Panikkar... deux titres : 1) L'expérience de Dieu; 2) La plénitude de l'homme...
ReplyDeleteIn the "my two cents department", I have often run into this situation myself and would offer this consideration: whenever we may get into a situation which potentially triggers a fear within us, we are apt to close off access to and production of our Alpha brain waves, which is where our intuition would take over the process having to make that choice. At some higher level, that CHOICE we are having to wrestle with has already been made, but sometimes we aren't in a position intuitively know that.
ReplyDeleteAs was said by the Oracle in the movie, The Matrix, " We can't see beyond choices we don't understand." Well, what if our higher self DOES understand, but our lower self is still stuck in a Beta brain wave survival rut and we can't see beyond the issue enough to actually be capable of making a free choice? We say we have the ability to make a choice but for any issue that pushes the envelope of our personal spiritual evolution, are we really ready to make any choice?
Seeing this as a pattern is the first step toward asking the question that lies behind it and once we toss that question out to the Universe, our angels, or whatever, we have started that necessary spiritual dialogue.
Once we do that, however, we can't let our fears creep back into the picture, because the same fears that prevented us from being able to form our question and then be able to transmit it, can also then sabotage our reception of the answer.
So, it really comes down to an issue of faith and connection, and I am not a religious person, mind you. I don't have any denominational axe to grind here. This is more of an issue of spiritual mechanics, if you will. Our lack of faith can usually be linked to some visceral fear for our own survival somewhere down that deep dark hole, and when we can come to grips with the fact that we really do not die just because our physical body has given up on the mechanical functions that were necessary to experience this physical amusement park we call life.
Hope that helps,
Frank