Total Surrender is Recommended
🌊 An election day practice for Tao surfers...
Finally, it is election day.
And total surrender is recommended.
I am grateful to say that I feel deeply surrendered to whatever the outcome may be.
And that is a spacious space to be in.
Regardless of who ‘wins’ the election, millions of people will feel anger, grief, pain, or other intense negative emotions.
My heart goes out to all of these people who will feel such suffering.
For anyone who is open, I invite you to consider that…
One core reason people will feel so upset is because they assume they know which outcome is ‘better’ and which one is ‘worse.’
Both sides have been using extremist rhetoric to paint the potential victory of the ‘other side’ as ‘apocalyptic.’
Many people have bought in to this divisive hypnosis.
~Millions of people really believe that they know that one side will ‘save us’ and the other will ‘destroy us.’
Yet if we step back and find some space, we can ask ourselves…
Do we really know that this is true?
Do we really have any idea whatsoever as to which outcome will be ‘better’ long-term for any of us, or for earth, or for the cosmos?
Do we really know better than life itself?
If life selects the candidate that we view as the ‘villain,’ can we honestly say that life is ‘wrong’ and we—high and mighty we—are ‘right’?
Do we know better than the intelligence which creates infinite harmonious galaxies?
No, we don’t.
Plain and simple.
Nobody has a clue.
We’re talking about an equation of literally immeasurable complexity here—with infinite factors, variables, and endlessly subtle ripple effects flowing on for millennia.
This is not only the case with this election decision. It is the case with every decision.
Nobody has a clue about anything.
“If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit.”
— Robert Anton Wilson
We never know.
(Though perhaps we can intuit that ultimately all decisions and events are ‘for the best’ because the infinite intelligence of nature does not ‘make mistakes’…)
So…
Humility is freeing.
If you simply admit that you actually have no clue whatsoever as to whether it will be ‘better’ for Don or Kamala to get hired for a government job for the next 4 years…
You’re free.
Free to simply surrender to what is.
Free to trust the flow.
Free to send prayers and love to everyone involved.
Free to trust that life knows better than you or me.
No suffering required.
Let it flow where it’s gonna flow.
And keep surfing your own waves in your own life as best you can.
Let the heart lead.
Do the coolest, truest thing you can with what is provided to you in each moment.
That’s all we can ever do in life.
…
…
…
…
And if you look closely…
Perhaps you’ll notice that ‘we’ are not ‘doing’ nearly as much of it as we may think…
Are the waves moving the ocean?
…
…
…
…
Life lives itself.
No maintenance required.
…
…
…
…
Participation, play, and creation are also fun though.
Kowabunga, dude.
…
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Once more…
Prayers for the soul of America.
And the soul of Gaia.
May there be peace on Earth.
May there be peace in this cosmos.
May all souls know peace.
Amen.
letting the tsunami flow, with love,
jb
“Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.”— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“The fact is, what this is—what you are, what reality is—is not dependent upon what it looks like. In the most profound sense, whatever it looks like—disaster, war, pestilence, sleazy politicians, success, failure—it doesn’t matter. It really, really doesn’t matter. Sure, it matters in its own terms; you try to straighten things out and live in a nice world, and all that’s great. But in actuality, nothing hinges on it. The show goes on.”
— Peter Brown, Liberation Beyond Imagination
[Making a controversial tongue-in-cheek point simply to suggest that all events have completely unpredictable downstream effects:]
“You can argue that Hitler did an awful lot for world peace, because of the repercussions of World War II. You know?”
— Peter Brown, Dirty Enlightenment
[Speaking about an experience on MDMA in which he was giving unconditional love to a long line of people:]
“This goes on for a long time. I do not personally recognize any of the people who appear before me… But look who’s here, next in line! It’s Hillary Clinton! OK. That’s cool. I can love Hillary Clinton. I’m not a big fan or anything, but as an embodiment of God and an expression of the universal self, I have no difficulty extending unconditional love to Hillary. Then, after Hillary, it’s none other than the orange egomaniacal buffoon of Donald Trump standing there in front of me in an ill-fitting suit with that smug infantile look on his face (you know the one). Well, there’s nothing for me to do other than extend unconditional love to the Donald, just like everyone else. Perhaps fittingly, Donald is the end of the line for this particular visionary experience, and after him, it shifts to something else. I’ll note that this took place several months before the 2016 election.”
— Martin Ball, The Entheological Paradigm: Essays on the DMT & 5-MeO-DMT Experience and the Meaning of it All
jb is a tao surfer and the author of five books
