--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bronte Baxter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Only a rather naive cat, who blindly gives Bronte the status of all-knowing perfection, would ignore the evidence around him and insist that everything Bronte does is her will and part of a perfectly executed plan, way beyond the observer's humble capacity to understand. IMO, the Infinite is on a grand adventure. It's working to bring into manifest life an incredibly beautiful dream it has, and on the way it makes (through us) a damn lot of mistakes. From these it learns (through our learning) and does better over time. Thus the world is evolving.
But if the mistakes have positive results, as you suggest, then perhaps they're part of the perfection. > But one sure way to slow that evolving is to take the position that everything is perfect as it is, and that we have no free will, and that surrendering attachment to action and desires allows God to act through us. I remember a saying I learned as a kid. "God has no hands but yours. God has no feet but yours." We have to step up to our "mission" of being divine doers -- dynamic, involved doers -- not sidestep it with misassumptions that everything is perfect. If we assume that the mistakes are perfect as well, why can't we assume that our dynamic mission is to correct and learn from them? > I DID get that you are saying change is part of perfection, and that from your point of view people can try to make things better and still believe that's everything perfect. But I find that contradictory. A person who believes everything's perfect has little motivation to work hard for change. She tends to lay back and coast, thinking what she does is not very important. She tends to be "detached." That causes limp intentions, limp actions, and limp results. It's why India is such a passive nation, as MMY used to label it. Thanks very much to traditional Indian philosophy. But what I'm arguing is that if you think what you do isn't very important, you haven't understood the premise that everything is perfect. If you really get that change is part of perfection, there's no basis for detachment or limp intentions or passivity. Again: "If, as you say, everything is perfect just as it is, why are we working so hard to change things?" "That too is perfect just as it is." Part of the confusion here is that the "everything is perfect" statement describes the *experience* of a higher state of consciousness. It isn't a philosophy or a belief. In ignorance, where that is not your experience, you can hold it as a belief, but it has no implications for behaving any differently than you would if you believed otherwise. It's not a statement that carries with it any imperative. Its only value as a belief, as far as I can tell, is to keep you from getting so torn up when your attempts to change things don't work out that you make yourself ill from the stress or simply give up. There's that wonderful teaching from the Gita about putting everything you've got into your efforts to accomplish something, but not being attached to the results. If you fail, instead of beating yourself up or becoming discouraged, you turn right around and try something else. It's a lot easier to learn from your mistakes and put that learning into practice immediately if you aren't knocked for a loop by your failures. In other words, such a belief should have precisely the opposite effect from the one you suggest. If what you're complaining about is that the "everything is perfect" statement isn't clearly explained to include change, then I agree with you completely. It shouldn't be taught if it's taught in a way that encourages passivity, as you originally suggested: > One of the conditions of passing through is that you > accept the world as it is, so when you become an empowered > master you won't mess up the system that keeps the gods on > top and the human race underneath. Three things have to > happen to the aspirant before he is blessed with "the Self > unfolding the Self to itself": > > 1) he must come to believe that the world is perfect as > it is (so he won't want to change anything) > 2) he must come to believe that having desires or > viewpoints of his own is a bad thing (so he won't want to > change anything) > 3) he must willingly give up his individuality and even > his mind (so he won't BE ABLE to change anything) If that's what's being taught, it's just wrong. But as I said to start with, every time *I've* encountered the "everything is perfect" teaching, it has included the explanation that change is part of that perfection, and that it should not inhibit in the slightest the motivation for dynamic activity for change.
