Doing Things Backwards

The search for a path through life

Photo: Leaves on a slightly damp sidewalk, near Javits Center, New York City, November 2023.

I have relationships with everything that takes place within a given moment of life. Even now, in this exact moment, as I write these words, or as you read them, I am in relationship with many different things that appear to be separate things, but are all part of one single thing we call life.

If we wish to engage in inner work, it is important to understand it from the beginning, as an act of bringing all these things closer together  into an approximation of the actual unity we exist in. This, as opposed to our constant and often pessimistic estimation of the distance between things, which we engage in constantly, because we are so fascinated by the way things in which are different.

Imagine if we were fascinated by the way in which things are the same. This is a different kind of attraction – an actual attraction, as opposed to our theoretical acts of separation – and it can create the kind of magnetism in us that draws life into a more whole thing. But it doesn't happen by accident the way our relationships usually do. Instead, it takes something intentional from within us.

The difficulty with many of our relationships is that they’re accidental and unintentional. Everything just happens, and the mind isn't present to it in this moment.

By "the mind" I mean the wholeness of my Being, not the intellect. Unintentional relationship is the norm; and yet I have the capacity for intentional relationship if I bring myself in this moment to a greater sense and experience of the wholeness of my being.