Freedom, the Watercourse Way

Freedom.  That's the thing.  There is a prescribed way of thinking, there are rules because the majority of people are convinced that they have a need for greater security in a world that is not vague, but defined for them.  Improvisation is limited.  Creativity is shackled.  Expression is channeled.  But the demands for conformity are high; the price for nonconformity perhaps higher.

There is an ongoing struggle between those that wish to exercise free will and those that believe that free will needs reigned in and controlled.  It is a disagreement between the forces that promote nature taking its course and those that think they know better than nature and can enhance their own lives and the lives of others by imposing standards they have concluded are better.  Perhaps since the beginning there have always been some that seek to impose their will on others.  Religion and Science were invented to support those who sought what is best for others, for the community, and especially for themselves, over the free will of the individual to exercise independent expression.

Those that have come to power - the imposers (imposters) or call them the takers - have set a dichotomous world into play with their standards, establishing a right way to do things and a wrong way.  Religion and Science are all about defining what is right and what is wrong.

Without a prescribed way of thinking there is no consensual judgement, no natural dichotomy, no right and no wrong.  While the concept seems foreign, it is the natural order of things.  Nature does not judge action by any standard.  It simply flows, always in dynamic flux.  A flood or an earthquake are not bad things any more than a fox catching and killing a lemming.   A calm breeze under pure sunshine is no better a condition than a gale wind at forty below.

While society seeks to channel our energies, I choose to exercise my freedom with as little compromise to convention as possible.   I choose to judge not the world.  It is what it is.  While others around me get incensed with the ebb and flow of the affairs of the world, I maintain a certain equanimity without concern for the outcome.  When water in a stream encounters an obstacle - a rock or a windfall - it flows around it.  Eventually even the gentlest flow of water will wear down both the rock and the windfall, straightening and leveling its course through the world.  I choose the watercourse way.

I choose to demand nothing, and prepare to sincerely give anything of myself when asked.  I attempt to remain impassive under any circumstance and seek only the approving signal of spirit in the form of a kind word or appropriate gesture, and when I receive it I express gratitude and redouble my efforts.  I listen and watch so that I am humbled in my conquests and enhanced in my defeats.  It is true freedom that I seek to live by as my standard.  Therein lies my peace and salvation.