By Michael Murphy, Ed.D.
As I learn a little more each day how to “be”, I understand again that the ultimate destiny for each of us is to love. What does it mean to love?
Love means to manifest, to give to the world, that which each of us is uniquely prepared, empowered, and capable of giving. I happened to grow up in a home created by a remarkably erudite, classically educated, and powerful woman who happened to be my mother. My home was filled with literature, the aesthetic residue of centuries of human spiritual and psychological struggle, and I had only to reach out to the nearest bookshelf to be filled with wonder and challenge. I accepted the challenge and discovered the endless journey we call “learning.” To crack open a book, or, these days, to scan YouTube for the gem of the moment, is to expose oneself to influence by another, to allow the universe to provide benevolent guidance in the endless process of evolution.
To evolve is to achieve a greater capacity to encompass complexity; to “understand” more, to integrate an increased awareness of the interconnectedness and relatedness of one “thing”, event, process, entity, phenomenon, with another. Ultimately, perhaps, we catch a glimpse of the whole.
It is perhaps a bold assumption to propose that we are each of us, by virtue of our very existential emergence, cosmically prepared to evolve in a unique way, according to a specific pattern, an ontological refraction if you will, that allows us to manifest a particular vibration without which the universe is incomplete. In other words, we come here for a reason, we have a job to do that is ours and only ours, and to fully accept that employment is to fulfill our sacred destiny. We may stride purposefully, or wander, or stumble, but if we are on the path then we experience a modicum, at least, of fulfillment. We know that we are doing that which we, and only we, can do. There is no greater bliss than that.
But to establish the requisite conditions for evolution is no simple matter. The circumstances of life sometimes seem organized is such a way as to constrain us, to divert us, to frustrate our natural inclinations to grow. We put aside that which we deeply know is most important because some momentary crisis seems unavoidable. But of course it is only our assumptions about what really matters that lends an illusory urgency to the crisis. In fact, we are alive now, we are free now, to be as we will. And it is the first act of ontological farming to accept the dynamic burden of that freedom. Some existentialist once said that we are “condemned to freedom,” but it is only that freedom that facilitates the circumstances in which evolution is possible.
Freedom involves the suspension of the belief that true self-actualization is impossible. We cannot make headway on the path if we construct a towering wall in our way. In other words, we need to believe, to engage in a sacred assumption that freedom will bring us somewhere where we are meant to be, and, therefore, if we accept freedom, that place where we find ourselves is where our service is most needed. We are called to work the precious piece of land that is given to us in the understanding that it will manifest the crops that, first and foremost, will feed us, and then, perhaps, will provide nurturance to all those to whom it is offered.
Having done all that, we just might be able to offer the gift of love.
ONTOLOGICAL FARMING
As I learn a little more each day how to “be”, I understand again that the ultimate destiny for each of us is to love. What does it mean to love?
Love means to manifest, to give to the world, that which each of us is uniquely prepared, empowered, and capable of giving. I happened to grow up in a home created by a remarkably erudite, classically educated, and powerful woman who happened to be my mother. My home was filled with literature, the aesthetic residue of centuries of human spiritual and psychological struggle, and I had only to reach out to the nearest bookshelf to be filled with wonder and challenge. I accepted the challenge and discovered the endless journey we call “learning.” To crack open a book, or, these days, to scan YouTube for the gem of the moment, is to expose oneself to influence by another, to allow the universe to provide benevolent guidance in the endless process of evolution.
To evolve is to achieve a greater capacity to encompass complexity; to “understand” more, to integrate an increased awareness of the interconnectedness and relatedness of one “thing”, event, process, entity, phenomenon, with another. Ultimately, perhaps, we catch a glimpse of the whole.
It is perhaps a bold assumption to propose that we are each of us, by virtue of our very existential emergence, cosmically prepared to evolve in a unique way, according to a specific pattern, an ontological refraction if you will, that allows us to manifest a particular vibration without which the universe is incomplete. In other words, we come here for a reason, we have a job to do that is ours and only ours, and to fully accept that employment is to fulfill our sacred destiny. We may stride purposefully, or wander, or stumble, but if we are on the path then we experience a modicum, at least, of fulfillment. We know that we are doing that which we, and only we, can do. There is no greater bliss than that.
But to establish the requisite conditions for evolution is no simple matter. The circumstances of life sometimes seem organized is such a way as to constrain us, to divert us, to frustrate our natural inclinations to grow. We put aside that which we deeply know is most important because some momentary crisis seems unavoidable. But of course it is only our assumptions about what really matters that lends an illusory urgency to the crisis. In fact, we are alive now, we are free now, to be as we will. And it is the first act of ontological farming to accept the dynamic burden of that freedom. Some existentialist once said that we are “condemned to freedom,” but it is only that freedom that facilitates the circumstances in which evolution is possible.
Freedom involves the suspension of the belief that true self-actualization is impossible. We cannot make headway on the path if we construct a towering wall in our way. In other words, we need to believe, to engage in a sacred assumption that freedom will bring us somewhere where we are meant to be, and, therefore, if we accept freedom, that place where we find ourselves is where our service is most needed. We are called to work the precious piece of land that is given to us in the understanding that it will manifest the crops that, first and foremost, will feed us, and then, perhaps, will provide nurturance to all those to whom it is offered.
Having done all that, we just might be able to offer the gift of love.