The next time you have to make a purchase at a store or shop and have to stand in line, find the “longest” line to stand in.
Oh sure, your old nature will cry out in protest and say, I don’t have time for this. It is telling you falsely that if you rush, you will feel better later on once you get this inconvenient moment of your life over. To find inner gold, a new nature, do the opposite. The long line affords you the marvelous opportunity to observe your own personal reactions (and an opportunity to be free of them). This standing in the long line gives you a chance to slow down and look inward to see a new unseen world. We would miss this hidden world when we choose to rush around in life. Your whole life is your reactions, so it’s important to be able to watch them. When you have an angry reaction and don’t separate from it, you then have to suffer from it, in guilt, inner attacks, and feeling bad. These ideas (catching your reactions) are for people who are tired of feeling bad in life.
Delight in Doing what is Right!
Recently I was in line checking out at Home Depot. As I watched my reactions to standing in the longest line, I looked all around and began to enjoy watching the cashier. I wondered why. I observed she was not baffled or confused by any special requests or questions the customers asked of her. She remained calm and efficient as she answered and also continued her check out work. I now became more aware of her, and with this attention, I could observe her answers were short and to the point, and she did not keep talking. I noticed how the customers were responding to her answers nicely, and she clearly had a “No messing around’ demeanor, yet she was very polite. I also noticed I liked her professionalism more and more as I slowly moved up the line. She was very pleasant and light-hearted. As she worked, I could see she was working to do right for the customer, for her employer, and for herself. She made no comments to impress or to look good in others’ eyes. I came up to the counter and laid down my purchase. I had a card for store credit that I received on another visit, and she paused long enough to remember how to apply store credit to my purchase, which she handled slowly and deliberately with flying colors. Clearly, her goal was to do what was right. She was alert, present, and handled her job with a regal quality. She was not self-enclosed and far away like many cashiers are. I could not help but like her because she was attempting to do what was right.
There is gold in every event in life, Even in so-called negative situations. Be a miner for inner life gold. Wake up to a new life.
Do Right and Delight in the Right.
We have been brought up in the USA to think we can get something for free. A good example is the lottery. Everything of real value costs, and you have to pay for it one way or another. To find a new life, you must get rid of the old life first. The Truth will not compromise or barter with anyone and treats everyone the same. The Higher rewards come only through hard work. The real proof is self-proof. Doing hard inner work becomes more fun as you go along. You and I must do right work if we want to have right rewards.
I found myself cringing as I read this blog, thoughts screamed out “what !, stand in a long line”. I pride myself on always sneaking into he shortest line. As I reflect on always trying to get ahead, I see how it is all about “me, me, me”, which equals being asleep to the Truth. I have read about “doing the opposite” for many years now. I may try ‘doing the opposite’ once of twice, but then quickly fall back into old patterns. This is a timely article for me…it is calling to me deeply to make “doing the opposite” a way of life , as an exercise to help stop the ‘sleep walking”. Time to commit to the ‘higher work’. Thanks for the deep reminder.
Yes Glenda, You will discover plenty of things about Glenda. You might see you are in a momentum, a painful momentum, or you have judgment or negativity towards those people ahead of you, or maybe resentment to the person who was a mere 2 steps ahead and cut into this line, regret you weren’t more alert to them, so her majesty would not be so violated. The list goes on and on, there is plenty of inner gold for the sincere student of the higher life. You get to a point where you’re happy with the long lines so you can put your attention of observation- seeing the unseen. Slowly taking your life back by detaching from your own drama. That cringing is the false self, yes, the self that agrees to suffering and to pain unnecessarily. Catching it in the act makes you healthy and wise.