BECOMING COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE

Change has neither thought nor action, because it is in the state of absolute quiet and inactivity, and when acted on, it immediately penetrates all things. If it were not the most spirit-like thing in the world, how can it take part in this universal transformation? (Confucianism. I Ching, Great Commentary 1.10.4)


To be prepared for life is to be comfortable with change. It isn’t change itself that makes us uncomfortable. We are not afraid when we decide to change our homes, or change our minds. The change that we are afraid of is the change that comes from outside of us. It is not change that we fear it is the loss control over our lives.

This is what change means to us. We have come to believe that things should happen a certain way, that life should be lived a certain way. Children need consistency. Everyone needs consistency. Consistency stands for dependability. Yet the consistency that is needed is not material it is spiritual. it is truth.

Children need truth, as we all do. Sometimes the truth hurts our feelings, sometimes it makes us feel uncomfortable, but in the end it gives us something to trust. Regardless of how it feels, the truth is sturdy and strong, solid beneath our feet. It gives us a place where we can go back to, a place that we can count on in the midst of this changing world.

For so long we have lived our lives based on appearances. We have smiled though our hearts were breaking. Living our lives in houses that we could not afford to maintain appearances. Our Society has become so dependent upon these illusions that when they fail to keep their forms we become afraid. I was speaking to my stockbroker the other day and I mentioned the recent market crash. He corrected me and said that it was an adjustment. That is really true. Life is in a state of adjustment now. Things around us are not crazy they are real. The illusions that we have been so dependent upon cannot be maintained. In order to have consistency in our lives we must accept consistent change.

Life will never be as it was because it was not real. We lived our lives based not upon what was truth but upon what worked. If it worked, it was truth. If enough people believed it then it worked and if it worked it was truth. Now all of our beliefs have been questioned because nothing seems to work. Nothing working simply means that nothing is staying the same. As much as we realize that we never step into the same river twice, we still believe that there are things that can be guaranteed.

As children we all held a picture of what our lives would be like when we grew up. Reaching our teens and early twenties we either solidified this picture or developed a new one more in line with the world around us. This picture, whatever it was represented fulfillment for us. This was real. For most of us, this picture of happiness was refined as we grew older, not to a more perfect image of our own wants and needs but a more perfect image of the ideals according to our family or society. Television contributed to our picture of what reality was supposed to be.

All of those unwritten rulebooks that served the generations that lived before were burned in the sixties. The reality that existed before was torn to shreds during the sixties. The roles of men and women, the roles of government, and any form of authority were to be forever changed by the sixties generation. The rules were permanently and irrevocably destroyed. From that time on the mass consciousness could never trust those rules again. What we had accepted as real did not exist anymore. The problem for all of us living today is that the rules were never rewritten. We have since been lost, and brought into this world children who are also lost. All of us have nothing to draw from that we can trust. No consistent reality. We have lived in a world where we have nothing that we can trust. There are no rules that are proven to be trustworthy.
For us, the reality that was in place for generations is now only a fairy tale. We know what once was happiness, in terms of what we should want for our lives, but we don’t know how to get it, and if we do, we don’t know how to trust it anyway. Few of us really know what we want because the world has become hazy, foggy.

Now we must become comfortable with ourselves. The Universal agreements that were holding our facts in place are no longer working. We must find the truth within ourselves and see that it is only within that truth that we are safe. When we are flowing with life it is not moving past us. When we embrace change as growth it does not rock our worlds. Change is not sudden it is constant.

When something seems to happen suddenly it is because we have resisted its coming for so long that the pressure has built up and finally broken through. We are constantly in a state of change from moment to moment and that is evolution. Nothing stays the same that is real. However dealing with change on a personal level and on a societal level is a process. The first step in the process is to see the truth to see that things the way that they are do not work any longer. Once we see the truth we become shaken. After we are shaken, we begin to do everything in our power to recreate the lie, to hold on to the way that it was or the way that we want it to be.
The problem is that once we really know the truth we cannot maintain the lie. When the illusion falls apart for the last time we accept it. This acceptance brings peace. This peace brings power. It is the truth that does not change and the one that we must seek, that truth is our faith in God, and the workings of His Universe.

Anything that does not change does not continue. We must stop thinking of change as different than growth. There is no difference; change is only another word for growth. Embrace change, because it means that we are living. Life flows like water. What is not real will not survive. We can’t be hard on ourselves. We do not find the changes in our lives comfortable because we do not accept that change is a process, and that acceptance is also a process and the time that it takes is very individual. It never takes too long or happens too fast, it happens the way it should for each individual.

When we have a strong center, and a strong core we are not affected by change. When we have faith in God and in the Universe we have freedom and security in the material world. Change becomes flow, because we see and acknowledge and even honor its purpose. Although we live on this planet and within our own lives we are always also living above. Change becomes merely the train that we ride on in order for us to reach our ultimate destination.