Both Hands

Many of us find it difficult to believe 
that events are always conspiring to deliver to us the object of our deepest desire.



Somehow, rather,
 we have come to both accept and expect
 that we cannot always get what we want,
 that it is in the nature of Life, our mother,
 to provide for our needs with one hand
while denying them with the other.



But have you ever stopped to consider 
that perhaps both hands are nourishing you?



Going further,
 it has been said that the cause of human suffering 
lies in the fact that what we fear 
and what we desire
 are the same.



So let us consider, then:
 What is this mysterious object 
that we both fear and desire so essentially?



Even a little reflection on this point reveals
 that this mysterious, terrifying and wondrous object 
is none other than the new, the unknown, the yet-to-be-experienced.



In other words, the ultimate object of our fear is this unknown, this undreamed possibility,
 whether we choose to call it “death,” “healing,” “transformation,” or “miracle.”



And in the end, what we call our fear of the unknown 
actually turns out to be our desire — our love — for the familiar.



When we look with honest eyes, 
it becomes clear and forgivable that as human beings
 we naturally yearn for the re-creation of familiar patterns —
 for the continuation of the life we know and recognize —
 as much or more than we yearn for new experience,
for the bliss of unfamiliarity.



In truth, the universe longs to embody your desire.
 Did you know that?



Hear this again: The universe longs to embody your desire.



And yet, if the intensity of your desire for the familiar
should come to rival or exceed that of your desire
to experience the new — 
whether openly, or in the silent and intimate depths of your self — 
then you leave the universe at a loss as to what to deliver you,
 as to what she must become to please you, her lover;
 and nothing appears to change.



So in this sense, fear really is an illusion —
 nothing more or less than a name we give to our desire
for the re-creation of what is known, safe, familiar, manageable.



For what is familiar is always manageable.

The new is never manageable; 
that is what makes it new, mysterious, vivifying. . . .



And so we return to the question
 of why a human being would choose to create
 suffering and limitation for themselves.

And the fact is:



We thirst for limitation
 because this water is all we know.

We are like lotus flowers, 
floating on a pristine river of life-giving current,
 longing for raindrops.