Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Victory and Defeat (Religious Content)

Monica's picture

I saw this on the Internet and found it very liberating. I wanted to share it in case it might help some one else.

You have a responsibility to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. One must act sincerely, according to God’s leading. Victory or defeat depends on the Lord.

Victory is always the Lord’s (Proverbs 21:31). But, as far as mankind is concerned, victory is at the Lord’s discretion for His purposes. “And we know that all things (both victory and defeat) work together for good to those who love God, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

It really takes the pressure off if I don't have to worry about the outcome. A lot of times worry over the outcome keeps me from moving forward.

Omnipresence and Anthropomorphism

This is what's instructed in the Bhagavad Gita too, to offer up the fruits of actions to the divine. Attachment to fruits is attachment to the material, which pushes away the unbounded and the infinite; the Love which one could call God. The sacrifice of these fruits would lead to a freedom from Karma, which is similar to what you say of all things working together for good.

The path of Sufism also entails such a change. But it is much less defined and more on the theme of mysticism (Here's a talk on Sufism which might explain a little better. I find it enlightening. It lasts just over an hour.)

It is very encouraging for me to see such an omnipresence of Truth throughout different religious and cultural traditions. I've read that religion is the result of a relationship with God; one would commit themselves to a certain set of morals or rules due to the connection they felt. This is not what is happening these days at all, it is quite the opposite; one turns to religion itself as a way to God. But perhaps it will lead to the same place (the placeless!).

I know that's where I want to be.

I said "want", to want is to desire and to desire is to have ego. But I think that's ok. Like methadone for heroin addicts, I am using my ego to escape its limitations. All desire must be turned towards the eternal Love in our hearts, and I think God Must be idealised; given appealing, desirable and relatable qualities or attributes such as compassionate, loving, gracious, eternal, strong. I suppose it can be seen as a device or method towards God, averting our desires for material fulfilment by attributing much more desirable things to the Unknown.

And the peace and love I attribute to God are what keep me walking forwards.

What a great thought

"Like methadone for heroin addicts, I am using my ego to escape its limitations. All desire must be turned towards the eternal Love..."

I love that!  Thanks, Monica.  The "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about striving for conscious contact with God as "the proper use of the will." 

God (as I understand Him) won't overcome my free will to "make" me do the right thing.  But the second my heart or innermost will turns toward Him in desire, the whole universe lines up to empower me to know and do His will....for a few minutes, anyway! Innocent  My ego-self still gets in the way a LOT. Yell "Queen Baby," I call her!

But as I continue learning how to apply the 12 Steps toward strengthening my relationship with God and humbling myself to receive it, I find myself drawn toward higher ideals and less often occupied with selfish pursuits.  I love how this program works.

loss of ego

i can heartily agree with all of you.

The greatest joy and peace i have had i my life has been those times i have lost myself, and been filled w/ god.

Altho, roses points out an interesting subtlety, that is nevertheless crucial. To seek out the joy and peace of god is to assert ego. I have found that does not work for me. Only surrender to god, whatever that may entail, works for me. It's when god alone becomes the end, no matter what, that the blessings flow. It's a little ironic, but it's what i experience.

There are other things in life that are like that: you can't see your peripheral vision by looking at it.

And, looking back i believe that god has given me my failures so that i would only succeed when i fully depend on god, to teach me to do that very thing.

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http://www.procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/1114#comment-23050

clement,

I agree with you too!
When i referred to ego i meant by Jungian definition. So yeah it would include surrender, or any other act of consciousness.
Ego defined by negative, selfish and materially focused thoughts or actions would indeed be useless to truly reach G-d.
But ego that has the capacity to 'feel' love and joy, and know their 'importance' over say anxiety or lust, would be able to make a start, and in doing so come to identify the difference between feeling as ego and observing as self.

True loss or death of this ego, in my opinion, is the destination. And i also believe this is only fully reached when our bodies die. Like rumi believing his death to be unity; returning to the source. And his followers rejoiced when he died, as he had found the one.
This might give the impression that those in search of G-d should simply give up life, but the truth doesn't lie in any of our actions, it lies in our conscious relationship to them; if we perceive ourselves as 'doing' and as the meaning we attribute to that doing then we are associating ourselves with ego. If we want to reach G-d to escape something we perceive as bad, doing so would be 'feeling' this bad thing and then acting upon it, as if this 'feeling' were a force or physical object pushing us over.

To what extent this applies to language i don't know. Tho it makes me think of the rumi quote i posted yesterday..

A great silence overcomes me, and i wonder why i ever thought to use language.

Language is an extension of attributed meaning, or definition. So i suppose to one who is nearing the goal, silence speaks louder than words.

There is a way between voice and presence where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wandering talk it closes.

One day i will write a song and for effect lyrically come to this conclusion half way through (:

shhhhhh and be Love

ego and god's love

roses, you're going to entice me to procrastinate here! :)

anyway, i "love" this topic. it speaks to my heart. And yet, i have work i believe assigned me by god (which happens to be my job) and so the very love i feel in my own heart and in your writings is that same love that compels me to do the right thing. So i will say as much as i can in a short time.

i find your defn of ego intriguing. There is certainly an negative ego that i have felt and seen. The ego you describe as "the capacity to 'feel' love and joy, and know their 'importance'"--this ego to me feels fundamentally different. It is an ego that accepts, that yields, that follows. So, to me, it is non-assertive.

My philosophical wonderings have brought me to a place where i see the great battle in the universe as between self and god. Remarkable to me, as for many years i have considered it between evil and good. Reading the 12 steps, and reading some of the Big Book, i am simply struck by the implication that "addiction is selfishness" and "recovery is selflessness." It is perfect timing in my life to find this idea in the 12 step approach, after having arrived at a very similar idea thru readings and mullings.

I meditate, as i've been taught, and in those quiet moments, when the world fades away, i feel god's love. More accurate might be that i yield to his love. I never cease to be amazed that in those quiet moments god's love can seem so overpowering, and yet, as i go thru my day, all that power can be reduced to a faint echo, as a voice in another room.

what do u think?

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http://www.procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/1114#comment-23050

To clement, and the warm-eared

I have waited to reply to this a while. I thought i'd take time to think it over before doing so in a hasteful manner. Also, i would probably have spent too long writing out whatever conjecture my mind spat at my hands, and end up procrastinating with things i had planned.

It occurred to me the other day that definition of anything, be it an object, a circumstance or a word, is constructed and bounded by the limits of our perception.

By limits i mean two things. The first: our inability to identify the infinite. This is all that truly exists and a thing that all our constructs (emotions, time, actions, measurements, knowledge, theories etc) take a chunk of, and declare a 'whole'. No whole really exists anywhere outside of our perception, or our minds. There is no such definitive separation of anything. The second limit is the meaning we project onto every single incoming process of our perception. Outside of our heads, the meaning we attribute to objects, people and even our thoughts or imagination, doesn't exist. There is no 'greater' meaning, or feeling as far as a human being experiences those things.

Somewhere in Jungs autobiography he says.. something like.. The more you claim to know something, the less you truly know of it.

I, or anyone, could sit and debate and discuss the ins and outs of the deepest philosophical or theological constructs all day, and still come up with no definitive answer. One could follow this or that scripture claiming it truth, but the chances are it was written by another human, who possessed the same limits of perception as those debating.

All the spiritual practices, routines and paths are constructs towards G-d, or the infinite. Meditation aims to clear any talk from ones head, as in Jungian construct or definition such talk is Ego, and said Ego attributes meaning, projects emotion, morals, likes and dislikes, and makes investments and forms attachment to every single input of perception. Many a religion takes the concept of 'infinity' and puts a face on it, and attributes aspirable qualities and characteristics; things Ego already has an active attachment to, based on its potential for giving fulfilment, or feeding the Ego. Things such as power, strength, love, joy. These are all defined aspects of human perception which hold the potential of a return, whatever that may be.

After all this, there is still only one thing clear to me, and it is inexpressible.

It's what i have called love, and peace, and bliss. And it's what i believe i am here for; to learn how best to conceptualise it, in order to move 'closer' towards it. Or perhaps, away from Ego.

Our brother and friend Aaron is in the band mewithoutYou. He introduced me to Rumi, and subsequently Sufism and mysticism. One of his lyrics is:

open wide my door my lord
to whatever makes me love you more

There must be time for construct, as otherwise there is no 'us'. Simply, towards divinity, we choose to make it a construct of unbounded and unconditional love. Once we have this ideal, or these qualities visualised, we begin to project them in replacement of the old conditional emotions and desires. The difference here is that these new projections call for us to be fulfilled by something unconditional. Now if we're projecting this ideal outwards constantly, and form attachments based on this projection, these objects of our projection begin to show divineness (or unconditional love) with no reason, and the quality and fulfilment the Ego demands from attachment is met simply by its new projection; the concept of unconditional love, it fulfils itself.

This has spun my head many a time. And placing together these thoughts i have had over the last couple years in one place is confusing yet also quenches a thirst somewhere.

I know i didn't answer or refer to you what you said, please forgive me for that. Perhaps i will some other time. I guess in a way i felt as tho what you said is relevant to you, what i have said is relevant to me. I don't want to harp on the differences in relevance, more on the similarities in conclusion.

Aaron writes:
A fish swims through the sea,
while the sea is in a certain sense
contained within the fish!
Oh what am i to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans ink?

I am going to conclude here with Love,
Let us dance and rejoice in it - all of us,
if you'll join me?

Monica's picture

Re:What a great thought

Sorry Agnus, that great thought belongs to Roses. Maybe I'll catch the next great thought that passes by. ::wink::

Monica

oops sorry roses!

restoring credit where due...thanks, roses, for the great thought! :-)

Mmm

I forgive you.
And you're welcome.
Altho,
I didn't invent the words or their meanings, so it never really had anything to do with me!

Monica's picture

Outcome Topic

Thanks guys. I'm glad you are motivated by this topic. I actually posted it early last year (Feb 27, 2007 to be exact). But it's good to know that "what works" never goes out of style.

All the best,
Monica

Monica!

I thought you were new to the group!   Turns out you are an oldtimer.  Well, anyway, I'm still glad you're here lol.
 
Jo
 
"I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." - Kurt Vonnegut
Monica's picture

Revival

I'm new in spirit Jo. After almost 2 years away I've decided to come back and try again. My motivation has been renewed.

Monica

Victory and Defeat

Very inspiring Monica!  So glad you've joined us, I love reading your posts.  
 
I'm learning that when I am being ego-involved and self-centered, it's much more difficult to get things done because I am constantly worried about how good or bad I am and how people think of me.   That leads to procrastination, which leads to more worry, etc.  
 
In my quiet times lately I am definitely getting a message to think of service and not selfishness.  It's not easy, but it's so clear that when I put myself and my ego first, things don't go that great for me.   Still, I'm selfish and proud :grin:.   *Sigh* It's a process.  
 
Jo 
 
"I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." - Kurt Vonnegut

Wow

Journey, I kid you not.......I was thinking the same exact thought this morning.  When you take yourself (ego) out of a situation, things seem to flow naturally. By sharing our experiences (sharing ourselves), we flawlessly get things done. So let's keep sharing and meditating about the people in this group and pray for their success. In turn, our projects will be completed and goals obtained. Keep on doing it!

 Chotrain-

letting go of outcomes

This is very inspiring to me. I need to believe this so that i can keep trying w/o the fear of failure.

GeorgeSmile's sig contains a similar idea, what he calls "The Hero's Code"

Show up. Pay Attention. Speak the Truth. Let Go of the Outcome.

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http://www.procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/1114#comment-23050