Little tiny events can have the biggest consequences, or so they say. There’s a kind of a curious balance there, isn’t there – the apparently inconsequential versus the globally significant. Everything is balanced – I have no doubt about that. Everything is part of the balance and the balance is never broken. That balance is now determining that I am sitting here, trying to work out – in the midst of my ongoing confusion – what it is that I am trying to say…
The balance that I’m talking about here isn’t deterministic; it’s nothing crude like that. Determinism exists only in the foolish minds of men. Not that I’m not a man, or that I am not foolish. I’ve just undergone enough painful experiences to see with a little bit more clarity the foolishness that dwells in us all. The foolishness that seems to go unopposed in this world of ours. The foolishness that has so successfully set up shop in the minds of men and women. And it’s not just a corner shop that I’m talking about here – it’s a multinational company. It’s a Zaibatsu. It’s a global economy.
The balance of which I speak doesn’t tell us what to do – it doesn’t provide us with the script. It’s not a book of rules – it’s a balance. You can do whatever you want, but be sure that whatever you do will be balanced out in the most profoundly harmonious way. This is what I have come to learn. Slowly, painfully – with infinite reluctance perhaps – but all the same, this is what I have come to learn. I have learned if I act on the basis of illusion then this sets up a particular type of situation for me. How can it not? It sets up a situation that I can learn from – if I am open to learning, that is. That’s a good proviso – who’s open to learning, after all? We may be open to many things, but not learning. Oh no, anything but that. Learning – what a truly absurd notion that is…
What I’m trying to say I suppose is that acting on illusions always backfires on the supposed actor. How indeed can it not? ‘Acting on an illusion’ comes down to believing it. Why would we act on it if we didn’t believe in it? If we believe in the illusion then we are bound to react to it. There’s only two ways to react to an illusion – either in a hopeful way or a fearful way. Either I think that the illusion is to my advantage or I think that it is to my disadvantage and I react according. Either I try to avail of the illusion or I try to avoid it. Either I go down one road or the other. But both roads lead to the same place in the end! Both lead to pain. How can they not, after all, when the original premise is false?
The balance has to be kept. The pleasure I find through foolishly believing in illusions will be counterbalanced by the pain that I reap, also as a result of believing in illusions. As a result of believing in those very same illusions. This is the cosmic balance of which I so circuitously speak. The balance which keeps presenting us with the opportunity to learn. Always assuming that the one who acts on illusions is open to learning, that is. But whether we’re open to learning or whether we’re not makes no difference to the balance. The only concern the cosmic balance has is to keep on balancing. This point is worth repeating and so I shall – whether we learn anything or whether we don’t is of no concern to the cosmic balance. No concern at all…
