Inevitable Again

“Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable.”
- Anthony de Mello

"Think about the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean that flows from the tip of Florida up along the Eastern Seaboard. If you were to put a straw in the water, aligned with the Gulf Stream, it would move with the flow of water. The water moves through it and carries it along on the current. Everything is aligned. It’s total grace. Now, if it’s misaligned, and it’s not moving with the flow of water, it gets spun around and moves off course...

Aligning ourselves with the flow of aliveness is an essential part of our mindfulness practice. Like the straw, if we move out of alignment we’re moving away, spinning about in reaction... in some way unable to be one with the flow of grace. So we seek to stay aligned, letting the flow of life move through us...

I noticed this happening the other day when I was driving home. I have my own accustomed speed, and the person in front of me was going much, much, much slower. You know what that is like, don’t you? Now, I wasn’t in a rush to get somewhere. I wasn’t on my way to the airport to catch a plane, but it didn’t matter. I was driving at a speed that felt really different from my preferred speed. I was experiencing impatience and anxiety, and it was building. Everything in me was leaning forward. I felt like I couldn’t be okay unless the situation changed. So I paused, mentally. I recognized that I had a demand that something be different than it was at the moment, and I tried to let go of it... 

What if we were to pause and align ourselves with the current?
What if we moved with the flow of what is?
What would that mean for you in your life, right now?...

What is actually happening is that we’re opening to the universal intelligence, the universal love that can flow through us when we’re aligned. When the straw is aligned with the current, the Gulf Stream flows through it. When we’re aligned with the flow of our lives, there’s a universal wisdom and love that flows through us, which is our true nature." - Tara Brach