There’s only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God – Aldous Huxley
I once heard Marianne Williamson compare the human capacity to manifest personal desires to the talent of a magician. She said, we all have the ability to make our intentions happen, much like a magician performing tricks. She went further to say, when we align our desires with the intention to serve and surrender the outcome of our efforts to the Divine, our actions then have the potential to produce not just magic, but miracles.
As I look at my own life, I can see the truth in her words. I have spent much of my adult life in a perpetual push-pull between walking a path of self-serving accomplishment or surrendering my will to something greater than myself.
I consider myself a fairly accomplished magician. When I put my mind to an outcome, I can typically make it happen. Call it a strong will, determination or tenacity, I have a capacity to make things happen as I’d like.
However, nine times out of ten, once I have what I want, I see that it has taken me down a path that doesn’t serve my best interest or is fraught with obstacles I didn’t foresee.
There have also been times in my life (typically when I’m deep in my spiritual practice) in which I’ve been willing to relinquish my need to control the outcome of my actions. Instead, I have placed my energy solely on the work at hand without drawing a conclusion as to where my efforts should take me.
It has been amazing to witness in those moments the synchronicities and all-out miraculous events that unfold when I let go of the results and just trust the process. When I can do my work from a place of contribution and enjoyment, everything seems to fall into place just as it should and when it should.
Where I typically get tripped up is when my ego wants to take hold and force my life in a specific direction, rather than trust the continuity of the process. Somewhere along the way, I get it in my head that I know what’s best for me or fear events will not unfold in the way I’d like, and I once again seize control.
The Divine Touchstone
Whether you call it Life Force, Spirit, Higher Power, God, Inner Nature, etc., if you’ve ever mustered up the courage to relinquish your perceived control over life and allowed events to unfold in a relaxed and natural progression, you would be left with little doubt that there is something outside of yourself at work that synchronizes people, places, and events in a most remarkable way.
You would also know in those instances when you trusted that Life Force, it provided for you in ways that far surpassed a cursory understanding of what you needed, manifested opportunities and outcomes that you would have never fashioned for yourself, and provided challenges that improved upon the depth and breadth of your character.
The Magician’s Bag of Tricks
We all have the capacity to be magicians within the material world.
When we endeavor to put time and attention on our intentions we have the capacity to create outcomes that either approximate or realize our vision. Just as the magician practices to hone their craft, we too become better at materializing our desires as we sow seeds of intention, toil, and reap the harvest.
Much as the magician enterprises to successfully fool the audience into believing his tricks are powerful spells that can move heaven and earth, we too can make the error of turning the landscape of our lives into a performance for the outside world.
Our self-created realities can become powerful traps through which we seek to receive validation. The ego constantly strives to make our accomplishments the source of our power, which then compels us to keep striving and achieving out of an insatiable need to maintain our “place” in eyes of the world.
I am reminded of the “Great and Powerful Oz” from the Wizard of Oz. Throughout the story, the Wizard of Oz is presented as a god-like character, capable of granting wishes that liken themselves to the miraculous. Much to our chagrin, we come to find out the Great and Powerful Wizard is nothing more than a charlatan, a man hiding behind a curtain. We learn his omnipotence is little more than smoke and mirrors.
The Shift to Miracle Worker
What separates the magician from the miracle worker is the focus of effort.
Whereas the magician has an eagle-eye on the outcome and takes contrived steps to produce a specific result, the miracle worker is fixated on the process. Guided by internal nudges and a desire to serve, the miracle worker executes their work and releases the outcome. In letting go of the result, the miracle worker allows the Life Force to maximize its impact within a situation. Self-will has surrendered to Divine will.
The miracle worker’s effort ends with completion of the task. There is no expenditure of energy on frustration or stress, as the miracle worker has no expectation for their efforts. They trust and move with the flow of Life, endeavoring again as nudges to effort arise.
Being a Co-Star in Your Own Life
We are born from a Divine source, the physical manifestation of Life’s will. Our connection to that source is constant, diminished only through our ignorance and fear.
Each of us are brought into the world with specific gifts, talents, and work to fulfill. Should we choose to answer our calling, we must be willing to surrender our will to the mystery of Life and jump off of the proverbial cliff. As we do so, and begin to build a relationship with our internal connection to the Divine, our lives will begin to fall into place.
As we begin to see that the Life Force is working on our behalf, we will fear less and trust more. There will no longer be a need to suppress our personal truth. Our actions will be aligned with an inner guidance system governed by our connection to the Divine. We will address what is put in front of us with the confidence that we are being directed towards an outcome that serves not just ourselves, but everyone.
We are blessed with the freedom of self-will. Life provides each of us the opportunity to recognize our personal power through the capacity to craft our lives according to our own vision. Perhaps it is a natural evolution of perspective that at some point we shift our creative focus from self-aggrandizement to service. If we choose to make the shift, we may find ourselves pleasantly surprised by the exponential potential we awaken when we let go of attending to self.
Personally, I’ve come to recognize that marching to the beat of my own drum leaves me dissatisfied, as I’ve grown tired of marching by myself. Today, I’d rather play my song in concert with the symphony of Life, for it is there that I feel my connection to everything.
Please feel free to leave a comment. What you have to say may help someone else!
