Probable Realities - IV
Which probable reality we find ourselves in at any given moment is largely a function of what conscious choices we are making for ourselves, or else what conceptual thought forms we are letting live our lives for us.
Consider, for example, a desire for joy. Suppose our mind has attached to that desire the thought form of “getting a raise”. Since most of us have thought forms working at cross purposes, there are various probable realities in which that basic “getting a raise” thought form could be physically realized. If we truly feel in our hearts that we deserve the raise because we’ve done a good job and we want our world to reflect our joy in accomplishment, then we’ll take a probable reality branch in which we receive the raise and are joyous about it. However, if in our hearts we know we don’t deserve the raise but are only desiring it for our own glory, then we can either take a probable reality branch in which we get the raise and feel false joy about it, or else we don’t get the raise and feel disappointed about it. In the latter two cases our true feelings are trying to steer us to true joy by making us feel shame (false joy or disappointment). Just because we block the natural action of the feeling with our thought forms doesn’t mean that the feeling isn’t still operative and calling all the shots; all it means is that we experience the joyous impulse as shame rather than joy.
In the above example, all three probable realities are equally real. Which one we choose for this lifetime (this personal history) is a function of which choice of the three we decide to make for this lifetime: one choice we make by going along with our true feelings, and the other two we make by going along with our glory thought forms, at the moment when the universe pops the possibility of getting a raise up before our eyes.
A child’s anger at a deceased parent for having abandoned him; a woman’s feeling of guilt for having been raped; a parent’s self-recrimination for an unavoidable accident suffered by her child; are all valid feelings because those probable realities were indeed chosen in preference to happier ones. For example, the parent whose child died in an accident, who spends weeks thereafter ruminating on “If I hadn’t done this … ” and “If I’d only done that …” is actually reviewing all her decisions (branching points into other probable realities) which led up to this reality.
Some psychologists believe that it is infantile for a child to blame himself when his parents divorce; yet the child is absolutely correct: he chose that probable reality. This is what is meant by “taking responsibility for our already-made decisions” or “taking responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves”; because that is what we have chosen for ourselves: that is our intent – the place we have to start from. In Viktor Frankl’s book about his experiences in Auschwitz, Man’s Search for Meaning7, he described the various opportunities he had to leave the concentration camp or to obtain advantages which, had he accepted any one of them, would have led to his death. And the chain of events – the miracle – which led to his ultimate survival was the decision he made at each branch point to consider the needs of his patients above his own needs.
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NOTES
7 Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press Boston 1963