Fourteen Days…

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the dreams, hopes and aspirations that I have carried with me the majority of my life. In just the last few months I have been able to let them go…or maybe, they have let me go. It has helped me to deepen my understanding, of one of the most powerful lessons found in the Ageless Wisdom Teachings.

The lessons regarding First Force, Second Force and Third Force. My Teacher spent a good deal of his valuable time trying to create understanding for us, with respect to this very extraordinary idea…and just now, years later, I finally understand.

(I have often wondered about the phenomenon that keeps spiritual understanding cloaked and misty, before the Soul is ready to receive it. Emerson discusses this phenomena in one of his essays, and says… ”Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, then old things pass away, - means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it - one thing as much as another.”

As Emerson so beautifully describes, all things are changed by relation, to the acquisition of simple and divine wisdom. I suppose it is the very nature of the loss “means, teachers, texts, and temples”, that in part, help to keep us confused and incapable of absorbing understanding, venturing into new depths, and maturing into our deepest selves.)

First, Second, and Third forces are the means by which all things are created, all experience is leavened, and all understanding develops. First force creates, Second force destructs and Third Force is the consciousness we, as the Witness, bring to the interplay of the first two forces.

First and Second forces are, in large part, beyond our control. We can put the ingredients in the bowl and because we have followed the recipe, we can reasonably expect a cake to show up…but it is beyond our comprehension as to why - or how - following the recipe creates cake. Just as, in life, we can make all the right moves and we may, or may not, take home the victory… because Second force, always arises with its commitment to destruction. In the common vernacular we hear Murphy whispering his dictum…”if it can go wrong, it will go wrong”.

This spiritual phenomenon has a scientific corollary. In science, First Force is defined as “action”, Second force as “reaction” and the Third Force or witnessing process is accurately defined by the Heisenberg Principle as being capable of changing the outcome of the action/reaction phenomena. In other words, science has now come to support the notion that the very activity of our directed attention changes the outcome of material or “quantum” physics.

In our emotional immaturity we resent, and hide, from the realization that Second force travels in tandem with First force, that light brings with it shadow.

Every thing I have ever wanted, every desire that has every traveled past my mind’s eye, did so cloaked and covered in the Glory, Beauty, and Majesty of First force. That is the tricky part of believing the cultures advice… “to follow your dreams”. In the escapist illusory mind, our childhood left us addicted to, we are the Hero dressed in glorious robes, trailing starbursts in our wake. Every idea that springs from this source never gets even close to hinting about the downside of our dreams, that they will inevitably bring with them, when, (or if), they manifest. Second force cannot be denied…the shadow side; ruin, wrong turns, and unexpected outcomes cannot be avoided, run from, or bargained with.

Oscar Wilde, put it this way…”There are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.”

I ran head long into the notion that life can be a bowl of cherries, if you just are gifted with the right opportunities, when I was having a chat with a couple of fellows that I meet, every Sunday, at the dog park. We got to talking about winning the lottery; the guys took the stance that all things wrong can be cured by money. That the fabulously wealthy are not subject to the twists and turns of an ordinary life, I was quite literally incredulous by their assertion, and still don’t know if they weren’t just pulling my leg.

I find it hard to imagine that anyone past the age of thirty can believe that life is not hard for every creature that has ever walked upright, no matter their station in life, amount of money, cultural power, or inherited gifts.

Examining this very theme is a quote from the Great Caliph Abdul Rahim. “I have reigned more than fifty years in victory and peace. During this time I have been beloved by my people, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have all been at my beck and call, nor has any earthly pleasure been missing to complete my sense of perfect bliss. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness that have fallen to my lot. They number fourteen.”

Fourteen, good golly miss molly…

So, I got to thinking about my friends belief that money cures all… went online and found an article written by a magazine in Wisconsin which did some in depth, follow-up reporting, on the lottery winners their state has had since beginning lottery sales. Here is a quote from that article…”A shockingly large number of lottery winners end up in financial ruin. National statistics show that about one-third of lottery winners ultimately file for bankruptcy. Often, that’s just the initial symptom of good fortune gone bad.”

In the article, they went on to chronicle a divorce rate much higher than national average, DUI arrests way out of proportion to the national norm, foreclosures rampant, tax problems of unprecedented magnitude, and one guy who ended up living in his car after filing bankruptcy and losing his home and business, to foreclosure.

This is only a tiny portion of the many types and varieties of losses the lottery winners faced. Most were not willing to be interviewed so a great deal of the findings were sourced from public records, but one interviewee said this about winning…”It’s supposed to be a happy thing,” says a Neenah woman we’ll call Nancy, whose husband won $7.2 million in 1989 and who agreed to talk only on condition of anonymity. “But really, it’s not.”

Why amidst all this good fortune, do the lottery winners echo the Caliph’s assertion that fourteen happy days, are about as good as it gets?

Why? And why can’t we understand that winning/money/fame/fortune/et al. don’t create the happiness we seek? The answer is Second Force.

We finally get that big time degree from the prestigious Ivy League college, and it leads to huge debt load and a dead end starter job. We plan, save for, and execute that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe and the kids get sick and throw up all over everything and everyone.

Second force. Murphy’s law. Or, lowbrow and common…Shit Happens.

So how can we expect any relief from the roller coaster ride of imaginary, illusory, mythological hero, and real life zero?

If we look to religion to sort the mess out, our old-time religions promise that we should look to the life beyond this one; in Islamic traditions 77 virgins await our conquering hero, (I guess the best you get if you’re a woman, is more time spent catering to a man.) In the fundamentalist religion of my childhood, it was streets of gold and pearl gates. Some of our newer religions promise a world you, and your spouse, get to be a god over. The New Age movement gets a little closer to home, and promises prosperity, bliss, and happiness, in the here and now, if you just choose the right thoughts. (Mind, showing up again with illusions of bliss, free from Second Force).

For myself, I no longer believe in a world-this one or any other-that does not bear the mark of Second Force.

My favorite author, Emerson, has this to say about the marriage of first and second forces, and its progeny Third Force…”It is only as a man puts off from himself all external support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

I have finally come to the clarity, that science and Emerson, have it right… “that what you see (perceive/believe) changes what there is to see”. Heisenberg’s theorem, Emerson’s “triumph of principles”… is the Ageless Wisdom Teaching of Third force.

The acceptance and lack of judgment that The Witness brings to bear on our lives will, and can, free us from the roller coaster ride of first and second forces. When you can watch your life unfold without praise or criticism, without attraction or repulsion, without craving or denial, then you have risen above first and second forces, and have released yourself from the limits imposed on this plane of existence and doing so, have acquired Emerson’s “triumph of principles” and the peace it brings with it.

Third force on a feeling level might be called Compassion, Kindness, Acceptance, Honor, Nobility, Divinity…each would be correct, and all are a part of the package.

First force breathes in…

Second force breathes out…

Third force makes breathing worth it…

Until Tomorrow…

R.

Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com

Fourteen Days…essay by Ronni Miller copyright 2009 all rights reserved, reprinting available with author’s permission.