The Garden You Live In


Art is a collaboration between God and the artist,
and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide

You are a gardener. Your plot of land is your consciousness. This is the ground on which the garden in which you live will be realized. It is open and fertile and it will support any dream you can conceive. Before you were born, your plan for your garden was delivered to God. And from the moment of your birth, each and every moment, a new delivery arrives from the generosity of the universe. These deliveries are infinite and inexhaustible; coordinated by God to ensure that you always have available precisely what you need to realize your personal garden.

As a child, you happily drink in these gifts, assembling them unselfconsciously, enthusiastically planting them wherever and however it suits you. Some you place in locations where they thrive, while others wilt and die. Early on you see no problems, only opportunities as you continue to focus on the gifts continually arriving on your truck-from-the-universe. In short, you are gardening “in the moment.” Over time you plant flowers, trees, weeds, vines, shrubs and vegetables. And as you harvest and consume some of the fruits of your labours, you begin to not only live in the garden, the bounty of the garden becomes who and what you are.

Eventually you become aware of other gardens and other gardeners. It is natural for these other gardeners to take an interest in your life-garden. The trouble begins when we begin comparing gardens. Like you, they have been happily planting away. But because they are a different gardener than you, they have chosen to place some of their plants differently. Because of this, some of yours will be flourishing while theirs struggle or fail. Likewise, some of yours will wilt and die while theirs grow vigorously. None of this is inherently good or bad, but the conversation between the gardeners eventually makes it appear so. This is the beginning of second-thoughts.
Rather than spend eons without an awakening, have no second thoughts.

Jakushitsu

Your original thoughts arrive more as feelings. The universe delivers a plant and you place it where you feel is best. You don’t question your decisions, you merely continue to plant your garden in whatever way suits you. But based on your second thoughts—which are really only a recounting of the experiences of other gardeners—you begin to have thought-conversations in your head and in doing so, you begin to wonder if there’s somewhere better to plant this or that. Not wanting your garden to fail, you focus your energies on what’s not working. You study the plants that have struggled and died as though they will tell you how to make others grow well.

Eventually you get so invested in analyzing and judging your garden that you start to spend more time studying what you’ve already planted than you spend on what you’re planting in this present moment. Moreover, you begin to actually question God’s choices—forgetting that God is sending your resources precisely according to your blueprint. Because you have been pricked by the odd cactus, you choose to believe that the cacti are mistakes that you don’t wish to repeat. You attempt to refuse deliveries, even going so far as to ask God why you are not receiving what you want.

But God knows your plan and silently continues to send you all you need. The universe’s deliveries—your opportunities to build your garden—continue to arrive. But without your attention, many more plantings struggle and die than when you were actively planting each item in its own moment. Because of this, the garden deteriorates even further which only serves to drive you deeper into your analysis of what’s going wrong. And the more you study it, the more you notice the unflattering differences between your garden and those around you. The more you notice these “failings” the more you worry. The more you worry, the more you look for these damaging “failings.” Meanwhile you are increasingly ignoring the plants arriving in the present moment and as they lay unattended you attract even more “failure” to your garden.
I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations,
nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

Fritz Perls

Since you cannot dig up the past and replant it, your solution is really very simple. Stop questioning your deliveries for this is, in other words, questioning your own plan. You and God are cooperating in creating your garden, so silence the judgments of others that you hear in your mind’s ear. Their garden is theirs and yours is yours. Different soil and different light mean your context is completely different. And because your plan is also uniquely your own, the resources that flow to you are also different. Enjoy others gardens as much as appeals to you, but do not feel yours should be like theirs. Let your mind go quiet and re-embrace the deliveries you are constantly receiving. In that quiet you will return to the realization that your only responsibility is to enjoy the process of planting in each moment. Certainly some plants will still not thrive or even survive, but such is the case with all gardens. It is by witnessing this that we become increasingly and silently skilful at knowing where to place the gifts arriving in this present moment. And so even those “failures” are as much a part of your expanding awareness as they are a part of your plan. The plot of your life is your consciousness. In it you can easily realize all the beauty and bounty you could ever need.

While living in Australia years ago, I found myself in a garden with a man whose hobby was linguistics. He told me then that word “enthusiasm” essentially meant “working with God.” So plant the seeds and seedlings of your life with enthusiasm. Following the guidance of that quiet voice, God will lead you to live in a garden more beautiful than your Earthly mind could ever have imagined.



Happy listening.



peace. s
Posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 by Scott McPherson

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