Читать книгу The Little Book of Letting Go - Hugh Prather - Страница 25

We think that worrying is an intelligent choice made by the individual as opposed to a mass reaction to a collective mindset. Yet worry is the uniting emotion of the world. It can make allies of any groups or individuals. It cuts across religious, political, racial, and sexual differences. News and magazineformat television programs have mass appeal because the viewer can count on a steady diet of new things to worry about. “Investigative reporting” reveals dangers in places we never suspected. Anxiety produces chemical changes that the body grows used to, and addiction to anxiety in its various manifestations is perhaps the most common of all addictions.

Many people think that the question, “What's the worst that can happen?” is a useful line of thought that brings them a certain objectivity and keeps them from overreacting. In our culture, a person free of worry is considered naive. We think that cynicism is a sign of intelligence and practicality. Since disaster overtakes us all, we tend to view peace of mind as an unrealistic or dishonest emotion. Don't all things end, and surprisingly quickly? The strong prey upon the weak until they too are weak and are preyed upon. Everything we see lives off the death of something else.

The conclusion is inescapable. You and I will wither and die like all things, whether planet, person, or plant. The best that can be said about how it all turned out for us personally is that as we died, we suffered less than others. This, then, is the background scenery that only those in denial can keep from noticing. Therefore, we assume that worry is the “aware” emotion, the one that is induced by the facts.

Our choice is simple. We can focus on the “inevitable” facts of life, or we can focus on where we are and what we are doing. When we relax within the situation at hand, whatever it may be, we begin opening up to another reality that our precomposed picture of the future can't show us. Awareness of this reality eventually brings us the experience of the Divine. Worry is always about the future, even if the future is the next moment. Worry blocks awareness of the Divine because the Divine is now. The name of God is “I AM,” not “I WILL BE.” Remaining unconscious of God is not an act of intelligence.