Intro to AWM Part 4: What are we?
We are not separate from this arising world? So what are we individually in this big picture? And, more importantly, how do we participate?
We embody two important things:
- We are the expression of everything that has gone before, what you might call a result;
- And we are (really “are” and not “have”) the potential for choice and action to generate the potential for what will come next.
Everything is perfect (as in an accurate result) as the expression of every creative (potential generating) act that has every happened; and in the same moment there is a wealth of new things to try, new structures, forms, and capacities to create. Nothing is “wrong” and everything is up for improvement.
Most of us live in our worlds as a result; that is, instead of knowing our bodies, our minds, and our lives as an ever changing potential, we think of ourselves as something that happened, something that is stuck and has a problem. It is possible to learn to focus on ourselves as the choosing and acting dynamism in the universe. As we do that, we understand that we can live at the level of causality knowing that we are part of the causal component of our world.
You are Your Arising Potential
The model tells us that you are a portion of the arising potential of the universe embodying the creation of something new. You are that. It is not your “reason”; it is your being. Reason implies to us that you can choose what or why. But in reality you can engage with your potential arising or you can resist what is coming into being through you. You can try to choose something else, only to fight against the current.
Imagine a musician who is brilliant, dedicated, a magical performer, and a generous performing partner. This musician has dedicated his entire life to becoming a creative expression. As such, he is a clear embodiment of a creative force, totally and completely engaged in the realization of creative power. He is a generative being in a volatile state bringing something wild and surprising into being in the world.
In the most practical way, he IS this musical expression arising. He is the music itself. You can sense it in the performance and in his entire life, which is one of exemplary engagement; he is fully engaged the arising potential that is exploding into expression through him. His experience is that he just “has” to make music and the more he engages with it the more it arisies. We can view musicians as the embodiment required for music to arise into the univers and our experience. And the music is the embodiment of a greater expression of the experience of being human and one particular expression of our possibilities.
We each have some engagement with life that is arising with us, a role to play, a gift to give. Not all of them as dramatic as being famous musician, but all critical to the unfolding of the universe. We are the confluence of possibilities arising as a creation, which can perceive, choose, and act. This is the unique capacity of a human being, and a powerful role in the expressive nature of our world. Optimally, we don’t dedicate ourselves to something outside of us; we choose to powerfully engage with who or what we are, whatever it may be.
Our musician is a more overt creative expression in which his consciousness is totally engaged with the arising potential, enhancing and reinforcing it with his creative choices, enabling the whole thing to arise like a blaze into being. Some of us are more visibly a creative expression, but all of us, with whatever expression arises, are in support of the arising whole.
This is what an engaged purpose is—a human fully expressing the arising potential that is moving through them.
Note: One of my inspirations is the musician Mark O’Connor. When you watch him perform and read about his work and life, you come to realize that here is someone who is maximizing his potential and creating something wondrous in the world. Here is the link to his My Space page and some of his wonderful music.
