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A really crazy thing happened to me at 5AM.
My teenage son has recently been staying out all night, hanging out with friends, coming home at the wee hours of the morning. This morning, I was lying in bed doing some meditation when the door to my apartment opened ever so slowly. I waited in the dark and watched as the silhouette of my son appeared before me, stealthily coming into the room. I thought, “How sweet—he’s really being careful not to wake me up. So, I lay there and watched as he went to the side of my room, looking for something. He gathered what appeared to be some clothes and then went back outside. I waited and watched, wondering what he was doing. Then, I realized that he was gone and had left the door wide open…most unusual.
I got out of bed and looked around. I realized that my pants were gone! I wondered why my son had taken my pants. I called his cellphone and asked him why he had taken my pants. He had no idea what I was talking about. Then I realized what I had witnessed: A thief with a very similar build to my son had entered and stolen my pants right from under my nose! [which is a good thing, because they were clogging my breathing LOL]
Over the years, I have been the target of a number of thefts after which I would feel victimized and frustrated. I would be bombarded by persistent thoughts that had I had a bit more presence of mind, I could have caught the thief in the act or at least been more guarded and protective of my property. That was the loop-tape that would play in my mind. Last night, it is absolutely true that more presence of mind would have averted the theft—all I had to do was say something and he would have run away. But because I was impressed by what I thought was my son’s consideration, I decided not to let him know I was awake because he would feel bad thinking that he woke me.
In the past, before developing paradox consciousness, I would tend to “beat myself up”, lamenting over why I hadn’t been smarter, more conscious. I would picture the event over and over, regretting not having acted differently. Each time I would rehash the situation, I would experience tension and unhappiness and be totally unaware that I was in such a state. In the aftermath of this morning’s incident, I can feel a strong inclination to revert to such constricted behavior. In the past, I had no awareness of this tendency and thus, my reaction was just that, a reaction, not a choice. Paradox consciousness enables me to choose how I relate to what happens to me in a more healthy way. By reminding myself of the true state of my existence—simultaneous 100% Free Choice and 100% Divine Providence--I can choose to see Hashem’s hand and believe what happened is for my good. Thus I do not feel victimized or frustrated.
Thoughts after the fact of why didn’t I do this, or why didn’t I say that come from being out of balance in awareness of Free Choice vs. Divine Providence, i.e. lacking paradox consciousness. In other words, my frustration comes from feeling that I could have chosen a better outcome. Each time I revisit the event, I feel like a failure for not acting differently. Thus, I feel victimized. My subconscious somehow believes that if I think of it enough times, I will somehow act differently and fix what happened. The fact that I did not do the thing that would have saved me serves to make me feel tense and frustrated.
It is easy to go into that line of thinking if I forget the paradox. In paradox consciousness, I am able to choose a different relationship with what happened. I can marvel at how Hashem orchestrated that I would lie there and watch a thief steal my belongings right in front of my eyes. After all, if this had happened when my son was acting “normally,” being in his bed at night; if the thief had not had a build similar to my son, I would have yelled out and/or physically challenged the thief. The ability to focus on the other side of the paradox—the Divine Providence side, the side of faith which says that every detail of my life is orchestrated 100% by God, only for my good—enables me to let go of frustration and tension and feel peace, love, joy and gratitude instead.
In situations such as these, choosing faith is realizing that Hashem has caused the events to transpire as an absolute expression of His Desire for my deeper relationship with Him. There are many possible reasons why Hashem sends us difficult, uncomfortable, inconvenient, embarrassing, painful or damaging situations. Personally, I am using this episode to do tshuvahfor certain thoughts that I allowed myself to entertain. Whether or not I am “accurate” in relating the unfortunate event to this particulartshuvah is irrelevant. That I choose to relate to it this way, that I choose to thank my Creator and feel joy and gratitude is precious to God and enhances my relationship with Him.
My previous articles have dealt with general ideas about the experience of evil in this world as the process of rectifying the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Paradox consciousness allows us to step back and observe ourselves as characters in the unfolding of Hashem’s perfectly orchestrated, magnificent Story. Then, instead of feeling frustrated and victimized, we can laugh and feel grateful.
The Divine Providence perspective says, if I could see the World of Truth, I would see that the difficult or painful event helped me and fixed my soul and even fixed the whole world in ways I cannot begin to imagine. I would be able to clearly see the Awesome Goodness of my Creator. Paradox consciousness allows me to realize that if I could see how truly good Hashem is in every detail of my life, I would be blissed out of my mind. And from that place of faith, I pray and thank my Creator for His Goodness, deepening my relationship with Him. May we all merit true expanded consciousness to feel at peace, joyful, loving and grateful all the time.
PS: The theft was actually not very damaging, baruch Hashem. I had almost nothing in my pockets. Usually I have money, keys, identification, my daily planner. Furthermore, a friend who was spending the night had his pants taken as well. For some reason, he had also emptied his pockets before going to sleep. So the thief got two pair of pants, two belts (the belts actually had sentimental value), a cellphone and a bit of money. It could have been much more damaging. Viewing the world through the lens of expanded consciousness lets me appreciate that Hashem sweetened the harshness of the tikkunby directing our actions such that we emptied our pockets.