The vast Unfolding of Unity as Multiplicity, the emergence from Ocean of all existence as Waves, is happening exactly it “should”. This is the wisdom of the inter-related Holy Ideas of Holy Plan, Holy Wisdom, Holy Work. This Plan is very different from how we usually think of planning. We typically plan by deciding where we want to get to, looking at where we are now, and developing a set of steps that will get us from here to there. Holy Plan does not imply a goal or end-point or even a trajectory. What kind of plan is that?!
Holy Plan points to how each moment, and all of existence, arises out of the prior moment. Everything is formed in perfect accordance with the immediately prior circumstances. Each moment is a natural outgrowth of the moment before it. Here the analogy of waves is helpful again. Waves move as they do because of the force behind them of the prior moment, not because the Ocean plans for them to reach the shore and then plots their course.
Our lives, and all existence together, is formed by the circumstances of the immediately prior moment. There isn’t a pre-determined direction we or anything is headed towards. Ultimately, there is only this moment. Our typical concept of planning also involves time, particularly our notion of the future. What is the future? A current idea in the present moment. There is no actual “future” we can identify or experience, beyond the ideas we have about it. The same is true of the “past”. All we know of what we call the past are the ideas we have about it. These ideas of past and future are only ever happening in the present moment, which is the Eternal Now.
We can also look at Holy Plan like we would an architectural plan. Everything is arrayed in their proper spots, all unified by the paper on which the plan is printed. Here there is no time involved. Instead, there is a static snapshot of reality at a specific moment. Each snapshot is like a frame in a movie and it’s the movement of the film that generates a sense of time and continuity, though these are both illusions. It could just as well be that each frame could be radically different from the others and, from our perspective within the snapshot, we’d have no idea. This is all to say that our ideas of continuity and direction and a plan in our habitual sense of the word are all figments of our imagination.
If there’s no directionality to our lives, we could be quite concerned! However, Holy Wisdom tells us that all that is unfolding is exactly as it should be. Why? Because it’s what’s happening! God-centric wisdom traditions tell us “if you want to know the will of the Divine, look around you”. All that is happening is going exactly according to the no-plan.
Holy Work tells us that in every moment, the unfolding of Unity through Multiplicity is happening. The effort is being made. By who? All of us and everything, simply through our existence, through our being brought into being. It’s all happening, and it’s all going perfectly. This “perfectly” doesn’t mean it aligns with what think should happen, but that, if we could take a broad enough view, we’d see that it all makes sense, the totality of the entire universe at each moment is aligned.
Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please share this with anyone you think may be interested. To learn more about classes, discussion groups or one-on-one consultation please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.
You are SO spot-on, dear Keith! Thank you for your writing. I rarely find such clarity. It‘s a pleasure for my Enneagram-4-plus-Virgo-love-of-order-and-beauty-me.