In actuality, who is ultimately responsible for what you do? Who is ultimately responsible for what I do? And who is responsible for what we do in groups we choose to be part of?
Responsibility (accountability and self-development) is the price of freedom. You can also say responsibility is the key to freedom, if imagining yourself unlocking the door to a jail cell, or developing wisdom, suits you better. To play with this concept even more, you can change the word responsibility to response-ability, meaning, your ability to respond to circumstances as they unfold around you. Experiment and have fun!
In actuality, who is ultimately responsible for what you do? Who is ultimately responsible for what I do? And who is responsible for what we do in groups we choose to be part of?
Who is ultimately responsible for the type and amount of food we put into our bodies? Who is ultimately responsible for our health and well-being? Who is ultimately responsible for how we choose to manage the expression of our sexual energy? Who is ultimately responsible for how we choose to treat ourselves and one another? Who is ultimately responsible for what we choose to do with our lives, what kind of work we do, what kind of relationships we form, what kind of society and business structure we create? Who is responsible for who we are and what we do?
It sounds heavy doesn’t it? Actually, when we add the idea of response-ability and freedom to the mix it lightens up because our ability to respond to life’s demands and opportunities is limited or enhanced by the way we choose to define the concept of responsibility. How we define responsibility makes it oppressive or liberating. To be response-able, we need to pay attention to the way things work so we can interact with the various elements of reality in a safe and fun way. If it’s not fun, stop doing it! If something is not fun, why would you want to keep doing it anyway? Being afraid of responsibility is to live in fear and distrust yourself. Being comfortable with responsibility is to live in love and self-confidence.
Material reality gives us a level of control that is truly amazing. Driving a bus for a living, I felt I had pretty good control over my circumstances, depending on how alert I was and how much attention I paid. To this end, I exercised regularly because I discovered that as I grew older my energy levels decreased unless I did so. During those times I engaged in important spiritual (not religious) conversations, which I was want to do. I trusted the universe to keep us safe, and it did with very few surprises and none of them serious. As a matter of fact, one of our bus conversations made it into the local newspaper, The Press Democrat. A young male passenger was curious about Out of body experiences so I described several of my experiences. Unfortunately, a lady sitting nearby decided it would make a humorous piece for Gaye LeBaron’s Notebook column, subtitled: What’s going on around the town?. To quote Gaye: ON THE BUS: A commuter from Sonoma whose car was in the shop rode the county bus into Santa Rosa for the first time and was intrigued with the 20-mile conversation between the driver and a passenger. They talked about out-of-body experiences and how to achieve the astral plane. “I don’t mind,” said the commuter. “So long as they don’t do it enroute.” At the end of my shift the next afternoon, a copy of that paragraph from Gaye’s column was cut out, blown up and pinned to the Driver’s Bulletin Board in the Break Room. Written across the top of the page in large letters was the message: “Is this you? If it is, quit talking and pay attention to your driving!” I suspect the head of Road Supervision knew it was me but decided it was a good opportunity to get the message out to all drivers in case they talked with passengers while driving too.
Material reality gives us a level of control over our experience that is hard to duplicate in dream realities, with rare exceptions. (See: The Ball of Light) When I drive a bus or a car in a dream, it’s as if very little of me is there so it’s hard to focus and pay attention to details. As a result, I often drive into a ditch, off a mountain, run a stop sign or hit another car. Fortunately, we can’t die permanently in dreams. When we die one minute, we’re awake the next. In The Ball of Light, link above, I experienced myself at many levels of density, including being pure energy. The things I could do as pure energy was amazing and it made me appreciate physical reality all the more. In a pure energy state reality changes as quickly as thought and feelings change. In physical reality there is more permanence. We can form relationships and create structures that last a lifetime. In dreams, as soon as you focus your attention elsewhere, everything you created before disappears from view. You can revisit dreamscapes at will but you don’t feel the same level of attachment to them you do with people and a home in material reality, maybe because we’re so dependent on them for survival in material terms. When our physical bodies die, that’s it for this life!
So, responsibility plays an important role in physical reality. It helps us define ourselves and the more we understand and pay attention to how things work, the easier it is for us to create a pleasing reality. Instead of denying and fearing life, why not love and embrace it? Let’s learn how to dance with the consciousness and energy of All That Is!
What are your thoughts about the role of responsibility in our lives? Let’s throw it all up on the wall so we can all take what we like and leave the rest.
Pete
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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