My title, Respond or React is a response to Steve Pavlina’s post today which contrasted the difference between reacting and responding. His analogy, using his martial arts class, is a good beginning. But I want to take this to a deeper dimension.
Reactions are a product of the limited ego-mind. It has nothing to do with what is. It has more to do with the past than with the present. When we live our lives in a reactive mode, we are not in a perceptive mode of being. We have fallen back into default programming of the ego-mind rather than being grounded in the realization of our infinite and eternal nature. In effect, we are selling ourselves short.
Reactions sometimes are based merely on complexes and inferiority. I remember a joke that illustrates that perfectly:
There was a man in the hills of Kentucky who lost an eye in a farming accident. And not having much money, and since he couldn’t afford an eye transplant, he carved himself a wooden eye and stuck it in place. It didn’t look like much of an eye, but he reasoned it was better than an empty eye socket. But it caused him to feel inferior and he developed a complex about it.
One day, a friend of his talked him into going to a local dance. He resisted because he knew nobody would want to dance with him and his wooden eye. But he relented and tagged along with his friend.
At the dance, he was too shy to ask anyone to dance. But his friend saw one woman who had a hair lip, and no one was dancing with her. So his friend convinced him to ask her.
When he went up to her if she would dance with him, she excitedly responded, “Would I? Would I”
Not realizing the meaning of what she was saying, he reacted by saying, “Hair lip, Hair lip.”
This is the plight of a person who is subject to past mental programming.
When we respond rather than react, we are taking responsibility for the situation we are in. We are in harmony with what is happening. We are not rejecting what is, we are accepting it. There is no blame, anger or frustration. What had to happen happened.
Let’s imagine that you are driving your car and you have a flat tire. Are you going to pound the dashboard in anger and say, “God, why do you hate me?” Or are you going to accept the situation as “What is” and respond to it by changing the tire? There is no rule that states you have to have your day ruined just because you have a flat tire.
If you are the type of person who is likely to hit the dashboard in frustration, there is no need to feel bad about yourself. It’s only your programming. But there is a way to bypass the programming, and in so doing, you will notice it fall away as if it were just a habit, which it is.
The key to finding poise in challenging situations is a connection to your source of being, free from the dictates of the ego-mind.
Life doesn’t really begin until you have a conscious awareness of your source of being. See my Source of Being Meditation. Until that happens, your lifetime is nothing but a series of reactions based on your past programming and mental impressions. You may go through ups and downs and the good and the bad, but that is not life. Eckhart Tolle describes that as life situations.
The good or bad is in comparison to something in the past, which is what gives the ego-mind its sense of identity It has nothing to do with what is. If you are grounded in your source of being, then you will not be living your life out of demands that it be a certain way. That would only be a setup for heartache.
Life is constantly changing. We have to always be prepared to let go of our attachments. We eventually have to let go of our physical bodies. The only thing that is lasting is the source of being. The ego-mind, on the other hand, is attached to “things.” It’s part of its identity, as are the reactions and mental programming that it adheres to.
With the insight that all is passing, it becomes possible to cultivate acceptance of what is. And with acceptance comes the ability to respond. When you respond, you are living in the present moment, grounded in conscious awareness. By responding rather than reacting, you have far more possibilities and resources to draw from. With a response, you have a choice. With a reaction, you only have a reaction, and that is no choice at all.
