Sometimes people ask me for homework and sometimes they mean it.
I struggle to give others homework, but I can tell you my homework this week, and that is, to pay attention to the forces within myself.
It is best we do this, pay attention to the forces within ourselves. This may sound a little odd, but homework is homework, so let’s see what unfolds.
The forces will vary from person to person; yours may not be mine. So this is not about everyone; its just about you.
And they may be obvious to us immediately. I refer to the forces of allegiance, for instance, to a group, cause or belief.
Allegiance often starts with good intent, but they can acquire quite a power, becoming a lens through which we see and act. Allegiance to one thing tends to separate us from other things – ‘you in your small corner, and I in mine’.
This keeps us trapped in our personality and constrains the development of the soul.
Or we consider the forces of disgust or obsession; which somehow give us a sense of existence, a twisted dose of affirmation. It’s not heaven, but it’s one of the better versions of hell.
Perhaps we feel the force of threat in some way, something is threatened; or fear about everything, that’s quite a force. It keeps us trapped, holds us back, holds us down and can turn us nasty. Fear does lash out.
Or we notice the forces which cry ‘Be Virtuous!’ or ‘Feel Shame!’ Though, in fact, they are one force, with two faces, exploiting our damage and need.
There are more subtle forces, perhaps invisible to me – forces I didn’t even know were forces; but which, such is their disguise, I assumed to be quite normal and no force at all.
Yet waking up – you understand what I mean – my eyes are opened. I see how they scrunch up my soul. I feel their effects, I notice their power, how they boundary my being. They are invisible no longer; and this is so good.
And that’s my homework this week.
No one can be helped who does not pay attention to these forces within, whatever their shape and energy.
From this day on, my only freedom consists in where I place my attention.
It is the beginning of the end of their power.
