Love is More Powerful Than Chaos

Here is the answer to the question, what can I do?

What can I do in the face of creeping totalitarianism? Many are asking this question. We all have a role to play in the world, but our effectiveness will be governed by whether we act from inspired ideas or our mental disturbances. Where our attention is going moment by moment makes all the difference.

Carol Howe explains how in every moment, two different sources of thinking compete for our attention:

On the one hand, our attention and desire flow through our fantasies, … and wanting it our way. They continue to manifest through our beliefs about how things are supposed to be, our expectations, the scripts we write for ourselves and everyone else, the “should” and the “oughts”—all part of one package. Attention and desire either flow through that confusion of notions, beliefs, and contradictions, bringing inevitable pain or through the invisible, true, and precious Life of us.

Thoughts arising from our confusion are often loud and raucous. Yet, Howe points to thoughts arising from our fundamental nature. Here are three very similar pointers to that invisible source:

God is the Creative Principle of this universe, and Its nature is an infinite, all-embracing love. —Joel Goldsmith

God is Love; and Love is Principle, not person. —Mary Baker Eddy

We practice but an ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to claim the world. And we remind the world that it is free of all illusions every time we say: God is but Love, and therefore so am I.—A Course in Miracles

From the source of “all-embracing love” comes creative intelligence. Dr. Thomas Hora writes,

Love and intelligence cannot be separated. There is no such thing as unintelligent love. Unintelligent love is not love. It is just ignorance. Love is intelligent, creative, life-enhancing, all-knowing, all-powerful, and omniactive. All these adjectives help us to gain a more precise understanding of God which is not a person but a power, a Reality, an "Is."

Hora describes a starting point for accessing this source of creative intelligence:

[I]n order to be in harmony with something, we must understand it. In order for man to be able to fly, he had to come to understand the principles of aerodynamics. In order to live in an intelligent, wholesome, and good way, we must understand God in an existentially valid fashion.

God, the Love and Intelligence of Life, will work through us but not accommodate plans arising from the scripts we write for ourselves and others. Joel Goldsmith puts it this way:

Unless you understand the nature of God as one infinite Good, you will be attempting to use God to gain your own ends; you will be attempting to use Truth. Be willing to be used by God; be willing to be used by Truth. Be willing to be an instrument through which Truth reveals Itself, but do not attempt to use God. Never try to use God, Truth.

With our willingness to surrender thoughts and actions arising from our mental disturbances, we access creative intelligence.  

Carol Howe writes, “Truth and peace, lovingness and contentment have a power that chaos does not have. Chaos and peace are not equally powerful options, so one person's decision to be peaceful can prevail over a much larger range of chaos around her.” 

“Remember that,” Howe urges, “when you ask how one person could make a difference.”

You might find these words inspiring and yet wonder how this is actionable?

If God is Love and the source of creative intelligent ideas, when we are bereft of intelligent ideas, it must be because we are not receptive to them.

Notice if you choose to separate from Love and Intelligence. Are you angry? Are you worried? Perhaps there is merely low-grade existential angst. Perhaps you have noticed how chaotic your thinking can be as it jumps from one fragment to another. Are you listening to the inner voice that speaks for Love or the voice that speaks for chaos?

Notice how you project your unloving thoughts onto others, thus keeping your decision to separate from Love buried from your awareness. Ken Wapnick writes, “Thus, the problem is not what I have decided, namely, I have chosen against love. The problem is that the world, this person, this group chose against love, chose against me, and that’s why I’m upset.” Projection allows us to believe that others are subverting Love.

When we believe the self-concept we have made, with all its expectations and scripts, can exist in opposition to Love, that is the source of futility and pain. We are saying we are not as we were created.

Marcus Aurelius practiced silencing his mental disturbances and opening to inspired ideas by being more aware of his thinking. He reminded himself, “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue.”

Aurelius expected “unsuitable” thoughts to arise in this thinking; in response, his discipline was to not “entertain” them. To not entertain means to not dwell on them, not justify or oppose them, but simply allow those thoughts to pass.

What thoughts are “unsuitable to virtue?” Thoughts of harming others begin any list. Thoughts of aggression arise from something deeper—the nature of who we think we are. Those who aggress against others don’t believe their fundamental nature comes from Love. They have a willful self-concept that defines itself in opposition to Love.

The process of subtraction Aurelius practiced you can practice too. You can notice when your thinking is choosing chaos. Don’t resist or battle with unsuitable thoughts. Don’t condemn yourself for having them. Make a deliberate choice to let those thoughts pass by gently. This practice of subtraction opens a space for creative, intelligent ideas to arise from your fundamental nature.  

We can stop deceiving ourselves that we are powerless in the face of all the aggression in the world. Our weakness stems from our choice to act from our mental disturbances instead of inspired ideas.

Václav Havel was a playwright, dissident, and the first president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism. He wrote, “The real question is whether the brighter future is really always so distant. What if, on the contrary, it has been here for a long time already, and only our own blindness and weakness has prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it?”

When we understand the fundamental nature of our being, we take right action in the world.

Emerson put it this way: “Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than material force, that thoughts rule the world.”

Moment by moment, we can choose the source of our thinking. Where our attention is going makes all the difference.