Do you really feel that “divine and perfect order” is synonymous with Fate, predetermination, or scripted reality?
I don’t.
I respect that you may — you certainly would not be alone — but would you like to try and convince me? I’m curious to hear some original arguments that aren’t pat and parroted from the Somebody Said So bin of wisdom.
Two Sources of Belief
I actually believe we can experience wildly different truths and all be Right. All we choose to believe arrives by two avenues of knowing:
- learned wisdom — somebody else’s truth; tribal/social collectively-held beliefs; borrowed; inherited; read somewhere; heard somewhere
- channeled wisdom — personal truth; based on your own unique experience; original/rebellious; invented; revealed
These Two Basic Sources of what you believe to be true may be in opposition, or they may be identical, or they may partially overlap in some features — your personal experience may reinforce what is collectively held to be true.
Back to this notion of Divine and Perfect Order:
I run across this concept in so many places — I accept that my feelings fall in a minority. I’ve been willing to consider aspects of what other people describe as “perfect” — try them on like fashions, hold them up in comparison with my own experiences, observe my reactions…
My idea of Divine and Perfect is just too mind-boggling to use the word “order.” It’s probably the limitation of my human brain stuck in the third-dimension, unable to contemplate an order so advanced that fate, linear time-lines, and pre-scripted paths just don’t quite compute. There’s no complexity in that, there’s no synergy, there are no multiple dimensions — it feels too simple-minded.
Do those who speak of the Divine and the Perfect in the context of order merely reference something that I mistake for “simple,” yet they really only intend it as a kind of shorthand for something vast and complex? Am I misunderstanding, or is this meant to be strictly interpreted?
The word Order doesn’t match the amazing chaotic choreography I witness with such wonder and awe.
Is Divine and Perfect Order linear, planned, knowable, obvious — did we really create every last condition of our realities in advance?
For me, the words Divine and Perfect point to something much bigger than that — scarier, thrilling, unfolding, unpredictable, exciting, yet to be determined. I just don’t feel we are actors in God’s latest cable series; I do feel that we are co-creators.
Poor Gods up there, watching never-ending marathons of a gazillion reality shows with no surprises. Really? Do you think so?
Whatever. This doesn’t feel magical to me. It doesn’t feel wonderful. It feels like Wanting to believe that everything happens for a reason.
There are reasons all over the place. You’re not likely to live without stepping in some meaningful reason every time you turn around, every step you take, with every breath.
Do you need to feel those breaths are preordained in order to feel safe — or are you willing to engage the Divine and the Perfect in the Wild?
I don’t even WANT the Universe to be boxwood hedges manicured to perform the hard-edged geometry of something inorganic — wildflowers turn me on. I admire weeds — that they need not be cultivated and hand-held to be insidious, pervasive… survivors.
Divine and Perfect Order to me is a dance with Chaos, so complex that we begin to question where the design must (might ever) emerge.
Do you really need to believe that before you came here you scripted every last day, line of dialog, and petty detail? Or is your life a live improvisational masterpiece?
Can you not be thrilled by the prospect that you jumped into this incarnation like leaping from a plane with little more than adrenaline, faith, and a parachute/last-minute exit strategy?
I don’t need to feel in control in order to experience power. It’s just the opposite for me.
I think Spirit is a hell of lot more bold than that.
Feel Free to Disagree
I believe we’re all right. That what you believe is your reality, and what I believe is mine, and that those things need not be One and the Same.
What do you believe — specifically about the whole Fate, Predetermination, Divine Order thing? Keep in mind that believing and knowing are not the same thing.
And before you answer, take a moment to listen to your own truth before you simply repeat something you were told.
Can you trace the voice of your belief back to someone else? When you test that against your interior truth, the still small voice within you, your Higher Self, does it happen to resemble a tradition, to concur? Or does your truth require you to remake and reinvent?
I feel that the most authentic answers to the questions of what you believe and feel may well be the answers that have no traceable origin — that you never heard, never read somewhere, never absorbed — the most authentic answer may also be the one that makes you either excited or uncomfortable because it has no obvious source.
If you come up with an answer that disagrees with what you intellectually know to be true, you may be onto something real.
Hi Slade….. Interesting post. I have to say I agree with you quite well. I can see it, I can feel, I can almost taste the divinity and perfection in everything, but the notion that it is all playing to a script, how the hell could anyone know for certain? The human mind, even the insights we get, are too limited. The Universe feels so much bigger, grander, more dynamic, than that. But what do I know? I just feel the wind of change flowing over me moment to moment.
The only thing I disagree with you on is the idea that there is meaning everywhere. I don’t see it. I don’t even think we need it. Things seem to happen for that reason that our parents gave us time and time again: BECAUSE! Do we need a meaning beyond that? I’m content to just be in the flow of the energy of life doing it’s dance with me not just a part but AS the energy of Life. Much more fun that way.
I hope you are well. Again, nice article.
Since my guides regularly play the “devil’s advocate” with me (ie. they lie to me), I am perfectly comfortable with understanding that truth is malleable. I’ve been told, regularly, that guides don’t lie; if they’re lying, it’s either because they’re ineffectual guides, and/or I am lying to myself, and they, therefore, mirror that. Okay. Whatever. My “truth” is that I’m tough and they know it. They lie. I figure it out, eventually, (or I don’t) and I move on, always becoming ever more astute and knowing….about my Self.
So, forget some grand & perfect scheme. I have an unreliable narrator in my story. That’s the way it is, folks, in this tiny little place called Jody.
If you ever watch any of the cooking competition shows this analogy will make perfect sense. I think we come into this Universe with a certain set of ingredients and it is up to us “chefs” to make something of them.
As on the TV shows, some dishes come out great, others fail miserably. I think it is the same for our Earth existence. Some of us do better with what we are given coming into this world (good and bad karma) and others not so much.
So it isn’t as if everything is scripted for us, we have to create our own recipes of life from what we are given.
My debate coach has me reading Slavoj Zizek’s “The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Center of Political Ontology.” It has proven to be quite the challenge, as I do not have a background in philosophy or psychoanalysis. Regardless, I have learned more than I could have imagined, and I’m barely a quarter of the way through.
Zizek uses Hegel, Kant, Heidegger, Freud, and Lacan to show, in the first chapter, that subjectivity is not created from some kind of synthesis of disordered chaos, but just the opposite: The subject is born from its insistence to tear apart and violently (mis)conceive of what would otherwise be a perfectly phenomenologically ordered chain.
Very interesting book. Timely post, as usual.
The playing out of an already written script makes no sense to me – if it was so, why then even bother playing along?
At times, I really do feel like I’m riding right up front on that big wave which is the present moment as it roars through the space of time, the exact next direction never fully determined in advance. We are creating the path and the meaning by constantly engaging, being present.
Life is messy. That’s what makes it interesting. It is an elaborate creative dance on that thin line between chaos and complex order. It is mysterious, intriguing, infinitely deep, constantly moving and evolving and it’s like we’re being pulled forward by some strange attractor, accelerating toward some point in that elusive future which is always right there in front of us but which we never seem to catch.
@Jody – Have you considered firing your lying guides? In my experience, spirits that lie are not working toward my highest good and ought to be banished.
It’s always wise to ask all spirits you encounter—all voices—who they are and whether or not they work for your highest good. Any that do not answer with a clear, unhesitating “yes” have their own agenda.
Here’s my theory:
There is no simple answer. Divine, and Perfect in it’s divinity, yes. That there is an order to that, yes. Is that order constant, no.
Everything in this universe is cause and effect. Sometimes we can’t see those causes because they’re so far up the line and seem to have nothing to do with the effects, but they are there. Therefore life is somewhat predictable to a being with a mind about a million times more powerful than our own. To our own minds it never will be (at least in the fore-seeable future.. which is a term I’ll get into later). A simple example of this is the weather. To someone who is just watching the clouds go by, trying to predict a hurricane 3 days in advance, with any accuracy, would be almost completely impossible. Their conclusion would be hurricanes just happen, and there is no way to predict them. To our society with our satellites and advanced communications and knowledge of weather patterns, a meteorologist can predict at least a probable path of a hurricane as soon as it forms. Of course it’s not exact, there’s always the random elements we can’t predict, but they have their own cause and with enough research, and possibly the knowledge of something as impossible as when Tom is going to step out of his house and take a deep breath, it may be possible.
There is of course a wild card to this, that wild card is free will. People will generally act along certain lines according to what they’ve been taught and how the world effects them but not always. Every so often someone will become something more than a black box of experiences and say “I’m going to go left today instead of right.” on a complete whim. This changes the chain of cause and effects that make things perfectly predictable.
The future is foreseeable (I told you I would get back to it) but only on a limited basis. When getting a psychic reading, when looking into the future, even by the best it could only be about 75% accurate because not everything is set in stone yet. You can see patterns, trends, a certain destination, but things could change. Seeing the future is kind of like walking tree branches, you get to a fork and things could really go either way. You can sometimes even see where the forks will lead but it’s impossible to know which way things will really go.
I don’t believe every moment is scripted, but I do believe that certain trends are. Again, sort of like a tree, you know from when it’s a sapling it’s going to grow a certain general shape because it’s a certain type of tree in a certain area, but you’re not going to know exactly where each branch forks and the exact angle it’s going to take. And there’s always those odd ones you really don’t expect to go the way you think.
I honestly don’t have a clue whether the divine knows where it’s all going to go ultimately. The truth is the only thing any of us can do is live each day as best we can and hope. I like to think that I came into this world with certain goals, certain things that would likely happen to push me along those goals, and that is not only comforting, but so incredibly important to me. If I don’t have those goals and the thought that there is some guidance on the path, then what is the point of dealing with the pain of life? I continue because I’ve been “told” that I must, that it’ll all be worth it, and that there’s something I need to give back to humanity and in some small way help us grow toward what we need to become for survival. It might not be that things are completely pre-destined but that divinity is more like the gardener and we are his garden, while he tries to train his tomato plants up a trellis.
Every time I try to bring perfect order to my life it has a tendency to derail, not spectacularly every time but derail none the less.
I love chaos. I love it’s unpredictability. I spent years trying to figure out what my purpose is and it just made me crazy.
It scares me to think that my life would be scripted. That would leave me without choice and influence. My dad likes to tell me I’ve have bad luck with men, for example. Great, I don’t need to take any responsibility for making poor choices when it comes to whom I have chosen to have relationships with. On the flip side though if that’s true perhaps I am doomed to always be unhappy in relationships.
I like to see life as surfing a big wave. Sometimes it’s exhausting and we seem to have little control but there are days when it’s pure joy being carried like that. There are things we can control even in the middle of chaos even if it’s only the way we choose to view and feel about what is happening to us.
I can’t believe Spirit but me here without power and control, without the complete freedom to choose. I believe the opposite. I believe that I am here because I do have power and control although I may not always release the extent of it. It’s my choices that influence the outcome, that determine my course, even when I choose not to make a choice.
I come from a Science of Mind background in metaphysics, at least that’s where I began my ever evolving journey. That phrase was used often by SOM ministers and practitioners but my take on it wasn’t that it meant fate in any way, but that it meant…..now in this particular moment, everything is Divine and perfect within that Divinity. Not that it was prescripted and predestined fate but that it was simply an aspect of the Divine within the present moment….which could and would change to something else in the next. Something else which would not be better or worse but simply the realization that seeing the Divine is every moment, every circumstance as it is unfolding, is an aspect of the Divine unfolding, hence perfect. However I myself don’t see that at all as static, pre-determined, it cannot be since the Divine is itself of a constant flow and evolvement. If however I thought of the phrase as meaning fate, I would be unable to accept that concept as I believe we co-create and choose continually.
Thanks to everyone for such thoughtful comments — I learned something from reading each and every one of them. I really appreciate your contributing unique perspectives and depth to my observations.
Tom,
Just to clarify, I believe I meant that if you’re looking for meaning or reason, you can potentially find it all over the place, unfolding spontaneously, existing simply because you ask to observe it — as opposed to the meaning being scripted or predetermined. I actually don’t feel that I “need” meaning — but I enjoy it. Somewhat like choosing to place fresh flowers in your house — it’s not required to be peaceful or beautiful, but I choose quite consciously to embellish as I feel like it.
Jody,
I would say if you came to me upset about struggling with your guides “lying” to you, we might need to look at what’s going on with some concern. But it sounds to me like this is your choice to have this type of participation. It sounds like you require being challenged in this way.
DamselFly,
Yes! Excellent metaphor about the ingredients and the cooking shows. Perfect — I totally agree.
Sheldon,
“The subject is born from its insistence to tear apart and violently (mis)conceive of what would otherwise be a perfectly phenomenologically ordered chain.”
Ooh, I like that. Fantastic and sophisticated. You should add this book recommendation to my books page — it sounds like a great one, and others would benefit from the suggestion.
David,
Yes — why bother playing that game? I have a little nickname for what you describe — I call it chaos surfing!
Kaspian,
I think Jody’s eyes are wide-open and she IS being challenged in pursuit of her higher good. It’s a brave position to take, and I believe she’s unique in her relationship with her guides, but thank you for pointing that out for others who may be experiencing voices who are misleading and unwanted.
Jenny,
Your tree and Gardener images are very good illustrations that show the difference between planting something organic and letting nature’s loose pattern take over, with some degree of general direction and many degrees of flux and diversity. Exactly what I was getting at with the “manicured boxwood hedges” and the “wildflowers” I mentioned.
What annoys me about so many “New Age” messages is this stubborn insistence on total divine micromanagement.
JaguarMoon,
Power to the Chaos Surfers!
Christie
Thanks for introducing me to “Science of Mind” — I wasn’t familiar with that, but I certainly resonate with your personal description of “divinely perfect.”
I found helpful commentary in every post here; thanks!
And thank you, Slade, for your support concerning my rather unorthodox guide situation. I do want to clarify: I don’t believe my guides truly, truly LIE. I think that, often, their answers may reflect the lack of specificity in my questions, as well as trying to hint at a metaphoric truth as opposed to a literal one.
In that sense, they understand that I am a literary person, a writer, and our relationship reflects who I am.
I believe that we have a destiny, and we are here to learn lessons not learnt in previous lives. We have choices in our lives and those choices may cause us to take the long way towards the goal that the universe(god) has for us, whether it is a learning outcome or being with a particular life partner or a specific employment area etc etc……. i get little glimpses of being on the “right track” through de ja vue ( pardon the spelling) you know the feeling of having been there done that??