I make decisions either by referring to God or by referring to my ego. No decision can be made without a framework. There is always, therefore, a framework. The question is: which one?
To refer to God: I start with a blank piece of paper. I ask, 'what sort of day do I want?' The answer: I want a day of health, happiness, harmony, love, joy, peace, and connection. I then ask:
If I have already perceived, assessed, and judged, I will have asked my ego what to do and will have received its answer. If I then ask God the above questions, the answer will conflict with what my ego has told me, and I will feel under attack: if I do what my ego has said and ignore God, I will fear retribution; if I do what God has said and ignore my ego, I will fear deprivation.
When I experience this fear and conflict, I unwind it as follows:
I set aside the answer the ego has given me.
I withdraw the question I posed of my ego (namely 'What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say, and to whom?').
I retract the perception, assessment, and judgement of the situation, and replace my perception, assessment, and judgement with this:
I can decide I do not like how I feel.
My feelings come from my perceptions, assessments, and judgements.
I therefore hope I have been wrong.
I want another way to look at this.
Perhaps there is another way to look at this.
What can I lose by asking?
I am then back at square one: what sort of day do I want to have? And I can proceed from there.
To refer to God: I start with a blank piece of paper. I ask, 'what sort of day do I want?' The answer: I want a day of health, happiness, harmony, love, joy, peace, and connection. I then ask:
What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say, and to whom?The answers will then come, and I follow through.
If I have already perceived, assessed, and judged, I will have asked my ego what to do and will have received its answer. If I then ask God the above questions, the answer will conflict with what my ego has told me, and I will feel under attack: if I do what my ego has said and ignore God, I will fear retribution; if I do what God has said and ignore my ego, I will fear deprivation.
When I experience this fear and conflict, I unwind it as follows:
I set aside the answer the ego has given me.
I withdraw the question I posed of my ego (namely 'What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say, and to whom?').
I retract the perception, assessment, and judgement of the situation, and replace my perception, assessment, and judgement with this:
My perception, assessment, and judgement are dreams: the world is neutral, neither good nor bad; none of my thoughts about the world mean anything.I then go back to the start: what sort of day do I want to have? One of health, happiness, harmony, love, joy, peace, and connection. I then ask God the original question:
What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say, and to whom?If I experience resistance, I adopt this procedure:
I can decide I do not like how I feel.
My feelings come from my perceptions, assessments, and judgements.
I therefore hope I have been wrong.
I want another way to look at this.
Perhaps there is another way to look at this.
What can I lose by asking?
I am then back at square one: what sort of day do I want to have? And I can proceed from there.