Obedience

I like to watch papa. He’s a fascinating study. One of the things I noticed about him early is that he easily picks up and mirrors whomever and whatever he’s faced with. Happiness, sadness, excitement, anger—the emotions happen like a flash and drain away. Like a grounding wire, he pulls and disperses the energy he’s faced with.

I told him once that unlike the people around me, he was too slick for me to feel his fault lines. He corrected me, gently, that instead of being slick, he was whole.

He talks quite a bit on the podcast about filters, which I’ll give a partial definition as the things which color how you perceive (thoughts, ethics, childhood experiences, etc.) One of the things he’s said on that topic is that when you are clear of filters, when the parts of you which interfere with the ability to see are stripped away, you can fully be with someone in a space, untroubled by the need to interpret them.

You get there by obedience and not a small amount of work. Obedience to strange, fractious, and sometimes (seemingly) nonsensical advice, the effect of which strips away your past, the ability of your emotions to command you, and eventually your mind (or what you think of as your self, but is not.) It leaves you very much in command of yourself.

A few years ago, I would have said this was an alien state—something to be feared. Instead, it’s a carrot.

It’s also an essential tool in spiritual work. It allows people to get what they need to get from you, without you getting in the way of what they need to get by judging it or them, siphoning away the message to fit your own filter.

I say this with no small amount of irony: obedience leads to freedom.