Falling Into Place

"Practice not-doing

and everything will fall into place."

Tao Te Ching

We experience the Tao, the Universal Source of Everything (including YOU), when we relax and let go of our habitual struggle and resistance to the direction that our lives are moving in, and allow ourselves instead to, 'go with the flow'. One of the great practices of Taoism is called Wu Wei, or 'doing not-doing', as in having all your needs met while exerting the least amount of effort as possible.

From another angle, this effortless action is a result of getting the ego, our sense of doership, out of the way, and allowing Divine intelligence (the Tao), to do the heavy lifting; letting IT take us where we need to go, at exactly the time we need to be there.

Of course, this runs counter to the prevailing wisdom (ignorance?) of the day, which tells us we need to plan, worry, sweat, and 'do something' to make things work out the way we think they should work out. In this constant state of striving and effort, we tie ourselves into knots, while depleteing ourselves of all joy and enthusiasm for our lives.

The good news is that, when we stop trying to manipulate life into giving us what we think we need to be happy, we discover the 'effortless action' that flows from the intuitive promptings of the heart, and find ourselves able to take action that produces results without the usual exhaustion that accompanies our efforts.

And of course, often we find that no action at all is required; that all we need to do is cultivate patience and trust, allowing ourselves to relax our busy minds while the Tao reveals the perfect path for us to take in every moment: the path right under our feet.