Indecision

TWELVE STEPS

AND

TWELVE TRADITIONS

STEP FIVE

(p. 60)

… Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mistaken. Lacking both practice and humility, they had deluded themselves and were able to justify the most errant nonsense on the ground that God had told them. It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisors the guidance they feel they have received from God. Surely, then, a novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders in this fashion.

~

The fool who thinks he is a fool is for that very reason a wise man;

But the fool who thinks he is a wise man is rightly called a fool.

Dhammapada 63

Indecision is cause for so much of my inner turmoil as I face the day's challenges... "Am I right or wrong? What will happen if I do or don't? Do I have to hurt one to help another?" It is especially vexing when it appears that there are two almost equally disastrous or beneficial consequences that will result from whatever I choose. Flipping a coin won't do either; but, after I have gone to an objective set of ears… maybe more than one set… wisdom arises if they will tell me what I need, and not what I want, to hear. I find that it is often too easy to accept those who will agree with me no matter what but it is another thing entirely to find true counsel. If I check my motives and seek the wisdom that comes from my core after I sit on it, the answers come. Setting my chin against the storm with bluff and bluster can be mistaken for courage of convictions. Self-awareness equals humility and humility is always open to suggestion.

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