Signs point to Yes…
While I would like to believe the fortune I got last week, "your future plans will succeed," at the same time, Number-One son got "your strength is in your sophistication"--a 'fortune' he immediately disproved as he ran off to show it to his dad, burping in his little brother's face on the way. This pairing of statements--revealed in the selection of baked goods--seems to suggest randomness, rather than an ability to predict.
However, it is human nature to want to find patterns, to try to discover order from the chaos of nature. Whether it's organizing the stars, tossing bones, looking at goose guts or cracking open cookies, we want a hint at what's to come based on Chance or finding a relationship between seemingly unrelated items. Last week, two ladies in the locker room were fretting about the recent earthquakes and the economy. "It makes you wonder," they said. A Sign from the Gods. Comfort against the Unknown.
(The geologist husband later sniffed, "Earthquakes happen all the time.")
I guess that's where aparigraha comes in. No clinging. We can't know what is going to happen next, so we can't worry about it; no point in wasting energy over things we can't control...especially things that haven't happened yet. Plans could succeed or they could completely fail, but nothing is going to reveal that except time. It's fun to guess at what will happen next, but, instead, we ought to appreciate the current moment.
I'll try. I'm very bad at staying in the present, rather than pondering the future. We'll see how that plan goes. Magic Eight Ball sez...
