We live in the World of Three. I call this obvious, simple, relative world the World of Three, because there's always one, another, and something in between. For example, I talking to you and so on. Because we live in this World of Three, responsibility, like awareness and love, seem to incline toward an object. Yet love, awareness, and responsibility are far more than players in a relational dynamic, a billiard ball hitting another billiard ball in a world of determinism along some continuum of purpose and futility.

Nothing Happens Without You

When we allow responsibility to touch us in our heart and our soul, something extraordinary takes place. Instead of being bewildered by the opportunities we might take and the opportunities we might miss to act responsibly, give responsibly, intervene or solve problems responsibly, we reside in the truth of our continuity with not only all that arises but the very Consciousness in which all arises. Rather than being identified with objects in a basket we are the basket and even more and, just a slight step further, we are the matrix in which the basket and its objects arise.

Responsibility is about spontaneity, being your natural self, and Consciousness, but ultimately responsibility is about Unity. You are responsible for everything, no exceptions. Now in this expansive significance of responsibility it means that nothing happens without your participation, your love, your creation, your need and desire, your compassion, your hate and violence, your tenderness and empathy. Nothing happens without you.

I as the other; the other as myself. Ultimately there is no other. Your awareness flies out of the realm of the personal and soars into higher realms, higher powers, a higher perspective.

You Don't Get Out Of Here That Easily!

Now in non-duality, the teachings of non-duality, this soaring, this disintegration of the illusion seems to be the goal. What could be higher than this annihilation of the world as illusion, as falsehood, for the reality of the ephemeral space, the teachings embodied in the formless person residing now in the post-temporal Absolute. Here is the realization of the non-dualists, the spiritual approach that seems to have become so prevalent today.

But you don't get out of here that easily! I urge you to love, live and be in this world. Even if your spiritual practice takes you to the highest climes of Conscious attainment, to the far reaches of space and eternity itself, forsake it all for this world, because you are only here for a short time... a very short time. It would be an act of perfect ingratitude not to enjoy the holiday... to not serve and explore Truth, Joy, and Satisfaction here in the realm of sadness, to not take responsibility for your enormous wisdom, the depths of the illumination you have brought with you here into this world that belongs here, that teaches and transforms and models the divine heart in the form of a human being.

In order to do this, take responsibility. Dispel the veils of thought and other and worldly delusion. Why? Because you are not separate from anything at all. Are you in the world or is the world in you?

Richard Harvey is a psycho-spiritual psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and author. He is the founder of The Center for Human Awakening and has developed a form of depth-psychotherapy called Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) that proposes a 3-stage model of human awakening. Richard can be reached at [email protected].

Blog entry #181