Today, however, I realised a pattern in my life.

Every night, I go to bed, content, happy, satisfied. I’m grateful for the life God and me are building, and I convey those emotions regularly.

Still, every morning starts off just as before, exactly how it would before I was Born Again. Quite strange really. Almost a decade into an all out surrender, so much healing, so much learning, so many joys gathered and so many blemishes that we’ve recovered from. And yet, the moment I wake into the day, it’s the same old world. The same old drudgery proceeds. The same half-hearted lethargy, worrying disguised as contemplation, and a sense of paranoia, of being an impostor. Impostor in what sense, I didn’t know. I never quite could figure this one out.

As I got started with my work for the day, tapping buttons around, making narratives in my head, resonating with the vibrations that the Lord is enveloping me with — I felt it.

I was stuck in a quagmire for a very long time, and I had left it up to God many months ago. Today, there was a breakthrough. I threw my hands in the air and said, “Thank you, Jesus!”. Palms joined together in prayer, eyes mellow, and heart full — the signature “my cup runneth over” feeling that I long for like nothing else.

That’s when the Lord played this lyric in my head, and I realised what was the issue. If my praises for the Lord were strictly reserved for the high moments, then by definition, I’m being greedy and saying that the “cup runneth over feeling” is where I start to feel grateful.

The bar was placed much too high. Arrogance galore, am I right? If an ecstatic moment is where I begin to praise the Lord, then by definition, all moments that don’t reach that level of emotional satisfaction are inherently “less than”.

And Matthew Principle doesn’t allow for abundance in moments that are “less than”.

So I believe, that the lesson for me here was, that in avoiding praising the Lord for merely existing, when I said I’m trying to avoid a poverty mindset, I implicitly also conveyed that I didn’t trust the Lord to endow me with abundance. Quite narcissistic, no? Withholding love and adoration so that the giver might give me more. I suppose if you ask passive aggressively, then you shall also receive passive aggressively.

Consistency is a strange thing really. You repeat and revise day in, day out, guided by the faint glimmer that one day, whatever time and effort you’ve invested will prime you to be qualified for an event or series of events in the future. Now, in present day, if someone asked you to pin-point the seed of said events that may or may not butterfly into the storm you’ll find yourself in the middle of, one day in the distant future — you wouldn’t even know where to begin the conception of said series of events.

Still, like a wordy math problem we ask kids to solve in middle school, by a process you’ve never been indoctrinated in, and according to rules you’ve never read — you just know that one day, there will be an exchange that will occur — like members of a relay team passing the baton to each other — consistency is you standing in the middle of the track, strategically placed in your own team’s lane, with one hand on the ground supporting your stance, and the other waiting for the baton to be handed to you.

You perspire, you stay attentive, you keep yourself alert without compromising the reserve energy to be used for your leg of the race. It’s an exercise in patience. It’s an endeavour of symbiosis. You can’t control whether the baton will ever be handed to you, but you can be sure to place yourself at the right place on the track, in the right lane.

If the universe complies, great. If things don’t go according to the best version of events you had imagined, then you chalk it up to Completion Paradox.

Completion Paradox is this idea that actions in real life never really have a proper end in a way that we might be able to say something like “100% of the effort from this time period transmuted into 100% of the results for this time period”. Sure, you acquire some skills, build some muscles, practice some routines to fulfil a nearby objective — but on completion of the objective, the skills don’t go away.

You learn more, you get attached to what is still valuable, you renounce what doesn’t work anymore and no matter how much of an answer you want to explain major occurrences in your life as a product of individual choices, for the most part, it’s a fool’s endeavour.

It’s probably why when you ask experienced and accomplished people about the “choices that made a difference”, they invariably answer in clichés.

“Hard work”
“Persistence”
“Faith”
“Positive attitude”

Looking at these answers in terms of consistency, it’s not a singular choice. It’s not one decision we like to see cinematically as “pouncing on a rare opportunity” — that is the toolkit of the grifter.

Through the lens of consistency, you see that it’s not a single choice, but the end of the road over a long list of individual choices that almost always, without fail, end up at the same answer. It’s a continuous wrestling with life, with circumstances, with our own belief system, with societal constructs, and ultimately, it’s wrestling with God — the objective is not to win or admit defeat. The objective is to be there, day after day, through times of storms and sunny skies, beyond relationships, accolades, emotions, and even accomplishments.

The objective is to just “be”, and to do that consistently.

Is there something to be said about consistency without regard for improvement or deterioration?

Personally, whenever I have read any self help book or skimmed over the latest life hack tricks, they have always done one of the two things: 1) encourage improvement, or 2) discourage deterioration.

As an outsider who may not be the target audience for these books, it seems almost bizarre — why would you need someone to elaborate on definitions of the word you want incorporated in your life? Most people would find it insulting to their intelligence, being spoken to like a toddler.

Sometimes though, when someone is stuck to the level that life humbles them into buying a self-help book, this coddling is not just a marketing ploy, buy a welcome relief. When the core of your reality is fractured, it is almost vital that you put your trust in someone who really appears to be handling things gently, spoon-feeding you each step of the process in toddler sized mush at a pace where you can’t help but diagnose your errors with surgical precision.

Still, for all their careful encouragement, self help books, in my experience, either encourage improvement, in the form of taking things slow, starting with the lowest form of commitment, or planning meticulously, or even letting your heart take the lead as your mind merely steers you if you seem to be swaying from the path of continuous improvement.

The second pile of self-help books, do something along the lines of discouraging deterioration. A bit more defensive strategy that might be passive enough for most people to incorporate without much mental labour or logistical alterations to their daily flow. This second pile builds on the philosophy that things generally improve over time, and as long as you’re not deteriorating, you’re doing a good enough job with the upkeep.

The middle path to both of them feels almost too non-committal to even warrant discussion, but still, since we’re here — what if we took the notion of progress out of it altogether? What if it was just about being at the place, in the midst of the process, consistently.

What if you were just — there. Without pomp or purpose, not seeking improvement, or avoiding deterioration, what if you were just a part of it all for the sake of being a part of it all? What if we all took a page out of the coasting grifter’s playbook, and gave ourselves time to breathe? Absorbing things as they came, if they came at all.

If there was improvement, yay!
If there was deterioration, boo!

For the ambitious person, I believe this would be like swallowing iron. But it would make them more patient, and grounded. For the slacker, it would take the shame and blame away and make room for absorption and appreciation. For all people in between, it’s like any other axiomatic philosophy — if it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, somebody will probably come up with something else that’s right for you.

Can We Communicate Flawlessly?

People tell you extend grace to others quite a lot. Whether it’s in matters relating to family, or long-established friendships — we’re asked to do better, be better, and allow for a more empathetic narrative that allows us to see the person who has wronged us in a softer, warmer light.

Pop-culture has been pushing back against this narrative quite a lot over the past few years, saying “boundaries are necessary” and that “toxicity needs to be avoided”.

I get both of those points, really. Snap judgements based on rigid codes aren’t helping anyone, especially in this age of grandstanding comment warriors. At the same time, once you allow yourself to become a doormat, you can’t really complain that people are walking over you.

So then, what does the middle path look like? The place of perfect balance — the place where only what needs to be communicated goes through, nothing more, and nothing less. Does this place exist? Is there an algorithm that can be followed to execute such a precise exchange?

I think, the question we need to ask ourselves, as we inadvertently thought police each other, is not “can we communicate flawlessly”. It is my belief that the more superior line of thought is “should we expect everyone to communicate flawlessly?”

Think about the utopic version of what we are subconsciously working towards with thought policing. Is it a place of a uniform belief system? So, fascism? Is it a place of precise and exact communication? Are we machines? Is it a place where nobody gets their feelings hurt? Are we all overgrown toddlers? So then it is a place where everybody gets all things correct and at all times and in all situations? Are we all perfect manifestations of the omnipotent God? Is is a place where everybody takes an infinite time to prepare what they’re going to say, and deliver it in a way that it offends none of the billion people who might come across their message? Who has that kind of time?

So then, again, I ask — “should we expect everyone to communicate flawlessly?”

Let’s say everybody always communicates flawlessly. What would that world look like? Predictable harmonious interactions and predictable cantankerous interactions, and all things in between. Right?

Would the world would look like a play — a perfect symphony conducted by “powers that be”? Who is to say it isn’t already that way:

ਜਗੁ ਸੁਪਨਾ ਬਾਜੀ ਬਨੀ ਖਿਨ ਮਹਿ ਖੇਲੁ ਖੇਲਾਇ ॥
“The world is a drama, staged in a dream. In a moment, the play is played out.”
Sri Guru Granth Sahib (Ang 18)

Are you sure you got that right?

Are you sure that this is what was intended?

The original verse from Matthew 7:1–2 says:

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

You know, of all the things popular culture propagates about God and scripture, this is the one thing that pinches me the most.

I could chalk up the trope of “bearded man in the sky” to a lack of imagination, to finding a variant of the abstract into a concrete and accessible version. I could also perhaps, maybe, slightly, begrudgingly, get past the whole “life is a test from God” when it clearly is a gift. I could, oh man, I could even try to keep the whole “God wants me to suffer so I become a better version of myself” into a neat little box and never look at it again.

But this thing. Asking me to turn off my brain when God clearly gave it to me for a reason. Gave it to all of us. Made it the seat of consciousness. Made it in-charge of all bodily autonomy. And then, to ask me to navigate all of my existence without judging, anything?

Judge. Not. That. Ye. Be. Not. Judged.

Don’t stop judging in hopes that you will not be judged.

That is what the verse means. And if somebody wants to come at me and say that I’m wrong in my interpretation, I’d ask them, how do they know?

Did they, I don’t know, JUDGE my interpretation to be incorrect?

Because if they are true to their interpretation, then they should just let me be, you know? The whole, “don’t judge other people otherwise you invite judgement to yourself” facade that is propagated across countries and cultures, to add an overhead onto the very thing that makes us an image of the Divine?

Every time you try to discern, analyse, dig deeper, there is this miniscule amount of guilt that gets added in the background, where your belief system says that you’re disobeying the Word of God. And we all know what it means to disobey even a part of the Word:

“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” — James 2:10

Funny how the entirety of your being is called into suspicion the moment you do the thing that’s most natural to you: “making sense of things”.

Now then, what did the Lord really mean, at least according to my personal interpretation?

Don’t stop judging in hopes that you will not be judged. Whatever reasoning you use to judge others, the same reasoning will be used upon you.

So then, karma? That checks out. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” You are the yardstick by which you will be judged. Now doesn’t that sound more natural? More elevated? More aligned?

Of course, some times our judgement may be short-sighted. Some times, we may get things wrong. Some times, we may even over-correct for our misgivings. Does that mean we stop participating, and hope that if we turn a blind eye to the world, that it will extend the same courtesy to us?

Does that sound like alignment, or does that sound like delusion?

Judge. Judge more. Judge compassionately, but don’t let yourself be treated like a doormat. Judge evenly. Judge temperately. Judge, so your judgement gets better. Judge, so your judgement gets refined. Don’t stop using the tool because the tool is potentially dangerous. Make yourself better. Make yourself more adept, more sophisticated, more compassionate, and more grounded in reality. Understand that God gave you this mind, and understand that this mind, like any other muscle, is only good when it is regularly and methodically used.

Use it, or lose it. Mostly, don’t abuse it. But definitely, don’t refuse it.

You can run, you can hide, you can stay in denial — but it catches on. It being? Karma. Sure. Everybody knows that. Of course karma catches on. The seeds you sowed, you will someday reap. Nothing new to discuss there.

So then?

What about the Word?

Word? What Word? You mean things we said? Isn’t that also karma?

Yes, that’s karma as well, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean “Word” with the W capitalised. Word, from John 1:1-2:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.”

That Word. The programming you, God on earth, received from the moment of your inception into biological life. That Word. The programming, the conditioning, the informational aspects of you that have made the version of you thus far, and will almost definitely continue to do so unless you observe, analyse, interfere and consciously readjust.

The Word catches on. You might think that it’s all you, or has been you, but odds are, you haven’t come across the real you at all. And if by the grace of God, you have been lucky enough to see the real you, then I sincerely hope that it was in a moment of compassion or creativity. The genius in you, the saint in you, I hope you saw yourself truly being at home in your own skin when you witnessed yourself.

Many times though, we aren’t so lucky. Jesus knew this all too well.

People talk a lot about His whole philosophy being one of universal love and compassion and grace, and that is true, and people even get the verse right — “turn the other cheek” they say. I’m sold on the specifics, no need to convince me that Jesus stood for grace, and that turning the other cheek verse was the one that planted this seed into the empires and civilisation that His teachings founded. But stay with me here, I believe there’s more to the story than popularly discussed:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” — Matthew 5:38–39

In addition to the popular understanding, could Jesus have also hinted at giving the transgressor an opportunity to correct course? To overcome their conditioning? To rewrite their Word?

The first time someone slaps you. It may have been an automatic reaction, something that happened on autopilot, a default failsafe mechanism imparted into the psyche of the person for use in situations that they probably have never faced before in their conscious experience.

Sure, they slap you, smite you, take your coat. They do that once, Jesus says, not a big deal, forgive them. Forgive the programming, I think He meant. Ask them to do it again. Offer the other cheek. Let the God in you, offer a scripturally corroborated, covenant based loophole, to the God in them, and give them a way to escape the matrix of their Word, their programming, and evaluate the situation in real time — alter the consciousness that has been governing them, and choose the better path.

Because Christ lives on in you, and also the believer with whom you may come into confrontation with, as apparent in Romans 8:16–17:

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

So if, in that moment of confrontation, you, as the attacked, show grace, and give the person attacking you an option to choose the better path, then you’ve done your duty towards Christ in that moment.

As a society, if we all do that, then best case scenario, the other person chooses grace as well, and corrects course, and stops the attacking after the first blow — something that echoed in Matthew 25:34:

“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”

On the flip side though, if the person repeatedly chooses to ignore the grace offered, then, as Prophet Mohammad said, Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.

So then, clean slate? Maybe possible. But mostly, be like nature, be persistent, and grow through and around what refuses to move: