I EXPECT......

I EXPECT......

~FeNelon, Francois on Spirit and Spirituality wrote recently – “ All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation. ”

Like many things that we once relied upon early in life to move us along, expectations turn out in time to be counter-productive. Surprising, isn't it? Any expectation is, by definition, something looked forward to. It is a prospect of future good or profit. The problem is its focus on some looked-for satisfaction in an imagined future.

The future is an ill-defined place in an unreal realm called “time”, a place where there is no real possibility. The power to create lies only in the present, here and now. By seeking to create something in the future, you automatically separate your self from its creator – you – who actually exists only in the present. Sure, the process of creation begins when we imagine how we would like something to turn out a bit down the track. But that image-inating has to be here and now if it is to have any effect. And the next steps also have to be taken here and taken now. If you allow yourself to drift out of the present, you've entered the dodgy playgrounds of Wishing and Hoping.

When you hold something in Expectation it infers a degree of probability, a probability you can get pretty upset about if it doesn't work out the way you think it should. Hidden inside Expectation are elements of hope (including doubt and parent thoughts and blind assumptions of “missing” and “lack”). If you then add to the mix fears of what you want not-happening, you are virtually guaranteeing eventual disappointment. The overriding Rule of Reality here is “You're going to wherever you're coming from”. If you come from a ground being of loss, lack, hope and disappointment, no amount of pumping yourself up and Expectorating will get you to abundance, gratitude and fulfilment.

There's a sense in which expectations are illusions – with an emotional wallop. I'm sure you remember the 1967 hymn to disillusionment, “Is that all there is?” It suggests that expectations impose an artificial horizon on what once promised to be an endless ocean of possibility. With great sadness it laments the fact that, in our reaching for nirvana, we don't realise until too late that the journey is more nourishing than the destination. Heaven is nice, but it's a let-down.

We've both heard stories and lived through our own experiences of Opportunity showing up in life, disguised as something quite different to what we expected. My first step past this ingrained habit was to begin the practice of deliberately and specifically putting out for what I want ... “or something better”, then watching with an open mind what turns up next, and dealing with that in trust that Life knows me a whole lot better than I do, and “what I want” is on its way – in one guise or another.

Stripped of specific expectation, spiritual pleasures are available throughout the journey, when in expanding awareness we perceive, delight and celebrate in day-by-day signs of progress from limitation to freedom, from darkness to light.