What’s next?

What does NEXT mean anyway? Time is not really linear, I’ve heard. So maybe what’s next is what’s past. What’s next can be whatever we choose on some level. But then, one can get into quantum physics and that’s way too complicated for me to write about.

How can we know what’s next, on the larger, grander scale? Many of us have a fear of what’s next, because we feel we have no control over what happens next. But is that true?

I am a spiritual being, WE are spiritual beings, having a human experience. All the great teachers, from Jesus to Rumi and all the Sufi Mystics, to current teachers like Deepak Chopra, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, ad infinitum really, there are so many, teach us to be still. To just be still, and ask ourselves what we want, what our purpose is. To discover what our desires are, for ourselves. We can manifest those desires. No one elses, but we can manifest our own.

Because I’m taking a course right now presented by Deepak Chopra on the Nature of Reality, I will quote what I listened to today. “Desire is a fundamental aspect of consciousness which takes the potential and makes it into what we call the actual. Desire is pure potentiality seeking manifestation. It is an inherent property of consciousness as it moves from the unmanifest to the manifest, from the invisible to the visible, from the spiritual into the material.”
It seems to me, (with a little help from Deepak and every other great teacher I’ve read or listened to) that we can manifest our desires if we live each moment walking toward them. We can’t manifest others desires or our desires for others, but we can direct our own lives. This has happened to me many times, that I have known what I’ve wanted and moved toward that desire. We can work toward a common goal with others who have similar desires. Only in this way can we know What’s Next, on a personal or even a larger scale. To first look deep within ourselves, to know ourselves and identify our desires. To live through each moment with that end result as the goal, and allow that dream to be manifested, by your own consciousness.

So, the answer to the question What’s Next is really up to you. What you want will dictate what happens next.

Note:  This prompt was a result of my writer’s group meeting.  The last meeting was right after the mid-term elections, and we spent a good bit of time musing on those elections and as we began to end the meeting, decided our next prompt would be What’s Next?  I struggled with this prompt.  Too open-ended.  I didn’t want to write about politics, or recite what was next in the course of my immediate day.  I started and stopped 3 essay type posts.  I started poems, haikus, FIBs but none of them were working for me.  I finally, in listening to Deepak teach this course, realized that what’s next for me depends on what I want.  As it always has.  Love and light to all.