Nothing to do

Some years ago I sat at the steps of a monument in the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It was a late winter afternoon, the camp is beautiful in winter now, quiet and peaceful, with the orderly raws of red-brick barracks and an endless panorama of chimneys – the only thing now left of the wooden buildings that were burned at the camp’s liberation. As I sat there alone, looking at the ruins of a crematorium, I felt a profound peace and calm. The war was over, I realized, there was no need to fight anymore, no need to defend, to struggle, to survive. Now it was time to enjoy, to relax, to live. I had a very similar feeling few days ago as I walked my dog in the morning. I felt done and complete with the struggles of life, with playing the society game: making money, working, gathering stuff, building structures. I’ve done that, I felt, I know how to do it now, I know how to live according to society’s rules. Now it is time to do something else, now it is time to live according to my rules. I didn’t quite know what all this means and I’ve been carrying this thought with me ever since. What should I do? And how? Who should I be? Who am I? How does being me occur in reality? If I am not going to focus on being a good carrier-woman, who should I be then? Should I teach something to somebody? Should I join an organization to change the world? Or maybe I should found a new one? All those options and ideas seemed to be coming from the same place, the “doing” place, the place that is missing something, the place that has something broken, something that has to be fixed, changed, remedied. I thought: I am God, and so is everyone else. There is nothing broken in God, nothing that has to be changed in God, nothing that has to be fixed, nothing needs helping, there is nothing missing. What then? What is the meaning of being alive here, now, as a human being, as God? Today morning I thought about people who did fully open to being who they were as God, as humans. I thought about Christ, Buddha, Anandamai Ma. And it occurred to me – they didn’t do anything. Pretty much all they did was wandering around talking to people. They did not start organizations, though organizations sprung up around them. They did not start trends, schools, religions, though schools and religions were organized around them. They did not set out to change the world, though the world changed around them. They only were themselves. That’s all. They did nothing. They were – fully original, completely present as God. They were – and the world changed.