Becoming an Instrument of the Divine
It is natural to go through life attached to the idea of personal agency, aiming and striving, believing that our own efforts help determine outcomes.
However, if the ultimate reality is a unified consciousness, and all phenomena, including thoughts and actions, arise within and as this unified awareness, then the idea of a “doer” with its own separate existence is an incompatible view. If consciousness is one, then the words we speak, the actions we perform, and the lives we live, are expressions of this fundamental beingness, playing out through each and every body-mind.
The practice, then, becomes one of relaxing the egoic grip on attachments by recognizing where true agency lies. The shrinking of the ego is a process that allows more space for the divine to express itself.
The divine is not a separate entity waiting to step in. It is consciousness, that which is real. It is our true nature, already the source and substance of all that is.
A helpful analogy is that of a clarinet, which has no melody of its own. But when breath flows through it, music can be created. Although the clarinet makes possible certain expressions of music, the clarinet itself is not the author of the music. Similarly, as the egoic belief in being a separate agency diminishes, the body-mind becomes a clearer, more resonant instrument through which divine consciousness can express itself in the field of time.
The awareness that we are instruments of the divine fosters a deep trust in the unfolding of reality. By becoming “less,” we create space for so much more, for we become a clearer channel for the breath of creativity, compassion and the wisdom of the one reality to flow through us.