Control is an Illusion

I was scrolling through personal ad postings on a website the other day when a subject line hit me right between the eyes. It read:

“Control is an Illusion”

Excitedly, I wrote the author of the ad and complimented her.

“That’s one of the coolest subject lines for a personal ad I have ever seen.”

I received an email reply back almost instantly.

“Blah blah blah.go to this site to see more pictures of me. Then later I’ll try to convince you to pay to see me on my webcam.”

Great - now there’s illusion behind the illusion. Or maybe it was always there and I just never really looked closely enough.

On a similar note, I stayed in Las Vegas for a few days recently. At one point, while I was sitting in the audience attending a workshop called ‘Renegades of Persuasion,’ one of the speakers said to us, “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

Good enough - I’ve heard that once before while watching a video about magicians.

But when I got back to New York, I called Bill White to say hello. Partly through the conversation Bill said to me over the phone something that would have made my head fall off it wasn’t attached so well:

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

H-E-L-L-O!

This phrase actually originates from the classic movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and is about discovering the truth about how the Wizard really creates this mighty image of himself.

Now, I have a very active inner life. I have a lot of dreams, I travel to places and I meet a lot of people during my many travels - all while my body lies quietly in bed at night.

There’s one particular experience I’ve had a couple of times which I consider to be both profound and intricately woven within the success principle I’m outlining for you here in this article. It goes like this:

I’m driving a car down a street when I suddenly lose control of it. I can’t keep my hands on the steering wheel and the car starts spinning, way out of control.

I try to regain control of the car through the steering wheel but I’m only seconds away from smacking it right into a nearby tree - there isn’t enough time.

Suddenly, as if some other force has taking over the wheel, the car “miraculously” straightens out and avoids the oncoming tree. Now, I know for certain the recovery didn’t come from my own efforts because the arc my car follows to avoid crashing is not any kind I could have made with my own driving skills, nor was there even enough time for me to react and avoid an accident.

It’s as if a hand of God had swooped down and saved me from certain tragedy.

I say it’s “as if” because the truth of the matter is way more sublime than even that.

We seek to have say, to have power over our lives. We seek to be self-determining and to live lives of freedom.

This is good. But where many people err is in their personal definition of power.

The power that invigorates, enlivens and fulfills us is not the power of the man behind the curtain, playing with his toys and controls.

It’s not even the love of a man or a woman (though that’s as good a place to start as any).

It’s certainly not the power of a government that controls the supply and demand of important natural resources or suppresses the liberties of its people.

It’s not even the tremendous impact mother nature has upon the earth when she’s fallen off the wrong side of the bed in the morning.

Control is an illusion and the messengers of truth are many.

Do you want real wealth…real power…real love?

Then start merging your own will, your own limited perspective, with that of the infinite source. I have never gone wrong the times I’ve aligned myself with this very real power that invisibly guides the steering wheel of my life. Not all of my experiences have been fun and pleasant, mind you - but they have all been true and necessary. And for that I’m grateful.