Paying My Way

Paying My Way

An adage I keep encountering repeatedly is “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” This simple adage, evident in all aspects of my life, is especially apt when I consider the payment required for inner work. My progress always involves payment of one kind or another. Who else is going to pay for me? I must pay my way.

PD Ouspensky writes,

“If one has knowledge, one cannot give it to another person, for only if he pays for it can the other person have it. This is a cosmic law. Man has to be a good merchant, he must know what to buy and how much to pay. Things cannot fall from heaven, they cannot be found, they must be bought. What one can get is proportionate to what one is prepared to pay. And one has to pay in advance—there is no credit.”

Most people intuitively know this already. One does not value that for which one does not pay. When I pay for something, I understand, viscerally my relationship to that “thing” whether it is buying an object like a car or building a relationship with a person by giving my time, energy, and affection. There are no freebies.

In the grand scheme of energy and matter, there is nothing free. Everything comes from somewhere. Why should working on myself be any different? If I want to wake up, I must pay for it and there are various kinds of payment.

The first payment is a sort of down payment or placing an ante, as in poker. I pay by giving up as much of my mechanical behavior as I can. The payment plan depends in part on my particular mechanics and degree of sleep. If I live in imagination (as most people do), then I give that up as payment. If I express negative emotions and attach myself to imaginary ideas, then I need to give them up as payment. If a friend requests something of me unexpectedly then I might pay by not doing what I had been planning to do. If my Teacher gives me a psychological exercise, then I pay by following that exercise.

And that is only the beginning. At every opportunity presented to me, I surrender that which is unnecessary in my life to pay for higher consciousness, a piece of heaven. The Work requires daily payment in steadfast effort, humility, and embracing the unknown. That is the fair market value for awakening. Every step, every esoteric part of my life requires payment, and I must dispense with the lie of getting something for nothing. It does not happen.

This illusion that I can gain without any down payment and without any “skin in the game,” as they say, must be exchanged as payment for something new. All progress on self-work, dividing attention, self-remembering, and so forth comes with the payment of valuing Divine Presence over everything else. Nothing is free, yet the bargain is sweet.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” – Book of Matthew

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The Bersha Procession, Egyptian, 2010–1961 B.C., MFA Boston