The Swahili word, shauri, means a debate, argument, problematic issue, a matter which must be addressed, one of those thousands of issues which you endlessly give your mind over to, what you call your problems.  They are all shauris, troubles that surface and pop in a pool of bubbling mud, endlessly random, endlessly unpredictable.

 

Image by Janice De Santis

 

Becoming sovereign means losing all shauris

 

There is tremendous relief to becoming sovereign.  It is what you have always wanted to be.  All these shauris you endure, on any level, are only to remind you that you have not made your decision.  The shauris will continue to prod you like little arrows, until you do. If you delay your decision, the shauris will become emboldened and larger. But when you have made your decision, they will disappear.

 

 

Shauris are the opposite of decision. They appear where no decision has been made. The remedy for shauris is decision.  Becoming sovereign means using conscious decision. By conscious decision you become one who determines his existence by his constant thought.

 

What comes first, consciousness or decision?  Because when other people talk about consciousness, I don’t know what they mean.  I don’t know how to get it.

 

Decision comes first and everyone knows how to make a decision.  They don’t like to, and put off making them in many ways, and often for their entire lifetimes. They will live their lives surrounded by useless clutter and junk, rather than make a decision to throw anything away. They will live their lives in service of useless unworkable ideas, rather than make a decision to change them for anything better.

 

 

But people come more easily to a decision when the choices become stark. Once you see the course you are on is headed for the ditch, you will change direction even if it involves some uncomfortable moves.

 

How much better, though, not to set a course for the ditch in the first place.  Conscious decision is much more than just avoiding catastrophe at the last minute. Conscious decision subverts the whole idea of catastrophe, rendering it useless and void, a relic. Conscious decision is doing exactly what you would do in your situation, if you had just landed on earth today.  You would take stock of where you were, decide where you wanted to be, and plot the shortest, most efficient route to it.  You would be the consummate navigator and mapmaker.

 

 

And here is the answer to every conundrum, personal, regional, national, or global.

 

Decide your destination

 

Personally, I want all my relationships to be harmonious and positive.  Regionally, I want to be a good steward of the resources around me. Nationally, let us continue to be a beacon of hope to oppressed people everywhere; let us stand for the idea of democracy, of people working together successfully. Globally, I want all energies, people, life and creation on the earth to work together in the service of good.

 

Make these decisions, and watch the shauris get pushed out under the tide of solutions flooding to you.

The next post will tell of some specific ways you can foster a habit of decision-making.