Everyone is either ambitious… or resigned.

Most are resigned, really. Perhaps this is why we look up to ambition.

No. We look up to ambition because it is far superior.

Ambition ultimately turns into resignation itself. If you are fortunate – you will see one day that whilst you may be able to satisfy many of your particular ambitions and desires – that the thirst itself is actually aggravated. It is then that you discover the ULTIMATE RESIGNATION, which may end you… or enlighten you.

 

Resignation must be truly the lowest paradigm. To be resigned is to never reconcile with one’s desires, but it is to passively accept one’s fate, neither with appreciation nor with resistance, and definitely NOT WITH UNDERSTANDING. For resignation is hardly ever a reflection of what-is, as it is distorted by FEAR, fear of losing the little that one has gotten, fear of leaving one’s miserable, but familiar situation.

Resignation is most common, it is completely learnt, and it is being taken into our heads since our earliest years. We are always taught to follow, to comply, to accept, to FIT IN. This DEAD PASSIVENESS, this learnt HELPLESSNESS, it is what our resignation is fruitfully founded on.

 

It comes as no surprise that any form of empowerment, any hope, any escape, is so much desired. What is not reflected in action, is reflected in (empty) words.

The default modus operandi is just this all-permeating passiveness – but the shout is all about individuality, power, personal gains, growth and AMBITION. It’s all over in our culture, it’s in the movies, it’s in the media, and it’s in everyone’s mind. Not only because we naturally desire strength for our ego’s sake, or riches for our hedonistic whims — but we idealise this elusive state in which we are in CONTROL, in which WE DECIDE our own fate.

The problem with ambition is that it is still driven by lack. It is driven by scarcity mentality. When we settle with resignation, we are avariciously protective of our current situation, whilst terrified of any changes and opportunities out of fear for our current position – to the point of constantly passing abundant opportunities up. Consequently, when we are ambitious, we are greedy about opportunities we see as profitable to us, our “personal growth”, but the very notion of growth reveals elementary psychological insecurity, both in regard of one’s self, and one’s possessions, both mental and material.

To put it in Buddhist terms – resignation (settling) is based on clinging, whereas ambition is based on desire. In reality – ultimately both are just a fatuous quest for PERMANENCY, of the SELF which IDENTIFIES, either with it’s current, or forthcoming mental, or material possessions.

And the SELF itself is the ultimate mental possession… for the self to be, it is merely to posses (memories)

 

There is, however, a way which is neither passive nor ambitious or acquisitive.

There is a way, but it is not a way at all.

It is not a way because it is not based on time.

Resignation is based on clinging to things through time. (Clinging implies time).

Ambition is based on looking forward to changes in time.

Both are an escape from what currently is.

There is one way which is not a way, and it is not an escape.

It’s acceptance.

You may also call it gratitude. The real gratitude, the one which is not based in comparison (which is time), which can never be satisfactory.

 

It is common to confuse resignation with acceptance

Resignation is not acceptance. Resignation is not reconciliation. Resignation does not transcend. Resignation does not accept the reality. Resignation is merely a psychological choice to not go after something which one wants. There is no alleviation of desire in this process. There is merely resignation of it’s pursuit. The root of the problem (desire) is not solved (dissolved). One is merely ignoring it’s consequences, living in a quiet desperation, grasping to the little he has, for having resigned on what one could get, he only has (is) what he has now.

It is common to confuse resignation with gratitude.

Resignation is not gratitude. Gratitude is based on present appreciation. Resignation always contains the thing resigned — the desire forsaken, and this very desire will always MAR the current appreciation. One can only know true gratitude when rooted deeply in the present moment. Desire is based on time, it is based on the distance from the current feeling of desire to it’s fulfilment. This time distance takes you away from the present moment, and there can be no appreciation when there is no presence, and there can be no gratitude when there is no appreciation.

 

When there is deep presence to the moment – there is gratitude. True, conditionless, perfect gratitude.

In it’s light no ambition, no scarcity, no resignation can survive – for it itself is all-abundant and utterly, lavishly satisfactory. In this light of gratitude all desire is dispelled, and with it there is neither anything to attain, nor to give up on.

There is completeness, there really is completeness, but it is not what you’ve been told, it is not based on any condition, it is not realised in time, and it can only ever occur now, and it can occur right now, if you see.

Be

complete.