July 9, 2026
Principle 7. Immediate Action. Second Week.
If you pursue an end, you enchain yourself. If everything you do is realized as an end in itself, you liberate yourself.
Last time: A New Way of Doing
This time: Scaffold or the Building
Illustration by Rafael Edwards
This Week:
Last week we looked at the basic structure of principle seven, the principle of immediate action. We considered its general meaning, and broad implications. We also played the game of find it, where we looked for other versions or illustrations of the principle in the culture.
This week we will consider how it might have applied in our past. To help gain some new perspectives we will also play the game of
Ask About It!
The Game of the Week.
The basic idea is simple: turn to someone and ask them what this principle might mean. This will likely, include the difficult task of taking a little risk and overcoming your self-censorship.
Why so inhibited? What’s at stake?
Try it out. Simply say to a friend, your neighbour, family member, or some stranger on the street. The point is to solicit their opinion, and then the hard part. You need to listen — even when they say things like: “I think that’s stupid”.
Remember, the key to the game is to ask, and listen.
Everyone holds a piece of the puzzle.
Those pieces least like yours might be especially helpful.
General Considerations and Personal Reflections:
Here are some personal reflections. I offer them in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, and look forward to hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, this principle.
In our reflections it may be useful to recall the following guidelines:
Indeed, it is advisable that you clarify — in your past and present situations — the contradictory acts that truly imprison you. To recognize them, you can rely on the suffering that is accompanied by internal violence and the feeling of having betrayed yourself. Such actions give clear signals.
I am not saying that you must mortify yourself in exhaustively recounting the past and present. I am simply recommending that you consider all those things that changed your course in an unfortunate direction and that keep you tightly bound. Do not fool yourself yet again by telling yourself that these problems have been “overcome.” Nothing is overcome or sufficiently understood that has not been weighed against a new force that compensates and surpasses that influence.
Silo_ The Internal Landscape IX:22,23
Throughout our live we move driven by our needs, and desires, our hopes and fears. All of this of course, within the changing constraints (pleasant, or unpleasant) of our given situations. Through the days we overcome difficulties, obtain our objectives, or fail in those attempts. Win, lose, draw. But imagine if daily life could be something very different. Maybe better, certainly not worse, but something else altogether, another kind of existence; not concerned with success nor failure, but rather with direction. A life of purpose lived so as to produce growing internal coherence, and lucidity. Of course, those are already our concerns, but can we manage to shift our centre of gravity from the provisional to the vital.
In the same chapter of The Internal Landscape as we quoted above, Silo points out that while there are many of our actions which while they may please us, or not, aren’t the point of our lives. He says that these actions are the scaffolding, not the building we are constructing. It seems that we most often take the scaffolding as primary and not the construction itself.
I think all this points to a staggeringly important possibility, that of transforming our daily lives into a profound meditation, and path of awakening, and liberation.
No doubt the simplicity of daily action, of doing with and among things, is shaken to its core by this change in perspective.
It is always helpful on occasion to try and apply a principle to this or that specific situation, but what if we actually incorporate this principle, and all the others, into the heart of how we live. That could open up a very different way of being, The Emerald Path where daily life is transformed into a continuous meditation because, the mundane and the transcendental form one reality
This Week’s Homework:
- Reflect on how this principle impacted or could have impacted your past.
-Play the game of Ask About It!
Worth Repeating:
The Principle of Immediate Action reminds us that we should learn to benefit from all the intermediate steps or situations that lead to our goals.
Remember:
A new life is not based on destroying previous “sins” but on recognizing them, in such a: way that it will be clear from now on just how inopportune such errors are.
Inner Look IX:18
Consider:
Can you sit with eyes closed and go Deep Inside to discover the source of inner peace, vital force and real Joy?
Can you open your eyes and discover how to transform daily life into your spiritual path?
Coming Up:
Next week we’ll continue with principle seven, but we will focus our reflections on our present moment. We will try to find examples that illuminate how the principle impacts the situations we are currently living.
Besides the opportunity to participate in the weekly experiences, our next meeting will be a chance for an interchange about your thoughts, insights, examples and questions.
You’ll receive a reminder the day before the meeting.
We hope you can join us.
Note:
Marie Claire has agreed to host our next meeting. We hope you can join us.
Illustration by Rafael Edwards
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website www.dzuckerbrot.com
Don’t forget:
In some moment of the day or night inhale a breath of air and imagine that you carry this air to your heart. Then, ask with strength for yourself and for your loved ones. Ask with strength to move away from all that brings you contradiction; ask for your life to have unity. Don't take a lot of time with this brief prayer, this brief asking, because it is enough that you interrupt for one brief moment what is happening in your life for this contact with your interior to give clarity to your feelings and your ideas.
Silo_ La Reja, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005
