tawfiq – Spontaneous Right Action

(parts I, II, and III are here)

IV.

I knocked on the senator’s door.
“Come in,” she said, in her familiar, commanding voice.
“It is three o’clock, Senator.”
“Yes, my lunch meeting was cancelled so I’ve been in the office for a while now. Have a seat. I thought I would take some time to actually read the rest of what you wrote on this website. I find it quite interesting to say the least. Much of it is over the top, and—don’t cry—a little unsophisticated. But it is interesting. Are you ready to talk about it?”
She left no pause to let me answer her question.
“Let’s start with you telling me about ‘spontaneous right action,’” she said. I realized she already had some very specific topics she wanted to discuss, and that she was more than happy to direct the conversation, at least for the moment. “I see you referred to the concept a couple times in your posts. It sounds a little mystical to me, and you didn’t do a very good job of explaining it. So help me understand it.”
“Well, I hate to admit it, but I probably didn’t explain it well because I don’t think I really understand it well.”
“That’s fine, just tell me what it is.” That familiar tone of impatience was sounding again in her voice.
I was not an expert in Eastern philosophy, but I had dabbled in it somewhat. I told the senator that I understood spontaneous right action to be a concept in certain schools of thought within Eastern traditions such as Vedanta, Taoism, and Buddhism. Spontaneous right action described the consequence of certain waking and meditative states in which a practitioner would only act in ways that are ideal for the welfare of all beings. According to some descriptions, the practitioner exercises spontaneous right action when his or her consciousness aligns with the entire universe, aligns with godhead, or, in Taoism, aligns with the Way. In any case, in such a state, the practitioner is no longer simply his or her narrow self, limited to his or her own body and individual psyche. Instead, he or she is connected to a source that will inform and motivate only action that results in the greatest good.