Monday, October 26, 2009

Expand Into Your Joy, Grasshopper!

As my friend Tammie says, going on a spiritual journey should come with a warning label. Perhaps a Surgeon General of the Universe ought to put a label on our earthly packs of mental cigarettes.

WARNING: THE DIVINE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT SPIRITUAL AWAKENING CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR FRAGILE SENSE OF IDENTITY AND YOUR FIRM CONCEPTION OF REALITY. ALSO, ONCE YOU START ON THIS PATH YOU CANNOT GO BACKWARDS. OH, YOU'LL WANT TO GO BACK, FROM TIME TO TIME. BUT YOU CAN'T. HAVE A NICE DAY!

It's kind of like The Matrix. Once you meet Morpheus and he gives you the blue pill (or is it the red pill?) you start to see the crazy insane huge expansive dynamic energy field that's holding us all together. And once you've seen it, you can't just NOT see it. Oh, I agree, you can try. You can try all you want, but you're going to KNOW differently. And that, my friends, is what waking up to True Reality is all about.

The interesting thing is that it doesn't really seem to matter what handle you grab ahold of. You can awaken within a scientific tradition just as beautifully as within a spiritual tradition. I can run all over the place talkin' smack about Getting Right With Jesus, and you can scamper around babbling about finding your true self with Myers-Briggs, and eventually, if our hearts and minds get cracked open just the tiniest bit, we will both expand into more joyful beings.

Choose whatever concept, whatever label, whatever metaphor makes your heart feel bigger and your mind feel energized. I love what Elizabeth Gilbert says about this in her amazing spiritual-journey memoir Eat, Pray, Love. She's at an ashram, in India, meditating and judging her meditation something fierce. She's trying to find her Authentic Center and simultaneously feeling horribly inadequate that her Assigned Mantra is making her crazy, crazy, crazy. And then all of a sudden the famous line from Jaws pops up in her consciousness, and she can't help cracking a goofy smile. "We're going to need a bigger boat."

So go ahead. Get yourself a bigger boat. There's a big freakin shark out there. Or rather, in here. If your shark is anything like mine, it's hungry, relentless, and pissed. It's the shark of Ego, munching away at your giant, juicy soul. It's the shark of Fear and Judgment, crunching down on your happy little hopes. You can keep feeding it fingers and toes and other non-essentials if you want, but believe me, it's going to keep circling back whenever there's chum in the water.

We are born to be the joyous creators of our own wonderful experience. And we are all creating, all the time. And then, for most of us, we look at our creations and say "Crap! I don't want that! Get that thing away from me!"

Fair enough. Choose something new, something crisp and fresh and tantalizing to chew upon with your own magnificent jaws. There's always this perfect present moment in which you can step into a new boat of consciousness. Oh, the Great White Ego will come swimming after you, its menacing fin piercing through the shining waters of your Being, but it's best not to take it too seriously. Just keep building your boat and let that poor bastard tire itself out.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Ellen! THis is Nick Pippins. I Found my way here through GLog. Loving your sense of humor and playful energy. I look forward to reading and learning more from you! THank you!

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