Dreaming on the Journey
I woke up from a dream this morning, but when I went to write it down, I realized I was going to have a lot of trouble.
The more I sat with that sad fact that I could no longer articulate the message, the more my brain became constricted. Almost as if it were deliberately hiding a truth from me. I sat trying to remember but all I saw was blackness. So I cleaned my room and did a few sun salutations and finally made it back to my bed to meditate. I dozed off for a bit and had a flash from the dream, but not the entire dream again. From this very brief encounter, there seemed to be a message about enjoying the process, and gleaning from that patience all the little miracles you’ve been overlooking.
There’s a danger of trying to be entirely too logical to the point that you miss the miracle (a feeling I gathered when trying to write down my dream so I could tear it apart instead of just feeling the message). Just as those who do not care to build an agenda won’t, those that reliably will have a tendency to become militant about it. Personally, my validation comes from external sources more often than I’d previously been aware. A lot of the rewards I received as a child were given to me because I’d completed something. This is no misfortune, just something I have to be aware of when I allow my motivations to push me farther into the future, for which I am not ready. Cranking out a miserable amount of work to make up for what seems to be lost time only serves to make the current moment just as miserable as the anxiety of not being done invokes for me. It is so much easier to say “don’t let a fear of tomorrow ruin today” than it is to actually not get in a hurry to see results.
“It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain it’s own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest — by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.” — Seneca
While we sit imagining a world that doesn’t exist, we avoid introducing the uncertainty of input from others and our environment. In the “real world”, any introduction of a new unknown may cause us to spiral into another anxiety attack about some variable we can’t control. For this reason, I think it important to co-create with those who have been humbled before God or some bird’s-eye perspective. I believe those that have externalized their inner world into some entity that they can regularly consult with are more aligned with my goals in this life. For me, the word God is completely short-hand for that Observer Mind that sits with me in meditation and has watched me, without judgement, my entire life. Those that do not recognize that presence are not capable of having reverence for it. If I can trust someone has respect for my internal light, then I can be of eager service to him and can accept even criticism from him.
To enjoy the ride, the company needs to be enjoyable. I no longer serve the god of money. I no longer serve the god of luxury goods. I no longer serve the god of marriage nor the god of home ownership. That may change with time and it may change based on where the joy takes me. For now, I find joy in serving the god of gratitude. For every person I encounter that does not bring joy with them, I hope to provide them from an abundance I produce while with those who serve a god of joy. Or am I to only experience this god in private? Why is this the only part of me that needs no external validation but fears any witness of what may seem like I’ve gone mad? In the presence of non-believers my will loses power from the spells they use to cast me out. Things that “couldn’t possibly be true” take on a new light when presented from the context of our position in the cosmos. That humbling feeling of being so small encourages exploration into parts unknown. The mystery is the driving force if we let it be.
Originally written for Collective Journaling at The Stoa
