I read this really rad book today by Thaddeus Golas called The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, and it had some really digestible ways of describing the things that I'm finding to be true more and more. His main thesis states that the universe is made up of only one sort of being, this whatever-it-is-that-we-are, and that every being is equal. We all determine the confines of our existence based on the level to which we choose to expand or contract, and most of us are in a constant state of flux and tension between the two, thus we find ourselves in this "solid" state that we define as human-ness. At our most expansive, we are space. At our most contracted, we are particles, and no matter what we are, we are drawn to and repelled by each other all the time. Higher levels of beings seemingly control lower beings, i.e. nature controls man, man controls the particles that make up his body, but in reality, every being makes their own destiny based on what they are willing to admit to themselves about the universe-- how expansive they are, how much they are capable of encompassing at any given moment. There is perfect justice in the universe because we have free will all the time, and if you are incredulous and upset about the circumstances of your life, it's only because we're playing this game so well that it has become our whole reality. But there are always methods to get back to the great source, and that's what I'm still looking for.
*****
Once you start getting into the thick of the metaphysical, day to day life simultaneously loses and gains a great deal of significance and you start to hit these little moments of cosmic hilarity. Like today, all day, right now: I'm meditating myself into a space where I can write about the crazy shit I've been thinking about and experiencing lately. Meanwhile, just a few feet out of my zen bubble, my older sister and mom are arguing and my nine month old nephew is screaming his head off, all of it most likely due to the fact that my little sister insists on watching the Jersey Shore Reunion Show at full volume. And I keep thinking to myself, if I am in charge, how did I end up in a situation where this is reality? If waking life and the navigable universe are the manifestation of a game we're all playing where we collectively decide what's real, why the hell did I ever agree to Jersey Shore?
Or like earlier, I had all these plans for my day off, that I was going to read this book and that book, I was gonna wake up at 5 and catch the sunrise in meditation, I was going to do all this research on service organizations and outreach programs. And then the old me crept back in and I spent the day sleeping in, running errands, doing my taxes and napping. It feels like the part of me that's tapped in to the collective unconscious, this Universal Source, keeps trying to tell this little me that still feels the need to worry about anything at all that plans are always a joke, that in the long run, what I do next isn't going to matter that much because time itself is a joke, there is no next. If that sounds crazy hit up my man Einstein and see for yourself-- sequential time is the biggest security blanket we've got.
But for our purposes as beings that have chosen to do a stint on this plane, time is as real as anything else, so let's talk time. What people don't always remember is that you can't save time, you can only spend it, and even though I definitely surprised myself with how mine was spent today, I have to say it was thoroughly enjoyable and I feel better off for it. Before I started this trip, I might've had a rotten day because I would have started off upset with and disappointed in myself. I would have taken my desire to sleep as a sure sign that my depression was in a down cycle and it was time to tweak my meds. But I don't do depression any more. I don't do meds. And today, for the new me that I've always wanted to be, the beauty of the day just wouldn't quit, my song was on the radio, I got a smile out of everyone I talked to and even the spastic road rage fueled speedsters on the SA highway system today got me to chuckling. And isn't that, right there, enlightenment? To me it seems that it's all contained in that word- something about lights being switched on and weights being lifted, and ultimately the idea that life itself was never meant to be so heavy.
I'm figuring out slowly but surely that the quickest way to expand myself back out into the cosmos, while still retaining enough of my ego to want to talk about it, is to let go of resistance in all forms. Rather than resist negativity and negative things, I let them in with love and then they leave as just plain love. By the way, it's INSANE what we can do with love. I got on this whole kick in the first place because I read a book by Rhonda Byrne called The Secret. You've probably heard of it, and you probably have built in connotations with and aversions to it based on your background and context. I know before I read it I was so sure it was just another bullshit self-help tome, some Oprah book club, bourgeois house-wife fluff. But it's not. I swear it's the realness. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone and I preach it from every platform that I can find. It's about the power of love to shape our reality, like that old hippie adage "Thoughts Become Things." It's a beautiful and inspiring book that first convinced me that I can have, do, and be anything I want, because every possibility I can imagine already exists. I'll have more on that later, I'm still new to quantum physics, but am all about the idea that the universe is a sea of potentialities.
So that's what this is about, this walkin'-around nirvana that I'm talking about. You hear about holy men in the mountains who know the truth about this plane because they've found a way to be in another, or you see these kids on acid who don't know what they know but they've found it too and we might think that these are the available means for transcendence- that unless you're living a life of asceticism and rejection of this "worldly" life, or, on the flip side, unless you're willing to dive head first into the vastness of the universe and drop out you can't reach a higher plane of consciousness. Dig this though: all we have to do is believe that transcendence is possible and read and talk about it whenever an opportunity arises and that higher plane will find you. Transcendence and enlightenment are all around us. It's that moment when nothing exists but perfection and beauty. We've all been there, whether in moments of orgasmic ecstasy, silent still reflection, religious fervor, or even spontaneously, just walking down a sidewalk feeling like everything is what it is and that's all there needs to be. And the more time we spend there, and the more of us that come along, the less we let this game run on autopilot, the less our negative thoughts take on lives of their own, all the less anyone has to suffer. So why not?
Can't Stop Reading: The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, by Thaddeus Golas; Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service, by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush.
Can't Stop Singing: All You Need is Love by The Beatles; At the Bottom of Everything, by Bright Eyes.
