An Answer or a Question

How did I happen to arrive here, in a human body, on planet earth? Leaving open the question of where and what I was before I arrived here – I now find myself in a place called space and time. I don’t know about you but for me the trip hasn’t been easy.

Sometimes I intimate that I had some precognition that coming here would not be a picnic. But for some reason that I can’t remember I signed on anyway. Any prior knowledge of what I was in for got wiped clean by the shock and awe of the entry process and its immediate aftermath. I mean wow! To be dropped into a social phenomena in full on freak out mode. Here I am, weighing eight pounds, totally helpless, unable to do anything for myself. I’m dependent for survival on a couple of messed up, barely functional characters that can hardly take care of themselves much less a newborn baby. They call themselves Mom and Dad. And they managed somehow, screwed up as they were, to keep me alive. Physically alive – but the psychological trauma was overwhelming. I’m still dealing with the residual defensive programs I created to protect my mind from the onslaught of their terrifying behavior.

I know something similar must have happened to you too. I haven’t met anyone here who, if they are being open and honest, doesn’t cop to having found themselves in a similar situation. Of course most people I meet are in total denial/defensive mode. So they are not and cannot be open and honest. They are functional – if you can call it that. But their network of unconscious defensive behaviors doesn’t allow for open meaningful communication. Either they have found refuge in some God the big, perfect father religion. Or they are lost in a state of perpetual frenetic activity based on acquiring things and having pleasurable experiences.

This begs the question – what is the purpose of my being here? So far no clear answer has come to me. My best intuition is that I am involved in some sort of learning process. I am discovering that this space/time dimension must be some sort of classroom. Is it a classroom where I am being exposed to experiences that can provide information about the nature of my self?

Buddha said that the origin of suffering was desire. Desire for what? I have this feeling that there is something just out of reach and that if I only possessed it everything would be OK. The nagging uncertainty would be erased and I would be at peace. Jesus, in a more Zen like mode, says get over it - the Kingdom is at hand – it is within you. What impulse, what motivation, gave Jesus, Buddha and all the myriads of saints and prophets the energy to reach out to those around them? What did they expect to accomplish? Buddha’s followers have written thousands upon thousands of words trying to convey the essence of something beyond words. Jesus left behind a few confused people who saw their dream of the Kingdom on earth evaporate like a fog in the heat of the day.

What is that something that is so hard to communicate? Is it impossible to communicate? Is that something waiting patiently. It has always been there and always will be there – hidden in plain sight. Waiting for someone to recognize it. Talk, scream, jump up and down – no one will listen. Oh go on, the Kingdom of God is within me? I don’t think so. And I have so much to do. Do you have a sermon? A tape I can listen to? I like what you are saying, you should write a book. Then I can read about this Kingdom you’re talking about. I’ll find time; I’ll get around to it. And I’ll think about it too. Honestly I will.

I have my flute. It channels the music that flows without hesitation, without pause. The music that has always been there in the wind blowing though the trees and the birds announcing a new dawn. Is it just beyond reach or already here? Does the music have the answer? Or does it simply pose a question? Are the questions a progressively expanding state of awe that in itself contains the only answer? Have a nice day and fulfill the promise.

Just the Other Side of Who We Are

We have our life. But no matter how much stuff we acquire it feels like there is something missing. A hidden something that if it were just to be revealed everything that was not right would be right. There would no longer be a longing because the picture would be complete. We’re sitting in front of a fire surrounded by everyone we love and we all know that it couldn’t be any different. It couldn’t be any better. We know that wherever we go we are always in the right place and that everything we need is always with us.

What is that place? Is it already here? Is it always here and we’re too busy being busy to notice it. Why does it take some tragedy, like the death of a loved one to make us realize that we didn’t give enough. That we didn’t take enough. That we were too busy to listen and now the missed opportunities haunt us like a mother with open arms that will never be filled.

When we play, when we forget the worries and pressures of ourselves we touch something precious. That something is an intimation of the space that is filled with love. The love that is asking only to be recognized in order to become present.
We intuit with a poignant regret that we’re missing something. The most important thing. The one thing that will bring healing and peace. We’re missing the connection to that place just beyond who I am.

Remember, you have touched that place. You know where it is. The music coming from your Indian flute calls you over to that side where the sun shines on a meadow filled with Spring wildflowers. In that meadow is the answer and the love that we know we have somehow lost sight of. When the music ends and you put down your Native American flute don’t forget that meadow. Keep it in your heart throughout the day. Don’t forget to tell people that you love them. It feels strange at first, I know. But it gets easier. You can give the very best of yourself. The sunshine of that perfect place gives you strength. You are a spring of living water and that water is love.

Time, Space, Love and the Native American Flute

We measure space by the five directions – North, South, East, West, Up and Down. We measure time in years, days, hours, minutes and seconds. With this mental construct we give order to the space-time continuum. We experience ourselves within space and time as a conscious awareness. I am. I am finds itself emanating form a material form we call the human body. This body, we now know, has taken billions of years to achieve its present configuration. We find ourselves to be a locus of experience within the form of a living, mobile, organic being capable of speculating on the source of its existence.

With our body we move about on the surface of a ball of matter we call a planet. This ball is itself moving through something we call space at an incredible speed. This planet is one of a whole family of spheres of matter rotating around a huge ball of energetic activity we call the Sun. This Sun, a star, is one of an inconceivable number of other stars.

Time, space, matter, awareness. To what end, to what purpose, have these come into existence. I sit at my computer and you sit at yours. We don’t know each other. But we are asking similar questions. What is this experience of Life for? Am I here for a reason? Is there purpose in Life? Toward what end have billions of years of careful, patient evolution been moving? Idle questions – No!

Pick up your flute. Play a tune. Wonder at the perfection of sound filling inner and outer space. Feel the joy of being alive and having the divine opportunity to express your life in music. With your music sing praise to the Power that has brought into being this wonderful world. The Power that sustains you, me and all the wondrous forms and feelings that are the Universe.