Creating Reality
How would we connect to God if there were no religions? How would we experience God if there were no priests? How would we open to God without “spirituality”, without meditations, rituals, ceremonies, sacred circles, candles and incense? Where would we find God if there were no churches, temples, sacred places?
Those questions came to me as I was watching a video yesterday, sent to me by Brooks. “This woman is an example for unique modeling of advanced life opportunity, creativity, and she is complete in God and advanced beyond God” said the email. When I clicked on the link I saw a video of a pole dancer performing in a pole dancing competition.
I looked at the video, at the, admittedly, amazing athlete and a fantastic dancer and thought: but this is just a stripper! The way she moved, the way she flew through the air, her grace, was incredible and yet the foremost thought in my mind was: but this is just a stripper!
I finished watching the video, I looked through the dancer’s website, I looked at photos of her, most of them nude, and still there was the persistent protest in my mind: but this is just a stripper!
And yet there was such beauty in her face, such light in her eyes, such innocence in the nude photos of her and such total, complete and unquestionable joy in what she does, that eventually I got it. The persistent thought went away and in “just a stripper” I saw the amazing woman, complete in God.
As I saw it I realized that it is not about what we do, it is about who we are, it is about how open, how present we are. This woman is a pole-dancing stripper fully, completely and absolutely. Her dance is so full of power, beauty and grace because it is so completely who she is, so totally who she is, only who she is. Totally present as a human being, fully present in her body. Her presence, her awareness, made the pole-dancing a beautiful experience.
It made me think of a man I used to date, long ago, back in Poland. I was a zen student back then, he was a painter, an artist. He used to say, when I would invite him to meditate with me: “I don’t need to. Whatever it is you experience in your meditation is what I experience when I paint, when I create. I don’t need to look for it anywhere else”.
So how would we connect to God if there were no “special ways”, “special places”, special “middlemen”? Would we recognize God without flowing robes and a glowing halo around his head? Would we recognize God dancing half naked on a pole in a night club? And even more importantly – would we recognize God looking back at us in a mirror when we brush our teeth in the morning?
“The more I write about who I am, the more I share myself with others, the more present as who I am I become, more centered, more grounded” I told my friend yesterday. We talked about writing books about our own experience, writing of sensitive stuff, embarrassing stuff, private stuff.
I looked at my writing, at more than a hundred posts I wrote in last two years. I thought about the way I write, as honestly and as openly as I can, and I realized that every time I describe the deepest and truest thoughts and feelings I become more than that. Every time I write a story of who I am, as openly and honestly as I can, I become more that that story. Every time I become more present of who I am beyond the story, of who I am that is beyond all stories, that can not be contained in any story, of who I am as God.
I believe that life is a deeply personal experience. God is a deeply personal experience. Reality is a deeply personal experience. But it is not private. It is not separate, it is not hidden, it is not a secret.
The more public who I am becomes, the more public my experience of reality becomes, the more public the way I feel and relate becomes, the stronger is my presence, my presence as the God that I am. The more I share myself with the world the more present, more real I become.
Who I am is not the story of me. Who I am are not the stories I share in my blogs and yet I experience who I am more deeply when I share those stories because who I am is not a private, hidden experience. Who I am only exist in relationship.
“I move from wish to wish in my life“ I realized, while in a shower, a couple of days ago. “I wish to do something, to be something, and my life moves in that direction. I wished to become a psychologist for a while, then I wished to become a designer, then I wished to become a freelance designer to regain the freedom in my life, now I wish to become a writer.”
Each wish comes up slowly, quietly, gently. Each wish opens and grows, until my life shifts and the wish is realized. Then, after some time, another wish appears. I don’t make those wishes up, I don’t think of them. They come, show up, emerge. I simply open to them, follow them, because each wish is about who I want to be.
”It’s just like one of my favorite books, a story about a boy making his way through the magic land of Fantasia.“ I realized. The boy has no other guide but his wishes, his innermost desires. Wishes that don’t determine what he has or what he does, but rather shape who he is. He moves from one wish to another, he has to. If he ignores one wish he gets stuck, his journey stops.
”Fairy tales are our way of cheating the mind“ I thought. The mind says that reality is structured, predetermined, full of rules, regulations, boundaries and impossibilities. But we know better and we fool our mind by saying: oh, this is not real, this is just a fairy tale. That way our mind can safely entertain the idea.
We know the truth however, children know the truth. My husband knew, when he was 6 years old, that he wants to be a trash truck driver. He wanted to be a trolly driver some time after that. Not because it was a respectable profession, not because it was a great carrier path nor because he would make a lot of money doing it, but simply because it was fun!
That was all that mattered. It was fun and he wanted to have fun. Then he wanted to be someone else, then someone else again. Until the day came when someone told him: you have to choose one thing you want to do in life. You have to choose it and stick to it, you can’t just keep changing your mind. You have to make money, you have to have a carrier, you have to have a steady job, you have to be safe.
”What would happened if no one had told him all those things?” I wondered. What would happen if no one had told him he can’t do what he wants, be what he wants? What would happen if no one had ever told him that life is not for having fun, that life is for work? What would happen if no one had ever told him that life is broken, that the world has to be fixed, that he can’t just have fun, that he has to go make things better?
What would happen to our lives if we could, just like kids, want to be a doctor, or a designer, or a writer, simply because it’s fun? And when we were done doing one thing we could do another, and then another?How would our lives look like if we knew, just like kids know, that we can be anything we want, at any time we want?
In the story the boy traveled through Fantasia, guided by one wish after another. A wish to become the strongest and most brave, a wish to become the wisest, a wish to be part of a community, a wish to be loved, finally a wish to love. With the last wish the boy was led to the fountain of the water of life, and brought the water back to the human world.
I love being with nature, with trees, because of the way they relate. There is no “noise” in relationship with trees. There is no “little voice in my head”, there are no stories, no “right way” to be, to talk, no “right thing to do”. There is only space to be. There is no talking.
I realized recently that, while striving to remain present to who I really am, I fall again and again into the trap of focusing on the trauma that prevents me from being who I really am. I try to let go of it, clear it, work with it, open through it, heal it. Trauma is not who I am and yet trauma is what I write about, talk about, think about. Rather than simply being myself I am forever “trying to be myself”.
But when I forget about the trauma there is space. No better way to say it. Space. Clear, open and endless. And I can do whatever I want because that space is me and I am that space.
It is not a space within existing reality or outside of it, it is not a space inside of my house, it is not a breathing space – it is a space, period. I can do whatever I want because there is nothing, literally nothing, to stop me. Because there is nothing there. Except for me.
This is the beauty of it – it is empty and I am there.
From this place all the stories, all the rules, all the limitations, all the “you can’t do this” or “this is not possible”, or “this is not how it works” are just things that people say. Nothing more than that, just things we say. The things we say belong to trauma, they belong to the noise. Without trauma nothing needs to be said.
This is why I love hanging out with nature so much, because nature doesn’t say anything. It just is. It doesn’t say anything therefore the “you can’t do this” or “this is not possible”, or “this is not how it works” simply doesn’t exist.
This is also why I love fairy tales and never, ever read the “let me tell you how it is” kind of books. Because I can relate to fairy tales the same way I relate to life, to reality, as who I really am: there are no rules, no limits, nothing is impossible.
Everything is possible in a fairy tale. Everything is possible in nature. Everything is possible in life. And the only thing to do is to do whatever I want.
I worked in the garden yesterday. For about three hours I dug in the dirt, planted flowers, arranged rocks, spread wood chips. I had my gloves on at first but I soon took them off. They made my hands uncomfortable, hot and sweaty.
I dug in the moist, rich, heavy soil with my bare hands, the coolness, the rough texture of it felt wonderfully on my skin. Soon I was covered in dirt, with my hands black and dark smudges on my arms and face, and I was happy. Decidedly, simply and absolutely happy.
I didn’t think much of anything, my mind was not involved in the movements of my body, in the sensations on my skin. And when I was done I looked at my hands realizing that my nails will be filthy for days, and I didn’t care.
Later that day I thought about a month I spent at the coast of Poland one summer. I was a college student then, my friend and I spent our summer vacation on the beach selling newspapers, cigarets and candies.
We lived in a tiny little tent set up on a camping ground. We woke up every morning at 7am, took shower, cooked breakfast on a propane burner, went to collect our newspaper stand and rolled it to the beach. At 7pm we rolled it back to the storage, went back to our tent, cooked dinner on the little burner and then went out for a glorious night of beer, ice cream and hanging out with friends. We did this every day, for a month.
It was not how our life looked like, usually. As psychology students we spent our days on thinking, reading, learning. We considered theories, discussed ideas, debated concepts. We were smart, well read, intellectual. It was our job, it was what we were being train to do: consider, understand, describe, draw conclusions, formulate ideas, theories, concepts.
Intellect was the mark of status among people I knew. Quickness of understanding, of argument, was admired and respected.
The world we lived in, my friend and I, was the world of ambition and achievement. We had great plans for the future, for the academic laurels, degrees we were going to get, programs we were going to graduate from, private practices, great breakthroughs in psychotherapy, many books published. All that was left behind during the month at the coast.
I remember realizing even then, years before I begun any kind of spiritual practice and gained any access to an understanding of myself, I remember realizing that I stopped thinking. I remember walking home, back to the camping ground, one evening and realizing that my friend and I hadn’t once talked about anything more significant that what we’ll cook for dinner and whom we will hang out with that night. I remember realizing that life became simple, that I became simple. Theories, concepts, ideas and ambitions were gone and I was happy. Really, really happy. I had a place to sleep, I had food, there was always enough money for ice cream and beer. I met people every day and spent wonderful time with them every night. I had all I could ask for, I was absolutely content.
I had all I needed. I knew that because I felt no need of anything at all, there was nothing missing.
I felt at home. Sometime during that month the small town at the coast became my home. The tent was my home. I was heartbroken when the time came to leave. Because I was really happy there.
Today my husband and I talked about a new search engine. An engine that doesn’t simply match keywords to content on web pages but actually understands concepts, comprehends the meaning of a question and gives a logical and adequate answer. “Such a giant step towards creating the artificial inteligence” mused my husband, “a computer that is as intelligent as a human mind, eventually more intelligent than a human mind”.
“Yes” I said “but will it be happy?”
