I was watching Being Erica this week and to my surprise the message seemed to be sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. I had something big that I was trying to figure out the best way of accomplishing and for some reason the idea of doing nothing seemed to be the answer. It was quite funny because just prior I found myself feeling like I had to do so much and had no idea how to do it. The next day I get a series of messages. The first was from a Lao Tsu writing where he says “In the universe the difficult things are done as if they are easy.” That line really hit me. When he said “in the universe” it was as though he was saying when you are connected, when you are in your place. In other words get in the universe, get with God and be in your place. It reminded me of how when things were at there most difficult point my teacher Mr. Ambrister would tell me to meditate deeper and more often. Then he would say “and Craig It”s gonna be easy!” We would both bust out laughing. After all how could it be easy when I was having such a tough time and the situation looked impossible?

This same morning after reading Lao Tsu, I also opened up my book Wise Words to a page titiled The Parable of The Trees. The message was when you are in your place just like a tree in it’s place, the birds will flock accordingly. All that you need will come. You don’t have to do anything. The same basic message. My next message, Pay attention to coincedences.

Flower dream (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

If you want to know your karma, and see the law in action, watch your dreams at night. If we pay attention we will see that in our dream we have constructed a whole world in another place all based on how we feel and the way we currently approach the world in our waking life. We find ourselves living out another life that we have created in our dream, often still having the same feelings and the same types of circumstances that we have while awake.

What I find interesting is we could have created anything in the world, but instead, we created whatever we created in this dream world, based on how we feel and how we approach our waking world. As soon as we change our thoughts and what we tell ourselves, and our approach to the world, our dreams change. Landscapes and people change as if by magic. The really interesting thing is the same is true with our lives. Change what you tell yourself, and change how you approach the world and you will see your entire world and the people in it change as if by magic.

One of my favorite saings by Lao Tsu is Carrying water and chopping wood before enlightenment. After Enlightenment, Carrying water and chopping wood. I was reminded of this saying after seeing the movie Up In The Air. It is sort of an uneventful movie in which George Cluney’s character flies around the world firing people for a living. When the movie was over my wife who was watching with me says “that movie was not all that good”. I totally understood where she was comming from because of how slow it seemed to be, but my response was “actually that was a great movie”. When she asked why I thought is was so good, I told her that it’s only good if you get the message. When asked what was the message, I replied carrying water and chopping wood before enlightenment, after enlightenment, carrying water and chopping wood. She then asked my to explain in english.

I reminded her of how he started out firing people all over the world and in the end when he had a choice whether to go back to doing that, after having some hard knocks and getting growth on account of them, and being somewhat enlightened, he still chose to live what seemed to be the same seeming empty life, of being on the road all the time and firing people for a living. The difference was after the growth and lessons he was a different person. He was more compassionate and gave to the people in his world. It was no longer about him. He was an enlighened giver. He went back to the same job and had a new approach. He helped the people he was letting go and cared.

We often think “when I become enlightened I am going to do this, and do that, and be way over there”. That may or may not be the case. But as hard as it can be to believe, more important than what we do or where we go, is how we do it and who we are as we go through this life. Our job is to get the lesson right where we are, become enlightened and share our light with the world.

Sincerely,

Craig

I saw an ad for General Hospital last night on Soap Net. I know, I know I said I was going to stop watching this show. Well the good thing is I have not been identifying with what happens to Sonny lately. Anyway back to the ad. It was showing Sonny Corinthos describing himself and his life. He was describing himself as a character and the challenges that came along with being Sonny, the great compassionate gangster that he is. It was a little cheesy, but I liked it all the same. It immediately made me think about how we are all characters playing a role whether we realize it or not. The more we realize it the more incredible our life becomes. Joseph Campbell the master mythologist, said we have to see ourselves as being in a play.

This morning I opened up my first book What If My Soul Is Eternal And Heaven Is Everywhere. I opened randomly and the first page I came to was the beginning of a chapter titled Play Thy Role Well. Just prior to that I was thinking about the commercial for Sonny on G.H. I said to myself this is no coincidence. When I see myself as the character in a movie, the challenges become part of the role I have to play and life is quite interesting. I even think of an audience watching. I even go as far as having a title for the movie. I find when I do this I am being me, taking more time to be who I really am and I am also more aware of what my life is really about.

Here is a tip for those who do not know what their role is or how to play their part. Your movie is going on right now right where you are. If you don’t know who you are or what your role is, that is what your movie is about finding that out. In other words start where you are use your imagination. We must become as little children to enter the Kingdom. Turn those challenges and discoveries into the great movie and adventure God gave us disguised as your life.

Once again, the truth is, we were all sent here by the great play right to play our part and play it well. Our job is to be tuned in enough to know what that part is and take the directions of the director within, who by the way is always with us. The more we practice the ways of the meditative path the more beautiful our life, our movie, our adventure becomes.

I heard Dick Gregory say that a child who grows up in a home with parents with college degrees have a 5000 word vocabulary and a child with parents without college have a 2500 word vocabulary on average. It reminded me of atmosphere and just how important it is. My youngest son follows all of us around and tries to do everything I do. Once again as I look at it I am reminded that where I place him is of the utmost importance. The same is true of us all on the meditative path. We have to be careful of the atmosphere we place ourselves in all day long. This not only goes for our body but even more so with our mind and our thoughts. Often I find myself telling people if we want good meditations in the lotus position, we have to have good thoughts throughout the day.

If we really want to progress spiritually we must place ourselves in the spiritual atmosphere as often as possible. The sansrkit word for this is satsang. This is the company of those who meditate and go within. This most importantly includes the company with the teacher because the teacher or Guru is the one who God has chosen to come to us through to guide us on our spiritual journey. The more we are in this company the more we grow unconsciously to our conciousness. I have had many students tell me how they were able to move into experiencing miracles on account of trying something I mentioned in a story. They never knew they could do such things until the time came to put what they have heard many times to the test. The more this blog evolves, the more I see it as another way of bringing satsang to the world or atleast to those who are interseted, no matter how close or how far. For this reason I am comminting to more posts more often, some will be written others audio whatever works to keep the atmosphere alive.

Yesterday I was riding on my way home and it started storming.  It was a powerful storm with high winds and heavy rain.  I thought about how my friend Billy told me that I timed the time for us to get off work perfectly.  We stopped work early, but in my mind it was primarily due to the heat and I needed to be home a little early this day.   I was thinking about how it stayed nice enough to work all the way until we stopped, and then this serious storm came.  It was in divine order.  While I was thinking about this and driving in the pouring rain I was comming to a red light.  A fleeting thought came to me to stop where I was just in case the big tree on the side of me blew down.  I thought how could that happen the winds are not that strong.  Then two seconds later that big tree blew down right in front of my truck and missed me because I stopped.  I drove right around the tree and continued heading home.  It was the strangest thing.  When the tree fell it was like it was a dream or not real, like I was wathing a movie or right in the middle of one.  All I could think about was how God is with me.  I felt untouchable.  I felt like God and the Universe is with me at all times leading me, telling me where to go and what to look out for.   The truth of the matter is this is how things really are when we pay attention to those quick fleeting thoughts that come before we have time to think, especialy if we have been taking time to meditate and stay connected.  These fleeting thoughts can be the thoughts from God.  So once again pay close attention.