WHEN THE WORLD STOPS BEING A PROBLEM
Why seeing the world for what it is makes it so much more fun to play with
Yesterday I found myself saying something that sounded rather extreme:
I don’t see the world as a miracle. I see it as an abomination.
And there was no heaviness in it.
Abomination is a strong word. It refers to something profoundly contrary to what is true. And that is exactly what I mean.
Look at what this world depicts.
What is whole appears fragmented.
What is eternal appears to be born and die.
What is innocent appears guilty.
What is limitless appears confined to a body.
Love appears conditional, scarce, temporary, and losable.
The world is an image of an impossible idea: separation made shadows and gave meaning to them.
And yet…I don’t see any of this as a problem that needs to be solved.
That changes everything.
I DON’T NEED TO FIX THE MIRROR
If the world is showing me the effects of a thought system, trying to fix the effects while leaving their cause untouched makes no sense.
I don’t need to fix the mirror.
The mirror is useful precisely because it shows me what I have chosen to believe.
When something in the world disturbs me, frightens me, angers me, makes me jealous, or makes me feel lacking, I don’t have to rearrange the image until I feel safe again.
I can look at what the image is showing me.
What would I have to believe for this to mean what I think it means?
And there is the opportunity.
Not to get something from the world.
To recognize the fearful strategies I have been using so they can be released.
The world was made to hide its cause. Forgiveness lets me use the world for undoing its cause.
THIS MAKES THE WORLD INCREDIBLY FUN
This is the part I find hilarious.
One might think that seeing the world this way would make a person detached from it, serious about spirituality, or uninterested in playing with form.
I experience almost the opposite.
There is so much fun to be had while playing with the world of form.
I can enjoy beauty. I can travel. Dance. Make things. Hang out in gorgeous spaces. Eat delicious food. Swim in the ocean. Play with money and business and bodies and relationships and all the strange little arrangements we make here.
None of it has to be rejected.
It also doesn’t have to be salvation.
A beautiful experience cannot complete me.
An unpleasant experience doesn’t have the power to diminish me.
A relationship will never establish my worth.
Money doesn’t establish my safety.
A body doesn’t establish my identity.
The world is not capable of becoming Heaven. (Although, it can reflect Heaven.)
And when I stop demanding that it do something it could never do, it becomes much lighter to play with.
EVERYTHING BECOMES USEFUL
The beautiful things are useful.
The ugly things are useful.
Desire is useful.
Jealousy is useful.
Conflict is useful.
Pleasure is useful.
Fear is useful.
The person I adore is a mirror.
The person who annoys the shit out of me is also a mirror.
The experience I desperately want is a mirror.
The experience I’m trying to avoid is a mirror.
Nothing has to be wasted.
Everything can reveal what I am presently believing and the strategies I have constructed around those beliefs.
And once they are exposed, I no longer have to defend them.
I can allow another purpose to be given to what I see.
THE WORLD CANNOT BE MADE REAL
There was a time when spirituality seemed to involve trying to make the world itself miraculous or sacred.
But that can become just another way of making the world seem real.
Love is real. Truth is real. What I am is real.
The world doesn’t have to be real... and in truth, it isn’t.
The world can be recognized for what it is: a picture that seems to witness to separation, which I can use for an entirely different purpose.
I don’t need to make the world real in order to enjoy playing with it.
And this is why I feel increasingly free to enjoy it.
I’m not asking the mirror to become beautiful enough to save me.
I’m not trying to perfect the dream.
I’m not waiting for circumstances to arrange themselves correctly before I can be at peace.
I’m willing to look.
I’m willing to laugh.
I’m willing to play.
And whenever the world seems to become serious again, it is showing me exactly where I have once again mistaken an image for a cause.
The world doesn’t need to be fixed.
It can be used.
What was made to hide the cause can now be used to undo it.
And whenever I’m willing to stop making it responsible for my happiness, safety, identity, or salvation, something rather wonderful happens:
I get to play with it.