While reading recently, I came across a wonderful reprint of a 1913 Help Wanted Ad written by the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton:
MEN WANTED for Hazardous Journey, Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.
I laughed as I thought of what a Help Wanted ad would look like for the spiritual journey surrendering to What Is:
EGOS WANTED for Hazardous Journey, zero wages, bitter emptiness, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, confusion and discomfort, safe return impossible. Honor and recognition will mean nothing after success.
Jed McKenna, author of Spiritual Enlightenment The Damndest Thing(and two other great books) says, if we only knew beforehand what it would be like to wake up to reality, we would run the other direction without looking back.
This is from the perspective of the ME, though. The one that wants what it wants when it wants it. The one afraid of death, physical ailments, mean people, earthquakes, starvation, losing.
If I had gotten My Own Way then I would have the powers offered in most fairy tales since the first stories were told: I could snap my fingers and have material objects appear, I could wiggle my nose and put spells on people, I would be able to fly like Wonder Woman.
Most of all, if I ruled the world, there would be no suffering. I have my list of what involves suffering and what causes it, and I would eliminate those things.
However, as Byron Katie says, I don’t get a vote. God did not actually ask for MY opinion on how to run the Universe.
“The ego’s plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved….The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.”~A Course In Miracles
It is actually, ironically (for the me-centered little self) a great relief, a peace beyond anything I ever imagined, to let go of anything being anyone else’s fault. Inside the center of us all there is an empty beauty, a mysterious, joyful excitement. Happiness.
“The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. HOLD ON TO THE CENTER”. ~ Tao Te Ching #5
Come join the Hazardous Journey. Let’s face it, you already have. Might as well accept it….it’s more fun that way.
Love, Grace