6: THE PILGRIM TO DO LIST

The good thing about dying is it really helps you know living as well.

But then you forget again. Then you remember. Then you forget. You’re human after all. However much you might work on enlightenment and finally coming home to that place beyond the physical plane preferably without dying this time, you’re still human. When you’ve become the Buddha or Eckhart Tolle, you know you’ve arrived. For the rest of us it will take a while of going back and forth. But the good thing about being human is that there is help. As a human, we know, we can always make a list.

When I died none of this was not on my radar whatsoever. Not enlightenment, not listening to any inner voices (that actually probably sounded like the sure fire way to a nice bed at the closed ward to me), not making lists of how to honor that inner voice to get closer to said enlightenment.

Dying, and then waking up to discover it didn’t stick took all I had. It was not until years later the realization began to make itself known: I had been to the outermost shores of the life on this plane of physical existence. I had gone into the boat that takes you even further still. Since I was a baby I had known this place. Now I remembered; it was the other side. Or the only reality there is: The Light. It was Home. Where we come from and where we go, and where we sometimes return from to live in another body in new life here.

I also remembered that we don’t have to die to go there. It is already here. It is in us, around us, permeating us and living here, everywhere all the time. Always was, always will be. Because none of this that we can see with our physical eyes exists anyway. It’s not real. I remembered and my soul laughed with happiness.

I had known this always. I remember being a little girl and staring at my hands. I knew I could manifest an apple right there in the palm of my hand, if I wanted to. But for some reason the knowledge made me petrified, so I never really tried. I also knew for certain that I could move through the closed door to my room, if I wanted to. I knew it wasn’t solid at all. I could see all the tiny atoms moving around in a frenzy, like atoms do, but even more I could see the vastness of the space between the atoms. People often believe that solid objects are made out of atoms that make different objects depending on how they conjoin with one another. But I could see the ‘solid’ things were mostly empty space. And I knew that all I needed to do was to walk through that space, and that this would take me to the other side of the ‘door’ or whatever I was trying to walk through. But again; it made me so scared. I panicked at the thought of what if I lost my nerve half-ways? Would I then be a little girl with a wooden door stuck down the middle of her body?? I knew the science of bi-location and astral travels at around 9 years old. To this day I haven’t the faintest clue as to how I knew all of this. There were no adults around who talked of anything like that. No tv shows. And where I would have gotten a book from, explaining the specifics of astrals projection, I really don’t know.

Today I know that this is Being a Mystic 101. That is what Mystics do on a daily basis. Not me, though, I’m not advanced enough. Or to be completely honest, I still haven’t gotten up the nerve to resume the work on any of this. Which is all good. Because today I also know that none of this is important. Enlightenment is. The rest is just side effects.

So. Today I keep my focus on what is calling me:

I died. That is behind me. So as I see it, I am already dead. That means I don’t really have anything to base any fears on anymore. People most often ultimately fear dying. If something is holding them back from doing what they dream of doing, they often ask themselves this question to find their way to courage: What is the worst thing that could happen? And ultimately the worst thing that could happen to most people is death.

But I was there already. That already happened to me. So I don’t have that holding me back anymore.

So now all that is left, is to look at what is was then, that I really, really wanted to do?

Do this with me, yes? If you could do anything in the whole wide world, if nothing was holding you back, if you didn’t have to worry about money or judgment or time or bodily ailments or anything, the wildest thing you could imagine, what would it be?

I’m actually really curious now! What would it be for you?

You know what it was for me? I still smile when I think of this, because the answer that came to me was slightly surprising in its humility, and trust me I did NOT try to be meek here I had expected something grand!

All I really, really wanted to do now was this small list:

1.     To walk the streets of New York and look at art.

2.     To sit and hold all the tiny newborns.

I know, right? I could have imagined white water rafting or being in a Broadway show or doing yoga on Bali. Swimming with dolphins. Petting a whale. Go on a luxury cruise. See the pyramids. Seriously. Of ALL the wonders of the world? Apparently my inner Department of Longing is a very slimly staffed office with only the most polite and humble employees.

Except the first thing was impossible when I first realized this was what I really, really wanted to do. I was poor. I couldn’t afford milk, let alone go to New York. The second thing was impossible too. I mean, I had for a very long time been a supplier for my local maternity unit at the hospital with knitted hats for the preemies. And the head of staff there had given me the stink eye more than once, because apparently it was weird that I wanted to help, when I didn’t have children myself. I had trouble seeing how that disqualified me. But it seemed that you can’t love children if you have not been so lucky as to give birth to them yourself. Maybe that was never what she meant, I hope not. But it was the distinct impression I got. So to volunteer to be there with my empty arms available to hold and give all of the love that I hadn’t been able to give to a child of my own, while the nurses were running around in their constant overload of too much work and too few nurses, I feared would have gotten me in trouble. So I didn’t. But I had almost more than once.

But now suddenly the first thing was happening! My apartment was sold! And I had been saving for the past 5 years, so I could afford a ticket!

All of a sudden I also realized something else: That when I died, I was not alive to begin with. The day the dying happened was simply an adjustment of a reality that was already there. I had spent so many years trying to fit in, trying to mold myself into someone I thought I should be in order to be accepted - in order to be loved. There was no ‘me’ in there anymore. Which is great on all levels of enlightenment, when you think about it, that is all about loosing the ego. But not like this. This was a violent killing of the Self, there was no love in that; it was annihilation. 

I needed that war to stop. That was when I died. Only the war didn’t stop. Years followed with more of the same.

But now.

Now I was finally listening.

And by listening to myself, the Ego was loosening it’s grip. Or maybe it was the other way around. Or a dance of creation happening.

And I heard a kind voice inside me saying: The War Is Over.

I realized that by listening to that voice deep within, I was really listening to God. That this was never the ego. The ego wasn’t even rebelling, it was gracefully stepping to the side, like it knew its services weren’t needed right this minute. Like a patient parent proud to watch its child finally get something hard like reading or riding a bike.

So now I could make my list longer. Here is what it said now:

The Pilgrim To Do List.

3.     Listen to the Light. It is a warm, glowing, smiling, kind and patient presence in your chest and stomach. Sometimes it moves to the third eye. Sometimes the palms of your hands. Sometimes the spine and the top of your head; the crown chakra. It is always kind. Listen. Be. More. That is life as a living prayer.

4.     Go to nature. It is ok to hear and to follow that call. It is ok to need to be completely quiet with the trees and the mountains and the ocean and the night sky and the sunset and the wind and the rain drops. Listen to what they tell you. Dance with them. Breathe.

5.     Find your home. Look for that little cabin made of stone with that fireplace and your library and that dog you long for. It is ok to long for that. It is even ok to find it.

6.     Be here. Be present. In all of who you are. Only by being exactly as you were created here, can the Light shine uninterruptedly through you.

7.     Receive. Know that what is given is Love. You are not being selfish or demanding or impossible or self involved by knowing what makes you feel safe, protected, and happy. You are a child of God. God is Love. You are love. All you do when you receive is floating on your back on a warm summers day in the river that is pure light and abundance. You are aligning yourself with all that is real, and what is real is God. You simply align yourself with real. Love is real. Feel it move in and around and through your body. You are safe, you are loved, you are wanted, and all is well.

8.     Live service. It is not in what you do, you can’t earn it, you can’t do it at specific times, you live the service – it is who you are. Let the love you live shine through your cells and into the world. By living your truth, by simply existing while letting God shine through you, you are living service.

9.     This is why you incarnated this time. To be the Light to others. To serve as a vessel, a channel, an entry point for Gods eternal flow of wonder to come into this created reality in all of it’s harshness, and heaviness and hardship. Your work is to be a reminder to what is always also present; the love, the light, the pureness of that infinite field of ethereal energy. No matter how dark this world might seem, both on the level of nations, and on the level of our individual lives;

There Is Always Also Light.