Not content just sitting in the house or chasing other cats, Pickles always said, “I have big paws. I want to do big things.” When he was adopted by the Firehouse, he learned new skills and finally his dreams came true.
- summary of the storybook The Fire Cat
It is only our small thinking that keeps us from the experiencing the joy that is always available.
If we believe we are small, separate and finite, then sure, we can have conflicts and get hurt. We can suffer loss. We can hate. We can hold a grudge. We can be outraged. Despair, fear, anger, sadness, grief …all of these feelings are enabled by our view of ourselves.
But if we give up this line of thinking, all of that pain drops away. We simply need to accept that we are infinite, connected and big!
If we accept that we are infinite, we aren’t confined by the time-space continuum and again, a whole host of suffering falls away.
My dad was awesome when he was alive. He still is awesome. I only gained from him. I never lost him.
Similarly, my value to you or anyone is not that I will be physically with you every day. But instead it is the way I talk to you, the way I treat you and how that feels to you. If it’s love you feel (as I intend!), then that instance of love can somehow remind and inspire us that love is our true nature. Love is not finite or perishable.
I don’t worry about how my family and friends will do when I die. Instead, I know that, like my dad, my essence doesn’t die with my body.
The important part of anyone goes on, so there is nothing to lose.
If we accept that we are all connected, there is suddenly no one to have a conflict with. Misunderstandings, certainly. War, hatred, spitefulness …no.
I mistakenly wandered into a workshop years ago. I thought it was about stargazing and constellations, but it was instead about family constellations. In the first few minutes, when the leader was introducing the topic, he made a statement matter-of-factly. He said, “I am my mother. My mother is me. I am my father. My father is me. Until you can accept this, you will live a conflicted life.”
Well that was enough to convince me that the leader was crazy! And I slipped out of the workshop. But those words haunted me. I couldn’t say that without stirring up inner turmoil.
Yet, I couldn’t come up with a good argument of why what he said was wrong. Because deep down, a part of me knew he was right. Believing that we are separate and need to bicker and disagree is less true than the fact that we are alike and can learn to love each other and ourselves.
“I am my mother. My mother is me.”
As I traveled, there were many moments when I felt isolated. Left unchecked, I’d spin a tale of woe. But, I could quickly quell this feeling, by accepting that we are all connected. In a moment of stillness, I connect to that truth I knew as a little kid. People around the world are more alike, than different. From that basis, I can see that we are all doing our best, doing basically the same thing with a different set of conditions and conditioning.
“One love, one heart, one destiny.”
- Bob Marley
Finally, if we accept our Bigness, life is going to be more fun! If we think we are a menial cog in the wheels of some big machine, or an accident of nature, then we’ll accept a life that is on par with that view. If you think we have to scratch out a meager existence to simply survive, your life will likely feel like a grueling, neverending rerun of an unremarkable day. (Think the movie, “Groundhog Day”.)
If instead, we accept that the sheer fact that we are alive is a huge miracle, we can have fun with this experiment we call life! Accept that your unique combination of background, upbringing, body, skills and friends make you a powerhouse. You can see things in a way no one else can. You can pull things together that no one else can. Your place here is to do something amazing.
When you own your Bigness you’ll see it coming to fruition. You’re sitting talking with someone, and suddenly they realize something. They remove a block in their path. You’ve just scored one point for spiritual evolution. And in this moment, you realize maybe no one else could have done this. And it was just you, being you. Authentically.
Knowing that you have an important, unique part to play in this big game of spiritual evolution, now, this is going to be fun! Accepting your Bigness means taking the challenge of being the superhero of your own life.
Don’t curse your fate and consider the situation to be bad luck. Instead congratulate yourself on your progress so far on the bizarre training course which is your life. Know that you are preparing for a purpose yet-to-be-announced!
Exercises
- Are you grieving the loss of someone who has died or moved away? Are there ways that you still feel connected? What feels truer to you: that you lost someone or that you are fortunate to have known them? Is it a stretch to say that the essence of that person is infinite? Or, that you are?
- Have you felt a deep connection with someone you’ve never met: children from another country, an artisan of a piece of pottery, a songwriter or someone in a photo? Does it feel natural or strange?
- When you think, “I am my mother. My mother is me.”, how do you feel? Is there a valid reason, you can’t accept that?
- Sketch out a path of your life. Notice the unique conditions that have shaped you. Did you initially consider some of these paths to be mistakes, but later saw some value in them?
- Think of examples of insights you have had that have escaped others. Think of people whose lives you have touched profoundly.
- What ‘big’ things have you done in life that have surprised you or others?
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“You are the universe, expressing itself as a human, for a little while.” - Eckhart Tolle |
Filed under: Chapter Excerpt, Inner Peace Book, USA, Writing Tagged: "One Love", "The Fire Cat", Bigness, Connected, Infinite, inner peace, superhero, timeless
