The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayal or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, everyday, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer-

Nirvana

Tonight, I watched James Cameron's Avatar. Despite it being the second time I viewed it, it's one of those movies where you anticipate its content. From a technical point (if I had any expertise in this area), the graphics were stunning!!

The story goes deeper than love across cultures and adventure. It touches on spirituality and consciousness, the awareness of who and where you are in the universe. That got me thinking; definitely need for some concern there.

Now, I'm unequivocally not religious. Like most dysfunctional families (I'm sure I'll find statistics somewhere on the net proving this point), I have diabolically religious parents, who on a daily basis swears that my happiness is directly proportional to praying multiple times a day to an angry God who needs us frightful beings subdued in order to feel good. I'm just not buying that, sorry. Neither am I interested in the New Age Tom Cruise BS. By the way, Tom Cruise cannot act. I don't know why people keep insisting that he speaks in movies. He should do what he does best: smile and look pretty.

Though I respect you for your beliefs, they just aren't mine, and I wish people would stop trying to 'save my damned soul'. It may be damned for a reason.

What I am particularly interested in is the concept of using our minds and attitude to change our destiny, to connect to the universe, God, Allah, Shiva, energy, or whatever you wish to call it, and more importantly to move physical mass. Our thoughts interacting with the physical world to effect change all the way down to the atomic level. Yes, I know, this sounds like an ad for 'The Secret'; though I am 'visualizing' a nice cold mango and lime juice right now. I'm not speaking about mainstream religion here. I'm speaking about spirituality. Personally defined, religion offers a system of beliefs (and conformity) while spirituality offers trust in yourself, giving you the power to change your destiny, a belief that God is within you and not sitting on a throne, reigning down his Godly might.

Historically, many spiritual leaders have spoken about reaching a higher level of consciousness, your 'Nirvana', such as Buddha, Gandhi, Tao and even scientists such as Newton and Einstein. Many ancient cultures and indigenous people, also held the belief that we, humans, had Godlike powers, and more importantly, our interconnectedness to the Universe, Earth, each other, is what makes us whole.

Sadly, I must concede that I have not attained an elevated consciousness as yet. I'm working on it and I'm sure it'll take years of trail and error to get there, and then more years of trail and error. It's a process, not a race.

As Avatar depicts, we are born twice, once in our natural state, and for those of us who cannot morph into little blue Smurfs, maybe the second one represents the birth of a deeper consciousness, our Nirvana.