Just jump...

Jaya, our teacher from the Open Dharma meditation retreat this past weekend at The Stone House, shared a beautiful and poignant visual that brilliantly described this experience of expanding consciousness, what it feels like. She said it's as if we are living in a fishbowl floating within the ocean.

Hit me right between the eyes and got me thinking...

We swim around in this fishbowl thinking that the limitations of the bowl - our stories, our fears, our judgments - are all there is to life. Many of us are happy living out our entire lives in the fishbowl; but some of us are driven by a persistent, mysterious impulse toward liberation for ourselves and for others and to have our work in the world come from this deeper, more empowered & open-hearted space.

I've felt this persistent impulse or ache in my soul for as long as I can remember but didn't understand or have the language for it. Now I do.

Through committment to deepening spiritual practice (reading, meditation, prayer, service, etc.), our awareness of the ocean around us expands and we realize that all we have to do is swim out of this fishbowl to experience true freedom.

And what does that freedom feel like?

For me it feels like dropping into an unlimited capacity for love, compassion, joy, forgiveness. There's a flow and ease to life that is independent of circumstances. I feel connected to everyone and everything with an insatiable desire to serve others in a deep and meaningful way.

It also at times feels scary, exhausting, vulnerable and insecure because the ocean is so vast and uncontrollable...until I remember what enlightened masters like Jesus and Buddha have always taught - that the unseen Power that governs universal life (God, Spirit, etc.) is not separate from us. It is me, it is you, and we are that. I am the ocean and the ocean is me. So what is there to fear?

Sometimes I'm spacious, centered and courageous enough to swim out into the ocean and rest in that freedom of being; sometimes I swim around in the fishbowl I know so well. I'm learning there's nothing right or wrong about hanging out in the bowl, but it is my choice now. That's the journey, the path. If I had to describe my ultimate reason for being on this planet at this time I'd say it is to be part of and contribute to this momentum toward liberation...for all.

I love roller coasters and swimming out of the fishbowl into the ocean feels kinda like I'm on the biggest, baddest coaster...scared and exhilarated at the same time. I guess I'll just throw my arms in the air and yell weeeeeeeeee!

What a wild ride man.