Raymond L. Burton - The Happy Soul

Here we are at the end of the day with a cup of Bengal spice tea and a laptop computer. The girls are gone out to deliver some lasagna to our friends house so that it can be cooked up tomorrow when we go over to play some cards.

The house is quiet.

The hum from the fridge and the click of my slightly too long fingernails on the keyboard. Late at night its almost like a buzz the way your brain starts to wind down after a busy day of activity. Its at this point that you either start to think about things or move on to doing something that will distract you so you don’t have to think.

Life is full of distractions these days. Television, radio and computers all take up time that used to be there for family, thinking and reflection. I say this as I sit staring at my laptop.

Take the red pill.

If you do stop and think, is it peaceful or uncomfortable. What about the thought of death? What does that do to you? How does that make you feel? It reminds me that there are things I don’t like to think about. Or is it more like when you get called out on something you didn’t want to fess up to?

Death of Ego

Here is what I think. Death is scary because your ego does not want to cease to exist. Here is the catch. Your ego isn’t who you really are. Right then; who are you? Well it depends on where you are in the whole spirituality deal. Some would say you are simply asleep and that just like when you dream, this experience right now is a dream. Some would say you are God, or a small piece of the essence that is everything.

Some would say religion is a desperate act by those afraid of death.

Here is where faith enters the picture. You can’t get paid if you don’t go to work. You can’t enjoy the spirit world unless you do spiritual work. But just like anything, you have to do some work before your first check comes. At this stage I feel like there is more. Is that a basis to preach and coach others on their spiritual paths? No way. What it is…is a person who wishes there was more than this in my face reality and that something truly remarkable could be witnessed in this lifetime that would make me feel like I swallowed the red pill.

You know what would be cool? Being able to light a candle by snapping your fingers like in Harry Potter. What else would be cool? I think being able to actually help heal someone would be fantastic. I don’t know how much of that is ego driven, but it sure would be cool.

The coolest thing of all.
I think the coolest thing of all would be able to have sensitivity about circumstances so that you could feel what would be an appropriate action. In simple terms, to have awesome intuition about whatever occurred.

To have this feeling that whatever you did at any given time was the best action to take for your future growth as an individual. To be able to do this on gut instinct alone without hard data or mulling over the facts. That would be cool.

Enough rambling for today. Have to wake up for a couple hours of physical training early tomorrow, so I have to get some shut eye.

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I was over at the steve pavlina blog and he was asked the question of what people should blog about. This is what he said that motivated this post:

Imagine yourself on a stage before an audience of a million people.  You have the mic for as long as you want.  What would you say?  Would you start spouting marketing gobbledegook?  Maybe if you want to get boo’ed off the stage.  Would you blab on about what you had for breakfast this morning?  Zzzzzzz.  Figure out what you’d say to that audience (for real), and you’ll know what to blog about.  Then go do it!

Well here is what I would like to say. I would like to share my experiences. My life with anyone that would care to learn from it. Now I will tell you why.

Back a long time ago, people talked. The sounds of their voices carried as much weight and influence as the meaning of the words that were said. Fathers would sit down with sons and mothers would teach their daughters. Important history, life lessons and culture were shared and bonds were made. Through the experience of others, you could avoid mistakes yourself or even step ahead of the game a bit easier. My grandfather did that for me, but he is gone now. I valued our time a lot.

Today we don’t talk much. We watch TV and people don’t take time to sit down with old people and learn from them. Things are being lost. Ideas and ways of life are being forgotten. Some of the traditions that make boys feel like they have arrived as men and girls as women don’t happen anymore. What happens is we end up with a lot of adult aged people that still feel inside like boys and girls. No more rights of passage or collective support for steps taken forward into new “beingness”.

For a long time I have wanted more, well to understand more of reality. Whatever real reality is….(more on that in another post). I have the luxury with my path that I get free time to study and think. I want to remember things we have forgotten and I want to get back to a way of life where people care more about making their life a soul dance instead of a survival dance.

Poetry is a beautiful thing. Maybe sometimes people don’t want to read about “getting ahead”. Maybe sometimes a person wants to get home from work, grab a cup of tea and read a small piece of fantasy that takes them away to a place that sparkles like heaven. A mysterious place in the mind that shuts out reality and where the innermost longings of your essence can run wild…until the cup of tea is finished. That, I feel, is something worthy of sharing.

I am at the point in my life now where I am asking a lot of questions and I have the time to try and understand some answers. As a fellow human yourself, some of these questions are probably the same. Maybe the time I spend reading, thinking and meditating can help some small piece of your soul dance evolve. If that happens to be the case, then my existence is justified by that tiny contribution.

What I will have said and what I have written in this blog will have served a purpose.

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Late at night it gets so quiet.
I hear the fan hum, but nothing else.
The whole world is sleeping,
Or that’s how it feels,
As I try to figure it all out.

My guitar sits in the corner.
I was going to be a rock star.
Somehow that fell out of view.
Chasing success or survival at best,
Consumed the last few years.
(more…)

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