Waking Up From the Fantasy

In a show I watched on T.V. a gangster dies and wakes up in a place that has all the markings of heaven; or at least what a guy like that would imagine as heaven. He has all the sex, money and power he wants. He loves it at first, but then he gets bored and aimless and starts to hate it. So he asks his guide if he can go to hell instead. That’s when he learns he’s already there! Makes me think, is this life just a distraction from boredom?

Then I also ask myself, “Is hell or heaven just a fantasy I need to wake up from?

In my search for answers I turn to the sages who tell me that to awaken from the illusion is to accept that split within me….the two parts of me…the one that clings to the planet and the other that longs for the heavens. And therein lies the predicament…we humans are struck with the difference between what things ARE and what they OUGHT to be.

This angst is existential in nature and our usual response is to avoid the pain and suffering it causes. We choose a variety of defenses against the hurt that much of life is prone to. And the hero’s journey beckons the understanding that it is through life’s experiences that we move towards spiritual maturation.

As an old saying has it _ ‘religion is for those who are afraid of going to Hell; spirituality is for those who have been there.’

Until we are able to see the disparity between what we long for and what we experience, and until we consciously address what personal spirituality is, we remain rudderless and in flight or in denial or victims to ourselves and victimize others too.

Perhaps the hardest fantasy to give up is the thought that someone, even God, out there is going to fix us and that it might spare us the intimidating struggle and pain of life. No wonder, then, that we run towards a mirage, whether it be gurus or umpteen religious practices, and still never find home within ourselves.

In my therapists role I’m constantly amazed at how my own journey has helped me re-define the purpose of struggle and challenge in my own life and those of my clients. I realize that the purpose of life is not to remove suffering but to move through it into an expanded consciousness

I can see the many symptoms that people experience are a defense against the wounding of life…I have also learnt that symptoms are a desire for healing…although, at times, an unconscious effort to heal.

This understanding is why I feel so fortunate to do the work I do and feel the necessity of it too….a basic requirement like food & water. Everyday I am delighted at the small steps people take towards self-reflection and find the courage to do what they must, and to bear the consequences of their decisions more consciously.

The undeniable truth is that in order to heal we must air out the dark and unattended parts of us….if we don’t do this willingly, from time to time, sooner or later we will be ‘called out’ through our body pathology….the body always keeps score!

One last reflection by the poet Warren Kliewer:

“Of course you’d be willing to stop groping for God

If ceasing were one of the alternatives…

So grab me, hasty man, and we will worship

With the frantic, hopeless beauty of a fight!”

Cheers!