A Halloween Soul Metaphor—The Zombies Among Us

Each Halloween, we get a chance to think a little about famous monsters. The monsters of our childhood. The monsters of our advancing age. The monsters our kids might be for the holiday (or that they may seem to become, sometimes). The monsters that we witness in public life, or that, occasionally, we ourselves can become too.

You may notice that the really famous monsters are scary on a couple of levels. First, on the level of the material imagery; and then on a deeper metaphoric, or spiritual level. Take Frankenstein (please!). He's plenty scary on the obvious material level, but he also makes a pretty scary metaphor – as the manifestation of self-will run amok; the consequences of our wanting to play God with the natural world, with our lives, and with the lives of others. Or Dracula, as a symbol of soul exploitation – people who selfishly suck the life out of other people; or out of Mother Nature, for that matter. Or the Wolfman – the potentially violent beast within us all, unleashed by the uncontrollable cycle of life...a curse he passes along whenever he bites someone else.

So what's up with all the Zombies? They seem to be everywhere these days. Zombies in the movies, on TV, in commercials and videogames – almost everywhere you look, there are zombies popping up. What are we trying to say, on a deeper level, with this zombie fascination? Well, let's take a look (if you dare…)

 Most obviously, zombies are the undead. Inhumane humans who've lost their souls, so the only life they have left is spent unconsciously feeding off the souls of the living. They selfishly grope around for the next bite that's going to fuel their empty search. In that sense, they're really much like unconsciously self-centered people (profit-driven entrepreneurs or mindless consumers), lurching about ineffectively, swarming on any situation where their appetites may be sated. So eternally they flounder around, staggering through a soulless system, driven to find something to feed their emptiness, but only finding more remorseful, bottomless hunger.

They would find their solution – their rest – if they'd just die already, wouldn't they? Symbolically, that simply means "dying" to the empty, ego-driven life of schlepping from one incessant need to the next. Realizing that the death of "who you are supposed to be" and "how it will look to others" in our often soulless, demanding culture will reveal a real peace, and a responsible purpose that may have been hidden right in front of you all along. It's not really about what any single one of us needs – it's about what every single one of us needs: Love, Purpose, Spiritual sustenance.

I'm sorry to point out that the people responsible for all of this zombie programming, sadly, may just be the zombies "in charge" – which gives us another spiritual challenge to face...how do we recognize the undead among us?

Well, zombies couldn't care less about what you think. They're not at all interested in your thoughts on any subject; and what's even worse, they don't give a damn about how anything makes you feel. You're not going to get anywhere by politely asking a zombie not to eat you. Zombies only think about their own delusion of self, and no amount of actual evidence will persuade them to recognize reality, so zombies dare not allow themselves to feel anything except fear or anger (which are the same thing), and expresses itself as hate or entitlement or arrogant bullying. God bless 'em.

Not being zombie-like yourself means opening up to what others think; and more importantly, to how they feel. Relating, sincerely, to one another’s feelings, and by doing so, to share the experience – and the intelligence – of our shared heart-energy. Forgiveness and compassionate consciousness are the only things that can help a zombie re-enter the real world of the living, and the only ways to deal with a zombie, even if – God forbid – we realize it’s ourselves.

I hate to get too graphic, but they do say the only way to kill a zombie is "to kill the zombie's brain," and they may have a good point there (whoever "they" are). It’s very likely that zombies probably think too much with their dizzy, addled heads, and not with their grounded hearts. That’s where the path to restoring a zombie’s soul (or to help a struggling ghoul to find it themselves) must initiate from. It seems like a long schlep, sometimes, that short stretch from the upturned graveyard of the head, to the peaceful, heavenly realm of the heart.

When dealing with a zombie, try to look past that unkempt exterior – the unconscious self-centeredness, the fearful pallor and fugue-like gaze past you, the blood n' guts everywhere. Many zombies are really good at heart, they've simply been made “undead” by a monstrous metaphor ­– ­the Dark Lord of the Unconscious Ego; but look beyond the quickly fading external images, into the compassionate spirit we all share, and you will find the zombie’s struggling heart.

If you fear you’ve become a little zombie-like yourself, simply start living in your soul's life, that's where you’ll find the real, joyful world of the living–not on the shifting horror show of life’s “silver screen.”

And for Halloween, I recommend that you don't go as an orange, flesh-eating  ghoul, or dress your kids that way, either. Instead, go as a fairy, or an angel, or just as the bright, shining light that you really are. Happy Halloween!

"There is a light within people of light, and they shine it upon the whole word. If they do not shine it, what darkness!

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 24

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

A Drop in a Day: How Ego Puts Us on The Little Spot

"We are created by our thoughts. We become what we think. Pain and suffering follow negative thoughts like the wheel follows the ox that pulls it." 

The Dhammapada, 1: 1

      It's crazy what a fussy thing it is to be a human being sometimes. Fussy, itsy-bitsy preoccupations can end up occupying an entire day, or week (or life). Small slip-ups can cascade into torrential hang-ups and unexpectedly put a lock on practically everything, even when it might all be based on nothing, really. Just look at the way we look at things, and wonder why we tend to see them in such an upside-down way…

      We're up, awake, and "fully-functioning" for what – about sixteen to eighteen hours a day? The other six or eight we're safely in dreamland. During the course of that sixteen hours of activity, everything usually goes fairly well. Usually. For the most part everything runs pretty smoothly, except for the occasional day when nothing at all seems to go right. (My wife often blames that on "Mercury going retrograde," which doesn't do anything for me, except to get me mad at Mercury–a very hot planet that I barely even know…) 

      Even then, the problems of a problem-filled day at most add up to just an hour or two of difficulties, if you're really keeping track of it. One-sixteenth of your waking day. Most of the time, the trouble spots we experience are actually very brief – singular sticky moments that pass quickly, but that for some reason we may hold on to and inflate well out of proportion. 

      It could be one cross look. One misplaced word, or phrase, or gesture. One tiny misunderstanding, or slip, or traffic cross-up, or failure to hear something right, and suddenly it's as if the world got knocked off it's axis. That minor flaw—possibly only two minutes in the whole of our otherwise smooth sixteen-hours—can  take us hostage, eat up all of our mental bandwidth, and demand ownership of the entire day. Just two minutes – out of the one-thousand-four hundred and forty-four in a day.

"The cleaner the tablecloth, the more obvious the spot." 

      …says my mentor Ray, pointing out that unnecessary obsession with the one itsy-bitsy thing that goes wrong, the one little thing that can throw our entire well-being out of whack. So what's really up with that?

      Part of the hardwiring we labor with as humans being human is our vestigial, eternally fearful Ego – the picky, judgmental part of our thinking that still likes to imagine some prehistoric predator is hiding behind every bush. Nothing is ever right for this fuss-bucket from our left brain, constantly pointing out the smallest flaws in an otherwise beautiful finish. Unless we recognize that aggravating inner voice as not being who we want to be, and consciously calling it out, it will happily take ownership of our day in two silly, uncomfortable minutes. 

      That's the simple mindfulness  required – to become aware of that fearful self-criticism (by default), and reject it! After all, who needs a scold when things are actually going quite well?

      The other thing we can do to defuse that out-of-proportion foible is to fix it immediately. Blot out the spot right away! Instantly apologize for the dumb thing you said. Spontaneously extend forgiveness to someone who seems to have slighted you. Brush off the inconsequential objection your fussy Ego wants to stick on your forehead, and... 

"FLIP YOUR SCRIPT!"

      Instead of letting one wrong minute own your day, take ownership of the fifteen hours and fifty-nine minutes you got right! Be empowered by the fact that you're doing very well, thank you, and you won't need any more help from the self-criticism department. The fact is—you're really on a roll when it comes to living well, and as long as you remember that kindness, honesty, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and service are everybody's friends, you can ignore that little spot on the tablecloth – who cares? It just means you had a nice lunch.

      In the bright light of Love, one little spot is nothing...really.

"We are created by our thoughts. We become what we think. Happiness attaches itself like an inseparable shadow to the positive thoughts that precede it." 

The Dhammapada, 1: 2

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Digging Out the Well of Our Self

"He who drinks from my mouth will become like me, and I will become like him, and the hidden things will be revealed to him."

Yeshua, The Gospel of Thomas, 108

A group of people stand looking down into a dry well. They complain about their thirst, about their withering gardens. One man, driven by desperation, at last steps up and climbs down into the well. He begins to dig, at first resenting the work, but then finding an easy rhythm and satisfaction in the effort, until finally he removes that last obstructing bucket of dirt, and breaks through to the great aquifer that flows underneath and through everything. The source that infuses and enlivens everything. The well begins to fill again with cool water, and bending over, still digging to assure the steady flow of this renewed life, he sees his own reflection in the source. He is this. What he thought he was, who he thought he was is only a reflection of this source.

And when he climbs back out of the well and meets with the various responses of the others—the heartfelt thanks, the casual acknowledgements, the proud dismissals; he carries with him that source reflection, only vertically now, so that wherever he goes he's looking into that. He sees his own reflection in the the faces of everyone that speaks to him. Their eyes are his eyes. Their fears and foibles and joys and realizations are his own.

"Thou art That"

Chandogya Upanishad, 6.12-14

So our very own form can provide us with the entry to that new, relaxed, and naturally productive way of seeing the world. Infused and enlivened by that flow. We are all the same thing. We all think the same thoughts and feel the same feelings. And where we used to entertain those cruelties that defined us—the harsh comparisons, snap judgments and righteous justifications, there now lives an easy sense of compassion—the door to source. This sweet and sustaining flow of source that is available to everyone is absolutely free, and totally liberating. It just takes a bit of humility, of "digging"—the honest self-examination that allows us to truly see ourselves. To learn who we really are meant to be, as opposed to who we think we're supposed to be; how did those psychic obstructions to source and purpose get put in place, and how do we remove them?

The most critical facillitating aspect behind discovering this freedom, the metaphor of "going down into the well" (in the prophet Yeshua's story), is finding your inner place of silence where you can gain the calm perspective on who you really are. Your own personal well, where the deepest obstructions between you and your source are hidden.

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness."

Mahatma Gandhi

By finding the silence within ourselves, we can individually defuse the demanding inner voice that provides life's running commentary, and then perhaps we can collectively turn off the delusional egoic "reality" that drives our species in ruinous directions. By becoming aware of it, we can strip away the obsessive "story of our life, our country, our people," etc., the delusional view of life that the Hindu call maya. Christians misinterpret it as sin (in the original greek of the canonical gospels: amartia, meaning "to miss the mark"). Buddhists call it selfish craving.

That silence resides in The Tao, The Brahman, The Kingdom of Heaven, in Emptiness, in Source Energy; and in us—within and without us. In that silence, in the absence of anything personal, that power lives. Then we find it's all personal. And we are all that person.

"The Kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you."

Logion 3, The Gospel of Thomas

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Fear Is Like A Giant Multi-Legged Caterpillar

This "Mechapillar" from Codename: Kids Next Door will have to do...

"Fear is a giant, ugly caterpillar that just wants to eat the grass you're hiding behind."

Why would anyone ever say such a thing, unless they were launching into hyperbolic metaphor?

It's out there, rooting around your wild perimeter, slowly tracking you down on a hundred disturbing little legs. Yep, it's fear again, though it may be dressed in some new form, like a giant multi-legged insect, an impossible deadline, or the potential discovery of one of your closely guarded secrets.

You hunker down in the grass, pressing dirt into your knees, and almost stop breathing. Perhaps it will move away, maybe pass right by you. But no, inevitably the huge waxy leaves part, and there it is! A screaming caterpillar the size of a brownstone (an apartment house east of The Rockies), waving it's creepy multitudinous arms, twitching it's bug jaws like a Cronenberg movie, and worst of all, it knows right where you're hiding!

Things look awful bad, as it raises up on it's haunches, haunches, haunches, etc., coiling itself like a cobra about to strike...and here it comes—right at you, it's pinchy jaws bearing down around you! THIS IS IT! IT'S, IT'S ...wait a minute...it stops just before it actually does any harm to you, and gently and fastidiously, begins munch munch munching all the grass around you, until you're just hunkered down, completely exposed, and completely safe. Then it happily whirrs away, leaving you standing up again, brushing the dirt off your kneecaps.

That grass will grow back you know. You'll want to hide in it again, like so many times before. But notice how good it feels to be out in the open. Honesty is a real, powerful action to take, that will deliver you to freedom you've never imagined possible before. You're fine. It wasn't real. It just had to reveal to you what you can be.

I always like to say that unless a bear is chasing you, fear isn't real. That works for tigers, and crocodiles too–God bless 'em.

And as for what you can be, the caterpillar thing works that way too. After it eats enough, it latches onto a suitable branch and forms a chrysalis around itself. Inside that bag, it turns into a chaotic mush, a complete chemical deconstruction that doesn't seem to know what it's going to be, until order begins to return, and inside it's new form finally takes shape. I know what that feels like. Everyone probably does. That confusion before it realizes what it can become...and then... 

Schmetterling, in German. Choucho, in Japanese. Mariposa, in Spanish.

A Butterfly for you.

This blog is a revisitation of a favorite topic, seen in it's original form four years ago. Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor, from Llewellyn Worldwide, and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond. Both are available everywhere – but ask for them at your local bookstore!