Soul Full - Lesson

Soul Full

A wandering soul was walking through a vast field in summer sunshine. The field was covered in knee high grasses that swayed playfully in a soft, warm breeze. Patches of wildflowers dotted the landscape in a pattern that the soul recognized as divine. There were no clouds in the deep blue sky. There were no other souls in view. It was just the soul, the field and the sun. The soul had no memories. It knew no time, nor joy or sadness, want or aversion. It simply existed, content, grateful to be. As the soul walked in the great field, it noticed a large, crystal clear, gallon-sized jar laying on the ground. It was labeled, “My Life”. The soul had seen these before and had chosen to walk by, knowing on some level that if it were to be picked up, everything would change.

But this time was different. The soul was inherently curious and playful. Its contentment was so complete, its connection to All so certain, that it could not imagine ever feeling differently. So, this time, the wandering soul bent over and picked it up.

As it did so, a vision of the world in which you and I live flashed into view; all the good, all the harder to recognize as good, all the technology and roads, the buildings, machinery and powerful institutions. It appeared that this jar presented an opportunity for the soul to journey to another place; a place where it could expand.

As the soul considered this, into it’s mind appeared choices that the soul could make should it decide to use this jar for its own journey – a vast number of them. They included species, gender, the overall health of the body, general living conditions and friends that would come and go at certain times. It was a curriculum of sorts with lessons to be learned, and taught.

In that moment everything shifted. For where there was once no container, no boundary within the experience of the soul, there was now, for the first time in the soul’s experience, the potential for something called “limitation”. There was, after all, only so much that could be put in the container and once full, the soul comprehended, the jar would have fulfilled its purpose.

The soul stood in the ever present sunshine and felt it’s great warmth. It was free to place the jar back on the ground and continue it’s wandering through the vast fields where it was so very content. But something within the soul stirred this time; a feeling that it would be beneficial to do something else. As there was no feeling of separation between the field, the sky, the sun, the flowers and grasses and the soul itself, not to mention the jar, all things were in agreement with this conclusion.

So the soul began to play.

While holding the jar in it’s hands, it chose a species, should it decide to take this opportunity. It thought it might be interesting to be a human. It chose a gender. It was to be a male. It chose a land in which to live. It was to be America. It chose a family with two parents that loved one another. It chose a fully healthy, beautiful and nearly flawless body and a mind that could focus and rest at will. It chose a package of talents that the soul understood were to be discovered as it held the jar. This was all pleasing to the soul. Finally, and of greatest interest, were packages of games to play that would make the experience one of growth and fun. They arose in almost infinite variety, each with its own benefit and challenge. Both concepts, “benefit” and “challenge”, had been foreign to the soul, but it comprehended well enough the idea.

But which package to choose?

Now, already morphing into a male in his Being as he stood, he considered a package that seemed beneficial. He noticed immediately that the package itself shifted slightly the choices he had already made, like gazing at a colorful stone first in the hand, and then through clear water. For instance, his family structure changed from two parents to one. Placing that package back, he chose another. He was now to be born to two loving parents, but in India. He placed that one back. He chose another and his gender changed to a female. Laughing, he placed that one back as well. This was a game in and of itself, and entirely enjoyable to him. He stood in the field under the sun and examined “My Life” packages as his heart cheered in awe. It appeared that the package took precedence; the message of his life was more important than some of his preferences of his soul.

Finally choosing one that fit his fancy, he held the jar and looked towards the sun. He smiled in gratitude for the opportunity to find such a jar. He gazed at the fields, as everlasting as eternity itself and wondered for the briefest instant if he should leave at all.

At once, a Voice within his already developing mind assured him that it was actually impossible to leave this place. He would be going nowhere, just standing in the field holding the jar as he experienced the package that he had placed within it.

The soul smiled, understanding for the first time how the packages could work; they depended on the illusion of separation from All That Is, all while simply standing in a field of grass and flowers to which the soul belonged. Well ok, that seemed easy and safe enough, not to mention supreme fun. 

Both concepts, “ease” and “safety”, had also previously been foreign to the soul, but even while simply holding the jar and observing the package he had chosen he could see that both these would be good to have in some amount.

“But,” the Voice added, “you will make choices as the packages progress that will affect the amount of ease you experience, as well as the connection to this place that you feel while playing with the package you chose. The feeling of connection will affect the amount of safety you feel.”

The soul considered this.

It was a unique experience, this holding of the jar in the vast field. He observed that just by holding the jar, a sense of separation had formed in his mind. For instance, he now identified himself as male. The Voice and himself appeared to be different, for the first time in his existence. The jar contained packages that were different from one another. He saw all this separation correctly as an illusion, but also sensed the comprehensiveness of the illusion. He knew the reality of Unity while he stood in this place, even while things were shifting slightly for him as he held the jar, almost as a preview of what could and would be. But he could tell from the packages that while he played the game that distinction would become less clear. It appeared to depend on his choices while within the game.

Should he really do this? He could put the jar back down and continue his walk with no harm done. His self-identification as a male would fade away as well as his temporary sense of separation from the Voice, the field, the flowers and the sky.

The Voice seemed to sense his hesitation. “You are in complete control of the amount of Connection to this place that you feel while you are experiencing the package you chose.”

The Soul looked up to the sun, the apparent source of the Voice. He looked at the jar in his hands, staring at the package within, and considered this. 

“How can I feel Connection while I am within the illusion?”

The Voice smiled. “The answer lies in those things that you allow yourself to value. Just as the jar is limited for space, so it is for something called “time”, which exists only in a warped way within the jar. Remember, you are not leaving here. It will just appear that you have left and you may believe that you have. But you’ll be standing right here as you experience the package you choose.”

“Well,” the soul replied, “I value Connection. I want to feel safe while I play my game. I want to remember that I am standing here, even while I’m there.”

“You will be able to do this to the extent that you place value on Connection above comfort.”

“What does that mean?”

“You haven’t experienced pain, but it is one word that describes the feeling of separation one feels within the game. There are many types of pain – any of which can be great teachers, reminders that there is something else.”

“So when I play the game within the jar, I should avoid pain?”

“No, not exactly,” the Voice replied kindly. “A preoccupation with avoiding pain, particularly in the form of simple discomfort, is actually one of the great challenges contained in the jar you picked up. I see that you are interested in a human incarnation. If a human is consumed with avoiding discomfort, then discomfort is all they will feel. Worse, they will begin to fear losing what comfort or conveniences they enjoy, and that fear will begin to color their actions in myriad ways. It can become their focus - just a little more ease, slightly more comfort, a little more control over their environment until those are the most important things.” He paused. “Even more important than feeling Connection to this place, a place that seems far away.”

The Soul frowned. “So how do I keep Connection when pain, or discomfort, is upon my body in the game? How can I stay away from the fear?”

The Voice seemed to smile at the Soul’s choice of words. “You make Connection your focus, in spite of discomfort.” He paused, allowing the Soul to consider this. “In short, if your focus is on discomfort, even avoiding it, discomfort is what will manifest in your game until you realize that it is not a worthy subject of focus. On the other hand, focus on Connection and you can only get better at staying Connected, in spite of discomfort.”

“So, I can focus on Connection while I am feeling discomfort… would I feel less discomfort then?”

“Precisely,” said the Voice.           

“How do I remember this while I am there?” The Soul was smiling excitedly now, unscrewing the lid on the top of the jar.

“I have provided ways. You’ll learn them when you arrive. It’s inherent in every package.”

The soul held the cap in his hands and looked within the jar. A small, tidy, spinning universe greeted him. Within it was a small, bright blue speck. It was to be his home. The Soul looked up at the sky, and then at the grass and stands of wildflowers and, all at once and with great joy, began his great journey.

PART TWO: Questions

Are we too concerned with convenience?

What have been the effects of advances in technology?

Are we safer now than we have historically been? What is the cost of our safety?

Do we feel more or less Connected to Creator and to one another as a species? Why?

How has organized religion affected mankind?

What difference is there between organized religion and individual spirituality?

How do modern-day conveniences affect you, your family, your world?

Is there such thing as an innocuous distraction from Connection? 

Words - Prose

Words

Be careful with your words today, world…

Be careful when you define good.

Be careful when you define evil.

Preachers and politicians use these for their own ends

But you are more than those

Let each word that rolls off your tongue

That made its way through the jungles of your mind

And vast experience

Leave your body with a question mark implied

A name

A title

A label

Make that agreement with the Universe

Tell it that you never want to know

That you want to be like it

Always expanding

Always exploring

Childlike in your curiosity

Turning over a new stone

And sometimes

A new leaf

That somehow

Looked interesting.

Let your four year old self

Possess you anew

Leave these powerful words

That have passed away into death

To the the spin artists

And the entertainers

Let wonder define your relationship

To both good and evil

Which

If God is True

Are two sides

Of the same stone

My prayer for you, World

Is that you see

That they are related

And that their foggy lines

Have far more to do with

The state of the viewer

Than a particular and consistent nature

True heart language

The language of God

Cannot be spoken

So… let our words

That offal of our minds

Be chosen carefully

Respecting their power

As levers

To affect other wanderers’ minds

And may we one day walk

With our hearts open

In deep understanding

Seeping into the cracks of our misunderstanding

Filling them in ways

That mere words and labels

Were never meant to do.

--Eric Aspen Marley

February 2016

Santa Barbara - Rant / Essay (INCOMPLETE)

Santa Barbara

I am locked in this battle of wills with a great white giant. I don't know much about him, but he works for God and seems to be assigned to me alone. The thing is, the dude is all powerful. But he doesn't use it in a bad way, really. It’s just that when I don’t want to do what he wants me to do he just stops helping me. So I feel controlled in a sense.

The thing is… well, I can talk to this guy. I can talk to him and he’ll listen to me. In fact, he does pretty much everything I ask him to do. But the issue is when I change my mind. He just says, “You said something different back there five years ago.” And if I ask him so what, then he starts telling me that what I said five years ago was in alignment with my soul’s purpose, and what I want to do right now, he says too often, is not. So, since he is all powerful – he never says this but he implies it – I can do what I want, always, but he’s not going to help me in the same way he would if I chose something that WAS in alignment with my soul.

But I want what I want sometimes. I don’t always say that, but that’s how I feel. If I do say or act like that, the great white giant just shrugs and kind of shakes his great goat head and looks sad. What’s worse, I feel like all the spirits I’ve asked to surround me kind of sit suspended when I say and act like that – like I want what I want and screw the rest. I guess they’re in the same boat as the great white giant, in a sense; he does what God wants him to do and then they do what the great white giant says.

So what did I say five years ago? Well, that’s just an example but it’s the same thing I’ve said all my life: That I want to be used for something good here on this planet. That I want to grow at any cost. That I want to serve the people. That I want to use all the gifts I’ve been blessed with or that I’ve developed since my soul was birthed to help others find their purposes, to grow, to find constant connection.

So those are the types of prayers I’ve said since I was a little kid, maybe five years old, when I told my mother I wanted to be the prophet. I was Mormon at the time, but I wasn’t talking about being the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was talking about being that close to God as I understood him at the time. I didn’t want to ever feel apart from him, that much I knew, and I think I maybe felt that separation was coming like it does for all people that pass from childhood.
 
So in a way, I’ve dug my own grave. I’m hung by the tongue, so to speak. I said these things that are supposedly “in alignment” with my soul’s purpose. The great white giant heard me. He mobilized forces on my behalf because I asked. I have a ton of them working for me through him because a lot of what I want IS in alignment, has been. But when I want to go a different direction, maybe something easier, a little closer to normal, I am no longer surrounded by assistants, just spectators whose hands are tied. They mill around doing the spirit helper equivalent of kicking rocks because they can only do what the great white giant allows them to do for me. So I pout, or rebel in some childish way, maybe threaten to kill myself, or even make the attempt. In short, I "numb out" as some great teachers put it, rather than use the tools I have. And the older I’ve become, the greater the pain I’ve experienced by allowing myself to want respite, an easier path, and then act on it. A path that doesn’t require sacrifice, that allows me to keep “my favorite sins”, so to speak; to eat as much sugar as I want, to listen to Godsmack or skip meditation.

The great giant doesn’t condemn me for any of these, he just rolls his huge eyes and shakes his horned head. Not because they’re sins, but because they’re like bus stops. They're pauses. And the problem with pauses of this type is that you don’t know where the next bus that shows up is going. And if you get on the first one that comes along because you're sick of the bus stop and anywhere is better than there, you’re likely to find yourself a long, long way from your intended destination and it’s a bitch to get back. Lots of people wonder what the hell you’re up to. People you really like, or even love.They just don't know what to do with you, what to think, and that's hard, too.

I have a feeling that I can call the right bus back anytime, though. I just have to put this fear of being controlled by something else on the back burner. It’s funny, paradoxical; I say I want God, but then when God sends a driver and a bus to take me there, I want to drive the bus myself.  Take the scenic route. Make unscheduled stops. The great white giant will go where I tell him to as long as we agree since he’s the only one that has the map. But I can’t set off for, say, Santa Barbara, and then change my mind and tell him I want to go to Des Moines and then on the way there say Bismarck is better, and why not Tallahassee on the way to Bismarck with a quick stop in Seattle, when all the while he knows that when I said Santa Barbara, that was where I really wanted to be in the first place, was where I would find the other half of my soul that has been waiting for me to show up.

So I’m here at this bus stop in the middle of some desert. It's lonely and chilly in the hours just before dawn. And I have some decisions to make. I hear there’s a quaint little town down the road, not 15 miles from here.

Or do I get back on the bus to Santa Barbara, which is days and sleepless nights away? 

PART TWO:  The Great White Giant Speaks

Oh, Eric? What do I say about that guy? (Heavy sigh, shaking his head). He's great. He has this depth sometimes... his soul has been through more than I could ever explain to him. He's far more than he could ever really comprehend. He's not privy to that kind of information, you know? It's just not the way it works where he is, in his plane. We're sent to help. It's part of our karma, those like me. And then there are others whose karma it is to kind of do as I direct, which is, of course, what Eric says for us to do. But I think that he was just kind of complaining about that. What he doesn't understand is that because we know what his soul has done and where it has excelled and where it still has lessons to learn, we aren't going to bend to the complaining of his egos. When he is clear, still... when he is in nature, not distracted by anything, well... he never complains. He feels a part of All That Is. And he's right; he's closer to God than he can really understand with his mind. We never hear from his egos when he feels like that. He may not be comfortable, but he is at peace. 

But... when his mind takes over and he wants distraction from the discomfort we allow to be there as a teacher he has shown that he is willing to sacrifice the growth of his soul and his peace for a temporary respite. And when we don't follow his orders in this regard... I think he likened it to letting him drive the bus - when we don't allow that - oh, he will throw a tantrum that would put any two-year old to shame. Except he doesn't kick and scream, he just refuses to help himself. He numbs out, watches movies, listens to music that is discordant and just allows this despair to take him. He has the tools, but he gets too far down the road and he won't use them. We have to wait until he makes a step in our direction, then we can jump in again and help him.     
     

Egoic Posession - Short Essay

I knew a man once that was possessed of selfish entities called “egos”. Their intent was to accomplish their own purposes no matter the expense to the other egos or to the soul of the man. Pulling him this way and that, the man’s soul suffered a type of spiritual asphyxiation.

One day, the man was able to get out of the egoic forest and he saw his soul as bright as the sun suffering in their shade. That was all it took.

From that point on, as long as he kept his eye on his soul rather than whichever ego was loudest at the moment, his soul breathed in growth and the man himself knew joy. The egos still exist, but they are no longer in charge. The man’s soul uses the ego, rather than the other way around. 

And the soul walks unencumbered.

Spirit and Soul - Essay / Story

Passing you on the road, I noted your bag full of sun kissed stones, some rainwater washed and polished by clear water to an unearthly sheen.  Your skin glowed, radiant. I stopped and asked what you were doing in the land of the beginnings of the caves.  

“I am a being of light,” you gushed. “I have found my bliss. Now I am walking towards new adventures.”

As we spoke, you talked about the things you have come to believe and that you are looking forward to teaching others so they can find their bliss as well. You spoke of your tribe, your many friends, the great gatherings, the dancing, the cuddle-puddles and love that courses through your being for all life.

“I work with light beings and seek spirit wherever I go,” you said with a lilting canter that seemed to say you knew little of anything related to the kind of effort that was my daily taskmaster.

A small shock of jealousy shot through my insides. Seeing it, it ran from its hiding place back into the earth where I sent it, almost automatically, as I had done hundreds of times before.

When I didn’t respond immediately except to smile a congratulations to you, you seemed to notice my appearance for the first time.

I was dirty, as if I had been living in a cave for months. This was appropriate, because I had been.

My skin was its’ natural, non-sunbleached color. My eyes looked tired, devoid of humor.

I had no bag, but I had bulging pockets. You looked at them with some interest for a moment, but as they appeared to be dripping a bloody substance you declined to ask what my treasure was. I couldn’t have told you anyways. You would never understand why I would want what took me months to find. It wasn’t just the treasure that was bleeding anyway; it had also cost my own blood to get it and I was still unhealed, leaking through my clothes.

You asked what I had learned, rummaging through my cave.

I said that I knew very little, but that I had acquired wisdom, and compassion, and insight that did not require eyesight. I told you that I had met wandering parts of myself and reintegrated them, and that I used animals to assist me that, while helpful, could not necessarily be described as fun to work with.

You looked at me, concerned and confused.

“I work with soul,” I explained. “Where you gather what sits upon the ground sparkling in the sunlight, I dig and hunt. You work in the light; I, the darkness. You eschew evil. I seek the evil, learn its language, befriend it and trick it into revealing what it is hiding so I can decide if it lives or dies. You stay away from fear. I have nothing to fear because I have learned how to use my gifts to bring my own light into the darkness. I know how to hear the water whisper to me and I trust the big cats. I have few friends, but we are a solitary lot, and most of us are insane. A cuddle puddle is not going to happen. If it did, I sure wouldn’t want to be there.”

You looked taken aback, and then sorry for me. You were about to speak, but I interrupted you.

“It’s not a problem,” I said, shaking my head with a smile and raising my hand. “I’ve done what you do and I will again. But for this lifetime and maybe the next two or three, I am doing the deep work of soul. Spirit will take care of itself. It will always exist in the sunshine, guarded by sprites, elves, pixies and fairies – and I know the passwords they seek. I need to be alone this time. I need to mine, to seek the hard and dark things. To kill where necessary and to drink the blood of the wounds to process them for my own benefit.      

You smiled, seeming to comprehend and accept. You touched me gently on the shoulder as a friend would that wanted to give comfort. I felt your warmth, your acceptance of my solitary path.

Saying nothing, you sighed and continued your journey, walking slowly to the north.