I just woke up from a series of dreams that I had awakened from while dreaming. It started off when I was rehearsing for a movie. I was one of the three main characters in the movie. However, I wasn’t quite sure what the movie was about, which was a little disconcerting. So when the director asked the three of us to improvise a scene with the image of snow as the main theme, I began winging it until I got to the point of telling one of the others, as I placed my hand over his heart in a very solemn way, that…I then had to stop and ask the director: “Where am I going with this? What is this movie about?” Just when he was going to tell me his phone rang and he said, “Sorry guys, but the producer wants this to be a musical!” “What the hell?!”I walked away, lamenting the fact that I had not joined a musical; for singing was not my specialty and I was one of the three main characters! All of a sudden I woke up. Well, not exactly woke up as coming back to this level of consciousness that I am writing this in, but into a place between states, I guess you might say. And I said to myself: “What does it matter? It is just a dream.” So I plunged back into the dream with an acceptance to enjoy whatever came my way.
I entered the next part of the dream riding a motorcycle, thinking about the movie (which turned out to be about Gunga Din) and I came up to a narrow bridge. I was uncertain as to where to stop to let the oncoming traffic come through, when a bike pulled up beside me. I knew it was a police officer before I even looked. I looked over and he is pulling out his ticket book. “Did I stop too far forward?” I timidly asked. He nodded his head and began to write me up. Then I pulled back to that In-Between space and reminded myself: “What does it matter? It is just a dream.” I came back and immediately the officer said, “Are you going to be in Gunga Din?” Yes, I said. And he tore up the ticket.
The scene changed and I was a teacher ready to pass over my 8th grade class to my successor. The students were finishing up an artistic project and some of them were cutting out graphics for their work. Now in Waldorf education, we have the students do their own work and have them stay away from the media as much as possible. Well, the new teacher had a conniption when she saw these graphic pieces being placed into their main lesson books; I just pulled her aside and said, “I used to be really concerned about such matters. But I have come to realize that in the end it really doesn’t matter. What is most important is having the students feel good about themselves and to be creative in whatever way they see fit, especially when they are older.” And I left.
And I woke up. We get so worked up about so many things—the Thousand Things. How many raised voices can be heard in a household over things and events that, when it is time to move on to the other level of consciousness we call death, will mean absolutely nothing. The only thing that will be remembered or re-experienced is the feeling of being hurt or hurting. We hold so dearly to opinions as though they were absolute truths, yet when watched over time they will fade and change like wisps of morning fog. I pray every day that I value what is Valuable and see only what is True. What is Valuable? That which does not change, that is untainted by time. God, All That Is, the Inexpressible. And what is True? To see God in all things, in every event, shimmering on the other side of the shadows of our world of fleeting forms. To remember and to see that, at all times, is to be at last awake. The world does not need to be changed, nor the people around us; we just need to wake up and see God smiling back at us as us. So when some event comes your way that wants to shake you up, just stop a moment, take a deep breath and connect to the real You who is watching it all like the sun shining upon everything, and relax, remembering that it is just a dream. . . .
I entered the next part of the dream riding a motorcycle, thinking about the movie (which turned out to be about Gunga Din) and I came up to a narrow bridge. I was uncertain as to where to stop to let the oncoming traffic come through, when a bike pulled up beside me. I knew it was a police officer before I even looked. I looked over and he is pulling out his ticket book. “Did I stop too far forward?” I timidly asked. He nodded his head and began to write me up. Then I pulled back to that In-Between space and reminded myself: “What does it matter? It is just a dream.” I came back and immediately the officer said, “Are you going to be in Gunga Din?” Yes, I said. And he tore up the ticket.
The scene changed and I was a teacher ready to pass over my 8th grade class to my successor. The students were finishing up an artistic project and some of them were cutting out graphics for their work. Now in Waldorf education, we have the students do their own work and have them stay away from the media as much as possible. Well, the new teacher had a conniption when she saw these graphic pieces being placed into their main lesson books; I just pulled her aside and said, “I used to be really concerned about such matters. But I have come to realize that in the end it really doesn’t matter. What is most important is having the students feel good about themselves and to be creative in whatever way they see fit, especially when they are older.” And I left.
And I woke up. We get so worked up about so many things—the Thousand Things. How many raised voices can be heard in a household over things and events that, when it is time to move on to the other level of consciousness we call death, will mean absolutely nothing. The only thing that will be remembered or re-experienced is the feeling of being hurt or hurting. We hold so dearly to opinions as though they were absolute truths, yet when watched over time they will fade and change like wisps of morning fog. I pray every day that I value what is Valuable and see only what is True. What is Valuable? That which does not change, that is untainted by time. God, All That Is, the Inexpressible. And what is True? To see God in all things, in every event, shimmering on the other side of the shadows of our world of fleeting forms. To remember and to see that, at all times, is to be at last awake. The world does not need to be changed, nor the people around us; we just need to wake up and see God smiling back at us as us. So when some event comes your way that wants to shake you up, just stop a moment, take a deep breath and connect to the real You who is watching it all like the sun shining upon everything, and relax, remembering that it is just a dream. . . .
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