I love being a father. Kids are awesome in so many ways… but one big way is that they tend to be closer to source. That is to say, they are honest, perceptive, and spiritual beings from birth, and if you have the opportunity to spend time with kids - especially before schools and video games kill off their sensitivity - you get a chance to see that awareness in action.
What’s so funny about it is how some kids just innately know how to tune out us “grown ups” - although it can also be a bit bewildering or outright frustrating if you are not tuned into it and appreciate it. But yes - I do believe Charles Schultz knew what he was doing… that “whaa wha whaaaa” voice of the teacher is what we should all practice hearing when we are being told to believe something or do something against our nature… against our better sense.
I was recently reminded of the inner genius of children when my daughter was talking to me about her fears recently. She’s only 6, but is keenly attentive. We were discussing how we can be afraid of so many different things, but I was trying to explain how we have the power to also think up nice things, and we began to practice by dreaming up the perfect banana split.
That’s when she said - “sometimes, I think of my mind like a TV. Only sometimes it feels like the channel changer is broken”.
What a beautiful analogy for her to make up. We then practiced some more, and talked about how even when it seems like the channel changer is broken, we do indeed have the power to change it… we have this amazing God-given ability to dream and imagine good things, even when it seems like only bad things are “out there”. I believe it was a very empowering experience for her.
Earlier in the week, my 12 year old had come home from school and pronounced quite emphatically - “why do so many people choose to be miserable?”
He was talking about the kids at school, and how he decided to have fun - no matter what - and how noticeable it was that the other kids were simply choosing to be miserable, with all their complaining and whining.
How awesome is that? Not only was he able to empower himself to create the mood he wanted to have, but the contrast he detected around him simply reinforced his choice!
Of course, he was troubled a bit by the same thing I hear so many of us talk about… which is to say, so many of us seem very concerned about our friends, our partners, coworkers, neighbors…. the ones we love and the ones we share this world with.
There is so much we can do to manage our own emotional journey, and find our own bliss - but if we are truly honest with ourselves - I do think many of us genuinely want to do this with our significant others, with our friends.
Years ago, I remember reading material brought forth by Brother Bartholomew - and what caught my attention the most was an idea that we evolve through different states or levels of consciousness as a group. Our kindred spirits are in different places at different times… some may be here in physical form, while others may remain solely in a form-less energetic state.
But what was key was the idea that we all have a vested interest in moving ahead together.
Whether I believe this in absolute terms or not (language is an act of creation, and is ALWAYS open to interpretation, from my perspective) — what’s nice is that this concept offers up a middle ground between the idea that you are alone dreaming the dream - and the opposite extreme - that you can only achieve true nirvana when every single soul on the planet has been freed from the bondage of illusion. Instead, this idea suggests that we do indeed move through levels as part of a group, and we have a vested interest in helping one another.
Likewise, I believe that the group effects one another… at a level we do not fully grasp at a conscious level. In other words, when one asks for help, the others reach out to help - whether they know it or not. In this same way, I believe the group-mind chooses the channel through which it experiences reality.
Think of the power the masses have when it comes to television. Through a series of many individual choices, there arises a swell of attention - which in turn, drives many other decisions and creative and market energies. It is really no different when it comes to energy, and the way in which we give our attention to life.
Although it goes well beyond my understanding of physics, I can only imagine the difference between one positive vibe and many such vibes all moving in an orchestrated fashion. Just as one beautiful note can be pleasing to the ear, a symphony can bring about near ecstasy.
This is, in part, why we care so much about others. It is beautiful to tune our own emotions, and ride the perfect wave that life sends our way. But to be in perfect synchronicity with the Universe, we seem to all know - at one level or another - that this happens only when we are doing so together.
The child that we were when we came forth is still alive and well within us all. And now, if we are fortunate and alive and awake, we have a wise old soul to join in the dance. Together, in harmony, I invite us to collectively change the channel from where we are today, where we seem to be attached to so many untruths.
We need to dance through the fires of our own drama in order to burn away the nonsense, and emerge with a renewed awareness of the pure energy at work inside each of us. That’s what change means to me - renewal, new life, and along with it, a renewed sense of the spirit within.
