In the apocalypse of my awakening, there followed a period of such sublime disinterest in the world and its shenanigans, I wondered if I would ever get off the sofa and do anything again.

I likely had an annoying half-smile on my lips and a Kirlian photograph would surely have captured a bliss halo around my head.

Artist and surrealism master Salvador Dali has long struck me as an enlightened madman, a fellow with an inside joke on the nature of reality. The man was on to something. He knew the seen-world was a charade.

His treatise on the sacred mustache is better than a zen koan: “Since I don’t smoke, I decided to grow a mustache – it is better for the health. However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I offered them politely to my friends: “Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?” Nobody dared to touch them. This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches.” 

Another intoxicated with enlightenment soul with a perpetual sacred smirk is Lisa Cairns. Her you-tube “just this” videos, post awakening, capture the super-chillin, all-is-supremely-well bubble of love—a spell of well-being that can last a long, long time.

For me, it was about two months. Then, I suddenly noticed an urge to do more than just sit around, stoned on equanimity. This movement became the muse-driven demiurge to write this blog, to write for elephant journal, to create a new blog, to write all day and night. You’d think my muse was a methamphetamine junkie, loaded with non-stop high-speed inspiration.

Then, unexpectedly, I wrote a blockbuster called A Call to the Sacred Masculine: Ten Daring Invitations from the Divine Feminine. And suddenly I was under fire from angry men and women, a vocal minority who hated the article, and even seemed to hate me for writing it. Mudslinging and vitriolic emails flooded my inbox. Public commentary verged on mean and nasty with the kind of attack energy that needs a restraining order.

And I noticed this: I didn’t care that I was hated. Or that what I create makes some people angry. (Though, if this keeps up, I might need a body-guard down the road—Salmon Rushdie, I get it.)

But I don’t care that my words are applauded by some, and jeered at by others. Because I am just playing. Playing the role of writer. Having fun creating provocative pieces about love, sex, enlightenment and gender. I am not a writer, I am simply writing.

And am pretty well done navel gazing and trying to figure out the meaning of enlightenment. I’ve left the half-dozen FB groups I was added to or joined, open groups like Enlightenment Now, or Awakening as One, or more the closed and secret groups where the heavy-hitters and groupies of the non-dual world like to gather. A lot goes on there, in terms of comparing enlightenment notes and debating non-dual philosophy. Trust me, unless you are a shut-in or inmate, online living gets boring pretty quickly.

Because really, waking up (or what ever you call it) is not about turning a shift in consciousness into a career in FB comments and virtual chat. It’s about this real world where you get to play with God, as god.

It’s just that simple. Even Shakespeare knew that “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women, merely players.” And the Hindus have long known reality is lila, the game or sport of god, a playground of the divine impulse. The Greeks made a point of the Olympian gods being mischievous and high-stakes players, toying with mortals like game pieces.

It all points in the same direction—lighten up. Stop taking life and yourself so damn seriously.

It’s a f*cking game. Are you going to spend your whole life believing you are the pawn on the board of life and whining about the moves your life takes.

Or why not instead just laugh at the whole damn tricky set up, where you are both the game piece and the chess master.  When you remember this, the game stops being a series of defensive manuevers and last-ditch saves and instead becomes a daring escapade with high-flying leaps of love.

Leaps into a new way of living, where nothing, really nothing, bothers you. Even your own  occasional upsets, tears and fears are simply happening squares on the game board. Even losing is just fine.

Be curious.

Could this game called your life be a lot more fun if you were invested less in it? If you were more willing to be played by the gods, and you played your role with abandon.

I leave you in the hands of Hafiz, mystic poet and word maestro.

“TRIPPING OVER JOY

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.”
― Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

Awareness is here, (laughing and playing the role of writer).

Lori Ann

 

 

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