Namaste. Intrepid adventurer in me greets the same in you. When we meet in this open space, a path unfolds before us; varied walking paces and countless styles, but one path.

Some step on the cracks. Others avoid them for fear of breaking their mother’s back.
Some walk with a playful gait. Others lumber as if burdened with a great weight.
Some sing while they walk. Others mutter cynical expletives under their strained breath.
There is only one path. It has no particular destination. It is the process of human existence.

The problem is that much of the time you are sleep- walking. You don’t know who you are, or how you got here. Worse still, you don’t often enough pause to acknowledge that in every moment you breathe Life into existence. You breathe in and inhale the warm karmic aroma of a 14 billion year evolutionary process. You breathe out and exhale your own unique creation. The world cracks through its own shell and is reborn, once again, moment by moment, through you.

On the surface, your life is ordinary. You have a job and hobbies. You have a family and errands. You have a house and closets full of memories and worries. But beneath the surface your essence is awakening to something astonishing; your large Self. This is the adventure from your self in isolation to the Self in communal interdependence on all things. You discover yourself to be part of an infinite process, a great chain of being. The journey beneath the surface transforms your ordinary life into something extraordinary and joyful.

The gates of heaven and hell are wide open before you, dream and nightmare loom. Are you living the dream, or are you trapped, terrified, in a nightmare? Both gates are open, and it’s the same path either way. The path through the gates of heaven offers an awareness that arises from beneath the surface and fills ordinary life with extraordinary meaning. The path through the gates of hell is the same path, but it is mindless sleep-walking.

Today I am exploring Dan Millman’s third spiritual law; process. The first two laws were choice and balance. The third is process, by which he means your life path, or the dream you are following. Many religions, including Christianity, have described this as ‘the way’. Remember that Jesus described himself as the way. Note that he did not that say he was the destination. He said he was the way. As followers of Jesus, or just as those who feel akin to his spirit, you are people on the way, people of the way. What is the connection between the way and the American dream? In particular, at a time when the nation is rife with anxiety and introspection, what is the American dream? At a time, when economic and existential crises have no end in sight and no clear path forward, is the American dream a future destination or a quality of life right now?

Joe the Plumber and the American Dream

During the week, we had the third Presidential Debate. What three words were heard most in this debate; more than ‘War in Iraq” or “economy in crisis”?  It was “Joe the Plumber”. Joe the Plumber was a reincarnation of the mythical Joe Six Pack, the American battler. Joe was the latest political pawn, and has provided at least a brief distraction. It was reported that Jo was angry because he felt that taxes were getting in the way of his right to pursue the American dream. Joe wanted to purchase the Plumbing business he worked for. He felt that business taxes would make that impossible. Well, getting a loan might be more of a problem, and becoming a licensed plumber might be a second hurdle, but in any case his concern was taxes. Joe the Plumber said he was “being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream.” Joe feels that he works hard and shouldn’t have to share his wealth.

Joe the Plumber and many others who resist distributing wealth through taxes misunderstand the American dream. It is so often used to describe individual wealth. But when John Lennon sang, “You may say I’m a dreamer” I don’t think he was talking about acquiring greater wealth. And when Martin Luther King said , “I have a dream that is deeply rooted in the American dream”, I don’t imagine he was thinking of a three car garage. And when the Hebrew prophet Joel announced, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions,” I’m sure that the visions and dreams were not about larger flocks of sheep.
And when Jesus the carpenter shared his dream for a kingdom of radical community, I don’t imagine he was talking about a few getting wealthy while the rest languished. Jesus the carpenter brought to the world a radical egalitarian vision, where wealth, power and spiritual resources were distributed fairly among all, no matter what their social status.

The notion of an American dream comes from James Adam’s 1931 book The Epic of America. This is how Adams described the American dream- "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

Like so many concepts, the American dream has lost its original meaning. Individual wealth is fine, but it exists only on the surface. If individual wealth deludes a person from their relatedness to others or from what exists beneath the surface, the fullest stature of a person, then it is a nightmare. Isn’t the nightmare of individual greed and inner delusion what led to this economic crisis in the first place?

Do you see the point? The path to the dream and the path to the nightmare are the same path. Both are the path of wealth creation. One is walked in interdependence and inner awareness. The other is sleep walking in isolation and short sightedness.

Heaven and Hell are the Same

This is a profoundly spiritual truth. It’s captured so well in the story that Elizabeth Gilbert told in Eat Pray Love. Gilbert met an old Hindu sage, Kebut, one of the happiest people she had ever met. He taught her two meditations; one “to up” and the other “to down”. First he described the “up” meditation, where he goes to increasingly high places before eventually arriving at heaven. Gilbert asked him about heaven. He said, “Beautiful. Everything is beautiful there. Every person is beautiful there. Everything beautiful to eat is there. Everything is love there. Heaven is love.” Then he described the “down” meditation where he went to increasingly low places before eventually arriving at hell. ”Gilbert asked him what it’s like in hell. He said, “same like in heaven. Universe is circle, Liss.” ….. “to up, to down – all same, at end.” She asked him,  “Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?” He answered, “Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell, you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it is better to go up, Liss.” He laughed. She asked, “You mean you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell – the destinations – are the same thing anyway?” “same-same” he said. “Same in end, so better to be happy on journey.”

How marvelous! It’s not about the destination. Religion has spent too long pontificating about destinations, keeping people co-dependent by claiming some absolute certainty about an afterlife. Whether its self righteousness because you believe you are going to heaven, or fear because you have been told you are going to hell, do not be distracted. Progressive Christianity claims no absolute certainty about the afterlife, either way. Instead of focusing on the destination, progressive religion focuses on the process. Your life is infinitely connected to all that comes after you, and all that came before you. You live your life on the one path, attempting to be as balanced and peaceful as you can be. The path offers all sorts of circumstances, some of which are in your control and some of which are out of your control. Your happiness is a product of your mind, your inner stature.

Neither Good Nor Bad; But Thinking Makes It So

There’s a fascinating exchange between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. They are discussing the merits and corruption of Denmark.

Hamlet; Denmark's a prison.

Rosencrantz; Then is the world one.

Hamlet; A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

Rosencrantz; We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet; Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Your path is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.

Choose a Path With Heart

What does it mean to choose a path with heart? It means to live the path you are on with heart.  The problem is not the path. The problem is your mind’s incessant need to create drama. Salvation is not escape from the path. Salvation is a transformed awareness that you create your own peace. Sure, there will be things that hit you from out of your control, like sickness and pain, and without doubt people will hurt you in undeserved ways. But you will choose how you respond, and in your mind make it better or worse.

Consider the story of Dominique Bauby, a successful editor at Elle magazine in Paris. While driving one day he suffered a stroke. When he awoke he realized that he was completely paralyzed. He had no movement in his body, and no voice. Only his left eye lid was in his control. The horror of his situation was immense, unimaginable; to be trapped without expression, but being fully aware and feeling everything happening to him. Even his family talked over him as if he was already dead. This was the sort of suffering that seemed to be out of his control. He could be forgiven for feeling like life’s victim.

His greatest anguish and worry was the loss of his voice, until he remembered what the French philosopher Voltaire once wrote, “your voice is your mind”. Suddenly life changed for Bauby. A speech therapist realized that he was trying to communicate and devised a system of yes and no answers using his eyelid; two blinks for yes, one blink for no. With this the nurse could identify each letter Bauby indicated. Bauby went on to write a beautiful book in this way The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, describing the paradox of living life strapped to an anchor in an ocean of stillness while outstretching the wings of his mind like a butterfly. On the surface, Bauby’s body had failed him. Beneath the surface, something extraordinary was emerging. Bauby’s blinking eye was his salvation. One day, a physician came in to sew shut his bad eye as the lack of control of it was damaging his cornea. Like the worst nightmare, he wanted to yell at the doctor to not sew his good eye as well. Bauby blinked away madly. Finally, as a form of meditation he imagined himself returning to the womb, going back into the stillness from which he had come like some journey in reverse. His imagination kept him from going mad. The doctor did not sew his good eye shut. Sadly, he died several months later.

Your path is what it is. Maybe it’s a relatively easy path. Maybe it’s a painful path like Bauby’s path. Maybe you feel that the American dream is elusive for you, or maybe you feel that the American dream is a long way from where this country has headed in recent years. The path is the same. It leads nowhere in particular, but to more of the same path. The way you walk on the path is your choice. This is where you find salvation.

Salvation is A Path of Contentment

A woman is walking along the road to meet God. She walks past a man who is sitting by the side of the road, almost melting under the heat of the sun. He is meditating, and somehow believes that his suffering will bring him salvation. When the woman says she is going to meet God, he asks her if she will ask God the question, “How long until I find salvation?” The woman agrees and walks on. She then comes upon another man. This man is under the shade of a tree. He is singing and dancing and eating fresh fruit. He asks the woman to ask God the same question. She agrees and walks on. She finally gets to God. They meet and talk, and then she leaves. She comes to the man, dying under the sun. She tells him, “salvation will come, but it will take 6 life times.” The man breaks down weeping. She then comes to the man under the shade of the tree. She says to him, “salvation will come in as many life times as there are leaves on this tree.” The man smiles and says, “Is that all?” Is that all? He had found his salvation. And so can you? Salvation is not some future destination, and salvation is not an escape to a better path. Salvation is right here and right now, when you access what lies beneath the surface, and claim your fullest stature as a person in community with all that is.