LIFE – Let It Flow Easy!!
In one of our sessions, my teacher very casually but with great depth in his voice said – ” ‘You’ are the U in the Universe.” It was one of those Aha moments for me when I first heard it. And then I started noticing the quote used in various spiritual texts, quotes prompting on my phone’s screen reflecting the same message- as if the Universe was trying to assist me on this awakening journey of mine, to see the beauty of this life, of all its experiences, of the fluctuations between utter chaos and madness to moments of sanity, from happiness to sadness, from purposefulness to absolute meaninglessness in life.
A few days back I was brought back to that state of inspiration when I watched the then Oscar nominated movie to the best animated Oscar Movie SOUL. I was so inspired, that I ended up watching it twice back to back, paying attention to every single dialogue, expression, music, animation.
The story is about Joe Gardner, a middle-school band teacher, who loves Jazz and he is good at it but his life hasn’t quite gone the way he had expected in terms of traditional success, money, stability. But when he travels to another realm and fights his journey back to Earth to accomplish what we had waited his whole life for, he discovers the real purpose of LIFE.
The opening scene is Joe teaching his class, and then asks one of his students, Connie to play her trombone. As she picks up her instrument and starts playing, she creates beautiful music which even takes Joe by a pleasant surprise and as she continues playing she travels into another world, oblivious of her surroundings, till someone in her class giggles and the other students make fun of her. And then Joe shares with the students, while playing the Piano, his story of falling in love with music and says, ” That’s, when I KNEW, I was born to play.”
– This scene reminded me of one of Rumi’s quote “Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.” When we love doing something, have the passion for that thing, we give it our total attention and focus. Its the thing that makes our Heart smile. As we do that thing, with laser kind focus, with one pointed attention, like every meditation teacher tells us to have while meditating, we become one with it. When we really love what we do and are so involved in it, we literally zone out. We do that thing with The three D’s – Discipline, Dedication and Devotion , which in fact becomes our real Meditation practice. Then our Job / work is not just a 9-5 thing, we don’t spend our lives dreading weekdays waiting for weekends. Then all of life flows easy.
Joe’s part time job is then converted into Full time job, with medical insurance, pension, some form of monetary guarantee (something that we all are conditioned to aspire for), yet that doesn’t make him happy because his dream is to play music with famous Jazz artists. His relationship with his Mom is a bit tricky as she doesn’t approve of Joe’s random gigs here and there and insists on Joe confirming his permanent role the school had offered him. Whilst at his mother’s Boutique, he receives a call from his old student to come for an audition to play with one of the biggest stars of Jazz – Dorothy Williams. At his audition with Dorothy, he continues to play improvised trilling notes and soon is zoned out, transported into another world, creating soulful music which eventually finally lands him the Gig – the Gig he has been waiting for so long. Thrilled and excited, as he steps out he falls into a manhole, and finds his soul travelling into the ethereal space.
– The relationship dynamics between Joe and his mother, is a classic example of how conditioning plays a major role in the career options , our work area/ field. Very often it is this conditioning of monetary security and benefits that makes us choose our career, and it is this very same conditioning that we pass on to our children when it comes to the careers they want to pursue. How often we crush that desire / passion for want of some form of stability – financial success , societal success even if that means we or our children end up choosing careers or work options that don’t make our or their heart smile.
As Joe’s Soul travels into the ethereal space, he is in total denial of his untimely partial severance from his body, and is absolutely desperate to get back to Earth and not let his once in a lifetime opportunity go a waste. Somehow he lands into the Great Before which has been rebranded into the “You Seminar“. The You Seminar is the place, where Souls get their personalities, find their “spark” in the Hall of Everything which eventually completes their Earth pass and helps the Souls to go to Earth. At the You Seminar he is selected as the Mentor for Soul 22 who is not ready to go to Earth and experience life on Earth. She has already been mentored by famous people, yet despite all the mentoring nothing has inspired her yet, she doesn’t know what her spark is, and is unable to activate her Earth pass. As both Joe and 22 go through Joe’s life to find a moment of inspiration for 22, Joe realizes that thus far, his life has been meaningless and now he is even more desperate to get back to his body which is lying in the hospital, because he wants to make it to the gig, the ultimate opportunity he has been waiting for.
Joe and 22 eventually with the help of Moonwind who is in the “Zone” together end up on Earth – with 22 in Joe’s body and Joe in a cat. “The Zone” is the space between Earth and the Great Before where people travel into in their meditative state when they become one with the thing they are doing, but it is also the place where one finds lost Souls. Lost Souls are the Souls who are just not able to let go of their anxieties and obsessions, leaving them lost and disconnected from life.
– From my own experience, I can say that there are moments from time to time in our life, where we do question, whether our lives have been meaningful. We often end up questioning ourselves, as to what possibly could be the purpose of our lives, what’s the ultimate point of this mundane existence, where literally everything is on a repeat mode. We still have to chop woods and fetch water. We ourselves do feel like lost Souls.
Depression, anxiety, sadness, are nothing but a disconnection from life itself. All of life becomes a burden but that’s only because we have stopped counting our blessings, because we have stopped seeing and feeling the beauty of simply being alive, of being able to breathe effortlessly, to be able to taste food, smell different aromas and fragrances, to be able to see the beauty in sunrise and sunsets, to be able to touch and hug our loved ones. Our expectations of how things should be, what relationships should be, how other people should be, how can we acquire more, become more, takes away the joy of simple living and loving ourselves and others.
As Joe and 22 figure out a way to swap their positions, 22 who is now experiencing life on earth in Joe’s body, is even more aware of smell, taste, relationships, passion, and even thinks that sky watching or walking could be her “spark”. However, since Joe is absolutely desperate to do the swap, he tells her to go back to the Hall of Everything at the You Seminar to find her spark for she is finding life on Earth interesting only because she in Joe’s body.
In the meantime, since both Joe and 22 are accidentally on Earth, they are being searched for by Terry to bring them back to the Ethereal Space. As Terry brings them back into the Great Before, they realize that 22’s Earth pass has been activated. Joe and 22 enter into a disagreement as to what caused her Earth pass to activate, eventually leading to 22 thinking that she has no purpose. Frustrated and sad, 22 ends up throwing her Earth pass to Joe and becomes a lost Soul.
– The dialogues, expressions, convey more than what the eyes can see and the ears can hear. There is dialogue where 22 expresses her fear for not wanting to experience life on earth. She then thanks Joe for showing her the purpose, and very innocently says that “may be sky watching is my thing, may be walking is my thing, I am really good at walking” to which Joe says “that’s not purpose, those are just regular old living. ”
How often we get stuck in the purpose of life question and based on those parameters become the Judges of our own life and label it as a failure or meaningless. How often we think that only if we become great doctors, scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, or even spiritual seekers our life purpose is achieved.
The other dialogue which touched me deeply was between Jerry, the counsellor and Joe when Joe is curious to know what possibly could have activated 22’s Earth pass, what could be her purpose, her “Spark”. Jerry in response to Joe’s question responds ” We don’t assign purposes, where did you get that idea? …...A spark isn’t a soul’s purpose. Oh You mentors and your passions. Your purposes. Your meanings of life. So Basic.”
May be the biggest hurdle in us experiencing our lives fully and making it complicated is this very thing about having passion or purpose to make our lives successful. But the main purpose of passion or spark like Rumi said was to find an area of work which you love doing. So that life becomes more blissful, happy. On an average we spend 8-10 hours at our work, which is effectively 1/3rd of 24 hours, or more than half of our waking hours ( assuming that one sleeps for 8 hours). Imagine spending 1/3rd of your life, or half of your wakeful hours, doing the work which you don’t like just for a pay check, thinking that, that pay check will bring you happiness. On the contrary, because of pursuing something that we don’t like, dealing with Monday blues, being unhappy and discontented, we end up using that very pay check to buy anti depressants or seeing Psychiatrists or psychologists or inflict upon our body substances ( caffeine, alcohol, smoking or even drugs) which slowly and gradually break down the body.
As Joe enters back into his body, runs to the show and seizes the moment of his life that he has been waiting for , performing one of his best performances with the Jazz artist. And ultimately puts up the question to Dorothy – “So what Happens next? ” This is the moment when Joe feels that whilst he had been waiting for this day, his entire life, thinking that it’ll feel different, he doesn’t feel any different.
– We all set these goals for us – goals which define success. We think that once that goal is achieved, we will finally be happy, we think that we would have finally arrived. But when we achieve that goal, we realize that the goal post has shifted. And thus starts the endless pursuit for happiness, which only leads to a more disconnected, discontented life.
Here, Dorothy replies to Joe with a story about the Fish which goes to older fish, asking how to find the Ocean. The older fish tells the fish, “this is the Ocean”. The fish responds with a surprise, “this is the Ocean, this is water. I am trying to find the Ocean”.
Most of us are like the fish in the Ocean, trying to find the Ocean- seeking happiness, success, everything outside of us, through our relationships, work etc. For spiritual seekers, we truly are like the fish in the ocean, wanting to know what the ocean is like, when we are very much a part of the ocean. We seek godliness outside of us, whereas, God or Source is to be found nowhere else but within. We try hard to meditate, trying to seek enlightenment, stuck in the web of spiritual materialism, trying to find the creator outside of its art. How does one separate the God particle from God/Source. Its all within, encompassed. The separation is nothing but an illusion – like every single cell in the body – separate yet within the body, making the body.
As he goes back to his apartment, he empties his pockets and places on the piano all the things that 22 had collected throughout the day. Playing his piano, he starts to remember the moments of his life, time spent with his family, his cycle ride, the beauty of morning, evenings, fireworks, the sentiments attached to teaching, playing piano with his dad, the touch of sea on his feet, ride in the Metro, music, the beauty of being on earth in the regular old living. As a true Mentor, he then Zones himself out, finds 22 and inspires 22 to go and experience life on Earth, not because she needed a purpose but because she was ready to simply experience it. And for being a great Mentor to 22, Joe is given another chance to be on Earth. At the end Jerry asks him, ” so what do you think you’ll do, how are you going to spend your life? Joe responds, ” I don’t know, I do know I am going to live every minute of it.“
– There is no bigger purpose than experiencing life with absolute and total acceptance for whatever it offers. Our relationships are a gift, treasure to cherish. Our work is not separate from our life. We do not need a work-life balance if we truly choose to follow the spark as a means of our vocation. Remember, we are tourists here – collecting memories and experiences which only help us in our evolution. The Present moment, is the only moment when life happens. That’s why it is a GIFT.
We do not have to wait for Near Death Experiences or wait to lose someone to know that in this transient world, all the beauty is encompassed in the celebration of this experience called Life. There is a beautiful Zen saying – Before enlightenment, chop wood, fetch water. After enlightenment, also chop wood, fetch water. What changes, is the struggle, the resistance to life per se.
So choose your experiences. LIVE LIFE and Let it Flow Easy!!
Thank you for being part of my journey. And Thank you for reading.
Thank you. That was serendipitous.
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing this.