I did a “gratitude” meditation exercise two nights ago, and it ended up going almost four hours. (Fortunately for me, at advanced levels you can trade some meditation time for sleep.)
The technique is to put your mind in the area of your heart and express things you’re thankful for, including this crazy body I have, all of you, and in the end, basically everything.
If it helps you can start by feeling love for one being — such as Zeus — and work out from there.
A soul that temporarily has a body
At some point it really hits you that I’m some soul that’s pushing this vehicle that was named “Alvin” around, and YOU are also some other individual soul. So when YOU don’t do what I want, that’s okay, because you’re another student here in Earth School. Basically, MY soul needs to give YOUR soul that freedom to work your stuff out.
(Like maybe I could suggest that you don’t drive at full speed off that mental cliff up ahead, but if you do, you’re an independent soul and that’s your situation to work out.)
Feel the meditation in your bones
When you do this type of meditation deeply and really feel it in your bones, you can bring all that love and compassion back here into the world.
Returning to the physical world
Yesterday I had to go out in the physical world, and some people did things that briefly made me angry. But then you can kinda stop and imagine everything in that person’s life that led up to the behavior you’re seeing right now.
So you look at that person’s soul and realize they’re driving their body around this physical plane, and they’re trapped in their ego. And you think, “You know, more power to your soul. I see you, and if I were YOU, I might Thelma and Louise off that cliff even faster than you. But rock on, do what you gotta do. As long as you’re not harming someone else, this is your ride.” (i.e., you’re racking up your own karmic bill.)
Helping others?
Today I was still able to bring the gratitude lessons into the physical world, and really love some strangers who would have otherwise irritated me. You find that you almost want to walk up to them and help them, but I didn’t do that, not today. (Maybe I’m still just sane enough not to try to help everyone get through the grocery store.)
When you fail at gratitude and compassion in the real world
A few days ago I had a much harder time doing that. I was standing in line at this homemade pie place near Estes Park, Colorado, and a few older women in front of me were going incredibly slow. My first thought was that it would have been kind of them to ask me if I knew what I wanted, and if so, they would let me go first.
And then, just to make things worse one of them asked the clerk, “Are these fresh?”
My brain nearly exploded and I thought, “You’re in a f-ing Pie Store where they literally make the f-ing pies ten feet from where we’re standing; why would you ask that?”
And then the slowest of the slow people turns and looks at me like she could hear my thoughts.
So I lost it for a few moments because they were so slow, but then her reaction brought a wee bit of compassion to me.
Then I remembered Ram Dass and my gratitude/compassion training, and I thought, “Well, she must have had some reason for asking that.”
And on cue she says to the clerk, “We were at another place recently and got something that was stale (I couldn’t hear that part). That’s why I was asking.”
It was like — Wow! Zing! Bam! Pow! — first she baited me, kicked me off the cliff, and then showed me myself. Like she was a Bodhisattva, or one of Carlos Santana’s angels, and she did all this TO ME to make me see that my silly little ego is still right here for everyone to see.
After that I quickly calmed down and thought, “Right on ‘Soul Inside That Lady.’ You got me, you taught me.” At this point I went from wanting to kick her out of the store to wanting to help her.
(I’m aware that there are other ways to interpret this interaction, but that’s the way it felt.)
Earth School
As another bit of gratitude, many thanks to a friend named “E” who was one of the first people to share the term “Earth School” with me. I have seen it several times since then, in literature going back to at least the 1970s, but I believe E was the first person I know who used this term.
~ September 23, 2022
books by alvin
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