This simple dream opens up a huge territory, and really takes us into the heart of what it means to commit ourselves to being in service to something greater than ourselves, i.e., the purposes of creation. And it also shows the power of freedom of choice, because in every moment we can say “no” to creation and “yes” to our personal wants and needs. This shows the depth of what it takes – a constant choosing – to keep our feet on the spiritual path – in fact, that act of constant choosing is the path itself. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
Jeane: So in this next dream it’s like I’m working. I’m working somewhere like a welfare office that offers services to people of some form that they come for. There’s a major reorganization going on. And you feel like when they come down and announce this reorganization like maybe they’ve gotten rid of some of the top management even, because they want things done different to serve better – but they’re pleased with the work I’m doing. However, what I didn’t expect is they’re changing our hours, so instead of working like, let’s say, 8:00am to 5:00pm or something, we’re going to be working 10:00am to 7:00pm.
And there’s something about this, like this change in hours which means that it’s going to limit life in a little bit that you don’t go into work until 10:00am. And that makes me wonder if maybe I should go back home and be living with Dad again, because it just wasn’t quite a change that I expected. And it feels like when you work those hours you’re not going to have much of your own personal life. Anyway, that’s all.
John: That’s an interesting dilemma that everyone faces. You see this all the time, in that a person will take and maybe they’ll do something that could be considered meritorious, a breakthrough. Then there’s the idea that now they’re entitled to a reprieve, or a stepping back more into the personal.
And what happens is they’re not understanding, and it’s hard to understand this because this is not something that is mental, or something that’s logical or rational, but as you open up or are affected by conscious energy in a particular way, it’s easier to be unconscious than it is to be conscious, and so something is invigorated or pressed that rises to the fore. It’s easy, then, to think almost like you’ve done your dues or something like that, and so then you tend to step back so that you don’t have to quite be at the same acuity that’s been quickened.
And when you do that you’re trying to make personal choices, which you now feel that you’re entitled to do, or entitled to make. And everyone does it. But the danger is, is the degree to which it veils the responsibility of the clarity of understanding that has opened up when you had the conscious effect or push occur in your life.
And so, again, this is back to the theming of the contrast. Whenever something is put in your face, as a possibility or potentiality, the way you learn is you recognize how that is important as an aspect of your beingness, that you make time for, or turn your attention towards, as something that is needing to unfold, that unfolds in relationship to you understanding yourself as part of a greater whole.
So you’re presented with something like that, and then, at the same time, you always have the other option of making personal choices and choices that have to do with your idea of responsibility that kind of correspond with old patterns and mannerisms of your nature. And the reason it’s presented like that is so that you sort the two out, so that you really do make a decision, you make a choice, that’s in cohesion with what is naturally unfolding inside. But you’re always given the option and the choice.
So your dreams, you did this three different times where you took and you looked at first one side and then another, and one side and the other, and the other side you can look at can be 180-degree polarity. It could be something that you don’t even really agree with necessarily, but if you don’t look at it and you don’t recognize and put it into its proper balance and place, then nothing can happen in either direction.
The reason why it’s like this is because one direction or the other has problems. You have to include both directions. In other words, those who aspire just to become say saints and take and go into this way of being that annihilates all kinds of things that are awkward or hard in the world because they hold onto a particular mannerism that is steering themselves in a particular way – they can’t go very far, either. They can go and go and go in one particular direction, but they’re going to be hit with all kinds of mayhem and confusion in the outer, that will constantly harass and bother them, and they will actually start to look kind of sickly if they keep maintaining the one direction only as if that is the end all, be all. You have to include the polarity of things because you are in the outer, and you do have to deal with how things are all jumbled in the physical. You can’t just reject that.
And so when you take and you have a connection inside, that’s an inner connection – it’s not really talked about that much in Sufism, but you have the corresponding opposite side, too. It’s almost like things have a one-to-one correspondence, a certain trust in one direction requires a certain back step or something, or so it appears, into creation, so you can’t take and run out a schematic in one particular direction to the denial of the other.
It’s true of however you approach life. I mean, you see these various schematics from the standpoint where you would see someone who’s big in meditation and in the saintly quality, and you realize that they’re basket cases in terms of function in the outer. And then you can look at another person who’s extremely successful in the outer, but has no inner recognition of value because he’s caught up completely in the outer.
Are they really that different? If the two could come together as an integrated component you would really have something as a balanced individual, but the one that’s all caught up in power and control and very, very good at what they do on the outer and very successful in the outer, is kind of the other side of the coin from the person that’s the saintly trait that has completely let go of things but would be a basket case and would be a peculiarity in terms of the outer.
To download this file, Right Click (for PCs) or Control Click (for Macs) and Save: The Polarity of Things
