My children heard me emphasizing this point over and over throughout all of their lives: “There are no accidents in the universe, and that includes you and all that you were meant to experience and accomplish as well.” To me it is simply the only logical conclusion. If there is intelligence behind life, and there is every reason to believe that there must be, then all of that intelligence is innate in each creation of that intelligence. The source of all life is complete and entire within each of us. “All you have to do,” I would tell my children (and myself), “is to discover it for its power and perfection to be yours.” I’d like to share another excerpt from the book I wrote with my daughter Serena– Don’t Die with Your Music Still in You, in hopes that you, too, will begin to follow your heart and live a life of purpose. Remember, we all came here with some kind of music to play. ********** Be True to Yourself hayhouse/dont-die-with-your-music-still-in-you Serena Speaks: I think my parents knew that the best way to teach their children how to be true to themselves was to model it—and that’s exactly what they did. For example, my dad never dressed the way other fathers did. People used to send him T-shirts in the mail with all kinds of sayings on them, and he wore those T-shirts every day of my childhood. I remember I begged my parents to let me take cotillion (an etiquette and dance school for kids), and when it came time for the father/daughter dance, all the fathers showed up in tuxedos. My dad, on the other hand, wore khaki pants, Birkenstocks, and a T-shirt that said IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING LIFE IN PEACE. It wasn’t that he was trying to be rebellious; he just didn’t own a suit! Mom and Dad also followed their own path in terms of their relationship. They didn’t get married until they were pregnant with me—and I’m the sixth out of eight children! I asked my mom why they got married at that point, and she said it was because that’s when they both felt inclined to do so. (Personally, I think it was God’s way of preparing them for the child who was on the way—me. If they hadn’t been married before I was born, surely one of them would have run for the hills after!) One of the early memories I have of dancing to my own beat took place when I was very young, in first or second grade. We were being taught in religion class that only those who have been baptized and believe in Jesus as their savior make it to heaven. I raised my hand and asked, “But what if they live somewhere really far away where no one knows about Jesus? How could it be their fault? How could God not take them to heaven if it wasn’t their fault?” My teacher gave a vague answer that didn’t really address my growing concern for these souls who weren’t going to get to heaven. I kept pressing it, insisting that God would surely allow a little child who had never met any Christians or heard about Jesus into heaven. It seemed obvious to me that someone so young couldn’t be to blame for their lack of knowledge about Jesus. When my teacher rigidly responded that she believed you had to be baptized and accept Jesus as your savior in order to go to heaven, I recall feeling so bad for her that she thought God’s love was insensitive and, even worse, intolerant. A few years later, a similar thing happened. We were studying current events in sixth grade, and the topic of the week was immigration. To my surprise, the majority of my class believed that people who were not born in America should be “sent back to their own countries.” I remember saying something like, “But what if these people were brought here when they were babies and America is all they know? What if they work really hard and contribute to our society? Shouldn’t they have a chance to stay? Aren’t we all children of immigrants in this country?” I went to a Christian school, and was incredibly upset that my classmates had so little compassion. I was so distraught that I actually started to cry—really hard—in front of the whole class. Even though it would have been easier to sit quietly and “go with the herd,” I just couldn’t keep quiet. When I got home from school and told my parents about these distressing experiences, they told me how proud they were of me. They congratulated me for being curious and not backing down when a teacher told me an answer that felt unacceptable to me. Typical parental instructions like, “Be like everybody else,” “Try to be normal,” and “Just try fitting in” were never spoken in my home. Instead, Mom and Dad were the weirdos who were always telling my brothers and sisters and me that fitting in was unnecessary, and that some rules are meant to be broken. My parents taught me to trust my own desires, listen to my heart, and follow what I knew to be right for me. (They also made it clear that if fitting in was important to me, they were okay with that, too.) They encouraged me to abandon any beliefs on religion that didn’t feel right to me, and to let go of any beliefs about society that didn’t resonate with me. They clearly agreed with Albert Einstein, who reportedly once said that “common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.” They felt that sometimes it was best not to use common sense, but to use intuition instead. Whenever my siblings and I argued, Dad would repeat the Native American saying, “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight amongst themselves.” He would say that we are all branches on the tree of humanity, so fighting was pointless. For a while I thought he was insane, but today it makes sense. I find that this saying can also apply to our relationships with ourselves. When we hide who we really are in order to fit in or belong, we are suffocating our souls. Our true calling may pass us by while we’re trying to make other people happy. And if we don’t love our bodies, it’s because we don’t understand that the body is just a vessel to contain the soul. Eckhart Tolle says, “You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while.” Having an internal battle where we hate our bodies or reject who we really are has the same effect as two branches of a tree fighting amongst themselves. We cannot experience peace if our inner dialogue is always at war with itself. Over time I have learned that a mind at war with itself—which is another way of saying a mind that rejects its true calling, its own nature and body—is a mind that cannot experience eternal gentleness. If your inner dialogue is constantly telling you what is wrong with you or your life, I suggest observing that little voice without attachment to what it is saying. For me, I am able to quiet my own inner dialogue by meditating. For others, going for a run, listening to their favorite music, or doing yoga is effective. Do whatever works for you! Wayne Adds His Thoughts: Even our most erudite scientific scholars acknowledge the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind that is the matrix of all matter. It matters not what we call this source; all we really need to be assured of is that there is no place that it is not, and therefore it is within us to discover and apply it in all the days of our lives. Mark Twain described the significance of this awareness in this way: “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why.” Serena writes passionately about this idea, reminding us that no one can find their purpose by attempting to be just like everybody else, or to attempt to live out someone else’s idea of what that purpose ought to be. I have always taught that the purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. This means learning to tame the demands of the ego and to listen to a new inner mantra that quietly reminds us to focus on “How may I serve?” as opposed to “What’s in it for me?” I spoke frequently to all of my children about the importance of trusting their own intuition, which is really the voice of God nudging them in the direction of their own highest aspirations. I would remind them that when they completely trusted in themselves, with no fear of failing or outside judgments, they were actually trusting in the very wisdom that created them. I would remind Serena frequently that all she had to do was to be herself, which is a Divine creation, and that what others thought of her was really none of her business. “You came here with your own music to play,” I would tell her over and over. I love the sound of the words Don’t die with your music inside you. It is such a powerful reminder that we all came here with some kind of music to play; it has to be true in a universe that is guided and directed by an invisible supreme intelligence at the helm. This was a message that all of my children heard frequently.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 17:56:27 +0000
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