As a spirit you were without wrinkles, fears, fantasies or fondue.

No bills to pay, no clocks, chocolate covered cherries or dentists. There was nothing to buy, fix or covet.

You kept the 10 Commandments.

You never broke a nail, had the slightest sniffle or fell in love. No worries, no parents and no Freudian slips.

You couldn’t be embarrassed, claustrophobic or blush.

As a spirit there is no broccoli you have to eat before you have your ice cream: but there isn’t any ice cream either.

There was lots of nothing, indistinguishable from everything.

Just nothing specific.

Let your attention melt a bit.

Let needs and deeds scurry away into forever.

Exit space and time.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

Now do something ridiculous…

Reincarnate

Opt to return, to oatmeal cooking on the stove, a hole in your sock, an ongoing dispute with your spouse or a slice of warm apple pie itching to be eaten à la mode.

God pie is good when you are a fresh new human just arriving in a body.

As you finish your pie you remember that you were supposed to call your mother, you have a presentation due at work Tuesday, you just broke your diet and you haven’t had sex in weeks!

Yikes, to be a spirit again!

Fluctuating between experiencing yourself as a spirit and a person keeps you young, excited, innocent and open.

It reminds you that you are infinite and finite too: petty and benevolent, competitive and compassionate.

Alternate often between your human hat and halo. Not as a way of coping: running from your humanity, but just for the newness, the freshness of it: the novelty.

When you are a finite person

As a person you are voracious and insatiable. You want the sex, love and money that you don’t have. You are constantly teased by the fullness of spirit into trying to fill your personhood up. But it won’t happen, it can’t happen.

But so what. Enjoy trying to get a Rolls Royce, a few million dollars, the trophy spouse or rock star status. The fun of being a person is wanting: not having.

Want while you can because soon enough you will only be a spirit again forever.

Let yourself be a person

Stop trying so hard to hone your spiritual qualities: whole, complete, limitless and unconditionally loving. Let yourself be a person: petty, sweet, insecure and adorably limited.

Buy some chocolates, watch a sitcom, it’s as easy as falling off a log, patting a puppy or opening your heart to a baby.

Somehow we got the idea that being more spiritual is a little like taking your medicine. Well, it isn’t, stop taking all that cod liver oil and live a little.

But if you are already living a lot: drinking like a fish, eating gluttonously and whoring horribly then it is time to try your halo on again.

All that you are

To people this world is so big, for spirits it’s like squeezing into your five year old’s jammies.

As a spirit there is vastness with no end: amen. As a person you gather your problems up, packing them tightly into who you imagine yourself to be and holding them dear.

As a person you scare easily.

But you can dip a toe in infinite spirit and let that sensation spread through you so slowly that you experience yourself as spirit, finite person and the precious border between these two.

Ummm, that is riding the wave, and that wave is you.

Forgetting and remembering, remembering and forgetting: fearful and infinitely playful. That’s you. It’s not who you see in the mirror, but it is what you find when you focus deeply inside or on another who is both spirit and person.

As you pulse between spirit and person so will your spouse and kids, your puppy and oncologist.

It won’t be a situation or diagnosis or even great sex that makes this life worth living: it will be reincarnation. Coming back to being a person or coming back to being a spirit: it’s as simple as ABC: Always Be Coming.

To become a person notice the caulk peeling around the bath tub, the deadline at work, the little tickle in the back of your throat or retirement.

To be a person be somewhere specific, wishing you were somewhere else.

To be a spirit is to be everywhere without any wishes at all.

To float into spirit let the borders and boundaries fade, follow your gaze up to the stars and let your bundle of fears and concerns take care of themselves.

Alternating your focus has you continually fresh, new, creative and more natural than a mountain stream or last night’s full, plentifully pink sunset.

As a person things appears so small or too big, and there is too much or little time: but as a spirit all is well.

Don’t dally as a person or a spirit, have the best of both worlds by alternating between them—ride that wave.

 

 

~

Author: Jerry Stocking

Editor: Travis May

Image: Flickr/Hartwig HKD