My nine-year-old niece asked me today if I could show her how to mend the hole in her teddy bear. I said yes and she piled the oversized bear and sewing kit on my lap. I may have said yes to her request, but my mind went off in another direction. I was thinking how much I hated to sew and I was annoyed that I had to take the time to do this tedious work instead of doing something I really cared about.
Hiding my true feelings, I advised what color thread to use and showed her how to make a double stitch. As I did so, my thought process began to take a different route. I looked into the future and saw her as a thirty-year-old woman with the ability to perform any task on her own. She may very well decide at one point to pay someone else to make simple repairs that she will need, but she would always know how to do it. In other words, my thirty minute lesson was helping to create an independent woman--and that made me smile.
I relayed this story to my grandmother a few hours later and as I was doing so I was reminded of an allegory I once read. In it, a visitor approaches the building site of a great cathedral. He notices three men chipping away at their stones, performing the banal work that was required of them. When he asked the first man what he did for a living, the disgruntled worker responded, "I chip away at stones all day long, every single day. That's what I do. What else does it look like?" When he approached the second man performing the same task and asked what he did for a living, the worker smiled and shared his genuine gratitude for having employment by explaining the he was putting food on the table for him and his family. Finally, the traveling man approached the third worker performing the same task and asked him what he did for a living. This man breathed in the beauty of the moment and explained that he was creating a resplendent cathedral that would last for many centuries allowing countless generations of people to enjoy this beautiful edifice."
...And I guess that really says it all.
Three men engaged in the exact same routine saw life completely differently and I suppose that is what Spiritual Awakening is about. We can choose to stay asleep and see all the necessary chores we must do with great disdain. We can begin our journey of Awareness by viewing these duties as a necessity to provide a life for us--or even better still we can emulate the Divine by opening our hearts to see the great potential of each act as a seed that will one day create a beautiful garden.
The good news is that we don't have to take several lifetimes or even years in this lifetime to shift our way of thinking. Even on this very day, I started out on one end of the spectrum, but chose another course in only about ten seconds. It's that easy! And the great thing is that each of us has the opportunity to change the direction of our life at a moment's notice--and that is a beautiful gift.
Which direction will you choose?
Thank you for reading and Namaste! (The Light in me recognizes the Light in you!)
