From Asus to Zune

A couple weeks ago, I took a vacation to California. I made a packing list of all that I would need for the trip. The list included all the standards of course as well as some modern technologies; everything from my Asus laptop computer to my Zune MP3 player. As I made the list, I contemplated whether or not I really needed to bring a laptop and an MP3 player on vacation with me. Do I really need to be so entertained? I started to wonder, is all this technology distracting me from the joy of the vacation or enhancing it? Do I really need to be so in-touch and communicative with everyone in my virtual world? Or worse yet, do I really need to do work on my vacation?

Because I always try to find a spiritual meaning in everything, I started to wonder what our “packing list” would look like when we enter a life here on earth. Judging from what I’ve experienced so far, I imagined the dialogue in my head to go something like this - “Let’s see, Inferiority complex, check; a little unworthiness, check; a hint of every day drama, check. Oh yeah, and don’t forget a wee bit of control issues, check; and the unlucky-at-love card, double check.” Is this what we do? Is this necessary in order to have an entertaining life? What is the purpose? I started to imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have all the drama to distract us? What if we all were living our divine truth and acting in accordance with divine purpose? What if… would the world be too boring?

Imagine if you will a day where you would wake up to the sound of birds chirping which fills your heart with love and your ears with a beautiful song. After rolling out of bed, you slowly get ready for the day at your own pace. You read the paper and it’s nothing but good news; beautiful pictures, good deeds, babies being born, people helping people. The rest of the day you do the thing that makes you happiest in the world and it sustains you. In the evening you sit peacefully with the one you love, a soft, warm breeze blowing through your hair sipping on a glass of red wine. Doesn’t sound boring to me. In fact, it sounds like heaven. Heaven on earth.

As for the “packing list”, all of my life experiences so far and my practice of daily meditation have helped me to slowly transmute the patterns of separation into divine love. And for the record, I did use the laptop to goof around quite a bit on vacation, mostly on Facebook (connecting) and even did a little work (productivity). But, when the undeniable voice of vacation came calling, I put it away and went with the flow. Even though it rained 80% of the time, I made the most of it.

It’s funny how the everyday dramas can be very distracting from divine truth, but it is also when we usually learn the most (productivity). And when we go through dramas with each other, we grow and learn from them together (connecting). So, until I am fully living in wholeness in alignment with my divine purpose, a balance of the two is important; Work and play; Action and meditation; Growth through patterns of separation and moments of living in wholeness; Balance…