Which Way Is Up
By: Timothy O'Neill
Tags: Mental Health, Spirituality, Suffering, Life Lessons, Self

When you live in a chaotic system of rules and laws that are meant to suppress the evolution of the spirit and you are contacted by higher-order entities that say they want to rescue you from the torments of the place you once called home, it can be hard to tell if you are coming down or going up. You are a pilot flying through the clear blue sky who has done so many spins he has lost sight of the horizon and can no longer be sure of his orientation. Your would-be rescuers may accuse you of all manner of wickedness, ostensibly to bring your darkness into the light so that it might be dealt with. They’ll push you and pull you until you are forced to find the ground of your own being and decide once and for all which team you’re playing for.

They might enter your life with a roar of shock-and-awe that leaves you whimpering and pleading to God for mercy. They might work your case all the way into the black hole inside of you that tells you you are worthless and insignificant and deserving of nothing but pain and heartache. They might provide you with a new story to tell yourself, something more hopeful and indeed more accurate because it comes from outward observers and not the corrupted pit of your own mind. They might push you over the precipice of what you imagined was the great mountain that separated you from your Source just to see if you would fall forever or if you would eventually sprout wings and fly home.

This world of ours is no accident. It is the result of the careful craftsmanship of our spiritual parents. They put in place the dynamics that govern our day-to-day lives. It is our parents that built this game for us to play so that we might learn, grow, explore and fully express the will of the Creator, which is that each one of us come into our own and pays forward all the gifts we have been given. They knew this game of separation would be hard on us. Supposedly that is exactly what we asked for. Supposedly we will ask for an even greater challenge once this game finally comes to an end. I hope I have the forbearance not to sign up for another round. We so quickly forget our pain once we enter into the spiritual realm. They say those who can’t let go get left behind.

I remember the action movie Face/Off where the hero changes his physical appearance to go undercover as the villain. He has a scar on his chest from a bullet wound. He asks the doctors to put it back when he returns from his mission. But when the mission is finally over and he has achieved some measure of peace he lets the doctors know that he doesn’t need it anymore. I have scars all over my body and part of me wants to carry those scars with me into the afterlife so I can remember just how painful and torturous this life was. Otherwise, what was the point of all this? But another part of me wants to tell the angels that I don’t need them anymore. That I can leave my suffering in the past and allow myself to heal.

We’re all a little confused and disoriented these days. We’re all wondering which way is up. Some of us herald this as a time of change that can create opportunities for the human race to advance beyond the petty squabbles that have kept us from realizing our true destiny. Others see this as a dangerous time, a time when those in power are clamping down ever tighter in the hopes of shutting out the oppressed and the persecuted from full participation in the democratic process. Others see this as a showdown between patriarchal traditions and the robust inclusive vision of the future that minority groups hope will sweep society. In any case, we are at a turning point. There is no reclaiming the past. We’ve come too far for that. You would have to obliterate the system and rebuild it in your image to have any hopes of restoring white male domination. But if you obliterated the system you would only be making more room for people of color and those in the LGBTQ community to take the reins of power. It’s ironic. For white nationalists to create the future they want, they would have to return things to the past they idealize, by destroying a present that is like a shrinking iceberg. You are being rejected by three tenses of time. I think it’s time to move along, folks.

Sometimes it can feel like we’re flying blind, with no instruments to gage where we are or where we’re headed. We put one foot in front of the other and survive the day and crawl into our beds satisfied that we have done enough to earn the moonlight streaming in through the blinds. Sometimes survival is all we have. Sometimes survival is all we need. We will pull through this. We will be forever changed by it, but that might not be a bad thing, especially when we examine ourselves in the context of history. We have to look beyond our own lives to the lives of the people living fifty years from now and be proud that we were able to endure the unimaginable. ‘Everyone had to wear masks all day long?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Sounds scary’. ‘It was. It was a scary time to be alive.’ ‘What were people like back then?’ ‘They were a lot tougher than you and me.’ Because don’t we always look back and marvel at the people who came before us and how hearty they must have been to survive the extreme conditions they were faced with? I think that’s how the future will look back on us. They might also say we were short-sighted and greedy, but that’s another story for another day. We were tough. We were resilient. We adapted. It’s the middle of a pandemic and I can still go get coffee. What a world.

I think we’re only blind because the sun is shining so sharply down upon us and we look up at it and we can’t look away. Or maybe our eyes are blurry and out of focus from all the tears, we have cried. Maybe both. Perhaps we know the light is here for us, urging us to awaken, and we are overwhelmed by a nostalgic sadness so deep that it hurts. Because somewhere deep inside of us we remember what is like to stand in the sun. We remember what is like to not be shackled in the cave watching shadows dance. We remember what it is like to scramble to the surface, into that golden glow of a star so bright that its rays scorch our skin. We knew each other then. We saw the best in each other. We knew up was up, down was down and we wanted nothing in the world more than to create joy for each other. Those were the days. I wonder why they didn’t last. What did we really stand to gain by entering into this devil’s bargain in order to satisfy sensual desires? We had everything we could ever need. Now people all over the planet are crying out in their hunger and their thirst. They are crying out to be witnessed, because we can’t deliver them material salvation. Well, we could. The system simply won’t allow for it.

We can make this world a better place. That’s tricky though, because one man’s better is another man’s nightmare. When I say better I mean more loving, compassionate, empathetic, caring, kind, and wise. More accepting. More peaceful. More honest. All these things are achievable. You and I can do them. We won’t be perfect, but we can hone our skills for the battle against the blackness of the void that is always working to undermine humanity’s best intentions. Now that we know which way is up, we can lift each other up. We can laugh at ourselves. We can respect one another. We can create institutions and systems of government that are built on agreed-upon principles, principles that represent the truth of the love we share with one another. Pipe dream. Maybe. But in pursuing these goals we inevitably find support for our efforts because the universe is not dead and indifferent. The universe wants us to harmonize. It wants us to get our act together. It is actively engaged in our lives. Creation itself is a living organism, a consciousness too expansive to be understood by us.

Our parents designed this game so we could learn through the illusion of separateness. But once you have an experience of true unity, be it with a partner, a friend, in meditation or prayer, or in a dream state, everything shifts. You know something is wrong. And it’s hard not to feel like you’ve been had. They got us good. They worked for endless ages to perfect this tutorial, but it is a little outdated. It’s starting to show its age. Or maybe that’s me. It’s probably me. I can’t blame my parents for my mistakes. My question to my spiritual parents has always been a simple one: did you play it? Police recruits get tased and pepper-sprayed in training so they know how it feels when they’re doing it to others, and the effect they can expect. I want to know if my parents tased themselves before they started letting souls in. Did they beta test the software? And they couldn’t go in with memories or identity intact. That would defeat the purpose of the test. To have the full Earth experience you would have to be willing to go in and lose everything. Everything. And eventually, make your way back out.

But I’m drifting. I think my central point is this: we have to count on ourselves to have a positive impact on the world. We will always be loved and supported, but no one is going to intervene on our behalf. This may be the toughest classroom in the cosmos, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work to improve our conditions and the conditions of our brothers and sisters. We have to be strong. We have to be brave. We have to be patient. There are things in this world that matter to us more than our own lives and maybe that’s backward, but I think it’s true love. Let’s not be afraid to get passionate. Let’s not be afraid to put our minds and body on the line. Our future is at stake. We can do this, dear reader. We can learn to grow up and stand in the sun.