THE UPSIDE OF THE SHUTDOWN

There was and is an opportunity to be discovered in the societal shutdown due to the declared pandemic.  Aside from all politics, we were provided with a time when time could be suspended.  Away from work, from associates, away from patterns of behavior, one could be left with oneself—to be with oneself and as oneself and for oneself. 

What happened to many was irrelevant to what could be learned from the consequences of the shutdown.  What happened to many was apparently distressing and often destructive.  What is there yet to be learned for the distressed and distraught is that there was a Self that exists independent of the world.  One might well have discovered that one is not one’s role, nor worldly pattern of behavior.  Even though the momentum of habit was found to be great and for some overwhelming, it was an opportunity to learn just how much our essential Self has been commandeered by the forces of the world.

Expropriation by the world manifests in us as identity, personality, ego and projected or externalized desire.  But the shutdown gave us the opportunity to see this surrogate self be denied its props and imposed purposes.  It gave us the opportunity to uncover the root of the self and allow it to germinate above the surface of superficial actions of living life in the world.  As the imperatives of time were taken away and the space of daily actions removed and the cues of expected behaviors were absent, one was left present to the Presence, the Power of “being here now,” which is always there—but harnessed and harassed by the world and thereby hidden from your consciousness of self and the “cave” of the Heart of Consciousness where the freedom, happiness, peace and love of eternality resides and abides.

But this opportunity for self-discovery and Realization, though possibly missed in the fear and confusion of the “shutdown,” this opportunity is always available.  For some the actual “shutdown” was like a spiritual retreat, a meditation retreat, an awakening to the tenuousness of time, space and causality, that is, the forces of the world.  The stillness and Life Force of pure Presence arose in Consciousness as the silence and serenity and solace of the spiritual Self.  The hidden beauty of the Absolute was given chance to appear universally.  Despite the pain and adversity caused for many in the world, we saw its healing power for many, even the world environment itself as the air cleared of pollution over the earth.  Many saw that their way of daily life in the world was distressful, toxic, damaging to body and mind.  In the time of contemplation, clarity was reached that the future is in our own hands and in many cases must be in our own hands when the guarantees of the normal world were taken away.  We discovered that the Nature is not necessarily our enemy even when seemingly destructive.

While the “shutdown” still partly lingers the opportunity to see and feel the autonomy of Self also remains in this altered state of affairs.  But the ultimate revelation was that we can ‘shutdown’ by ourselves at any time or even all the time and be open to the revelation of Self and the simple certainty that although everything can change in the world in a moment of decision, political, economic or otherwise, in the Consciousness of the Spirit of Truth nothing really changes and the beauty of Eternality and Divinity shines through.