I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.  In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Henry David Thoreau

In the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Jonathan, who dreams of flying for the sake of flying and not to catch fish, is cast out from his community for being different, for not conforming to its expectations and for being a bad influence with the exceptional flying skills he had acquired.  In short, ‘living the life he imagined’ was simply not compatible with the interests of his community.

Despite his advanced skills, when Jonathan finds a new community of seagulls, he discovers that he has plenty to learn for they are even more advanced than he is!  Continuing to ‘go in the direction of his dreams‘, Jonathan gives everything he’s got to improve.

One day, the great master of this community takes him under his wing and teaches him yet a few more things that few others even in this advanced community had learned.  When Jonathan successfully demonstrates these new skills, the master tells him that it is time to return to his community and teach them all that he has learned.

Jonathan, at first reluctant to return to his community eventually realizes that he must, regardless of how he will be received or who and how he might influence.

I am moved to share this story with you and the quote by Henry David Thoreau because in my mind, the two things somewhat dovetail (or should I say ’seagulltail’?).  You see, Thoreau was a transcendentalist, someone who valued and aspired to the spiritual nature of reality by transcending the material/physical and intellectual.  He was deeply aware of the limitations of the sociopolitcial and religious culture of his society and attempted to influence and inform it by reaching into a deeper or transcendent reality, guided if you like, by intuition, that gut feeling of simply knowing what is right for you.  It got him into trouble but he was not to be dissuaded from his ‘calling’.

It is a theme that you find in the allegorical story of Jonathan L Seagull which invites us to reach outside our survival mindset. It inspires us to ‘follow our dream‘ for in doing so, we reach into the highest form of our nature.  This is when we are truly happy because this is when we are closest to our true nature, closest to the ’source’ of our being.  This is spiritual awakening; awakening to the power of the natural laws in which we participate, awakening to our power, our greatness, our highest form of being.  How else would we find happiness?

But, as was the case with Thoreau and Jonathan L Seagull, spiritual awakening does not stop with our own learning and growing.  It also involves being involved in the learning and growing of others.  Our highest form of being invites us to help others in their learning and growing.  Again, how else  would we find  happiness?

Perhaps you too have felt ‘cast out’ by people in your life for wanting to follow your dream.  I know that in my time, there have been people who tried to persuade me that I was ‘on the wrong track‘, that I needed to ‘be practical‘, that doing what I really wanted to do was ‘unrealistic‘ and that it would be ‘tough‘.  They seemed to care and I don’t for one moment doubt their sincerity.  But, I think that much of it was motivated by their fears for me (and for themselves) rather than by their aspiration to their highest ideals and dreams!

So, what do you think?  What has your experience been?

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Spiritual awakening to Happiness!

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