The Japanese Tsunami and God – Part 2 of 4
THE CHILDHOOD DREAM THAT SHAPED MY PHILOSOPHY
Click here for part 1 – By Ozodi Thomas Osuji – When I was four years old I had a dream that has remained in my memory since then. In the dream I was in the middle of the road in front of our house, crawling, trying to cross from the opposite side of the road to get to the side where our house is. A truck came bagging towards me and instead of crawling away I stayed in the middle of the road crying, wishing that someone, anyone, God or man, would come rescue me. No one came to my rescue. Just as the truck came close to me but did not crush me, I woke up, crying, and my mother picked me up and asked me what happened and I narrated the dream, nightmare, to her.
That dream indicates that I have a dependent personality and expects other persons and God to come save me instead of trying to save me. Those I wanted to depend on and asked to rescue me, God and people, did not come to save me but in the last minute I managed to survive, I was not crushed by the truck.
In real life I inherited a genetic disorder, Cytochrome C Oxidase deficiency and during my childhood was almost always at the verge of dying and therefore was over protected by my mother; children with such life threatening diseases tend to develop dependency, that is, expect other persons to rescue them, as I obviously did. In the real world obviously no person rescues the individual and he has to rescue himself.
That dream essentially is a metaphor of my life. I am always in situations where it seems that I could not help me and I am paralyzed by fear and crying for help and no one comes to my rescue but in the last minute I am not crushed. In the meantime I do not seem able to do what I can do to save me. I blame God and people for not saving me.
That is one way of looking at the dream, the psychological way, the ego way. There is another way of looking at it, the way of spiritual psychology.
In this other way of looking at the dream it is I who dreamed it. I dreamed that I am in the middle of the road and a truck came towards me. I am the dreamer of my dream. I placed me in a dangerous situation (I do not place me in this painful situation consciously but unconsciously, and if you like by the logic of my personality).
It is relevant that I was trying to crawl home (from the other side of the street to the side where my earthly home is located) and that no one came to rescue me. This means that I had made a decision to return home and also made a decision that no one is going to help me get home, that I would eventually find my way home by my own efforts; no messiahs and prophets out there would help me find my way home…the ultimate home is of course God.
I will have to find my own truth and not accept other people’s truth; there is no handholding for me.
I choose to believe that I am the one who chooses whatever happens to me, including physical illness issues. For example, I believe that I chose to be born with COX. I chose whatever has happened to me in my life. Of course I am not consciously aware of choosing these things, but such is my belief.
Is it naïve to have such belief since I can see other persons contributing to whatever happens to me? Good question. When I say that I chose whatever happens to me you ought to know what I mean by the I doing the choosing. The I that I am talking about is joined to all Is in the universe; therefore, whatever I choose all people chose for me. I also participate in choosing for other persons whatever they choose.
I do not have the illusion that I have a separated self; I see all selves as joined and making collective choices. Whereas we may not yet consciously understand how this works what it means is that we ought to collectively solve our problems. We are each other’s keepers. That is how I see life, anyway. You are free to see life differently; each of us takes the consequences of his choices and so far I am happy with the consequences of my choices.
I see whatever happens to you as your choice, though you may not know how you chose it; some of the choices were made before you were born on earth. For example, I believe that black folks chose to be enslaved and currently discriminated by other races. Those who enslaved them and currently discriminate against them do so by choice. Why did folks make these horrible choices? They are learning from them to become more loving persons.
The relevant point is that it is I who does my dreaming, it is I who place me in dangerous situations where I ask for a hero on a white horse to come rescue me instead of rescuing me. This is the story of my life. I always manage to place me in dangerous situations and ask for rescuers and they do not come and thus I feel angry at people.
I did not ask God to place me in the situations I found myself; I asked him to save me. Apparently, he does not help me (or maybe he is helping me in his own way).
Suppose I actually ask God to help me would he help me? He would help me in his own way; he would ask me to stop dreaming and awaken and return to him.
I am (and you) the prodigal son who left his father to go dream that he is separated from him. God asks me to stop separating from him and return to him. He sends his Holy Spirit to help awaken me to my spirit self. But I do not listen to him and do what he asks me to do so as to awaken: give up desire for separation, life in body and ego and seek life in spirit, to love me and love all people and forgive the world.
Every person is doing what I am doing and is already in his own dream situation doing what it requires of him. They too are asking God to rescue them and he is not rescuing them as they think he should: make their stay in the dream pleasant. He is rescuing them in his own way by having his Holy Spirit ask them to let go of the world and return to spirit, to him and to their real selves.
The world is not what happens to me, to us; the world is what we individually and collectively chose; we did not come and see a world we did not want; we came and saw a world we wanted. Every inch of the world, everything that happens to us is exactly what we want to happen to us. There are no accidents for we are the dreamer of the world. The world is our dream and we are responsible for everything that happens in it. There is no one to blame for it, nor do we need to blame ourselves; all that we need to do is dream differently, dream with love for one another, that is, allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit and eventually stop dreaming, give up the wish for separation and return to God, awaken in spirit.
To be continued …….
