It's All in Your Dreams
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
~Albert Einstein
A Chinese Zen master poured tea for his apprentice and let the tea run over the cup and spill all over the table.
In shock, the apprentice exclaimed, “Why did you do that?”
The master replied, “Your tea cup is like your mind—so full of knowledge there is no room for me to teach you anything. In order to learn something new, you must empty your cup of all that you think you know. You must create a space in your mind for wisdom to be welcome.”
One of the important aspects of dreamwork/play is your relationship with the mystery. Many of us folks in the western world take great pride in thinking we know it all. Our favorite phrase is, “I know.” And our least favorite phrase is, “I don’t know.” It just so happens that one of the prerequisites of dream mastery is your ability to be comfortable and even excited when you truly don’t know what the dream’s message is.
The sky will not fall if you can’t immediately figure out what your dream means or what action it’s nudging you to take. The only way to ensure your receptivity to the clarity you seek is if you stand poised on the edge of your evolution, maintaining a deep-seated comfort in “I don’t know” consciousness. I’m not talking about tolerating the mystery with white knuckles, but actually getting wildly excited while you celebrate and dance like a whirling dervish with the mysterious aspects of your dreams. As you do this, watch as the answers come streaming in…sometimes one ray at a time…and sometimes in bursts so bright you’ll need your Ray Bans.
Master Painter, Rassouli is my greatest teacher of celebrating the mystery. Rassouli says 99% of his time he spends painting is in “destroying the canvas.” If you saw the end product of his gorgeous, heavenly paintings (you can see them in my upcoming Dream Oracle Cards) you would never know that beneath each gorgeous painting are layers of paint that resembles more of a crime scene than it does a window into heaven.
“As I approach a canvas I throw paint at it as I am murdering everything I know, all my memory, all my expectations, all my desire to be good, and to create something pleasing to people. Once I become empty enough and I am truly in a state of not knowing anything, the painting begins to emerge. Upon reflection, I am startled at the work revealed on the canvas. Most of the time I don’t recall what I did because when I am at my best, I’m not there. I am a pure vessel for God to work through.”
Upon awakening, even if you immediately think you know what your dream’s message is, and its corresponding action to take it in the waking world, consider you still don’t know. And while remaining connected to the dream, wrapped in a warm, fuzzy blanket of delicious not knowing, breathe…breathe…breathe, and with joyous curiosity, watch how your intuition begins to reveal insights to you. These dream insights are not born from a preconceived, familiar place of tried and true dusty knowledge from the past, but from a place of freshly minted, soul rocking, breakthrough wisdom that has never before found a host on earth.
<<<Click here to listen to my interview with Rassouli.>>>
It may sound harsh, but the best-kept secret of dreamwork is being willing to destroy your desire to be smart and have it all make sense. In order to access true revelation, we must be willing to be ridiculous, and stand empty before the canvas of our dreams (and our lives) as Rassouli does when he paints. True wisdom can only come when we are naked with arms open wide, dancing with life and its mystery.
Time seems to be accelerating as if we are being pulled toward an irresistible high-powered magnet that is our most transparent, fully actualized self…perhaps even a new possibility for the human race. We can either fight this magnetic pull and cling ferociously to business as usual…or take the quantum leap of faith into the mystery of our dreams, toward the opportunity to truly awaken.
Describe your relationship with “I don’t know.” If you respond with “I don’t know” then… I don’t know what I’ll do!
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Excerpted from It’s All In Your Dreams (Conari Press). Once you buy your copy, click here to receive $4,000 worth of fr*ee dreamy gifts throughout the month of May.
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Join the conversation! Post your dream on Dreams Cloud, then tweet it using #DreamChallenge.
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