Everyone knows the busy little beaver:
Beavers can’t help themselves. They are compelled to chew down trees and shrubs to pile up wood to make dams. They are creating a habitat that suits them. Some might see their work as destructive but it is a natural order of things. Their work will contribute to the overall health of their local ecosystem. Sometimes they get a little too busy and create a huge habitat that significantly impacts the flow of water but eventually a heavy rain or a big snow melt will increase the flow upstream of their dam and wash away all their effort. The cycle continues. It’s like a bush that doesn’t burn.
Moses saw a burning bush. Wonder why Moses would see a bush that burns but isn’t consumed? Wonder why the myth includes references to the divine earth and the ever-present divine? Maybe the story is pointing to a fundamental truth. The “fire” of life is always burning. The cycle continues and the bush isn’t consumed. The divine is in and creates and manifests as all things like the holy ground. I think the burning bush story is like the busy beaver story.
In the last post I talked about how the false-self, consciousness lost to an egoic identity will insert planks or logs or boards into the stream of life trying to change the course of consciousness. This is resistance to life. It is the opposite of accepting what is. The ego gets its strength and justifies its existence by and through resistance to what IS. This is the cause of suffering and turmoil and toil. When we tell ourselves a story and believe the story is ourself, we are believing an illusion. When we try to control or manipulate or change the story, we are resisting what IS.
Imagine you wake up one day and your first thought is “The sun is shining again. I really hate it when the sun is shining.” If you believe you are your thoughts, then, in this moment, you are creating resistance to what IS. The TRUTH is the sun is shining. You might think this is a weird and illogical illustration but try living in the high desert of eastern California for a while. When the sun has been shining day after day and the temperatures exceed 115 deg F and Death Valley is your nearest neighbor, you will have at least one moment when your mind rejects another day of bright, brilliant, intense, harsh sunlight. Trust me on this one.
On a more practical level maybe your car doesn’t start, the traffic is bumper to bumper, the stock market is falling, the toilet is leaking, the bills are due and on and on. The resistance to what IS, is the complaining and worrying and conflict that is “self” created because “you want what IS to be something different and you are offended that what IS, is not what you think you want it to be.” The truth is, it IS. Acceptance of what IS is the gateway to knowing what you are. The ego resists. You are not the ego. You are the awareness that observes the ego and the thoughts of the judgmental mind. As awareness, as the divine self, there is no dismissing of one or desiring of another. The divine accepts all things as itself. This is what the bible calls love. Free of judgment, free of the ego, free of a false identity, perception opens up to see what IS and accept what IS.
Eckhart Tolle tells a story about being stuck in the mud. Accepting what IS, is NOT saying “well I’m stuck in the mud so I guess I’ll just accept my fate of being stuck in the mud.” It IS accepting the truth that you are stuck in the mud. There is no “hating the situation” as if it could be something different. You are stuck in the mud. Free of judgement, you can then see the situation for what it IS. You can decide without resistance or egoic conditioning what is the appropriate action to the situation. There is no worry or anxiety or suffering. “Well, I can see clearly I am stuck in the mud, let’s see…maybe I should call a tow truck or maybe I’ll sit here for a while and enjoy the moment.”
When the collective consciousness of humankind is lost to the egoic illusory identity, it resists what IS in a powerful way. We become very busy beavers. We are judging everything as acceptable or unacceptable based on conditioning and a separate-self illusion. It can take the form of inserting so many boards into the stream we create a dam. We stop the flow of the stream of life in an attempt to control the stream of life.
In the high Sierra Nevada mountains this beaver activity actually can help maintain the ecosystem during times of drought. When the stream flow is low, the dams create ponds that are a sanctuary for fish. The fish will survive when there is a severe drought. But after a period of time, the still water above the dam can become stagnant and the fish will die. I’ve seen this happen many times. And then “miraculously” there are periods of intense rain or huge snow falls. The flow of the stream reaches levels that are quite impressive. The dams are blown out and the river is refreshed and the remaining fish have a restored ecosystem to thrive and multiply.
Our collective consciousness dams are our structures and organizations and paradigms. They take the form of religion and political parties and even nations. We will dam up with intensity to try to change the flow of the river. Consciousness is lost to the illusion of the dream and is trying to change the course of the dream when it doesn’t remember it is the dreamer. The flow of life brings opportunity for the form to awaken to the formless. Along the life cycle of the river there will be droughts and dams and flood stage flows. So even the dams, the egoic insistence on control, the resistance to what IS, will create a sanctuary for consciousness to survive the illusion of the dream. At some point, the flow of consciousness increases and the dams are broken. The flow of life returns to its natural course.
I believe we are in a wonderful period of increased flow of consciousness. So many are waking up from the dream. Each manifested form that wakes up shines a bright light for the collective to see. The light melts the snow and produces the rain that floods the river so the dams will break and the ecosystem is restored to its intended path.
At some point, the collective consciousness of humankind will reach a level where being busy beavers is not our purpose. We will see clearly that we are the formless as a form to experience form as the formless. Then the desire to dam up, create illusory division, live in fear of an illusory sky-god (made in the image of man), live in illusory false-self-created-suffering and turmoil will come to an end…or the water will become stagnant.
Either way, consciousness will become conscious of consciousness. Awareness will find a way in the manifestation of form to see itself as awareness. This is the journey of a perceived life living an eternal life. The collective consciousness will stop resisting what IS and embrace the beauty of a temporal life and the blessing of form. We can stop being busy little beavers and resisting what IS.
alancetotheheart 