Thursday, October 6, 2011

Everyone's an Actor

Who are you?  You're an actor!  
Take on your role, play it up, and own it!

You are the director.  Direct yourself!
The world is your stage, right here, right now.

Where are your feet?  NO! Don't move them!
Let them be where they are!

Where is your head? Where are your shoulders?
Let them be, and thrive within them.

Do you find your legs tight?  Then leave them alone.
Your role requires it, so play it!

How is your neck? Your spine?  Your chest?
Are they compressed?  Are they curved, or caved in?

However they are is how they need to be now,
To fulfill your unique role in this play.

So let yourself be uptight, and let yourself be down.
This is the character you are meant to play.

So put all of your energy into playing this role...
And own where you are, and enjoy it!

Enjoy yourself as you direct your body.
Wherever it is, whatever its shape,
In this moment it is according to script.

Relish the shape, relish the role,
and put your whole heart and soul in it.

Enjoy the role, enjoy the play!
And notice: are you breathing??

Maybe you can laugh at this comedy act.
Maybe it isn't a tragedy...?

Contort yourself more, exaggerate the acting...
See how the drama unfolds...

When you enjoy your part (even if it seems to be evil!),
You cannot help but breathe.

Now let the breath move your actor around.
What happens next?  You decide!

Does the character change?
Or stay stuck and enslaved?
You're the director; you're the one who can choose!

Are you a puppet, a slave, or an idiot?
Or a human being endowed with free will?

If you believe that you're free, then become the part.
Your thoughts will transform who you are.


Jaques:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Neck is Free

Our nature is pure consciousness, and this consciousness is free.
We have the freedom to think, and the freedom to choose.
Whatever comes into our awareness is included in our experience,
so we can say: "I am that."

My nature is freedom, and yet this freedom means that I am also free to block or deny it.
When I block my freedom so that I am not free, I experience that, and become not-freedom.  I am that.

My body is included in who I am, so this body is free.  Yet, I block that freedom.
My neck is part of this body; the neck is free.
But I block this freedom by my lack of awareness of it, and thereby stiffening my neck.

Do I want to be free?  Or do I want to be stuck and stiff?

If I want to be free, what will free me?
I am the only one who has this power over myself.
Only I can choose whether to be free or stuck.

If I choose to experience freedom, how can I do this?

Every thought has an effect on the body.
I must realize that my nature is freedom, and think this thought.

I am free.
The neck is free.

When I think the thought, "The neck is free," knowing that this is true,
because my experience, my consciousness, includes all things,
I am that.

To think, "The neck is free," is to let the neck be free.
This, in itself, is the act of freeing the neck.
With this thought, we realize our inherent freedom and we allow it to be, without interfering with it.