'Ready Or Not, Here I Come'

 My good friend Doug summed it up a number of years ago.  In an attempt to convey one of the basic tenets of Eastern spiritual philosophy he said, "We are kind of like God playing hide and seek with himself.  Ever since, that statement has been stuck to the soul of my spirit like gum to my shoe.  Through the years, I have found the childlike simplicity of his words to be profound.  Not only are we each a part of the divine whole, but the whole divine is infused into the entire cosmos and is At Play!  This implies a dynamic action involving joy, laughter, discovery, learning, awareness, and growth.  These are the qualities of the spirit and nature of children.  They are also spiritual values which rest at the core of our being.  I think that this is the essence of maintaining a youthful perspective throughout life.  Through a constant endeavor to keep these elements present in our daily activities, we can be in touch with the innocence and wonder which characterize our earliest years in life.  That is the primordial time of our lives.  That is the time when we are closest to an innate understanding of God.  

  Through the process of growing up we become socialized, and accept the illusions and lies bestowed upon us by a consensus reality consisting of a flawed social structure supported by errant religious and scientific doctrines.  And so we separate our ego-conciousness from our higher-self.  We lose our innocence.  We too easily forget the wonder and awe we had as children in a new and splendid world full of mystery and intrigue which invited us to explore it, interact with it, and play in it.  By remembering to play, we can seek to reconnect with that eternal principle hiding within each of us.  Through this playful reconnection, we intuitively remember that God is within us, within our playmates, and infused in the world and universe around us.  This is the spiritual nature of play!  Play on!

-L. R. Haynes,  December 23, 2010.