Communicating with Life is like using a CB radio: you can chatter into the microphone all
you want, but until you release the "send" button and free up the incoming channel, all you are going to hear is your own
voice. You have to know how and when to listen -- to put your "ears" on, to receive. As adults, most humans spend
the majority of their waking hours in transmitting. Instead of listening for the inherent truths of this world,
they spend most of the time telling the world what shape it will take.
From the first action on (perhaps a movement in the egg or womb), Life is programmed to use
the "message" returned and received as a foundation for building memory, vocabulary, and knowledge. Young things crave
the experience of connecting and the resultant input that their constant expenditure of energy creates. This incoming
information gives definition and understanding to the world and shapes their own inner being.
When my baby daughter was still crawling, she one day spied a sunbeam low on the wall.
Curious, little Amy made her way over and tried to capture this elusive solar Tinkerbell with her pudgy, dimpled hands.
When picking and slapping wouldn't budge the smudge of light, she lay down, rolled onto her back, and tried again -- this
time using her bare feet and toes!
In the young, this determination to connect is obviously the "mother of invention" that stimulates
imagination, creativity, and mental growth. What is not so obvious is the more important fact that establishing connections
nourishes the soul and character as much as food nourishes the body. This is made especially clear by the results of
an experiment in which animal infants were taken from their mothers and raised in total isolation.
In tests performed at the University of Wisconsin by Harry and Margaret Harlow, baby monkeys
were separated from others of their kind, then placed alone in cages with two wire-framed, surrogate mothers. One substitute
mama was covered in terry-cloth, had a round head and large, round eyes, but had no "breasts" to nurse from. The other
maternal stand-in supported a bottle for feeding from, but had a more rectangular head and only lines for eyes, and was not
wrapped in a warm, soft, and comforting "fur."
These lonely babies spent all of their time clinging to the terry-cloth-covered frame.
Even when they became hungry, they refused to break contact with the "furry" mother, who provided them with the most tactile,
visual, and emotional stimulation. Stretching to the utmost limits of their tiny bodies, these infants would reach over
and, in effect, steal their meals from the bosom of the impersonal wire mama, who provided them with little or no perceptive
input. From this we can conclude that nurturing the soul through the connection with the terry-cloth-covered frame meant
more to them than the comfort that comes from nursing and having a happy tummy.
What is really revealing is the fact that as adults these monkeys were not only very antisocial
and sexually dysfunctional, but the damage to their characters was irreversible. Left to learn how to
behave through interactions with other adult monkeys, these misfits never normalized enough to become acceptable to the rest
of the troop. A vital part of the ability to communicate was lost forever -- the ability to listen and learn with their
hearts.
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About the time young humans reach the age of accountability (when they know right from wrong,
at around eight to ten years old), their view of the world is firmly solidified, so they tend to stop listening. Instead,
they begin to insist that Life must conform to their established vision. In teenagers, hormones firmly ground human
awareness in the sensual body. The maintenance and gratification of -- and communication with -- the Self becomes most
important. Eventually most of them marry, have careers and families, and get caught up in the struggle
of daily living. Even people with a strong religious upbringing can get so busy that they tend to forget to stop and
smell the roses. Only when the immortally perceived body begins to fail does that soul-nourishing urge to connect rise
again into consciousness. Humans then recognize Eternity and, ultimately, desire to become a part of it.
As adult humans mature, they revert to what the young refer to patronizingly as a "second
childhood." Having seen everything, done everything, and been everywhere in the material world, they begin to
listen again. All the illusions of their personally designed world view have been shattered by experience and the deterioration
of the mortal shell. What remains is a blank slate to rebuild upon, the humility of having deceived oneself, and the
uneasy awareness that an eternally young soul is trapped inside an ancient body! Setting aside the failing physical
sensory apparatus that had locked them into the mundane world so well, they begin to listen to the Voice of Spirit with their
hearts, instead. With the enthusiasm and determination of a child who knows nothing, they seek to establish contact
with that which forms the world -- the reality behind the facade.
The second time around, oldsters listen to connect with the abstract part of life that they
took no notice of before. They find even more joy of life and freedom of spirit as they add substance to the inner body
of Truth, than they ever did while building an outer body of flesh. As new dimension and understanding is added to Nature
and to Life, they feel reborn with each new day.
Who can blame them for wanting to share the profound revelations and awareness they have
experienced? They wish to spare the young the school of hard knocks, and would like to whisk them off their physical
feet and into the abstract on eternal wings of joy and victory! But when youth hears the sage and simplistic advice
of the elderly -- that life is too short: to stop and smell the roses, to put your "ears" on and tune in that dial! -- youth
thinks, "I already did that when I was just a kid, and I know all there is to know about roses! Besides, I have all
the time in the world..."
Looking back from old age, "all the time in the world" amounts to about three seconds --
two of which have already been squandered! That last, remaining second will seem like only half of a second because
the older you get, the faster time flies. So why wait until the body is too decrepit to enjoy this new awareness and
the new dimensions that can be added to Nature and to Life? There is no rule that says you must wait for old age to
enjoy the freedom of spirit that listening with your heart can bring. All that is necessary is a childlike determination
to connect and an open, silent mind.
When I was young I was taught that "children should be seen, not heard"; that there were
times when we should remain all but invisible and not speak unless we were spoken to. We were told to blend in,
listen, and learn, and to think before we spoke. This is good advice for any person who would like to regain a childlike
receptivity, and is essential for two-way communication with Nature and Life.
In the language of a trucker using a CB radio, I now will ask you: Got your "ears" on, good
buddy?
