Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream

When you were a child, did you sing this song too? If you’re like me, you even sang it in rounds with other people. It creates a harmonious melody when people sing it in rounds, with one person starting off and others joining in on the second, third, and fourth lines.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

As an infant, you weren’t mentally aware of who and what you were, but as you developed, you left clues and signs of your unfolding identity. 

Coming from your mother’s womb, you probably weren’t aware of a sense of self because “who you really are” is everything and everything that makes up everything, often referred to as nothing.

Sometime between birth and realizing that everything seems to be separate from you, you were everything. Any object that you saw, felt, or heard, you thought was you—not even an extension of you, but you.

Gently Down The Stream

Then you made what you thought was a discovery. That thing you saw or heard or touched was not you.

It was something other than you.

At this point, you did not know whether it was an object or a person; only that it wasn’t you, where moments before, you thought everything was you.

Here is the actuality: As infinite, eternal, unlimited, perfect, and complete, you had no need for a mental understanding of who and what you are.

All those labels, including the label of “powerful,” are foreign concept, as there is no opposite experience to give definition to the labels.

You simply are everything and nothing at the exact same time. There is no “you” in the sense of you.

There is only infinite intelligence (you, source, God, whatever, any label you prefer), all without labels.

That is the essence of what comes into this world as an infant.

As the ‘infant you’ continues these new experiences, meaning begins to take shape, especially when the energetic sense of a “self” shows up. I’m not sure exactly when the sense of a separate self arrives, yet I suspect that is when you start assigning meanings to stuff ; “stuff” being the technical term for meaningless events.

Before the sense of a “separate self” arrives, events (i.e., “stuff”) just happens with no meaning attached.

Apparently, one of the foundational fundamentals of a separate self is assigning meaning. Without an individual to assign meaning nothing has any meaning; it simply is what is.

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily

As an infant, you start adding meaning to events. As similar (but not exactly the same) events happen, you begin to identify a pattern. From then on, as an individual, you create (i.e., make up) pattern after  pattern. From there, you create patterns about patterns.

This is all done in an effort to understand and explain the sense of a “separate self.”

This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.

It is simply what is because without a sense of a “separate self,” you could not have the experience of finite, temporary, limited, imperfect and incomplete—much less powerlessness and aloneness.

So, this thing we call you started out as infinite, eternal, unlimited, perfect and complete; now you experience yourself as finite, temporary, limited, imperfect and incomplete.

However, in this experiencing of the other aspect of you, you have not paid attention to the original aspect of yourself.

In actuality, it is a perfect thing.

Since there is the energetic sense of a “separate individual self” as opposed to a sense of oneness, with the proper application of “attention,” you can do some amazing things if you should choose to.

Up until now, you have interpreted everything through the sense of a separate self who is finite, temporary, limited, imperfect and incomplete. Because of that, your focused attention has followed the rule of attention, which is:

Energy flows, builds, charges, and strengthens where attention goes.

Because of your individual sense of self, your attention has been focused on patterns and beliefs that support finite, temporary, limited, imperfect and incomplete.

Again—that is not a good or bad thing; it simply is what it is.

Yet you already are the opposite of all those things.

You are finite and infinite, temporary and eternal, limited and unlimited, imperfect and perfect, incomplete and complete—all at the same time. This is a world of duality—both sides are always present.

Now that you are aware of the “rule of attention,” you can purposefully place your senses on the other aspects of “who you really are.” As your sense of those aspects of yourself grows, things will begin to shift, not because of any effort on your part, but simply by the awareness of your totality.

Life Is But A Dream

When you dream a dream, everything in the dream, including you in the dream, seem so real. There are actually other people in your dream and everyone has feelings, consequences, and everything.

The dreams are so real that when you wake you, you still think about the dream and give it meaning(s). You may even shift things in your waking life because of a dream.

What we often forget is that none of the dream is real: not the people, not the places, not the things, not even you in the dream; you weren’t there, nothing was the only thing there.

It was only energy with a sense of seperateness or NO-thing pretending to be something.

We use the dream to know reality and yet the dream has a reality of its own.

Some people talk about doing lucid dreaming, where they are awake in the dream knowing they are in the dream; they use this knowledge to shift and change the dream.

I think there is a bigger game we can play called “lucid living.”

Some people call that enlightenment.

Whatever label we put on it, I think more and more folks are getting close to playing this new “Life Is But A Dream: Lucid Living” game.

Dr. Houston Vetter is the author of Sacred Cows Dancing Volume #1:  Financial Enlightenment For Today, along with Dr. Joe Vitale, Jerry Stocking, and others.  This is a book that the more you read, the more open to abundance you become. He also offers support and answers at no charge over at Ask Doc Anything, where his talents as a Life Coach, Spiritual Mentor, and Transformationalist helps people live happily ever after.

Now get this: His name is Houston and he lives in Houston, TX. How did that happen?

~

Editor: April Dawn Ricchuito

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