Enlustered

Several days ago I was at the grocery store and I saw a man and his daughter looking for their keys. The father kept interrupting the cashier who was scanning my groceries, asking her to look in the trash, in the register for his keys since the cashier used his savings card on his key ring to ring up his groceries. When I got to my car after leaving the store I felt bad for ignoring the father and daughter. Once I lost my keys (which employees found days later) in an Old Navy store and it bothered me that no one else seemed to care.

When I saw the father and daughter in the store I was not happy to see them. Then and recently I’ve been dazed by the thought that this universe is my dream and that it’s up to me to awaken from it. I’ve felt burdened that I have to do something I don’t know how to do. At the time I felt that if this was a dream and the father and daughter looking for their keys was symbolic of something, I wouldn’t figure out what. I just felt over-burdened by the whole dream thing, unready for new symbols.

But earlier today it all made sense.

One night after that day in the store (maybe the same night?) I was lying in bed and I heard a voice say, “Monkeys. Mon-KEYS!” with an emphasis on “keys” the second time. The only reference to monkeys I could think of was from a few days before. I read a comment on a blog talking about how monkeys were not monogamous. I didn’t see any connection. I felt like maybe I was crazy and thought I’d just forget about the voice.

But then today I used a stamp to mail a form I filled out for Medicare to pay for my ambulance ride to the hospital (when I walked outside naked). It was a forever stamp and on it it said, “Equality.”

Amidst all these “signs,” I am also looking for the answer to another question: How do I love people around me when I don’t see myself in them? Since I started seeing this reality as a dream, I felt less angry at others. I started seeing them as illusions meant to challenge my belief that this “reality” is fake, fake because it suggests people can be happy even though they are largely separate from each other, images to each other rather than humans. But I still felt resentful of others, especially when I saw them as having stereotypical happiness, even if I disbelieved they were truly happy.

Then today, it clicked when I figured out how to view “fakeness.” The keys I’ve been looking for are the “Mon-KEYS!” The three wise monkeys: One speaks no evil. One hears no evil. One sees no evil. They represent perfect “Equality” (like on the stamp) of all things to me, that there is no lesser thing, no evil.  I read about “perfect equality” before in the book A Course in Miracles.

The three monkeys represent a new world to me: A world without judgment. (Note: How I see the monkeys is NOT traditional.)

I see my brothers. No matter what they do, whether they are illusions in a dream or something more, I can remember the three monkeys: There is no evil, so I see nor hear evil. I made the three-monkey connection after I remembered that whatever is said or done that does not make me feel one with another person does nothing. People appearing to be happy does nothing and should not make me angry. Anything that makes me feel separate from others is the dream. Dreams do nothing.

I thought I could awaken from this dream by closing my eyes and believing I could leave since I figured out it was a dream, and I was the one dreaming. I even heard voices say, “Come home.” Each time I tried, I stopped because I was afraid of the unknown. A voice told me I had to be sure in order to leave.

Maybe I need a segue way. Maybe I can leave this world before I actually leave by not believing in evil, by not getting angry at others or myself, which are the same, according to a song I hear in my head. I hear “Dancing with Myself” by Billy Idol every time I think mean thoughts of someone. It bothers me when I hear it. At least I can “act a monkey” and hear no evil when I hear it.