Oversoul Seven's Little Book

The Further Education of Oversoul Seven – Oversoul Seven’s Little Book

The Charmed Life

Each life is charmed (Seven said), yours and everyone else’s, and you must never forget it.  The instant you’re born, you’re charmed, because life itself is a charm.  Each being is charmed into existence in whatever reality it finds itself, and given everything it needs to operate in the environment.  Your body is charmed, too: It’s a magic part of everything else; springing up from all the things you see about you.  Atoms and molecules go singing through the miraculous air, forming themselves into rocks and trees and dogs and cats and people, too.  You are magic.  You charm the air so that it thickens into your body wherever you are.

When you want to move, you think the air ahead of you into becoming your body, and the air behind you then stops being your body … all very magical indeed.  You move your arm just one inch to the right, and the air to the left one inch stops being part of your arm.  But it all happens so quickly, your snatching of the air and making it turn into your body, that you never notice it at all, and take it quite for granted.  Which is why it works so well, you see.

But your life is charmed.  And there is a secret, a very simple one.  Really, it’s not a secret.  But you have to remember that your life is charmed.  People who forget can’t use their magic nearly as well as they did before, and they have a tendency to get angry at those who can.  So, often, they pretend that no magic exists at all.  Then they evolve great philosophies to prove it, which is itself magical, of course.  But they can’t see that, because they’re so convinced that magic doesn’t exist.

And many people forget how simple and natural magic is, so they evolve long theories, and methods that are supposed to make it work, when you and I know, and everyone else really knows, that magic itself happens by itself, because that’s what magic is.

But people are also very creative … magic again! … so they make up gods of this and that, and realms and spheres, and maps to chart out in advance where magic might be taking them so they don’t get surprised, which is silly because magic goes where it wants to, which is everywhere.  And when you try to map it out in advance, you really cut yourself short.

Because a characteristic of magic is that it automatically turns into whatever you want it to be.  You create your own reality with it, so whatever maps you make are real.  And if you forget what magic is, then you’re liable to think that your map is the only real one, and all others are false.  You get in a terrible bind, fighting over which way is right, which road or map, while all the time magic is what makes the maps.  And a great variety of maps can appear in the twinkling of an eye!

Particularly when you grow up, many people will tell you that there is no magic.  If you believe them, then you’ll forget too, and you’ll act as if you aren’t charmed and bring unmagic into your life … which is magic too, you see, but magic that doesn’t know itself.  Then you’ll create things that go with unmagic, like sorrow or sickness, and you’ll have to deal with them at that level until you remember that your life is charmed again.

So in the meantime you’ll feel nasty and unloved and angry, way beyond what is natural, and have to worry about sad or fearful emotions and what to do with them, when magically, you’d know:  They’d just come and go exuberantly like summer storms.  But anger and hate and sorrow are all magic too, and left alone, they’d lead you back to the knowledge that your life is charmed.  Because hate is love looking for itself every place but where love is; and love is what you feel for yourself when you know that you are where you’re supposed to be in the universe, and that you’re lovely just because you are, and, of course, charmed.

Not only that, but you’re also the magic maker; the inner living part of you that forms your life.  But consciously you have to know this, accept and acknowledge it, and let the magic of yourself happen.  That way, you’re directing the magic of yourself.

But it’s even more fun just to let the magic happen as it wants to, because it’s your magic, and that way it keeps telling you more and more about your magical self.  Then the magic flows through you with unimpeded delight.  If you keep saying, “I want it this way and no other”, then you may be limiting your physical experience, because there’s no doubt that your inner magical self knows more about your potentials than you do.  And it will tell you quite clearly, if you only listen.

To many adults, all of this sounds too simple and unintellectual, because unfortunately many of them think that the mind is just something to say “no” with, and to keep out magic.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

But if you use your mind to say no to magic, then it’s like closing doors to your own charmed existence, and refusing to use the full power of your life.

Everyone works with magic, whether they realize it or not.  Beliefs are magic, too, you see.  Many people think that one particular belief makes everything right; or makes magic happen.  And as long as they believe that, they’re all right for a while.  But if they start doubting that belief, and don’t find another one to replace it, then they think that they’ve lost their Magic, or that life has.  Instead, of course, the magic is there all along.

But people love systems, so they use all kinds of beliefs … some of them quite handy … as aids.  And they travel through belief systems, sometimes going to considerable trouble to do so, when all they really have to remember is that they are magic themselves, and their lives are charmed without their having to do anything about it at all.

And your conscious mind is magic, too.  Its workings are mysterious and complicated, and simple and clear at once, like air is.  Your conscious mind looks out through your eyes, and knows parcels of air as its body, and smiles through cheeks and skin the same way that the moon shines through the wide skin of the heavens.  See how clear and mysterious it all is?  So, in a way, it’s silly for the conscious mind to question magic, because – well, it’s so magical itself.

But systems of magic are silly, too, and all of them are really based upon doubt.  Magic is considered so tenuous that someone has to be at it all the time, making spells or paying someone else to do it.  And the spells all have to be done just right, so people concentrate on how to do this spell or another.  This gets very complicated, and many adult books deal with the subject.

But everything is a spell.  Your words and thoughts are spells.  Science is just another system that tries to discover what certain spells cause certain effects.  Usually, of course, scientists don’t understand magic any more than priests do; and they all get caught up in their own complicated methods.

There isn’t much basic difference between muttering a lot of different phrases or drawing magic circles to protect yourself against illness, and taking handfuls of pills given to you by doctors.  Both methods work if you believe in them, though the practitioners of one method will never agree that the other way works at all, of course.  And unfortunately, neither side really understands magic, which is behind all of the spells and methods and formulas.

Spells work if you believe in them; only you don’t need spells at all.  Everything happens by itself.  You happen by yourself, so does the world.  And the principle behind it all is magic.  And magic is the Beingness within and behind all things.

The Body and Creaturehood

Within your creaturehood, you have all kinds of freedom.  And all of the freedom you can ever enjoy in your lifetime must come through your creaturehood.  Some people spend a good deal of time trying to pretend that they only have minds, or that minds alone are important.  Some people even try to ignore their bodies almost entirely in an effort to be more spiritual, or to be “better” people, which is like a bird trying to fly better than any other bird alive … all the time refusing to use its wings, or pretending that they weren’t there.  He’d never get off the ground.  A bird would never think of such foolishness, of course, and often other creatures are smarter than people.

In fact, whenever you’re in trouble, it’s a good idea to watch the animals, for they bask in their freedom and don’t worry about their limitations.  A cat or dog can teach you a lot.  A cat really enjoys its catness, just as you should enjoy your creaturehood.  Even a fly buzzing around the ceiling loves its own reality and is free in it.  If it stopped to wonder whether or not it could really fly – well, it would fall down in a minute or never go fast enough to outwit your mother’s flyswatter.

So, trying to be religious or “good” or “better” by ignoring your body doesn’t make much sense either.

Actually, each person has a private kingdom for his or her very own, because your body is the one part of earth that is really yours, that no one can take away during your lifetime.  It’s the part of earth, moving and alive, that belongs to you and nobody else.  In a way, it’s your portion of the planet, sprung up in a living, moving statue of earth-stuff, for you and no one else.  So how you treat your body is important.

You just don’t live in it, either.  You live through it; there’s a difference.  You flow through it, moving in all of its parts.  The body is your own magic country.  Your conscious mind is like a monarch.  Now, a good king or queen is loving and gives the people freedom to move about the country.  In this case, your own feelings and thoughts and desires are like the people in your kingdom.  So you should treat your own feelings graciously, and you and your kingdom will flourish.  Some monarchs are dictators, setting up all kinds of impossible laws and taboos, because they’re really afraid of the people who make up their own kingdom.

If you’re a good king or queen, you’ll realize that your kingdom is a good one, and you won’t be afraid of your own people … your thoughts and feelings and desires … but will encourage them.  And you and your body will have all the freedom necessary to flourish and grow.

The Power and a Special Sumari Song

Now, here’s a Sumari song, to help you remember that your existence is a charmed one.  A Sumari song is one that speaks to your ordinary self and to your magical self at once.  It’s a charmed song, of course.  But it isn’t a spell or a sign or even a symbol, because all those things can be very tricky indeed.  For example, if you believe that your magic comes from a medal or a cross or a necklace, and you lose your luckpiece, then you’re in trouble, and you think that your magic is gone.  Then you can spend a lifetime trying to find it.

And if you think that spells make magic, then you aren’t secure either, because you might forget the words to the spell, since no one is infallible.  Besides, people who believe in spells guard them very jealously, and often think that they alone have “the power”, and if you want to learn their methods, then you must endure trials to prove your courage.  And, of course, you must promise to follow the rules, and prove that you are worthy of “the power”.  Again, all of this is very silly because flowers and birds and frogs have the power too, and without having to prove themselves to anyone, or pass any tests.

So the Sumari song is just a reminder.  It’s been translated from an inner language into one that you can understand, but the magic is still in it.  It will jog your memory when you’re in danger of forgetting that your life is charmed.  Of course, you might forget the song.  But even then, you’d only lose a valuable reminder – which would be a pity – but you wouldn’t believe that your magic had gone with your memory.  Still, I hope that you’ll always remember that your life is charmed, and that your magic is you; and you don’t have to prove anything to yourself or anyone else to get it!

Here is the Sumari song:

 

My mind is like a frog

On a lily pad,

Knowing, alone,

But never lonely.

 

My mind is green

And glowing,

Leaping without slipping

From lily-pad-thought

To thought.

 

My mind sits smiling

On the pond of my being,

In morning and evening,

Always knowing the time,

Yet not needing

A Clock.

 

Sumari Time

There are special moments that are open channels in which a different kind of time energies; an inside-Sumari kind of non-time.  And in that time, everything is miraculous.  One hour of it is worth – well, days of ordinary minutes.  In Sumari time, you can learn something in a twinkling that might otherwise take years, and insights spring up, brilliant as fresh fruit, for the picking.

This Sumari time is the special heart of time, and contains its real meaning.  Again, it’s really a non-time, always new and shiny, and it contains secrets that are secrets only because so few people realize that this glittering time exists, and right in the middle of the regular time that you know.

Now, in earth time, so many minutes add up to so many hours, and when you’re living in that framework alone, then so much time is needed to get things done.  But inspiration is quite different.  It seeks out those special moments when magic leaps from one world to the other with such ease.

And each person has his or her own key to Sumari time.  All you have to do is use it.  You can write or paint or learn things or solve problems or just be supremely happy ten times as well in one hour of Sumari time as you can in ten regular hours.

Of course, Sumari and earth time coincide, which is tricky, I admit.  And earth time springs out of Sumari time, but people divide up usual time so much that they never realize that time is really whole.

So, Sumari time is whole time, since we’re using the term “time” at all.  Later we’ll dispense with it entirely.  But right now the trick is to recognize Sumari time and use it.

If time were a fruit, then Sumari time would be its nectar and essence, and if time were a holiday, then Sumari time would be Christmas.

When most people bump into a corner of Sumari time, they’re delighted, but they don’t know how to find it again, when it’s there all the while.

Stacks and stacks of the wrong kind of hours won’t give you even one minute of good Sumari time, though.  Because in a strange way, a Sumari hour is the other side of an earth hour.  I mean, all of a sudden, for example, 11 o’clock becomes transparent; it is what it is, on top, but it’s something else too, underneath.  And you can peer through – well, time itself.

The Beginning

It’s deceptive to say thus and so “happened in the beginning”, or that “in the beginning was the word”, or whatever, because there was no official Beginning when God suddenly came parading out of nothingness, bearing the ingredients of mountains, oceans, and land, and trailing sky banners proclaiming the opening of the universe, or the creation of life from a sea of gasses.

There are multitudinous beginnings.  “The Beginning” is only the one you came in on, so to speak, which is rather like coming into a dream in the middle and wondering what happened earlier.  In dreams, everything really happens at once, even though there seems to be a beginning and ending … the past and present and future merge … and the universe is like that in a way.  You’re bound to wonder what went on or how long it’s all been going on, not realizing that in a manner of speaking, it just started when you got there.  And in another way, it really isn’t there at all.

If you dream that you’re in a jungle, for instance, no vines or tangled undergrowth climb up the bedpost, and no exotic animals prowl between the window and the door.  Yet the jungle certainly seems real.  Where did it come from, or when did it begin?  The universe is like the dream jungle.  It exists quite properly, yet in the most profound way it makes no sense to ask when it began.  It begins each day, each moment, at each point of your contact with it.  The gods exist in the same manner, like a giant species of consciousness, striding psychological paths of vast proportions that never really physically appear in the world at all.

The gods and the universe really begin everyplace and everywhere at once, at every point.  Our psychological reality rises from an inner inconceivable divine mind that’s invisible to us, since we are It, earthized, individualized.  We’re the gods in camouflage.

On Methods

The whole thing about techniques is the idea that you need certain methods to make things work for you, when all you have to do is let things alone: Then they “work” for you automatically.  If you forget that fact, then you’ll always be looking for better and better methods … which will never really work … because Nature and your own nature work best when left alone.

If you’re going to study such issues at all, then look for what you do right, and you’ll always find that in those areas you let yourself alone and do what comes naturally, because you are inclined in that direction.

When you concentrate on what’s wrong, you almost always try too hard, look for methods that will work better than the ones you’re using now … when the truth is that the methods themselves stand in the way, whatever they are.  Because Nature doesn’t use methods.  It “works” because it is what it is.

Methods presuppose the opposite, in whatever area of your concern.  They show your belief that nature doesn’t work right on its own.