It's all about the BE!

Over the past couple of days I've noticed an epidemic. People who are still looking for the way to know? How do you know anything in life?

Yeah it seems like such a simple question... until you try to practically apply it.

How do I know the sky is blue... well my eyes perceive it that way, yet where can you show me the blue in the sky? Can you grab it and put it in my hand? What if the sky is red? You say it isn't, yet I've seen it look very red before. So which is it... blue or red?

It's the flaw of the human condition. It's being locked into our perception being reality. It is the inevitability of the fact that we are finite and our minds are finite... and you will never arrive.

That is why we look for ten steps to know if what people think about us is what God thinks about us. That is why we look for someone to show us the "way to live". To some extent it is even why read this blog. We think that there is a higher way to live that we can "know".

Now, before you start yelling heretic and calling for me to be burned at the stake let me finish.

The fact is that “knowing” is a problem for us. Being is much more accurate. If you “know” something then it is describable, it has distinct limitations, it can be put into a little box by the parameters your mind puts around it. Being on the other hand is an entirely different story.

Don’t get me wrong… I strong believe that knowing is an important first step towards being, but the problem is that it is only a step. I’ll end with this story and write more about it later.

There once was this little monkey. This little monkey went down to the waterhole with his mother one day. It was the first time he had ever been to the big pond! He was so excited. He ran down to the water’s edge and peered in.

He scrambled back in surprise at the little monkey on the surface of the water staring back at him! He looked and looked from a distance but the little monkey was gone. Finally, he built up enough courage to move back to the water’s edge… and boom there it was again. Determined to be a brave monkey he held his ground. He waved and as he did the monkey in the water waved at the same time. He smiled and so did the other monkey. The little monkey started getting frustrated at this copy cat in the water. He moved quickly trying to surprise the monkey in the water but to no avail, the monkey in the water mimicked him exactly. All of this mimicking made the little monkey very angry. He smacked the monkey as hard as he could.

Sure enough the monkey disappeared. The little monkey beamed at his superiority until suddenly he looked down and there the monkey was again. He smacked the water again… and once again after a moment or two he re-appeared.

Finally, after his failure the little monkey became intrigued. He could not figure out where this new monkey came from and why he couldn’t get to him. He was also baffled that when he felt like he should be the closest to the little monkey that he ended up being the farthest away. The monkey would even disappear.

He pondered all of this for a while and with his dogged tenacity decided that he would not be made a fool of any longer by this monkey. He chased it all over the waterhole running hard after it, thinking that he must just barely be missing it, but time after time it would disappear in the thrashing waters. Finally, in disgust he gave up and plopped down backwards to sit in the cold water. As usual the monkey appeared again.

Totally fed up with disgust, the little monkey had an idea. He plunged his head under the water, bound, bent, and determined to find the monkey. He held his head under longer and longer and longer… so bullheaded was the little monkey that he took a deep breath of the water… just knowing that it must be safe since the other monkey did it.

As he lay there drowning his lungs filled with the murky water… he cursed the monkey that he never could find.


That’s why it has to matter and not matter… stop searching and start being… It’s much more fulfilling.