THE H WORD
Zeus mysteriously materialized in my life a few years ago. He's
a very complex, wise-cracking, irreverent dog with some serious
attitude. However, he is arguably the most highly evolved being
I have ever encountered. His great delight is in turning my
world (and yours) inside out and upside down, with the soul
purpose of revealing forgotten knowledge. For example:
If you met Zeus, you'd no doubt agree that he's a remarkable
being. He's brilliant, unexpectedly funny, and wise beyond
comprehension--hardly astounding for someone from a dimension as
far advanced beyond the human race as we are beyond a pile of
sand. What gets me is how much he loves being a dog. Not to be
disrespectful, but imagine an ascended master sniffing at
hydrants and adding his markings to let future visitors know
he'd been in the neighborhood.
At his request, I walk him on a 26-foot retractable lead, the
longest I could find at the pet superstore. One evening, while
watching him do his dog thing, I began replaying the world
situation in my mind. Wars now involve nations on every
continent. The environment is overwhelmed by a host of what seem
irreversible challenges, new diseases are identified faster than
the old ones are being cured. Starvation, hatred, religious
fervor, political rhetoric . . . the situation appears hopeless.
"Good thing, if you ask me," Zeus said, shaking me out of my
reverie.
"What's so good about the world falling apart?" I asked.
"Nothing. That's not so good. What is good is that you finally
realize it's hopeless."
"What kind of nonsense is that? We're really in deep trouble," I
protested. "Take away hope and we have nothing left."
"If all you have is hope, then you're well and truly over the
edge," Zeus retorted. "Just because everyone agrees that
something is good, don't assume it's true. Hope is a prime
example. If you'd just wipe the sleep from your eyes, you'd see
that hope is scraped together from the dregs at the bottom of
the barrel. Rancid stuff!"
"What're you talking about? Why are you so down on hope?"
"Because it lulls people into thinking things will get better on
their own. It passes the buck. It's a throwaway emotion that
lets people feign concern without getting their hands dirty.
Like, 'I hope you'll feel better soon. Bye.' Hope hardly
resonates on the energy meter. It's a complete dud."
"I don't follow you, Zeus. Give me an example or two."
"How about a bunch of 'em?" Zeus replied. "Listen to these
words. Forget their meaning, just focus on their levels of
energy."
I closed my eyes and asked my mind to take a back seat for a few
moments as Zeus began: "I hope . . . I await . . . I wish . . .
I crave . . . I plead . . . I beg . . . I anticipate . . . I
demand . . . I envision . . . I foresee . . . I project . . . I
consider . . . I ascertain . . . I determine . . . I create . .
. I manifest . . . I realize . . . I intuit . . . I know . . . I
am.
"What did you notice as I progressed through the list?"
"The energy intensified with each new word," I said.
"And what about the degree of engagement each word implied?"
"Definitely more as you went along."
"Beginning to get the point?" Zeus asked. "With such a spectrum
of choices for achieving change, from 'I hope' at the bottom all
the way up to 'I am,' why do so many humans choose impotence
almost every time?"
"Ouch," I winced. "That really lights up the situation with our
political and religious leaders. All those messages of hope
distance us from responsibility, like trying to support your
family by buying a lottery ticket instead of going to work."
"It's far more insidious," Zeus said. "Hope is part of the
preprogramming that keeps people locked in the illusion. To
paraphrase Newton's third law: 'Every action has an equal and
opposite reaction.' Using a low-voltage word like 'hope' pins
you, and all you apply it to, to a powerless level of your
being. Use it enough times and you'll get stuck. Then everything
you really can do something about begins to look like too much
to handle. You actually compound the problem every time you use
the H word.
"It's a divine comedy, as Dante suggests. But his heavy
investment in preconceived beliefs caused him to misread the
sign on hell's door. It doesn't say 'Abandon all hope, ye who
enter here.' It says, 'Enter here, ye who still cling to hope.'
"At the other extreme, can't you just hear it? On the seventh
day God beheld the Heavens and the Earth, viewing all He had
created and proclaimed, 'Gee, I hope this all works out.'
"And so my little leash-holder, when you notice the hopelessness
of any situation, rejoice, for you have eliminated the least
powerful option. Once you give up relying on the H word, you can
roll up your sleeves and get to work.
"I'm actually glad we had this little chat, because you've been
using that unfortunate term a lot lately. Quite unconsciously,
mind you. But every time you mouth that word, you degrade
yourself and everyone who hears it. Forget minding your P's and
Q's," Zeus chided. "You've got more important letters to focus
on. Besides, socially correct behavior merely buys you
membership in the flock. And, if I may offer a Frosty reminder,
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But you, my child, have
promises to keep And miles to go before you sleep; It's not for
you to join the sheep."