GREAT MORNING BELOVED!!!
“The Wizard of Oz Summer Series – Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking”

Welcome back! Did you enjoy your journey on the Yellow Brick Road? Hopefully, yes.

And you are possibly learning something about yourself….maybe your life as your travel the road that is your True Nature.

I think something like this book and movie remind us of our true self…if only we could let go and travel that road to self-awareness. We use so many different excuses to not go within, to not look at who we truly are.

The Path to Enlightenment is a personal journey. No one can hand you the answer on a silver platter. So, the ego must grow up, maybe even fly away to who knows where for a little while until it learns how to handle all that hot air from the Wizard and in that balloon! This is letting go and taking advantage of the present moment.

This is exactly what Dorothy does – as soon as she realizes she can. As Lama Surya Das says, “If you cling to nothing, you can handle anything.”

Always we must tend to our own gardens. No one can do it for us. The best way to deal with another person’s out of control ego (As in the Wizard) is to get control of one’s own. Sometimes (but not always), getting control means just the opposite – letting go – seeing through – and smiling down on the little self that loves to make mountains out of molehills and who thinks it’s the king of all of them, including the forest.

In other words, sometimes we need to stop taking ourselves so seriously.

Instead of looking at the obstacles that we find on the path as a learning opportunity, we look at it as a struggle…. just something to get by. We say; ‘there’s always something.’ My Mom used to say that, and I would turn it around for her.

And we can do that too. It doesn’t have to be ‘always something’. We can find a way to keep moving.

This week we look at ourselves. Our spiritual essence is pure consciousness. We have a responsibility to delve into our selves and know our True Self so we are able to align with the pure potential and total Oneness of the universe.

The scarecrow does a lot of thinking for someone who claims to not have a brain. “I’d think of things I never thunk before and then I’d sit and think some more.”

AS a conscious being, the only thing you need to find happiness is to perceive clearly who you are. Being upset about what you don’t have wastes what you do have.

Morya, one of the “Masters of the Ancient Wisdom”, says, “A man depressed by circumstances, becomes immobile and dull. Dullness LIKE RUST corrodes a portion of the fundamental substance. Sympathy draws men’s energy downwards. When we sympathize with someone, we prevent them from learning their lessons in life that intend to teach them and we get pulled down into their misery. Sympathy is delusion but compassion means understanding.”

What the Scarecrow really yearns for is higher consciousness, enlightenment. His head may be filled with straw but he echos a profound metaphysical insight when he states “I’d face a whole box of matches for the chance of getting some brains”, proclaiming Sarte’s philosophy: ‘existence preceded essence’.

In other words, you exist whether or not you have discovered your true Self, your cosmic purpose.

The Scarecrow is saying he is willing to risk his existence to discover his essence.

Plato urged his students to “Know thyself” believing ‘a life unexamined is not worth living’

The Tao Te Ching says it this way:
Knowing others is intelligence;
Knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
Mastering yourself is true power.

AS Dorothy & the Scarecrow travel the Yellow Brick Road, they must travel through a dark and rather creepy forest. The Scarecrow says, “Of course, I don’t know, but I think it’ll get darker before it gets lighter.”

Pretty keen philosophical insight for a brainless straw man! The Tao states “The path into light seems dark.”
How could this brainless man of straw be on the same wavelength as some of the greatest Zen masters? Natures intelligence flows freely and effortlessly. When you are in harmony with the creative intelligence of the cosmos, when you know your True Self, you can harness the pure potential of the universe.

I’ve experienced that myself and I bet you have also. Many times, in class or discussing something with someone, some words will flow from me and I have no idea where they come from. Have you experienced that?

Of course, we all know that to get to that True Self, we must get past those obstacles that can block us…the insecurities, the past conditioning, the domestication, the guilt, compulsions and need for approval.

All this old baggage wastes your energy. Get off that pole stuck in the middle of the corn field and let go. Free that energy and accept things as they are right now.

By doing nothing, letting go and being in the here and now, you let your talents flow, you’re connected to the abundant universe. The Tao say to acquire anything, simply give up your attachment to the outcome.

When the Scarecrow accepts the here and now, every obstacle he encounters becomes an opportunity in disguise: pgs. 62-63 of Zen

When the Scarecrow is bestowed with a Doctor of Thinkology, he tries to impress the others by forcing to use his brain. He forced himself out of sync with the Tao, the universe.

The Scarecrow is like a very intelligent person who cannot afford college and therefore feels inferior. You are always smarter than you think. Trust the power of your True Self and you will have no need to try to impress others seeking approval. “No need to do an awful lot of talking”

Be yourself.