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Rebecca and I are taking part in a movie that’s being filmed in Wisconsin. It’s a sci-fi/horror type of film, and the experience has been a lot of fun, as well as very educational. Perhaps the most interesting aspect, though, has been considering what it means to be an actor. To really get into a scene, you have to ‘forget yourself’. Bruce Lee said that “The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.” And when you are trying to act a part, this becomes especially true. You can’t ‘become’ your character if you’re worried about how you look. The very best acting we’ve seen comes when the actor ‘loses’ themselves in the role, if only for a moment.

One of my favorite myths describes ‘God’ in this way – as an actor who is acting in the greatest movie ever made. It’s a movie where God plays the role of every stone, every animal, every star and atom – in short, God plays the role of every apparently individual thing in the entire universe. Just like humans trying to act in a movie, God ‘loses’ itself in these various roles, and does so with such skill and cleverness that God can’t even remember where it put itself. Thus the stone in the river lives in perfect hiding, never knowing it is God. And the blowing wind moves over the landscape, never realizing what it truly is. The squirrel gathers its nuts in perfect hiding, and each of us lives our lives thinking we are individual selves. Just like the rest of the universe, we are lost to ourselves, playing our roles so beautifully and perfectly that we never realize what or who we are.

This myth suggests that humans have a special ability. Though we are cleverly hidden, and though the task is nearly impossible, if we look in just the correct manner, we can discover our true nature, find ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Awakening’, and come out of acting. We can still be playing our parts in the movie, but we can realize that we’re doing it, and no longer be hidden from our true nature.

The beautiful thing about this myth is that it reminds us that it’s really no better to ‘Awaken’ than it is to remain lost in our acting. The stone in the river and the human who is lost are both playing their roles perfectly – more perfectly, perhaps, than someone who ‘Awakens’. One young woman I know is a case in point. She can speak very lucidly about awakening, and is never confused by my or others’ pointing. And yet she pushes it all away. “I enjoy the drama, the sensation of being lost in my emotions,” she says. “I’d never want to ‘awaken’.” Is this a young woman confused, or is this God saying, “The point of the game is in the hiding. Why would I want to step out of the movie?”

You don’t even have to imagine that you’re acting in a movie to understand what I’m speaking of here. Simply imagine watching a movie. A good movie sweeps you away, right? You get lost in the story, and forget that you’re sitting in a chair munching from a bowl of popcorn. When someone comes along and tries to ‘awaken’ you by telling you it’s just a movie, it’s easy to get annoyed. The whole point of watching a movie is to get lost in it!

The young woman who doesn’t want to ‘wake up’ isn’t very different from the rest of us. She may realize that she doesn’t want to awaken, but most of the rest of us actively (if unknowingly) resist waking up. After all, if we use the context of this myth, then we’re God trying to hide, and when someone (also God) comes along and tries to ’snap us out of it’, we realize on some level that if we achieved Enlightenment (or whatever you wish to call it), we’d be ruining the game.

Why seek out Awakening, then? This is perhaps the most profound question we can ask ourselves. Any answer we give only enmeshes us further in the ‘God-movie’, and will show us how our actions (wanting to Awaken) are serving to enhance our sense of self.

Why are we on this quest to ‘wake up’? What is our motivation? Perhaps the greatest magic lies not in ‘waking up’, but in fully embracing this beautiful dance.