March 19, 2025
Bill Pautler
Putting Seagulls in Our Minds
“Do not conform yourself to this world,
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” *
— Bible
In the
1960’s in California, Susan was a young student in art class. The teacher had
asked the class to draw a picture of the beach. The art teacher was walking
around looking at the children's progress. The teacher stopped at Susan’s desk
and said, “Dear, why don’t you put some seagulls in your picture?” Susan said,
“No.” The teacher came around a second
time and cajoled Susan to put some seagulls in her picture. Susan was still resistant. On the third pass,
the teacher leaned over and drew some seagulls on Susan’s beach picture. Susan
left school that day in tears. Her parents later sued the school board.
Seagulls are
powerful concepts that shape our beliefs and therefore our lives. We must be
very careful about what seagulls we are putting in our minds and the minds of
others.
Our minds
are our repository. A collection of
everything we have experienced and been exposed to. Our minds are also the filter through which
we view our lives. So, when our mind is
programmed with beauty and truth, we see and act beauty and truth into the
world. When our mind is programmed with
doubt and pain, we see and act doubt and pain into our lives.
The process
of staying joyful and living a truly aware life is really a process of keeping
the slate of our minds clean.
We keep our
minds clean by selectively choosing what we allow in them and continually
purging our minds through silence and awareness.
Purifying
our minds is the way to salvation. Not
salvation in the religious sense. The
word salvation is defined as preserving ourselves from harm. When we keep our minds pure, we preserve
ourselves from harm, we allow our natural joyful selves to come to the
surface.
When the
slate of our mind is clean, just like a newly erased chalkboard, our inherent
joyful, peaceful nature is what exudes.
You may
remember Kevin Carter, the Pulitzer Prize photographer who shot the picture in
Sudan of the vulture waiting patiently to eat an emaciated child. The picture is commonly referred to as The
Vulture and the Little Girl.
Four months
after receiving the Pulitzer he committed suicide. His suicide note read, “I'm
really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy
does not exist … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses
& anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy
madmen, often police, of killer executioners … “.
Kevin showed
us with his photography, his words and his life, that life can be very very
hard and sad.
So, I am not
asking us to ignore the world, the sadness.
But there is no reason to make this life any harder than it is.
Look with
awareness at everything we expose ourselves to.
Every person, every news show, every movie, every situation. Is this exposure bringing joy, peace, love and
truth? Or is this exposure creating more
smudge marks on our minds, limiting our access to our true selves?
Practice: Take one day and with awareness, look at
every single thing you expose yourself to.
With truth, review all your thoughts, interactions and experiences. Which incidences brought life? Which incidences brought harm?
If you
continue to do this practice every day, over time your true nature and your power
will surface. And you will become the god
you were meant to be.
*Renewal of
our mind is re-minding ourselves.
Re-minding means to make our minds new again. To create a new, fresh mind. Just like the mind of a child. That is what Jesus meant when he told us to
become like little children.
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Be mindful, aware and enjoy our
journey ……. Live a SageLife
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Namaste, the Divine in me honors the Divine in you!
Much love bill
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