The Real GPS

I set out from the eastern wilderness in my periwinkle pickup with the YESS license plate bound for the Land of Angels, should there be such a place.  

Without realizing it, my destination was automatically plugged into that GPS gizmo we all carry in our heart, the one that, whether we know it or not (and I didn’t), responds only to our soul’s deepest intention.  

So when the thing started yakking at me, advising me how to negotiate the road’s every bump and bend, my small self muted that baby right up.  I have an aversion to people telling me what to do.  It’s a useful attitude, since learning from our own experience is vital to health, but it comes with a price for the unmindful. 

Near Buffalo appeared a hitch-hiker toting a mountain of climbing gear and a sign: “Twenty grand to take me to Alaska.”  Greed and adventure applied the brakes for what turned into a six thousand mile distraction.  

A dozen summits, a few birthdays under the stars, dancing with grizzlies––fabulous as this was, it revealed that it wasn’t why I had left the eastern wilderness.

I go within.  Does the GPS say, “You foolish boy!”?  Not at all.  It’s just ready with directions.

In fact, had I been listening the whole time since Buffalo, I’d have heard that baby continually reconfiguring my elaborate detour into the most direct route to the Land of Angels, wherever that was––a route there for the following whenever I was ready. 

By the time I get to Laramie, however, I felt pestered enough by the gizmo’s “do this/do that” at every twist and turn so I muted that baby once again.  With predictable results.

A woman my mother’s age asks if I’d ever considered walking to the bottom of South America.  “Not til right this moment,” I say.  

We walked there together.  She continued on to Antartica.  I walked back to Laramie alone.  Along the way, I lost a finger, survived a bullet wound, left dead boots with love notes in them by the roadside, and every day a new stranger would invite me to their family supper table and tell me a story of their life that included unconditional love.

From those stories arose the reminder of why I’d set forth from the eastern wilderness in the first place.  I’d check the GPS occasionally.  Never did I hear a raised eyebrow.  Only friendly confirmation that the most direct route to the Land of Angels, wherever that might be, was at my fingertips anytime I wanted it.

I’d left my truck in Laramie to be a playtoy at a Montessori school.  By the time I returned it had been transformed into a spaceship instantly transporting its young passengers to distant planets in a fingersnap.  The truck’s bed was now a garden of flowers from every country on earth.  A rainbow of stars was painted on the periwinkle.  The tires were rendered sparkly white.  The engine purred like a lion having a belly rub.  On the roof a searchlight spotted flying saucers at twilight. 

That my truck had found its forever home was obvious.  When I said so to the head of school, she smiled and handed me an envelope.  “Every week,” she said, “I buy a lottery ticket, giving the universe an opportunity to help us serve more kids.  As a token of thanks for your gift of what the children call TheYESSTruck, I’d like to give you this week’s ticket.  But don’t get your hopes up.  Chump change is all we’ve won so far.”

Of course, dear reader, you know exactly what happened next.  I became a gazillionaire many times over  

It was just what I needed: the realization that I could bankroll no end of distractions to keep me from following my soul’s deepest intention.  Sail around the world endlessly, buy the New York Yankees, plus all the countless other things a person can do when earning any amount of money never needs to be more than a hobby.

It was frightening.  It was humbling.  It was gratifying, to learn so powerfully how easy it can be to sidestep the guidance that leads us to the fulfillment of our soul’s destiny: the Land of Angels, wherever that was.

Which led me to stop muting my GPS gizmo and listen to it, examine it, understand it, figure out how that baby actually works. 

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:  

• • There is no external destination.  The Land of Angels resides within us.  Embracing that reality, and living in harmony with it, is our deepest aspiration.
  • Our GPS is our soul intuition, our greatest analytical power in its attunement with the universe, with God.  It offers the most efficient path to that fulfillment.  
  • The resulting escapades, no matter how demanding, are precisely what we need to deepen such vital practices as trust, forgiveness, acceptance, compassion, not to mention humor.
  • That baby doesn’t care a bit how much we allow ourselves to be distracted along the way.  It knows that, ultimately, every choice, every action, helps us wake up to what is, and isn’t, leading us most effectively to the peace and joy of conscious oneness with all of existence.   
  • That route of greatest efficiency is always available to us.  The pain of distractions, born of our ignorance, is simply one of the ways we become ready to ever-more frequently unmute our GPS, listen and follow.