Do you believe in Santa Claus?Seriously. This isn’t a rhetorical question. Do you?

Assuming your an adult and don’t wear tin foil hats to keep “them” from beaming thoughts into your head, I’ll bet you answered “No” and you probably thought it was a stupid question.
But let’s take a look at this Santa Claus thing.

The basic idea of Santa Claus is that someone is watching you, day and night, who knows everything you do and everything you think. Santa knows what you truly want, but if you want to make sure, you can write to him and tell him. Or, at special times, you can even go and see Santa and tell him directly.
And, if you take all the right actions and think all the right thoughts, one day when you wake up, you’ll find that something you’ve really, really, really wanted has appeared before your very eyes.

If you don’t do all the right things, well, you get a lump of coal… and next year you’ll have to try even harder to get on Santa’s good side so that he’ll magically deliver what you want.

Sound familiar?

Sound like the way we think of our spiritual or psychological lives?

If I think “positive” thoughts, raise my vibration, forgive my parents, learn to love myself, lose weight, attend the right workshop, clear up “blocks”, meditate with my eyes open, meditate with my eyes closed, meditate while remaining celibate, meditate while having sex… then, one day, as if by magic, I’ll be rewarded for all my good actions and thoughts and I’ll get a partner, more money, a new car, the house of my dreams, happiness, enlightenment, world peace…

So, let me ask again, do you believe in Santa Claus?

What are the actions that you do, hoping to prove to Santa you deserve to have what you want?

What are the thoughts you think you need to have to be a good boy or girl? What are the thoughts you need to get rid of?

How do you let Santa know what you want?

What are the ways you try to bribe him (think, milk and cookies)?

What do you do when Christmas morning comes and goes and you didn’t get the train set, or Barbie dream house, or BB gun (or perfect partner, perfect job or perfect body)?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to slight you for acting like there is someone or something out there — God, Universe, Source, Higher Power, etc. — that is constantly judging and deciding whether or if to bestow good or bad things upon you.

I mean, think about it, this is one of the oldest ideas that humans have. We’ve got thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years of people believing that some specific way of behaving or believing results in changing the world we live in. We may make fun of “primitive” cultures and the ways they try to influence the rains, the wind, the sun, and the gods that control them.

Our techniques and mythology might have changed, but in essence we’re just doing what our great-great-great-great-and so-on grandparents have done.

What if we stopped?

What if you no longer believed that making some arbitrary change in your thinking — for example, “focusing on what you want” — would reliably result in getting something you want? What if you no longer believed that if you prayed properly you wouldn’t get the kinds of terminal illnesses that end the lives of 99% of all humans?
What could you do with the free time and energy you would have if you stopped trying to convince Santa you’ve been good this year?

How might your life be different if you didn’t think you needed to get that present you’ve been dreaming about in order to be happy? (How long did the happiness you got from your presents last, anyway? Until New Years day?)

We love to make fun of the beliefs of children and those we see as unevolved. Once I stopped nodding my head, all I could see is how much I had been believing ideas that were, on a good day, no better than those I mocked.

And once I could see the Santa Claus Conspiracy in these beliefs, it was practically impossible to open the flue and put milk and cookies on the mantle any longer. Discovering that there is no Santa Claus requires uncovering the ways we act as if there is. And once you do, there’s no need to try to “live in the present” (if you do that, Santa will bring you a box of happiness and peace), since you won’t bother to live in the future Christmas day.

In fact, it’s stopping waiting for Santa to bring us goodies that reveals the goodies that are always available to enjoy. No need to wait for some magical day for the goodies of reality. And the goodie-ness of reality lasts waaaay longer than the ones that come wrapped up in the hope of future happiness.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Gurus, Psychology, Self-Improvement, Spiritual Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.