Keeping Up with the Keys
I saw an extraordinary film called Standing in the Shadows of Motown, an inspiring documentary that chronicles the careers of a dozen musicians who recorded the background music for all the great Motown stars such as the Supremes, Temptations, Four Tops, and on and on. The posse, known as "the Funk Brothers" turned out more hit records than were ever sold by the Beatles, Beach Boys, and Rolling Stones combined.
The Funk Brothers’ keyboardist described how the group would drop into grooves in which the music seemed to be playing them. "My job," he explained, "was to get my fingers to keep up with the keys that were pressing themselves down."
When you open yourself as a vehicle for creative _expression, the song, painting, book, speech, or lovemaking takes over and you feel like it is living through you. In that moment you are one with the creator and the creation, and without effort you feel fulfilled and bring ultimate joy, color, and good to the world.
I saw a film of boxing great Muhammad Ali. The film, slowed down to illustrate Ali’s masterful technique, showed him ducking punches before his opponent threw them. Something in Ali was so attuned to the flow that he knew what was coming and reacted on the basis of intuition only. Ali was not thinking at all; he was just feeling and knowing.
Ali was in the flow, or the Tao, or the Zone. Living in this consciousness has little to do with figuring things out, and a lot to do with feeling things out. More sensing than planning. More being than doing. The flow is the one thing you cannot control or organize. You can only move with it. And it will serve you well if you trust it.
The Star Wars series popularized the salutation, "May the Force be with you." Yet this benediction falls a tad short of a more accurate blessing: "May you be with the Force." The Force, you see, is already with you. It is beating your heart, breathing your lungs, and operating billions of microscopic processes in your body and trillions of other bodies, not to mention organizing and sustaining the entire universe. The Force is operating everywhere always, intelligently and masterfully. The question is, are you aligned with it? Are you listening to its guidance and dancing in its flow?
Good things are wanting and trying to happen to you and through you. Music is calling to be played, success is begging to be achieved, and solid, loving relationships are seeking to blossom. Are you willing to let them? Can you let love find you and express through you? Quit trying to figure out which keys to press, or forcing the ones you have decided should go down. Instead, watch for which keys that are pressing themselves, and then do your best to keep your fingers in the holes.
Alan Cohen
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