I had a dream last night that I was back in college, and together with a friend I was going to my brother’s dorm to help him move out for the summer. When we arrived at the lobby of the dorm, there was a big line of suitcases belonging to my brother and his roommates. My instinct was to help, so in the dream, I grabbed as many suitcases as I could and pulled them down the hallway and into my brother’s dorm room. My brother gave me a quizzical look but didn’t say anything at first. Ah, then it dawned on me. I made a mistake. He’s moving out, not moving in. The suitcases in the lobby were already packed and ready to load on the car. I was supposed to be taking them out, not in.
When I woke up, I mused about the cleverness of dreams, and the interesting fact that you can make mistakes in dreams, even though you are the dreamer. You are the one creating the dream, yet you can dupe yourself into making mistakes in the dream. After the fact, it is interesting to note that there must have been the subconscious part of me that knew what was logical and set up those suitcases in the lobby as part of moving out, and triggered my brother’s quizzical look, all conspiring to make me feel like there is an intelligence outside of my conscious awareness, that knows what I do not know. But how is that possible? This becomes acutely obvious in a dream, because all the content of the dream is made up by me!
So in the dream, when you seem to make a mistake, and there are conditions of “correctness” (ie, luggage goes out, not in), which you are not consciously aware of, they are all just a trick of the mind, because all of it literally happens in your mind. What seems to be a mistake is just an illusion of the mind tricking itself. There must have been a part of your dreaming mind that knew the luggage in the lobby was logically placed there as part of moving out, but because your dreaming mind was not consciously aware of it, it makes the conscious mind in the dream feel like there is an intelligence or absolute truth outside of itself, in which case not only are mistakes possible, but inevitable. But when you wake up and realize that you yourself dreamed up the whole scenario, then there could not have been any outside intelligence or absolute truth. When it comes to your own dream you are essentially God, because you created or “dreamt” the whole thing up. Then you realize that any mistakes in the dream were actually an illusion – just a mind trick.
In very much the same way, any mistakes in our waking life is just an illusion too. There is no such thing as a mistake, at least in the sense of what we believe are mistakes in the physical world. The only mistake you can make is to believe that mistakes are real. If the entire physical world is an illusionary projection, like a dream, which we are projecting from a larger Mind, then we are making all this up. We are creating these scenarios and setups to make mistakes. But in reality, there are no mistakes. There is no absolute right or wrong. How can you make mistakes if right and wrong are illusions?
We spend our lives constantly judging ourselves or judging others for mistakes, for saying the wrong thing, for doing the wrong thing, for believing the wrong thing, even for thinking the wrong thing. We believe that there is an absolute truth, a standard of right and wrong outside of us, that is always judging us, that is beyond our intelligence and immediate awareness. So we live in a very tenuous state of guessing and hoping we are not making a big mistake.
But if this is all our “dream” and there is no “out there”, it is all coming from and being projected from within, like a dream, then how can there be some external truth, some external set of rules of right or wrong that we can be judged by? It is all just an illusionary mind trick. From the grand view of the Soul outside of the dream, all actions are cherished and appreciated as what they are. There are no mistakes. everything happens exactly as it was meant to, perfectly, bringing more experience and wisdom to the Conscious Evolution of the Soul. Even if you say something stupid or embarrassing, that was not a mistake. Even if you lose a million dollars, that was not a mistake. Even all the evil, murders, violence, wars, crime, pollution – those are not mistakes. When you wake up from sleeping, would you call anything you dream of a mistake? Would you say, “oops, I didn’t mean to dream that?” Even if it is a nightmare, it isn’t a mistake, but an expression and experience. But you don’t judge yourself for having a nightmare. You wouldn’t punish a child for having a nightmare.
The only mistake is believing in the reality of the mistake. There is only one absolute Truth. That we are all perfect, mistake-free, at One with Source and God. So the only possible mistake is believing that you are not who you are.
From a practical standpoint, what does this mean? Stop worrying so much all the time about making mistakes! If they aren’t real, if they’re all illusions, tricks of the mind, and you are setting yourself up, then why take it all so seriously? Your ego mind is trying to frame you. It sets up a situation in which you seem not to be aware or not intelligent enough, and you make a mistake. But you were the one who set it up. It is your dream, so why take it seriously? Just have a good laugh at the folly of it and lightly move on. If you seem to make a mistake and you feel stupid or embarrassed, remember that it is not real. You set this up for your own “life comedy”, so laugh and brush it off.
In this way you live your life more fully, less fearful, and more authentically. If you’re not constantly afraid of making mistakes, then you’ll just do and say and feel what seems real in your heart, without any fear of consequences or regrets. The ego believes that living life that way would be careless, that you’d get into big trouble, that you’d lose all your money, your job, that you’d be homeless. But in reality, we are less likely to hurt ourselves when we live authentically from the heart and are guided by intuitive wisdom. We make more “mistakes” when we live from fear and judgment. So live life fearlessly. Because you know in truth, all mistakes are illusions.
