Joining the Bleedin' Choir Invisible

Enjoy the silliness of one of my favorite Monty Python videos of all time, then read on below for a wonderful insight I first heard from the king of quacks (or squawks in this case)Dr. Wayne Dyer. Generally I find his brand of touchy feely self help more of a play to the victim in people, but as of late he has taken a turn to the East in his philosophy that makes him worth a listen now and then. “An ancient parable repeated generation after generation by the spiritual masters of India illustrates this point [dying while one is alive]: A traveler from India went to Africa to acquire some local products and animals, and while in the jungle he saw thousands of beautiful multicolored talking parrots. He decided to capture a talking parrot and take it back as a pet. At home he kept his parrot in a cage and fed him wonderful seeds and honey, played music for his pet, and generally treated him well. When it was time for the man to return to Africa two years later, he asked his parrot if there was any message he could deliver to the parrot’s friends back in the jungle. The parrot told his master to say that he was very happy in his cage and that he was enjoying each day and to convey his love. When the traveler arrived back in Africa he delivered the message to the parrots in the jungle. Just as he finished his story, a parrot with tears welling up in his eyes fell over dead. The man was alarmed and decided that the parrot must have been very close to the parrot in the cage and that was the reason for his sadness and demise. When the traveler returned to India, he told his pet what had happened. As he finished his story, the pet parrot’s eyes welled up with tears, and he keeled over dead in his cage. The man was astounded, but figured that his pet died from despair of hearing of the death of his close friend back in the jungle. The trader opened up the cage and tossed the dead bird outside onto the trash heap. Immediately his pet parrot flew up to a branch on the tree outside. The trader said to him, ‘So, you are not dead after all. Why did you do that?’ The parrot answered, ‘Because that bird back in Africa sent me a very important message.’ ‘What was the message?’ the trader inquired impatiently. ‘He told me that if you want to escape from your cage, you must die while you are alive.’ We must indeed die while we are alive in order to be able to look back at our waking consciousness and see ourselves trapped in our cage, which in our case is our body. And then we will see how unnecessary it is to remain caged.” I have a problem with connecting the dots where there are none, as you might have gathered by now. My sister passed away last week, and I was largely unperturbed by this. I felt for my own loss, but not for long. Much like the parrot above I have a world view that all around me is illusion. All around me there may in fact be an invisible choir of extra-dimensional or extra-sensory being, but trapped as I am in the cage of my perceptions, 5 senses, limited to only the tiniest glimpse of the electro-magnetic spectrum, how could I know? I do know that I am energy. I am light and energy and I am timeless. "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter!" as Yoda once declared. Death to me seems a liberation, a freeing from the cage. This view has been spilling over as of late into the concept of hunting. I used to believe it to be a cruel sport. I see it now as a more symbiotic existence with the world. Releasing animals from their cages so to speak. If existence is suffering as Buddha said, then it follows that in the yin and yang of all things, non-being is pure bliss. Like the makers of Jagermeister said, honor the creaton in all his creatures. What better honor than an end of suffering for a free spirit, as opposed to a life of captivity for our "humanely" farmed creatures? Hardly sportsmanlike this farming, is it?