The Art of Being

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Elvis has left the building

I recently saw an old movie featuring a scene in Las Vegas where an Elvis impersonators convention was being held. There were hundreds of Elvises (or would that be Elvi?), each doing his personal best to "be" Elvis.

There were tall Elvises and short Elvises, black Elvises and Asian Elvises, fat Elvises and skinny Elvises. The one thing they all had in common was that they were each trying to be someone they were not.

While this was a comedy and I took it as such, it still made me think about how often many of us do the same thing in our lives. We go to great extremes to be like someone else, and like the Elvis impersonators, some of us tend to make a career out of it. Wall Street marketers prey on this human need.

That is why they pay celebrities millions of dollars for endorsing their products. We buy the product because we want to be like them. It's usually because we admire that person (or perhaps envy them), and while imitation may be the greatest form of flattery, it really isn't honoring the Source of our being.

In the above quote, Emerson makes it clear that we were not sent here to try to imitate or duplicate what another person is or has. We are meant to be a unique, oneofa-kind expression of the Divine.

Life does not need two of anything because that would be redundant and duplicative, neither of which serves in the unfolding, expanding creative nature of the Divine.

When we try to copy another person, a little part of our unique essence evaporates. That is a form of "emotional suicide," is it not? One day, at a place that made photocopies, I complained to the clerk that my duplicates were splotchy. He replied to me, "These are only copies, sir; they will never be as clear as the original master."

My point is this: Be clear today and know that you are an original master. You are an original because the Divine has no need for two of anything exactly the same, so you already are unique.

You become a master once you begin the daily practice of being your unique self. It is hard to be an original in a photocopy world, but the reward is great. You can look into the mirror and say, "Ladies and gentlemen . . . Elvis has left the building!"

Honor your life today: Be who you came to be.

As practice, you might want to take time out and find a garden. Notice that while all the flowers may at first appear similar, as you look carefully you will discover each is unique in some way in its marking, color, fragrance, shape or size.

Become aware of the life force that animates the flower, actually expressing its unified self so uniquely. Finally, explore the uniqueness of the people around you. If you look deeply enough, you will discover the same thing. You were not meant to be exactly like anyone else. Life seeks unique expression through all of its creation, including you. Honor and celebrate it.

Dennis Merritt Jones is the spiritual director for OneSpirit Center for Conscious Living in Simi Valley. His website is www.OneSpirit.org.