My 12-year-old son installed a star-gazing app on our phones and arranged a 21st century star-gazing family experience. The night wasn't particularly clear and we were sitting in our backyard, which was polluted by the artificial light of our suburb.
But our little devices showed stars and distant universes we could never see with our naked eye. We were able to step outside of our 12-inch vision and allow ourselves to look further; it was like having a portal into a space we don't usually have access to.
For me, just as exciting as looking at the stars was watching my kids' thoughts expand into the vastness of everything. The star-gazing (and this little app) triggered all kinds of worlds my kids wanted to talk about -- from concepts of time and space, the physics of light and sound, life, God... Every thought, every subject led into another one, pulling us deeper, engaging us emotionally and making us all aware of the connection to something much bigger than ourselves, our little backyard and our smart devices.
I felt grateful that my kids felt free and open to what really turned out to be a spiritual experience.
MUSIC, ART AND LITERATURE TO EXPAND OUR MIND
Growing up, I didn't feel like I had that kind of freedom. There always seemed to be a 'wrong way' to think. I remember wise grown-ups telling me not to think too much about the universe because it was so vast and incomprehensible, it would drive me insane. There were science teachers who discouraged me from making too many connections, and religious guardians who tried to protect me from the dark side that would corrupt my soul if I opened the door too wide. But there was music in my life, which provided an unspoken connection to the divine. And my 7th grade literature teacher, who understood me when the others laughed at me for delivering a very interpretative book report.
So maybe she's the reason literature remained one place in my life where I felt free and unafraid to explore spiritual and alternative realities, where I let my thoughts wander unrestricted, asking questions and exploring possibilities - not just accepting the straight and definite answers.
Recently, a friend of mine sent me a book she thought I'd enjoy - Entrevoir by Chris Katsaropoulous.
After reading the first few pages of his book, I called Chris to ask him if he would be on my show Waking Up in America. "Your book reminds me of The Little Prince," I said immediately. They are two very different books but for me they are both triggers - giving the reader a permission to open up their mind.
"I want to know where his spiritual fiction comes from," I told my friend before my trip to meet Chris.
Like many amazing spiritual people I've met on my travels, there's nothing on the outside that showcases his expansive creativity. He lives in a suburb of Indianapolis, and the only difference I noticed when we pulled in front of his house was that his front lawn was spotted with bright yellow dandelions -- welcomed to grow free, instead of being proclaimed intruders and expelled from the uniform look of the weed-free subdivision.
His wife is also a writer, so their home is filled with quotes and books and comfortable reading chairs. There is an upright piano in the sitting room where Chris and I talked; he is self-taught and music is a hobby that he also often incorporates into his novels. When he played Rachmaninoff's piano concerto for me, I admired his freedom in doing so, because as a classically trained pianist, I always limited myself to pieces that my teachers deemed appropriate and 'safe' for me.
We talked about expanding our minds, and the importance of art in our lives, and his views on the freedom it opens us to:
"I think there is a lot of programming in our day to day lives. We have certain schedules, certain work obligations, certain programming that comes to us from television, or whatever media that we are [consuming.] So anything that gets us outside of those structures... can help to open awareness. And art, whether it's music or poetry or a novel [can do that]."
LIFE BEFORE - WAKING UP MOMENT
Chris has always been a writer, mostly of novels and poetry.
He was writing a thriller novel when his research led him to Glastonbury, England and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
"[Glastonbury] is a sacred place, and on the top of that hill... I had a big awakening experience there... It's a very sacred place... Something just came through me and I started having out of body experiences and past life experiences and all sorts of multi dimensional experiences, that have gone into making my novels and my poetry since then."
I asked Chris if he was ever afraid of how people would react to these experiences he is writing about. "No," he says,"Because it feels totally natural."
"Everyone is spiritual. Everyone is a spiritual being.
Our modern world is very results-oriented, very time-oriented, very structured and those things are very left-brain kinds of things. And so we shut off the right brain, the holistic, the creative in a lot of senses to function in the world that we have."
We are becoming detached from our spirituality. We don't understand it... and a lot of people fear it... maybe because it feels safer to stay within what's familiar.
"When we remember the wholeness of everything, and the connection with the spirit and its source, then we go back to the highest state, and this is everyone's true state as a spiritual being. But it's scary to go back and realize, because people like their own limitations. To know that you're truly a powerful spiritual being opens you up to all sorts of possibilities..."
When we open up our mind and let go of fear, we can begin to explore the worlds beyond our own, the thoughts beyond those we are taught to think, the feelings we don't even recognize because we haven't allowed ourselves to feel. When we expand our consciousness we begin to experience our lives not from the side-lines, but as active participants.
We might even feel as free as children, to look at the stars and grasp the idea of how vast and yet connected all creation is... without any fear that it might drive us insane. Or feel free to paint a picture, or play Rachmaninoff despite the voices that tell us it's not appropriate or safe.
Chris Katsaropoulos is the critically acclaimed author of more than a dozen books, including Antiphony and Entrevoir.