All the World's a Stage

[Plenum]

the immortal William Shakespeare - musician of the English Language, inventor and tinkerer with words, had this to say about life being a performance, an act that comes in 7 parts; in which we are born, in which in we grow, in which we live, and then, well, we sorta hit the downward ladder, and grow into our senility.

here is the speech from As You Like It (act 2/scene 7)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

majestic, no?

and if the analogy is apt - that we are all but players on a stage, offering something (anything) to the other-self as a performance (ie catalyst), then what is it to be a 'conscious' actor on this stage? can we aid more, serve more by being intimately aware of the illusion and the processes by which it delivers its function? (this function being the soul evolution).

what does Q'uo and the LLResearch archives have to say on this matter?

here are some cobbled together quotes from the archives:

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http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is...draft.aspx

Aaron: You are each asked to live with one foot in the illusion and one foot in ultimate reality. You straddle a threshold like actors in a play. You play a role here. And, like actors, you must play that role as if it matters. You must involve yourself in the illusion if there is to be learning, otherwise you might as well not have chosen incarnation; and yet, there still must be awareness. Just as the actor must have awareness that he plays to an audience so as not to turn his back on that audience, not to muffle his speech, so you must maintain awareness of your true Self while performing the myriad functions of the human personality.

http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0412.aspx

Q'uo: Thus, the greatest service which a pilgrim can perform at any time is to be, that is, to be a conscious being, an actor, seeing circumstance as illusion, but illusion rich in spiritual possibility. It is one of the clichés, shall we say, of your culture, “There but for fortune, go I.” There are needs which may be met, whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, in almost any situation, if the observer is patient enough and careful enough in precise observation. Certain things, such as starvation, are easier to spot. Far less easy to spot are those spiritual possibilities which arise from personal discomfort of one form or another.

http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0623.aspx

Q'uo: Let us say we have done this work, and it does come to an end, not that you do not slip from time to time back into those negative programs which have caused you to be armored against the rest of the world and survive, but that you recognize that you do not need this armor, that you are meant to be vulnerable to circumstance, that you are meant to be an actor upon the social scene. This is the density where you learn to deal with entities in more and more gentle compassion and love.

http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is...draft.aspx

Aaron: You are like actors in a play. When you come out onto the stage, if you look to the audience and say, “Oh, this is only a play. It doesn’t matter,” the audience is not going to get much from your lines offered with no sincerity. If you become so involved in the illusion of the play that you forget that it is a play, forget that there is an audience out there, you may turn your back to the audience or speak too softly for them to hear. The good actor must live its lines convincingly—live them, be them—while being fully aware simultaneously that this is a play, that when it walks offstage it no longer is the identity of that character. This is how the audience learns from a play. And you also are the audience, both actor and audience.

This is what your life asks of you: to live the illusion as full-heartedly as you can while still knowing this is illusion. Herein is the intersection of relative and ultimate reality, the intersection of the cross. You have one foot in relative reality, one foot in ultimate reality, and there is no separation between them. Some of you have understood that you have one foot on each side of this threshold, but you feel as if there were a wall, an infinite wall, dividing relative and ultimate reality so that you may only experience one at a time. It is very hard work to learn to blend them, to bring compassion and wisdom together. But that is what you are here to learn to do.

http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0130.aspx

Latwii: Perhaps within your meditation you may be able to remove yourself from the emotional colorations which lend to your confusion, and place your attention in a position which allows you to look down upon the situation, shall we say, and see yourself and all others within it as actors upon a stage. Look then to the dynamics of the movement and interaction. See that part which you play. Become the author of the script. Attempt to discover what potentials await your learning. What is the lesson that is being taught? How has it been learned? How might the learning be increased?

http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0319.aspx

K: In what sense are we all one?

I am Q’uo, and am aware of your query, my brother. We would suggest that the nature of this unity is complete. You are likened to actors upon the stage who, though remembering their lines, forget their true personality

and at some point in the drama shall aid others in their remembering by their very essence and the nature of their being.

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is this not a magnificent play theatre?

or in the immortal words of one such gladiator (which gives me an ever-chuckle):
















are you not entertained? are you not entertaining?