I am a Happy Drummer

"I am a happy drummer."

These are the words that came out of a rhythm that we played within our drumming circle one Sunday summer’s evening. These words, for me, seem to fit perfectly with one of the rhythms that mingled with two others that were being played.

I have learned to march to the sound of my own drum. It is what makes me not so much happy as centered. When we do not follow the march that is more a dance then we are more easily thrown off centre. Being centered gives you a peace that is more practical than happiness.

Happiness is always moving into unhappiness just as unhappiness is moving into happiness. None of these states last. They are, as the Dalai Lama has rightly pointed out, inherent in each other. Being centered gives you a sense of contentment. Contentment is more restful.

In the American constitution there is the given right to pursue happiness. I think the founding fathers might not have fully thought out the implication of those words. The pursuit of happiness is anything but happy. It can become the very thing that takes you away from the happiness that is inherent in creation.

What if you were to stop pursuing happiness or pursuing the future or simply stop? What if, in stopping this pursuit of an imaginary future in which the idea of happiness was attained, you simply let it be? What if, in letting it be, you found something that gave you more than you could ever be happy with?

What if you stopped all the rush into a kind of conceptual or virtual future – that you stopped and were willing to become a still point center in which you become the knowing of Love.

To know that you are the center point of Love that is never born nor ever dies takes you beyond the duality of happiness/unhappiness. It is that still point centre that is an awareness that at the center there is stillness, there is peace, while all around you there may be turmoil.

A soul friend will tell you that you will become happier as a consequence of learning the practice of centering. This happiness arises not because you pursue it but because it is a kind of perfume. It is the perfume of your real Self.

Any practice will do. This is where you learn to march to the sound of your own drum so that you become a happy drummer – or more to the point, that happiness arises within you and not as a consequence of your pursuit and achievement of some goal.

The important aspect of the practice is commitment. I practice writing. I practice gardening. I practice prayer. All of these for me are part of my happy drummer rhythm. I feel much less centered when I miss these practices. I become what I call my inner drama queen. I live a life not of contentment but inner drama, which always manifests as outer drama. I am not proud of this drama queen display but I try to be kind to her when she appears.

What ensures that, for the most part, that the drama does not arise, is practicing writing, gardening and praying. Any of these practices work for me. You could practice yoga, Pilates, or meditation. What is most important is doing any practice is the intention.

A soul friend invites you to make the intention for the highest good of all. This is intelligence. This is alignment with reality. This is attunement of you small drum, which is always connected to the one sound. This makes rational sense and leads into what is beyond sensational.

Creation made you a human being. This word human means the sound of God. or ,if you prefer, the sound of Love. Here, God does not imply any gender. You are a unique sound in the mind of God, who is the endless becoming. The degree to which you experience lace of peace is the degree to which you forget how to be the play of this unique sound.

Despite my propensity for being a drama queen I am, for the most part, a happy drummer. Each morning I write out my intention. This allows me to feel centered. I have created a life style in order to allow me to do this. I have created time in order to allow this being the sound of Love in form to be the most important rhythm I am here to resound.

In that sense, while others might judge me poor, I am in relation to my soul a resounding success. I am playing my unique sound of intention that expresses in form. This is the meaning of the words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

I am a happy drummer to the extent that I listen and feel the way that the sound of Creation wishes to move through me. To that extent, like the drum that I play in my community drumming circle, I have to be empty. I have to be still and be willing to know the will of Love.

The pursuit of happiness is only that. The movement is a pursuit. You cannot chase what is arising out of the moment. Happiness is a paradox. When you are truly happy you disappear. You allow creation to express is unique way of expressing through you. Like the emptiness that is at the center of the drum there is infinite possibility. All you have to do is allow that master drummer called Creation to play you in the way it intended that it play you.

In this allowing there is no pursuit. It is the meeting of the lover and the beloved and the sound that arises is the sound of Love in form moving as Love in action for the highest good. This isn’t simply happiness but the experience of joy – joy in your true self.

So I am off to the Benwiskin Center outside Sligo to become a happy drummer in theRuach Rhythms community drumming circle.  There by the fireside I will tell stories, sing songs and centre myself into that placeless place where I know I AM always and forever a happy drummer