Whenever I wonder how I am doing on my spiritual path, I need only hop in my car and drive around to find out. How’s my road rage? Do I feel frustrated by those around me (I’m playing by the rules but others aren’t!) as I drive my familiar route to work? Do I curse at those who “cut me off” or “jump ahead” in a line of traffic?
It may sound silly, but the “car” being a dream symbol for how we move through life is no accident (pun intended). As Cayce put it, cars in dreams are “the vehicle or means by which we move through the journey of life.” (294-159) So, as I see it, how I manage to keep my temper—or not—when it comes to driving, is a reflection on how I’m doing with life itself.
As I was driving this morning, and the frustration with other drivers began to build, I realized that I could choose to “judge” the other drivers just as in life some may choose to judge another person by their life choices or belief systems because they aren’t “driving like me.” Perhaps some folks “drive” like Buddhists and some “drive” like Muslims, still others like Orthodox Jews or born-again Christians. Who am I to judge? What do I know about their path? In a literal sense, they may be responding to an urgent need. In a figurative sense, they are just like me, no matter what their driving method.
I have a theory that the car is to the human body, what the car’s driver is to the soul. When we tend to see only the cars, and not their drivers, it is just the same as our three-dimensional “bodies” judging other three-dimensional “bodies,” without realizing that all of our bodies are inhabited by souls that come from the same source.
In road rage, we are mirroring a human fallacy to judge only what we see on the surface—like “race” or “gender” or “religion” or “political party.” Because isn’t it so much easier to cuss out a “car” than to look the driver in the eye and see that they are just like you? (Replace “car” with “race” or “gender” or “religion” or “political party” and you’ll see how easy it is to judge.)
Two Cayce readings come to mind as they bring concrete meaning to the concept of “Oneness.” Both of these readings were given in 1935:
What is the difference? ...Truth...is of the One source. Are there not trees of oak, of ash, of pine? There are the needs of these for meeting this or that experience...Then, all will fill their place. Find not fault with any, but rather show forth as to just how good a pine, or ash, or oak, or vine thou art!
- Edgar Cayce Reading 254-87
...consider a field of corn. In the grain of corn there is life. Man plants it in the soil, works it, and then he reaps the harvest. Not every man selects the same kind of corn. Not every man plows it alike. Not every man sows it alike. Not every man reaps it alike.
- Edgar Cayce reading 1089-3
When we can but see that we are “all in this together,” even though our paths may be different, then we might be on the road to understanding.
