Indigo Joe

Let us imagine a friend named Indigo Joe. Indigo is your typical 21st century kinda guy. He's dabbled in metaphysics. He's read a little Tony Robbins. He's in touch with his sensitive side. He's an all around nice guy.

One fine morning Indigo Joe heads down the driveway to check the mailbox, and inside he finds a bill. A credit card bill, in the amount of $10,000.

See Joe was out of a job for a while due to an accident, and he had no medical insurance to cover his bills which, frankly, could have been much worse.

The truth is Joe considers himself pretty lucky. He was lucky to have survived the accident at all, and 'ol Indigo truly believes that he is protected by a Higher Force. And he is.

He's learned an important lesson about loving himself and appreciating life, and the accident forced him to slow down and focus on what's really important. So, all in all, Indigo would say he's a better person for the whole ordeal.

Besides, Joe found a new job and he likes it better than the last one, and he's paying his bills. Including this here credit card bill. Joe chuckles to himself as he opens the bill, wishing he could just “uncreate”  it with a few simple affirmations and some prayer like his library of metaphysical books would suggest.

Maybe one day.

Yet for now, the bill arrives faithfully in the mail every month and finds its way to his desk where it sits until paid. A sober reminder that Joe is, after all, a human living in the physical world.

To Indigo, spirit and matter exist at opposite ends of a spectrum, and the goal is to get from one end to the other. Things like money, possessions, and even relationships tend to weigh Indigo down. They get in the way of a quiet, contemplative life. They make things more complicated and interfere with spiritual growth.

For Indigo is ever seeking to spiritualize his materiality, and it just makes sense that the less he participates in material things, the easier it will be for him to spiritualize what is left. Yet as adding zero to one will always result in one, Indigo in all truth spends a lot of time spinning his wheels and getting nowhere.

For sure, Joe has become a kinder, more compassionate person. He has learned how to maintain a relative degree of peace in an otherwise chaotic world. He has also experienced a lot of good, beautiful things in his life, and for that he is rightfully very grateful.

Yet it would seem that something always happens that throws him back. Like the accident. Though a lot of good has come from it, Joe still has to contend with this hefty bill every month, and at this rate, by the time he finally pays off his debt, he will have paid for it several times over, and will have dedicated six hours of every day for the next five years to redeeming his obligation.

A hefty price to pay, one might say, for a few spiritual lessons.