Wishing.

 

Gepetto with Figero the cat, making a wish to the evening star

Recently in the farmhouse cinema, we watched the second-ever full-length Disney animation, Pinocchio, released in 1940. The first was Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, three years earlier.

The opening scenes of Pinocchio reveal, among other things, the origin of the song which would one day become the theme song for all of Disney - “When you Wish Upon a Star” - Makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires. Will come to you. In the scene featuring the song, a heartfelt, grandfatherly woodworker named Gepetto sings to the wishing star outside his window, wishing for his wooden puppet to become a real boy. 

This concept of wishing is something which lies at the heart of the human experience - the most elemental nature of desire, which gives purpose and energy to all our lives.

With such wishing power, comes also responsibility. Both Yogananda, and the Bhudda, are quoted as having stated that “wishing things to be different than they are is the cause of all suffering.” 

This expressed-sentiment from the Masters was one of the first and most powerful inflection points in my own young adult life. That I have suffered at times - and not been able to resolve that suffering through wishing for things to be different than they were - I humbly add testimony to that of the ages. 

And yet, the act of ‘wishing’ for something greater, is also essential to our growth as Souls aspiring to wake up. To recognize our own desires as a person in a body, and wish for their fulfillment, is the essential fuel to power the machine of our life - just as that same wishing ultimately becomes the necessary supply of oil for our heart’s devotion, burning bright the lamp of love for God.

So how to reconcile these dueling pianos of wishing? One wish, which takes us outside of ourselves and gives all our power away to wishing for things of the world to be different and meet our expectations, and the other, the wish, even desperate need, to wake up and know God before all else. 

First, is to realize the essence of the Masters’ wisdom around the wish-induced cause of our suffering. Wishing things to be different, implies the basic non-acceptance of what is, by an absence of faith. Faith in His presence inside every circumstance, especially the ones which are upsetting.

We all experience what it is to struggle with acceptance of things, both in our life, and in the ways of this world. To become embroiled in upsets, emotions, or frustrations, because things haven’t gone how we want them to - this is precisely the kind of suffering which wishing can bring about. How long we sometimes must wish things to be different, before we come to accept the most basic need of finding God in that exact situation or relationship, first and foremost. This is especially true during difficult trials - that rather than responding with the peace of acceptance, we remain perpetually stirred up in a haze of worry and frustration.

Before we can make any real progress towards creating a better reality - we must realize the peace of acceptance - and realize a deep of trust of God’s presence in our life, here and now. 

And yet, this itself doesn’t finish the story. We also are destined to become an active agent for God’s vision for our life, not merely a passive witness. To realize our oneness with Him, is to realize the purity of our own Heart’s desires, in union and harmony with God’s will. 

In the movie, once Pinocchio has preliminarily taken on the intelligence and animated-state of a boy, he is then tested (rather dramatically and often at the expense of the viewer!), to attain this state permanently. Though his intentions always start out good - to go to school and learn, and to prove himself to be brave, truthful and unselfish - he is nonetheless repeatedly swept up in the delusive nature of life on the human plane, leading him to completely forget his above purpose, and instead become enmeshed in quest for fame and fortune, then in the pursuit of sense pleasures, and ultimately, in the purgatory (or Godlessness) of a Jonah, living inside the belly of the whale.

Ultimately, his pure desire for a real life with Gepetto, and to do right, leads him and Gepetto back out of the whale, where Pinoch earns his stripes. He and Gepetto’s wish is granted in full, and Pinocchio becomes a real, little boy. 

Inside the parable of this tale, we find the story of our own life - and our own wishing. When we wish for things selfishly, or out of fear, we keep ourselves little and separate from God. But as we aspire to live in love and not littleness, we find every wish that lives inside of us will come true. 

This is expressed beautifully, in the rest of the song’s lyrics: 

If your heart is in your dream

No request is too extreme

When you wish upon a star

As dreamers do

Fate is kind

She brings to those who love

The sweet fulfillment of

Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue

Fate steps in and sees you through

When you wish upon a star

Your dreams come true

May we continue to embark on this path of life, ready to learn all the lessons this classroom has to teach us, with bravery to show up each day, honesty and purity of intention and action, and a selflessness of service to realize the One in All.