Monkey God by Gina Freschet. More art at Freschet.com

The Devil King of the Sixth Heaven. This is a Buddhist phrase or principle. A way of reminding ourselves just how our human is natured.

Let’s start with Heaven. This is where you live. This is where you find yourself. Picture it without the angels, the harps, the clouds, the need for perfection, St. Peter, or gates that lock. Think more of a staging ground for your life; an off season county fair ground waiting to come alive. Bring your best to it and suddenly it’s open, enlightened. Ride the Ferris Wheel. Have a good time. Your Heaven is what you put into it.

And why the 6th Heaven, not the Fifth or Fourth? Because the Sixth Heaven is the intersection of your five senses. The heart’s brain. The place that is supposed to make sense of all the input coming in to you and then suggest action.

And the Devil King? He’s your doubt, your poison, your karmic shadow. And He’s all yours. No one else can claim Him. He is specific to you. You can scale the sheer walls, you can invent a single coptered flying machine powered by bicycle pedals, but if you listen to Him telling you you can’t, you won’t. When you make His voice King, you’re one fucked monkey.

In fact, He may be talking to you right now: “Why are you reading this? Do you buy this load of crap? Monkey schmunkey. Get off your ass and get a job you worthless piece of shit. And stop eating those Cheetos you obese douche bag, you’re getting orange grease on your PhD. Your friends are crap, your life is crap, you are crap.” So that’s Him. The Devil King of the Sixth Heaven. And just imagine what kind of action you’ll take when His voice reigns — the lottery could make me a millionaire, my nose is too big, why can’t I win an Oscar? Any Faustian bargain you care to make for money, youth, beauty, fame is the product of the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven. And He is so familiarly personal. He is part of you and me because we are human. In fact, He’s at least 9 of the 7 Deadly Sins. His nickname is Freely Enjoying the Fruits of Others Efforts. (His doppelgangers are Freely Complaining about Others Without Understanding that it Takes Two to Tango, and Freely Judging Others without Taking Steps to Improve Your Own Damn Self.)

Hey I want to enjoy the fruits of others efforts as much as the next guy. Why not? Italian silk ties made in Bangladesh on sale at TJ Maxx for $3.99? Throwing away good food by the truckload because it’s not to my liking right now. And what about Donald Trump? He doesn’t deserve all that money.

But the more I chant, the more I realize that Donald Trump, despite his bad hair, knows more about money than I will ever know. In fact, his father was a wealthy real estate magnate. So he studied money and real estate at the foot of his mentor/dad. And, in fact, he probably suffers the disease of knowing money so intimately. Yes, he could beat me at Monopoly. But the treasures of his heart’s life only he can know. I can’t know his treasures, I can only know mine. End of story.

How do you get to know your treasures? You have to see the Man. Because He stands between you and them.  And since He’s all yours; He’s so much a part of who you are; He’s the king of your obstacles, always telling you why you can’t do things…well, since He’s yours, anyway, you might as well own Him. Put Him to work. Harness your Devil King.

Here’s the list of why you’re not happy right now. A_____ B_____ C_____ and D_____ E_____ F_____ and more. Let’s be honest. He’s behind every single one of them. Narcissus drowned, don’t forget That’s right. Know how to identify Him. The more you put him to work for you, the happier you’ll be–understanding that He’s negative, understanding that He’s gonna look for the easiest way out, understanding that He has forces of sugar and salt, sex and drugs, mindless music and mindless video techno game pastimes arrayed behind Him–understanding this you are stronger, happier. And when your family doesn’t invite you to Easter dinner because they hate your girlfriend, you show up with cake and a smile and tell them your girlfriend  had to be with her family. Because though the Devil King may think differently, you love your family. You want them to be happy, you want to be happy with them, see them succeed, stand strong with them as they take on every difficult adventure.

Besides do you take even one moment each day to appreciate what you already have? Ah ha! If you do, then you can defeat the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven at his own game–today. Tomorrow you’ll have to do it again. You’ve got to be consistent. Keep meeting Him, eye to eye, and saying no. No, stop talking in my head and telling me I’m not fit to sell corn dogs at the Ritz; no, I don’t look as foolish today as you say, besides I like the tie with the blue diamonds; no, I won’t put up with people who have learned to sadistically victimize me because I try to be a nice person; no, my friends may be odd but who are you to judge because they’re my friends; no, I won’t allow a lower standard for my dreams, my dreams are too important to allow laziness, tiredness, fuzzy brain, life of this moment’s needs, bad hair cuts, relatives who think they know me better than I know myself, or stale pistachios that cracked my teeth and gave me astronomical dental bills, to stop me.

Take that Devil! And I’ll be here tomorrow too. And I’ll be awake too. And I’ll look Him in the eye. And together we’ll understand that He could be my greatest asset. That even He has an enlightened side. That He could help me look for, understand and control my obstacles. That we’re a team. That there’s nothing we can’t do together, day by day. Each day. That together we can enter the 7th, 8th and 9th consciousnesses without talk of devils. Just us. Just interconnectivity. Just the music of the spheres. Just the beautiful humans squeezed so tightly on this subway car that I can’t exhale, and yet one girl in a nice red coat is actually doing her make up, running a Q-tip along her eyelid while the train jolts forward. Yikes.

And then we’ll be in. Today. Because the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven is the GATEKEEPER of the 7th 8th and 9th consciousnesses. And once you reach those, you could be so calm, so happy that the Devils and the Heavens are left behind and you’re flying at a low altitude but high enough to see the peaks and valleys and you’re firmly at the controls keeping an eye out for Him in your rear-view mirror. Don’t hit the peaks, don’t fall into the valleys. You want to be connected to your past, to THE past, to your family’s past, to your ethnic origin’s past, and the presents and the futures. You want the happiness of the flight, and the knowledge that all you have to do is just lift the joystick up one inch to get over the obstacles, not be down there like bumper cars getting turned around by every little obstacle you bump into. Obstacle after obstacle. You want to fly toward the consciousnesses that can’t be written, because they must be experienced. Seven, Eight and Nine aren’t heavens in the true sense because Heaven is an invention of the human mind and they are not an invention of any mind.To say that they are love is to limit them. They are chance. This chance that we are living, appreciating, acknowledging, aspiring with…and that we know where our Devil is.