I just read the most beautiful thing I have ever read in my entire life! (I'll get to that in a moment, but first a little background information.) I have been wondering and thinking for quite a while about what it is to give my life to God. What it is to be holy. Fearing that I will lose something, many things, by devoting my life to God. Wondering, what do I have to look forward to?
It's hard to imagine what there is beyond the physical world, where I've lived my entire life, with relatively few glimpses to what is beyond. The memory of those glimpses, no matter how vivid and real they were in the moment, soon became hazy and obscured by the numerous distractions of the ego reactions and being a human body in a physical world. I rely on my body's senses to show me what's going on and who is who and what is what. Everything looks different, sounds different, tastes different... you get the point. Everything is a separate, distinguishable thing going about its own business.
So, it is easy to believe that I, anyone, can be mistreated, unloved, alone, abandoned or unsafe. We think we're bodies! No matter what people say, that they believe they are spirit and when they die they just go to another realm, they don't really believe it. That's why we have war, murder, suicide, disease, every other commercial is for some drug to make you feel better and so on. I know that I have said that I believe I'm Spirit. I've even said I know I'm Spirit, energy, a soul, not a body. Now I've realized that I didn't really believe it, because if I did I would never be sick, feel lonely, depressed, anxious or fearful.
This story I read in A Course in Miracles (I actually read it twice and some parts three times just to make sure it sunk in) spoke directly to my heart. What it was saying could not have been clearer. Rather than to continue wondering and fearing, I asked the Holy Spirit, which is becoming a regular practice for me now, show me the Atonement, show me what I have to look forward to, show me I don't have anything to lose.
So, I opened A Course in Miracles to Chapter 18, section VII, I Need Do Nothing. I read that section, but didn't quite get it, although doing nothing sounds effortless and is very appealing to me. So I kept reading because I trust the Holy Spirit will give me what I ask for. Section VIII is The Little Garden. I could type every word in this section, because every word spoke to my heart, but I won't. I'll give you the highlights.
"Can you who see yourself within a body know yourself as an idea? Everything you recognize you identify with externals, something outside itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or some form you think you recognize."
"The body cannot know. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you. (see what I'm talking about, it's a big problem this body identification) God Cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will always seem to shut Him out, and keep you apart from Him." This is where it really gets good, "The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and complete idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your kingdom, where God can enter not."
"This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it is the sun; the almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart against the universe. The sun becomes the sunbeams 'enemy' that would devour it, and the ocean terrifies the little ripple and wants to swallow it."
"Yet neither the sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. Even that segment is not lost to them, for it could not survive apart from them. And what it thinks it is in no way changes its total dependence on them for its being. Its whole existence still remains in them. Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone, the ripple without the ocean is inconceivable."
I'm starting to understand now what A Course in Miracles in talking about when it says that attack is meaningless and ego thoughts are nothing. It is really silly. It's like a blade of grass hating the lawn or a grain of sand condemning the beach.
It doesn't matter how unworthy I feel or how much in control of my own life I think I am, because I am still dependent on God. I heard a phrase somewhere that goes something like this, whether you believe or do not believe in God doesn't change God. And for that matter who you really are. How could one sunbeam hate another sunbeam if they knew they were both of the sun and the same? This is how to "love ye one another" or "love your brother as yourself".
Okay, here's the part about the little garden:
"Look at the desert - dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless - that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that love would bring to it from where it comes, and where it would return with you."
"The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone."
"Go out and find them, for they bring your Self with them. And lead them gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there. So will it grow and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from love, and leaving you inside. And you will recognize yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, with all the Love of its Creator shining upon it."
As I see it, this is a picture of, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all else will be given unto you".
I think this story should end with, "never again did they spin or toil or strive after the wind and they all lived happily ever after with God in the Kingdom of Heaven, Amen".
I am so happy Jesus gave us this story. I feel bigger, since I read this section. I think my spirit is sticking outside of my body a few inches more. I have more love inside of me I guess.
What this section told my heart is I have everything to gain by devoting my life to God. I will have the knowledge of myself as whole and perfect existing within God, happiness, peace, the love of God and the love of everyone in the entire world. Yup, I think that's about everything I could ever want.
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