This is a response to the article before this, what Maia Dalma likes to call a teachable moment. I love such moments.
You have painted a beautiful portrait, Alison. Of a seeker seeking self. A journal can be an interesting and valuable tool. It leaves more than memories behind in its pages. Here is a teachable moment, that in your innocence you have just now invited. Consider the lesson that appears now in the blank page that stares back at each of us in 'our' journal as yet unwritten.
Light another candle, Alison, and sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."
In a journal one seeks to understand... and so you do, that the world you think you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and both depend on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible only because you have denied the other. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is not the same, because their real attraction to you is unequal.
You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you have built have never sheltered you. The roads you have made have led you nowhere, and no city that you have built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing any of you have made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired and ready to return to dust even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads away from it into another world. This is the power of turning that light within. The journal is simply the tool you used to do it. The world you live in rules you. Yet another world, apart from this one, whispers to you from somewhere. This world is dying. Can it be real? Can what be real die? Yet... what is it in that 'world' that really calls you? What does that whisper try to say to you?
The real world has the power to touch you even here, because you love it. We are your proof of this. And what you call with love will come to you. Love always answers, Alison, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world humanity has made but does not want. All that you need to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is a willingness to learn that the world you made is false. A truthful journal will teach you this.
You have been wrong about the world you believe you made and the one you believe made you because you have misjudged yourself. From such a twisted reference point, what could you hope to see? All seeing starts with the perceiver, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false he does not see. You who would judge reality cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters your mind, reality slips away. The out of mind is indeed out of sight, because what is denied is still there but simply is not recognized. Your Spirit is within you, it is still there, although most of you know it not. Your Spirit does not depend upon your recognition. It lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind and enter into the world It holds out to you to love... in love. A journal is an excellent place to begin that search.
No one in this distracted world but has seen some glimpses of the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will deny the vision of the other, maintaining that he loves more in 'truth' what he really loves not, and following not the road that love pointed out to him, his road leads nowhere and back again to question why the search took 'that' road at all. And you wait for someone, anyone to point the way. To your road home. In truth, Alison, you wait but for yourself. To give this sad world over and exchange in forgiveness what you believe are your mistakes, and by so doing, find the peace of Creation, is but your one true desire. Creation will always offer you Peace, in recognition of the reality that being a Child of Creation, you, in fact, share it. Journals can help us find this peace, if...
It is Creation's Will that nothing touch It's Child except Itself, and nothing else ever comes close to him. He is as safe from any real or imagined pain or peril as Creation Itself is safe from it, for it is Creation that watches over that Child in everything. The world about him shines with love because Creation placed him in Itself where pain does not exist, and love surrounds Its Child always, without end or flaw. Disturbance of the Child's peace can never be. In perfect sanity the Child looks on love, for it is all about him and within him. The Child denies the world of pain the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of safety he looks quietly about him and recognizes that the world is one with him. The power of turning the light inward toward the darkness is one we all possess. Few find the courage needed to accomplish the journey with any great effect. For it is by the Light of that candle in that darkness that all past hurt and grievances are healed.
It is said that 'the peace of God passeth understanding,' but for many, it does so only in the past. Yet here it is, and you can understand it now. Creation loves It's Child forever, and It's Child returns It's Creator's Love forever. The real world, not the one you may discover in a journal, is the way that leads you to remembrance of the one thing that is wholly true and wholly yours. For all else you have lent yourself in time, and all things in time will...and must fade. But this one thing is always yours, being the gift of Creation unto It's Child. Your one reality was given you, and your only purpose is to share it as it has been shared with you.
You will first dream of peace, and then awaken to it. The first exchange in any journal is always one of question. The journal is always an agreement, a Mizpah of sorts, between what you think you made, and then traded for what you thought you wanted, which always is the exchange of nightmares for the happy, peace-filled dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for Spirit alone corrects your world of dreams, where all perception is. Knowledge needs no correction, Alison. Yet the dreams of love you find in looking inward, lead unto knowledge. In them you see nothing fearful, and because of this they become the genuine welcome that you offer knowledge. Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your response to yourself in your journal is your awakening to what you have not lost, but only thought you had misplaced.
Creation knows that you have need of nothing. In Creation this is so, for what could you need in eternity? In this world you do need things. It is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself because you believe in lack and so are you lacking. Yet can you find yourself in such a world? Because of the Spirit within you, the answer is always truthful. If you left the question to your ego, the answer would be a grim one indeed. Yet because of Spirit, the answer in your search is always a joyous no! As mediator between these two worlds, you always discover in a journal that Creation knows what you have need of and what will not hurt you. A journal is a form of prayer, Alison. This is its secret. Ownership is a dangerous concept if it is left to you. The ego wants to have things for your perceived need, and for your saving, for possession is its law. Possession for its own sake is the ego's fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches it builds to itself. And at its altar it demands that you lay all of the things it bids you get at that altar, leaving you no joy in them at all.
Everything the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For although the ego urges you again and again to get, it leaves you nothing, for what you get it will demand at some point of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where Spirit sees only your holiness, your ego only sees separation, and loss, and pain, and hunger, and lack, and so you must lose whatever you have gotten in its name. Therefore ask not of yourself what you think it is you need, for you do not know, and your advice to yourself will hurt you. For what you think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world against the Light, and render you unwilling to question the true value that this world can really hold for you. It is not the world we know, and love, Alison. Your journal tells you this as well.
Only your Spirit knows what you need. And It will give you all the things that do not block the way to Light. And what else could you need? Here, in time, It gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. It, unlike your ego, will take nothing from you as long as you have any need of it. And yet It knows that everything you need is temporary, and will but last until you step aside from all your needs and realize that all of them have been fulfilled. Therefore It has no investment in the things that It supplies, except to make certain that you will not use them on behalf of lingering in a place you do not love. It knows that you are not at home here, and It wills no delay on you and waits only upon your joyous homecoming.
Leave, then, all your needs to Creation. It will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Creation comes safely, for only Creation can ensure that it can never become a dark spot, hidden in your mind and kept to hurt you. Ego has other, more nefarious plans. Under Spirit's guidance you will travel light and journey lightly, for Creation's sight is ever on the journey's end, which is Its goal. The Child of Creation is not a traveler through outer worlds. He is a Voyager. And his is beautiful journey inward to Source and Identity. The Universe does work this way, sweet Alison. However holy your perception may become, no world outside yourself holds your inheritance. Within yourself, within the Truth of who you are, you have no needs, for Light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from that Light itself to only let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.
Whenever you are tempted to undertake a useless journey that would lead away from that Light, Alison, remember what you really want, and who you really are.
Then follow the Light of Creation in joy, with faith that It will lead you safely through all the many dangers to your peace of mind that this world may set before you. Kneel not before the altars to your ego, nor offer up your peace as sacrifice upon them, and seek not what you will surely lose. Content yourself with what you will as surely keep, and be not restless, for you undertake a quiet journey to the peace of Creation, where It would have you find it in stillness, in candlelight, in quietness.
Spirit has already overcome every temptation that would hold you back. We all walk together on the way to that quietness that is the gift of God. Hold love for your brothers dear, for what except your brothers on this journey could you truly need? We will attempt to help restore to you the peace of mind that all of you must find together. Spirit will teach you to awaken unto Creation and to yourself, for truly, they are one and same. This is the only real need you have that must be fulfilled here, in time. Any salvation from any of the myriad sorrows of this world in truth, lies only here. My peace I give to you, Alison. Our peace we give to you. To whom will you give yours? Take ours from us in glad exchange for all your world has offered you, but intends one day to take away in bitter disappointment and in loss. And we will help you spread it like a veil of light across your world's sad face. A world in which you hide your brothers from the real world, and it from them. And them from us.
The great revealing has begun. And each of you are a beautiful part of it. In your hearts, you have always known this.
-Maia Dalma
May the Lord watch you and keep you,
May he make his countenance to shine upon you
And keep give you peace.
-Alison
Leave a Reply