The Labyrinth

 

I believe there has to be a great deal of choosing while we awaken. What are we choosing? What happens. This is how we remain disentangled from our story. We forget that the whole story is scripted and that we are only playing the part we were cast to play; so what happens is always what we chose.

This is a very difficult concept to comprehend, but only if we try to apprehend it instead. Thoughts are verbs, not nouns. This is why my reaction to an action creates the experience I am having. I heard someone say that you have to do more than just accept what is; you have to choose it.

Tolle has said the same thing in a thousand different ways, but I needed it simplified.

Tolle says that we did choose what is happening, but I never really understood him to say that by doing so, we are doing what we should do. He encourages his readers to accept what is as if you chose it, but that is somewhat different than choosing it on the spot.

You may get to a strange, or even difficult crossroad and you may find yourself taking a path which turns out to be a mistake, but if you master the acceptance of these paths as paths you are choosing, there cannot be a mistake.

“Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He shall direct thy paths.”

Meaning?

Consider your own essence as who you really are instead of the path you happen to be on and who you really are will take care of the path.

This advice is as ancient as human history and it is still relevant. The real key to enlightenment is to remember that you created this story and you designed it as a labyrinth and not a maze. If it were a maze, then resistance would make sense. In mazes, you may travel a long way, down a wrong path, and then have to back out, but in a labyrinth, you’ll always want to move in the path in the forward direction; with the path; with the current.

Every step you take in a labyrinth will take you one step closer to God; who happens to be your own essence-reality. Naturally, it is not a straight line; instead, it is a strait path (Difficult). You’ll feel as if you are getting very close to God at times, and then the path steers you away from that central goal. The path is still taking you to Your Creator, but not directly.

As human stories go:

You’ll be having a good day, feeling closer to God and feeling the warmth of Creation, when suddenly, you get sick and you find yourself facing the other direction, moving away from God, cooling, doubting, becoming angry, bitter and resentful, but then someone in your human-family has a baby and you go to see this new, beautiful creature and you suddenly find yourself basking in The Light of The Creator again; you did not even notice the curve in the road but you are closer to the center in a moment like that. Over time, it occurs to you that labyrinths are very curvy and though the path will ultimately get you to the very center, you’ll find yourself having the closer experience and then you’ll find yourself far from it again.

I do believe that it is possibly easier to have more joy by realizing that you designed this labyrinth for yourself.

At first, this may seem ridiculous to you. You will probably think about events you’ve navigated through and you will say, “There is no way I would have chosen that.”

If that is your response, then I would ask: Who did choose that?

Of course, if you are a believer, you may say that it was God; or even Satan who imposed that trouble onto your path. But when you finally get to the center, where you will finally step out of the labyrinth and into pure awareness, You will be Alone.

Here is what Isiah had to say about the labyrinth in the 45^th chapter:

“The path is open on both ends. I’ll go in and make some of the paths straight and I’ll cut right through some of them. I’ll make sure you have treasures in the darker moments. I’ll give you hidden riches in secret places. I Am and there is no other, yet you haven’t known me. I am God and there is no one else. I offer light and I create darkness. I make peace and I create evil. I do all of these things. I created it all. Don’t fight with your Creator. Don’t ask the potter, ‘what are you making?’. I created the earth and I created man upon it. You will eventually say, ‘You are God and You hide yourself.’. Head this way and you’ll be fine. I Am God and there is no one else.” ~ MCV

Am I suggesting that you believe that you are God?

I am saying this: “If you believe in God, believe me also.”

1.      “I and my father are One.”

2.      “I pray we all be One, as You Father, are in me, and I in You, that All may be in Us; I in them and You in me, that they may be made perfect in One.”

Awakening is being aware of Oneness, enlightenment is the experience this yields.

Perhaps, the greatest mystery and the grandest illusion is that the past cannot be now and the future cannot be now; therefore, there is no reason to use your verbs to make nouns of the past and future. When I say that it does not matter, I mean it in a literal way: there cannot be past-matter and there cannot be future-matter. You are the noun; while the past and the future are adjectives and verbs. There is always only now.

Why is now so important? Because there is only now.

This looks good on paper, but it can be very difficult to forget about the past and it can be very difficult not to worry about the future.

Say this to yourself: “I chose it all.”

I know you may want to push back on this, but if you only knew who was at the center of this labyrinth, you would know that it is true. The light people speak of when they speak of a near-death-experience? That is just the bright, center of the act. In that center, there is a writer, composer, and creator. You are moving toward that light even now.

There are only three options:

1.      You are somehow a natural accident, separated from The Center of this act and moving in that direction.

2.      You are created by the Being in the center and are a result of the Life borrowed from The Center and completely and utterly the same Being, imaginarily separated in order to have the experience you are having.

3.      You are all alone on this path, an unloving mass of particles, moving toward the center of the labyrinth, where there is nothing but a precipice, where you ultimately plunge into nowhere; completely forgotten forever.

Let’s look at each possibility:

If you are an accident, then you are also a miracle. An accident as perfect as you is the most unlikely event that has ever happened. And if The Being in The Center is ready to accept you anyway, that is even more unlikely than you are.

If you and The Creator are The One I, in The center, then you have nothing to worry about. You did all of this and you are all of this and you are that too. so when you see the light, it’s just revealing your original home and it is a welcome light, left on for you throughout eternity. You are The Central Being and everything about your entire story has been on purpose and in Love.

And finally, if you are just stuff, having a temporary experience for no reason at all, then nothing matters; not you, not the center, not the story and no one else. In the end, you go out, there is no light, it is over and that was that. If this is the case, I see no reason to put any effort into anything at all. After all, if this is it, it is not much.

 

 

Okay, you can take all of this and dismiss it. That’s your prerogative. Or you could take another look and Awaken. When you realize that You are The I Am, and that You created Your Story, For You, the very corners of your physical lips should turn up like a Buddha.

Don’t try to make the decision to accept things as if you chose them; just know that you chose it all and enjoy it all.

You are here on the earth for only one reason: Joy.

Joy is the verb, resulting from the noun: Love.

There is nothing else to do.

Calamities, chaos, thrills, spills and chills; it is all a part of the plan.

Which brings me to these lyrics by Dan Fogelberg:

 

Your conscience awakes and you see your mistakes

And you wish someone would buy your confessions

The days miss their mark, and the night gets so dark

And some kind of message comes through to you

Some kind of message shoots through

And it says to you

Love when you can

Cry when you have to

Be who you must

That's a part of the plan

Await your arrival

With simple survival and

One day, we'll all understand

One day, we'll all understand

One day, we'll all understand

There is no Eden or heavenly gates

That you're gonna make it to one day

But all of the answers you seek can be found

In the dreams that you dream on the way.

I do believe he understood.

All of the answers you seek can be found in the dreams that you dream on the way.

What is THE WAY?

The way is your story. I AM THE WAY.

In fact, “I am the way, the truth and the life and no man or woman comes to The Center, but by the way.”

Your story is the story you find yourself in at this very moment. Wherever you happen to be in your story, it is Your planned way; the path that will take you to Your Father.

Don’t worry about the times when you feel cooler and when you see less light. Those paths are there to get you to the next curve, where you’ll find yourself getting warmer and seeing more light again. Life is a labyrinth, not a maze.

I knew you before you were born. I have plans for you and those plans will not harm you. I am come a light into the world.

I have also referred to life as a maze, but in that analogy, there are hacks, placed in the maze so you can get to the center. 

~Selah