Zen

 Zen: I would call it by some other name if some other word could reveal the code behind what happens inside a person who has begun to see how the universe works.

There are billions of hints everywhere you look. Jesus, for instance, was quoted as saying, “Consider the lilies.”
He could have said, “Look at flowers.” But the way this line was interpreted becomes a door into Zen, as opposed to mere thoughts of flowers.
In almost exactly the same way, the opening chapter of Barfield’s Saving The Appearances includes the line, “Consider the rainbow.”
That Barfield thought has done as much for me as the quote attributed to Jesus. I am not sure that Barfield would have the same effect on everyone, but it is important to me that he has that effect on me.

There is more going on when we consider a sunset than when we merely acknowledge a sunset. By seeing a sunset and recognizing the various shades of red, we may include the event as a feature for navigating or predicting the weather. It may even occur to us that the area must naturally be the west, and the color may suggest that a rain system has passed.
However, when we consider the same sunset, we may recognize a dormant emotion within. Without words, we may even sense a feeling that arises while observing sunsets, and it is precisely this sort of feeling that carries our souls to the experience we refer to as Zen.

It can be subtle, and it can be extreme—but the feelings occur when we experience our “outside” by degrees.
This may happen during meditation or prayer. It may happen while sitting beside a fire, studying the flames.
It may happen when we hold a baby or watch the child playing or sleeping.
It may happen when we kiss someone and feel the stirring of close connectivity with them.
It may happen when we stand on the edge of a cliff and feel afraid.
It may happen while we add colors in a book where the shapes were once black and white.

Call it Zen or call it anything you like, but remembering that we have an outside is more freeing than any feeling we have on the inside.

This is the moment when you are still, and you know “I Am” is God.
And this is when you realize that God is The Father and that no one can come to The Father but by their own “me.”
Each soul is assigned to a body, and they will almost always refer to this body as “me.” As concerning the form, there are bones, skin, eyes, hair, muscle, and so on.
However, some souls remember that “I” is universal. This realization can also feel subtle or extreme. Some religions refer to this as awareness, salvation, or awakening. These words are not destinations, but pointers to invisible oneness.

The same message is as old as recorded history, and it likely goes further than that.
Jesus completely understood this message, and he clearly taught this way, but he has been misunderstood in some cases.
When Jesus was quoted as saying, “I and The Father are One,” he was saying something very profound; however, salvation comes when a soul can say the same thing—in whatever words one might use to say it.
In fact, it does not have to be spoken. There are moments when the door might only be partially opened. You may find yourself sitting by an ocean, and in that moment, you may feel connected to the environment rather than feeling like a body with the capacity to perceive it.

It is in moments like this that we might allow our souls to wander. We may find that this kind of stillness reveals our outsides.

The Father is All.

There is a word I use for The Father, but being a word, it can be mistranslated. However, I use the word Love.
Unfortunately, there are millions of ways we might use this word, and most of those ways are not what I am referring to. I am using the word as Agape Love might be used in some texts. But a careful study of that term quickly reveals the problem with words: words can point to feelings and relationships, but a word is not the feeling nor the relationship any more than a map of Vermont is actually Vermont.

If the English language could convey what I am suggesting, the following sentence would make sense:
“I Am God but me is not.”
Or:
“I Am more than me is.”

The word “me” points to the soul’s experience in the body being discussed. The word “I” may point to that same “me” or even that soul’s experience with Nature.

There are subtle clues: we might say, “I am hot,” and this would make more sense than if we said, “Me is hot.”
The fact that hotness is a part of the environment rather than something arising purely from conditions in the body helps to point to The I Am as it really is: both outside and inside our experience.

We also tend to say, “I have a body.”
This sentence is a divine pointer if we consider it for that value. It is one way in which most souls agree that the body and its situation are the results of the combination of a local “me” and how and where it happens to show up in The Universe.

Zen, as I am borrowing the term, is any doorway allowing passage to I Amness.