Somebody's Story

"The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to you. By it you live. It is your Source of Life, holding you One with it, and everything is One with you because it left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting Life shine in your mind, because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you." A Course in Miracles, Workbook 165, 2:1-7

"The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 8, 2:1-4

"Your mind is really a blank. To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 10, 3:3-4

"What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with Reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 14, 1:2-5

"Scientifically speaking, there is no mortal mind out of which to make material beliefs, springing from illusion. This misnamed mind is not an entity. It is only a false sense of matter, since matter is not sensible. The One Mind, God, contains no mortal opinions. All that is Real is included in this Immortal Mind." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 399, Lines 23-28

As you know, we live in a world of story. We listen to our own stories with the greatest interest, but we also love to give great meaning to other people's stories, either by empathizing or by judging. And we dearly love books and movies, which are simply projected versions of our own stories. We're always in somebody's story.

It can be a shock to really notice this. The fact that there is absolutely no difference in any story because it's all made up... this is hard for most people to swallow. We think there are good stories that are worth living. But tell me, dear reader, what real difference can exist in what is unreal? If the mind is actually blank when we're in our own or somebody else's story, if there really isn't a me and a you as we imagine it... then what story could be worth living when it is the equivalent of a spiritual lobotomy? When immersed in our private world we have complete spiritual amnesia, the endless forgetting of the Son of God. We ride Samsara, the wheel of suffering. Around and around and around we go... like a sick parody, the amusement park from hell.

The Truth is, not one story told from the perspective of the world is true. Not one. ACIM says bluntly,"There is no world!" (ACIM, Workbook 132, 6:2) So who the hell is talking? Who is questioning? Who is wondering about all of this? Who, indeed?

Let's widen our awareness, letting it all breathe for a moment. Rest and breathe. We're not talking physical breath here... we're using a metaphor for allowing Spiritual memory to return, like opening a bottle of good wine and letting it breathe to allow its true flavor to emerge. The good thing about the dream we live is that the Holy Spirit, our True Self that always remembers our Oneness with God, can use every story as metaphor, can translate every illusion for Awakening. How could it be otherwise? Our Reality has always been safely in the Allness of God, Who is All Light and Love and Good... in Whom there is no darkness, no lie, no illusion, no lack, no mistake at all. We are Real. Our stories are not.

It is so funny when you really think about it. We Who Are One with All, Who ARE Everything, spend our dreaming lives imagining we're NOT. Either we imagine we're not and we struggle to achieve, or we imagine we're not and we loathe ourselves for our inadequacy, or we imagine we're not and they are, or we imagine they're not and we are, or we imagine we're not and so it means this and that and whatever... it really doesn't matter what version of not, whose story of not. We're always dreaming somebody's story. And in everybody's story, somebody is not.

God created us by extending His Being... and so we live and move and have our Being in and As Divine Mind. There can be no separation from this True and Only Reality. Again, don't take my word for this. Be still, and listen to the Voice that is always with you. It is very quiet, because there is no conflict in Reality. So we are advised in all spiritual traditions to be still, to breathe, to listen. Only illusions need constant stories. The Truth is quiet and perfectly clear. And our Real Thoughts, the Miracles of Love and Oneness that heal every perceived illusion, dawn on our clear and open minds.

In this world, we are always in somebody's story. So let's give all stories to the One Who knows how to translate them for Awakening.

"Be still and know that I Am God." -- The Bible, Psalm 46:10

"My mind is part of God's. I am very Holy." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 35

"Keep distinctly in thought that man is the offspring of God, not of man; that man is spiritual, not material." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 396, Lines 26-28