Heaven on Earth

"There is nothing outside of you. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within." -- A Course in Miracles

As I awaken in the morning, there are times when I awaken to peace and joy. There is no reference to the day ahead, or wanting... no reference to my companion, or to my animals. Simply a Divine Contentment that holds everything within it.

Sometimes I awaken in the morning with a restless anxiety, a searching for who I am, what day it is, what lies ahead in the hours to come, and an overwhelming feeling of resistance to it all. This is hell. Here there is only Samsara, the Sanskrit word for the wheel of suffering that we usually call life.

Our lives are like an oscillating current of attention and commitment. We are continually vacillating between ideas and constructs that we give our attention and commitment to. These ideas and constructs populate the world that we see. Some of these ideas and constructs seem to be people that draw us or control us or pleasure us or bring us pain. This is our little kingdom of pleasure and pain. The wheel turns.

And yet... there is another way of being in the world that we glimpse in precious moments of Divine Contentment. The really amazing thing is that we are ever willing to give our attention and commitment to the hell of painful ideas and constructs of separation and conflict. What we glimpse in crystalline moments of oneness and peace is our reality. As the quote from ACIM says, there isn't anything else... nothing outside this awareness, and nothing else within. The awareness of our perfect Oneness and Wholeness is all. So let's give IT our attention and commitment. This is Heaven on Earth.