For the contemplative life to take root in your consciousness you begin by accepting the world in which you find yourself. A world not of your making, not of your design and, perhaps, not to your liking. No matter. This is where you are at this moment in infinity. This is where you need to start to change, not the world but your idea of the world. In all this time since the pairs of opposites drove man from The Garden, man has been making up his own beliefs based on the illusion of his senses and the delusions of his mind. This is a dream of power, a mirage with no substance. Even as he strives for greatness in this world of his creation he cannot become immortal. There is no room in the Inn of the Absolute for this man of the world. In order to obtain reservations he must die daily to the man of the flesh and be reborn of The Spirit. It is not a physical death. No, it is a death to the conditioned man. A death to the myth of me. When a myth is revealed it vanishes. It was never here. It didn't go there. There is no there there as Gertrude Stein tells us. Man came into this world from nothing and with nothing. He will leave it that same way. No matter if he is pauper or king. When your time is come there will be no bag to pack because none of this belongs to you. Might as well begin now to prepare. You might consider beginning by accepting the world as the illusion that it is and leaving it alone as much as possible. There is nothing to be done with it. When problems strike, step aside. Do not take up the sword. To do so is to die by the sword. Step aside, the mantra of the man who would free himself from the shackles that bind him to this world. Many years ago I knew a woman whose last name was Godbe. What a wonderful name for this beautiful creature who strove so hard every day to not answer any question, or enter any discussion before she stepped aside and consulted her inner self. Yes, it made for huge gaps in the conversation sometimes. But when her "guide" reached her, she was not speaking as a conditioned reaction, but as a spirit that had actually thought about was was asked or being discussed and answered from a place that was uniquely her own. We can learn to do that if we will step aside. There can be no argument with a man who has stepped aside. Begin with minor events. When fear grabs you, or hurt, or anger. Step aside. Step into your self and listen or even just move on. There is nothing in this world that has power over you that you do not permit. Even in Genesis there is no mention of God creating the world. God created the heavens and the earth. The world was left to man. And man, being the self created myth, began the journey to aggrandizement that we have become. The confusion and collusion of the conditioned mind. Me, myself and mine became the mantra. Religious beliefs the authority. Greed and battle the measures of might. Suffering was the result. And the fall from Grace was complete. So, dear friends, here we are at the crossroads of this journey. Step aside. Get off the Merry-go-round. Step aside. Step into The Self you really are. A Oneness so complete, perfect and pure that has no need of, and indeed is not of "this" world. Complete, whole. Perfect without flaw. Pure without stain. Step aside and become Being.

Infinity has no beginning or end. There is no alpha and omega there. It stretches into and alongside eternity. In our attempt to understand that which is not understandable we create brackets to limit that which is limitless. The void that contains the particle and the wave are an attempt to explain our existence. They are a projection of an idea using form to describe the formless. Ideas are made from nothing and remain nothing until some action becomes an activity that expresses them in some form. But they are not touched by this expression. Just as the sea is not touched by the beliefs of the wave. Wave and sea remain one no matter the appearance to an observer. (Isaiah asks "Wherein is he to be accounted of?") When the wave has finished its journey to the shore, it returns to the sea. Embraced once more by its source. So why do we experience this sense of separation? Who decreed it? Idea. What supports it? Nothing. When did it happen? In the beginning.(In the beginning was the word, the idea. Just the idea.) Where did it occur? On the earth. Why? Because personal sense took root. The tree of good and evil grew the fruit of the pairs of opposites and we are the result of that belief. But it is as false as the belief of the wave. It has a false sense of separation and is a lie. "If I bear witness to myself, my witness is not true." Jesus said that along with "I, of myself, am nothing." Nothing, the basis of everything, remains unmoved and undefiled by the lie. "Nothing shall enter that defileth or maketh a lie." Deprived of our senses we are left with the mind. Here we find thoughts and ideas. But they have no substance. As dreams have no reality yet they contain expressions of ideas. People, places, possessions, beliefs. All false. Where do they go in the light of wakefulness? They vanish because they never were. When Light enters the darken room, where does the darkness go? It vanishes because it never was. Can darkness show The Light its darkness? Not in the presence of The Light! Through Grace we have the ability to let go of this dream we call living, this world of chaos and anger and greed, and return to The Light, the energy that propels our existence. To be enfolded into Its Being like being embraced by someone you love. It is safe there. There are no opposites and no opposition. Love encircles and absorbs you back into infinity. The place before is replaced by the place ahead, stretching endlessly into eternity. Now you are home. There is no more sorrow. No more separation. No self separate and apart. Embraced by The Light you are enfolded in all there is. Is Is. Rejoice. Joy and Peace, Love and Harmony, Purity and Perfection, Beauty and Abundance, Freedom and Grace surround you. The myth of me is laid to rest and I will dwell in the house of Grace forever.

If I let go of my sorrow I will let go of what caused my sorrow and I don't want to lose that which caused my sorrow to be gone. Sorrow has always been a dilemma to me. Why do we feel this deep longing, this woefulness? It is not simply about the loss of someone dearly loved or about
an event that is agony. It is not about aging or life changing as we travel on this infinite journey through eternity. Though all of those may cause sorrow. This sorrow I sometimes feel is an ancient sorrow, coming from a place deep inside my soul. Like a cloud of unknowing. This feeling that hovers above me and within me. A longing so deep it could cause despair, but it does not. It simply lingers beneath the surface and calls out from time to time. The Cloud of Unknowing is the title of a book purported to be written by an English monk is the middle of the 14th century. Written for a young man who was considering a contemplative life. Chapter 44 is titled "How a soul is to destroy all knowing and feeling of its own being." In order to understand better that painful instruction takes some reflection indeed. I take it to mean that the soul is at work dissolving the myth of me and this feeling of separation that creates personal sense. Part 3 of this chapter again lends some light: "All men have reason for sorrow, but most particularly does he have cause for sorrow who knows and feels that he is." Is what? It is indeed sorrowful if he believes he is this entity identity caught in the pairs of opposites, the illusion of the senses and the delusion of the mind. But he is caught only by conditioning and relative reality. Truth always reveals the lie and the lie vanishes. It never was! Its fraudulent claim is a fiction, has no power and cannot stand! When the lie is exposed, the man can know and feel "not only what he is but that he is,[this] man can experience sorrow authentically." And exactly what is the he that he is? Life, I would venture, with one caveat. Life without a subject. The same life as a blade of grass. No more. No less. That is what he is and that is the I am that I am to be. Nothing. Nothing separate and apart from that which IS. And the sense of separation from that Is is the cause of sorrow. This is a "sorrow, when experienced, cleanses the soul.... and it thereby makes the soul capable of receiving that joy that separates a man from the awareness and feeling of his being." Awareness is an experience of the man whose breath is in his nostrils. We rise up, if I be lifted up, from the density into mindlessness, into mindfulness, into awareness. Awareness is the step before full consciousness. And that consciousness is without an object or objective. The sorrow that leads us to Joy is one that knows the emptiness that is the fulfillment of the soul. I and i are 1. There is no other. There is no separation. It is the separation that causes the sorrow. Only by practicing the contemplative life can we achieve reunion with that which we are. Sorrow is a raft that rescues us from this world. Welcome it. It is the ticket home. My sorrow will only be gone when I am one with the sorrow and it is revealed as a lie and vanishes.