There’s a very simple analogy I like to use when I describe the nature of reality and this world to people. Let’s go on a little journey together for a moment shall we? I’ll share this analogy with you in the form of a brief visualization. Of course, since you’ll be reading these words, you need not close your eyes to visualize. Simply see the images in your mind as you read these words, and allow your awareness to open up and receive the messages meant for you at this time.
You’re at a movie theatre. A grand complex with many shows of all varieties available to choose from. You’ve just bought tickets to see a fantastic drama-action-thriller-romantic-comedy-mystery movie called “My Life in the World” 🙂 You enter the theatre, the kind with stadium seating and cushy reclining chairs, and you take your seat right in the center. You sink comfortable into your seat as the movie begins.
Within just a few moments, your awareness is completely immersed in this movie. The theatre you’re in is a distant memory: you are completely identified with the people, events and circumstances occurring in this most dramatic film you are watching. You feel the emotions and relate intimately to the experiences of the characters: the fear, longing, despair, loneliness, sorrow, excitement, thrill, passion, pleasure, guilt, jealousy, anger, hatred, wanting, elation… It’s a roller coaster of feelings and sensations and reactions.
As your awareness becomes more and more intoxicated by “My Life in the World,” you catch yourself now and then thinking to yourself, “Oh yeah, it’s just a movie…” Sometimes this is disappointing, because the character you were identified with the most just got what she/he wanted. And at other times you’re relieved, because tragedy struck, and it would be horribly devastating if that had actually happened. Nevertheless, the excitement of drama is overwhelmingly appealing, and again, your awareness immerses in the movie, and you identify with the characters and events.
At one point, during the most intense experience in the action, when the fear, devastation and loss is overwhelming your senses, you take a deep breath and again notice that you are watching a movie, and that you are unharmed by the events you are watching. You breath a sigh of relief and smile inside.
Now, let’s look around this theatre a bit more and notice how it works. There are many instances in the movie that you really wanted to change the circumstances: this person needs to do this, have this, go there, meet that person, feel better, look better, do better, act different, be different. We know that, in order to change something we’re watching in the movie, we wouldn’t march up to the screen and try to rearrange the picture. It doesn’t work that way. We know that, in order to change the movie we see on the screen, we have to change the film: the pictures in the projector at the back of the movie theatre that are being projected onto the screen. Ah, but we would have to be the film-maker, director and producer in order to do that right?
I’m sure you’re following the analogy, and realize that, in your life in the world, you are the film-maker, director and producer. Your will and thoughts determine what pictures go into the film. But what is it that makes those pictures project onto the screen/create the life you experience? Well, again, it’s You! The light that shines through the film that projects the pictures onto the screen is Who you are. You are the Light. In Truth, God is the Light and you are the extension, the shining emanation, of the Light. God’s will, as the only producer, director and film-maker of Reality, is perfect peace, perfect stillness, perfect serenity, joy and wholeness. When your will is God’s will, you have a great movie! It’s a happy, peaceful, gentle movie for sure!
As you align yourself more with Who you are, the pictures in the film that were made from a will opposed to God’s naturally fall away. They disappear. And all that remains is the bright Light. In the process, as old pictures (ie choices and thoughts) fall away, you may experience their chaos. However, You will be untouched by the passing pictures when you identify with the Light shining through them. Identify with the Truth, the Light of God, and all else falls away. See the Light beyond the form, and all that remains is Love.