THE ONE THING AND THE OTHER THING
a note by Ryan Nicholas
When you were born, you knew something. It wasn’t like “knowing something” the way we define it now – in that sense, it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. It was everything. It was a direct knowledge of your complete interconnection with everything and everyone around you. It was like the entire Universe existed just for you, and you created it all with your own consciousness. Let us call this sublime state of awareness the knowing of the “One Thing”.
Sooner or later, it became clear that others seemed to have forgotten about the One Thing. The older they got, the more they seemed to have forgotten about it. But other children still knew. You may not have been able to discuss it with them, but you didn’t need to – you just knew they knew. Besides, you didn’t really have the words to anyway. In the same way, you also knew that the grown-ups never actually forgot… but they seemed to think they had, because all of the focus of their lives had gone into the details of this other, infinitely complex energy that seemed to “replace” the awareness of the One Thing in everyone. Let us call this the “Other Thing”.
You further came to find that the entire world of people and things and everything around you was built around this Other Thing. The Other Thing did not make people feel anywhere near as happy as the One Thing could, but they seemed to want to do it anyway. And they wanted YOU to do it too.
As you grew, you figured it was ok to play along with this Other Thing. Why not? It must still be part of the One Thing (even if it didn’t seem like it), because everything was. Even though older people seemed to have forgotten the One Thing, it was like they’d forgotten and remembered at the same time. You could do that, you probably thought – maybe you’d even remember more than you’d forget? Maybe some day someone would come to you and explain all of this weirdness. You knew that one day, the remembering would be stronger than the forgetting. It had to be. Why not play along, right? All the One Thing ever needed was for you to do what came naturally, and this Other Thing only seemed to diverge slightly from that at first. In truth, at the beginning it only required thinking – and, of course, the side effect of transferring your sense of identity into your mind. Surely, though, such a process couldn’t make you forget something so powerful. And those parents of yours (if you had both of them there) probably wouldn’t have been very happy if you weren’t a little “normal”. You may remember your love for them being reason enough to “play the game”. You may want to remember this as “merely” a survival instinct, but survival is self-love, and at the time this decision was made, you still felt a level of unity with those around you that to discern between “love for others” and “love for yourself” would be difficult to describe in words at this point because the two were really one and the same.
As this went on, you gradually started to lose your awareness of the One Thing, and knew full well that it was happening. If you were anything like me, you may have sworn to yourself that you’d retain at least some memory of it, even if you were starting to wonder what “it” was at this point. “One day”, you may have thought, “the remembering will be stronger than the forgetting again, and everyone will know it“. You may have latched onto tales of “God” that resembled what you were now starting to forget about the One Thing (except for leaving out the vital element that YOU were at the Center of it). You may have latched onto Science, which glorified Thinking and used the word Because so exquisitely that you could pretend the One Thing was never real. Perhaps you did a little bit of both. Thoughts like these became your solace alongside your willingness to continue playing the game you had already gotten so far into, and you began, at least to some degree, to forget even going through the process I am describing. This created what later became a deeply buried self-conflict, the roots of a frustration at knowing you’d locked yourself away from the sacred consciousness you knew was still there somewhere. If you were like me, this would later become a resentment toward “the system”, a projection of that negativity towards the most apt possible target. If not, perhaps this manifested more specifically or in more complex or hidden forms, towards various “pet peeves” about the world or in one of any variation of degrees of negative attitude about – well, anything in life, really. In some way, though, all negativity that developed from this point on was some kind of complicated growth of your frustration at the Other Thing that “made you” forget about the One Thing in the first place. If religion was your bag, this was probably the “Devil”. If Science was your bag, it may have been the very idea of God (so as to reject the memory of the One Thing completely), or perhaps it just became a silent, invisible, barely-there subconscious old memory, lost in the infinity of causality and laws. But the thing is, you never really didforget the One Thing, which is why this all sounds familiar.
The Other Thing – the essence of human culture and civilization for thousands of years – has been the very energy that has allowed our species to develop into what we are. It is naturally associated with the One Thing seeming like it’s missing. What is happening now? The One Thing is coming back. The remembering is about to trump the forgetting. Your ancient, secret, unexpressed hope that this would happen one day – the hope that cynics gave up on long ago, usually without even realizing what they were giving up on – is about to blossom into Truth on a global scale. You know this already, you have been feeling it happening. It is happening NOW.
THE RIVER AND THE DAM
I want you to imagine a river, teeming with aquatic life in the form of fish. Now imagine a dam is built to block the water. See the riverbed drying, and then imagine that the fish must evolve to survive. So, they start growing limbs. This process is spread out through many generations, but through them all, the fish keep their gills and tails, because somewhere inside themselves, they know the river will return one day. It becomes necessary, however, to think, act and live as if this may not actually happen. Stories are told of the river as the Origin of life and as the place to which one might return upon death. Many do not believe these stories, because they feel such a focus would impede their ability to function with a proper understanding of this dry environment – an understanding which is needed for growth, development, and even survival.
Now I want you to imagine that one day the dam is brought down and the River returns. The fish still have gills and tails, “unnecessary remnants of an old evolution” according to some. But now, they can use them again. Being added back to this “original” environment that none of them alive have ever actually seen is somehow automatically familiar, and it becomes clear only at this point that the dam itself and the time of growing limbs has served only to prepare them for the return of the River. Now they can be in the water, still retaining all of the abilities and skills they have developed while dry, but able to use them in a much more expanded, fluid environment. In the process, they meet other fish – with limbs – who went through a similar process upstream long ago. These other fish can relate somewhat to the plight of the fish who are confused, wondering why the river was ever dry and often even angry at those who had built the dam. This collective understanding can now be greatly enhanced by our fish, who now have fresh, powerful memories of this process of transition, and are able now to apply these lessons to help other fish, either here or further down the River. Some have trouble letting go of the accustomed state of living on dry land. This attachment causes some of these fish to discourage this whole process from even happening, feeling a need to validate the entire evolution they have experienced by saying the River shouldn’t (or simply can’t) even return
This River is the One Thing you so vaguely remember. We are these fish, embracing or resisting the return of the River in all sorts of various degrees. The difference is that when you were born, you were still in the water, and YOU, by your agreement to comply and “play the game”, were needed to put the last few sticks of your Dam in place. When you did this, you knew that the river would return one day. But when things got “dry” enough, you began to notice that others around you in the world – in this metaphorical riverbed called Earth – seemed to work even harder than you did to keep the Dam in place. This was naturally puzzling, because by this point you had started to forget one of the central truths of the River, of the One Thing: that Love was the reason for all of this and that those you saw doing such things ARE you, that they are intimately connected with your consciousness, even if they seem to be motivated by completely different things. In at least some small way, this confusion and negativity was disconcerting enough to you that you became one of these dam-builders. Perhaps this manifested in ways similar to those you saw; perhaps this only happened by judging, rejecting or dismissing the validity and importance of what they were doing. Either way, you forgot that YOU had put those sticks in the dam – that YOU actually co-created this absence of the River, this dryness of the riverbed.
Allowing yourself to accept and understand this means not only owning your part in this – however distant and metaphysical it may seem – but also recognizing that the “dryness” of consciousness in the world around you can only be remedied by acknowledging that the River of awareness you see around you is only a reflection of its flow within you. Whatever release or forgiveness – towards others or especially towards yourself – that is needed to unblock the dam holding it back is something that only you can do. Even the greedy people who enslave and control the world and work to limit everyone’s awareness have been only manifestations of the Hiding of the One Thing – of the process that you assisted, the Dam that you helped to build. This does not mean that you did something wrong, and it does not mean that you are responsible for every manifestation of darkness and evil in the world. It just means that we are all connected, and that we ALL created this together – those simple acts of compliance you did as a child happened from a place of such awareness, such consciousness and power, that if you had truly known what you know now about the evils of the world, you probably never would have contributed your infinite essence to such darkness. But it was necessary that you did. You were supposed to be here, experiencing an existence that seems questionable in its sacredness, having created for yourself a choice: should I continue to live with fear and resistance, building the dam I continue to protest? Or, should I accept these truths again and embrace the reality of the River, meaning that I must see anything I want to change as some aspect of Myself? At some (probably deeply buried) level of your consciousness, you knew from the start that one day you would have to face this choice.
Once you start remembering this, you begin to see that it is not as much to be upset about as you may have thought until now. IN fact, it has all been necessary and part of a perfect universal balance that could have been no other way if you were to get back to this point of remembering, of letting the River come back. But YOU are needed to do this. Do you remember thinking that if everyone just loved everyone else, that everything would be perfect in the world? This is still true. But the Other Thing – whether you think of it as the dam itself or as the dry riverbed – has made the world seem like loving everyone would put you in danger, or that doing so would simply be naive and make it so you couldn’t function in the world. This is not true. Yes, it has been this way in a great many ways for a long time. And yes, we have built identities around the One Thing being “gone”, so much so that itseems that if it came back, those identities might serve no purpose. But if we simply remember that the “legs” can still function in the “river”, then we can begin to see that every aspect of the dam and its builders has been necessary to get us this far. Everything about human culture, history, ego, personality and expression can be integrated back into a much larger and more completely, obviously connected collective of universal energy. If we want to experience the River, the return of the One Thing and its awareness, it is absolutely essential that we have unconditional love for those who have brought us down, limited us, manipulated us, and challenged us with their complex dam-building. WE have to remember that because we have judged such people, even in some small way, we have engaged in becoming the very energy we are judging. If we do this enough, taking full and deep responsibility on the most profound possible level, we can allow ourselves to see that what we are judging, hating or fearing is only an incredibly complex reflection of our actual Self. Does this mean we should passively accept tyranny? No. Can we love something unconditionally and still try to change it? Absolutely. But it MUST come from a place of understanding, a place of realization that all the things we see in the world around us are manifestations of a Self that we all share. If we do not do this, we only fuel the fire we claim to fight. This transition from negative to positive motivation is in many ways a subtle one, yet it is infinitely powerful in its manifestation. It may not be easy to give up the validated forms of anger and frustration we have towards those who seem to cause it, and it may not be as simple as saying something like “it’s all ok, because we’re all One” or “everything is perfect” (although, as a meditation and constant focus, this latter phrase can accomplish miraculous feats of expansion). But the more we let ourselves let go, releasing the identities we have built around the “Absence”, the more we can let this process happen by forgiving the energy that challenges us, and most importantly by forgiving ourselves.
LOVE, THE “TWO WORKS” AND THE TRUTH OF SELF
Love is indeed the answer to every problem we face in this world. But simply to feel the emotion of Love is not enough. Balancing this complex equation of Fear means accepting all of these truths buried deeply within us and turning everything we do, from thought to speech to action, into as much of a labor of Love as we possibly can. Love is hard work sometimes – and we often find it to be so incredibly hard that we dismiss it as impossible, turning to another energy for the sake of our own survival or sanity. But this other energy – the Other Thing – is still a part of the One Thing, a part of Love. The ground of the dry riverbed is still part of the river. The ones who work tirelessly to keep the dam built are part of the design. As much of a paradox as it may seem, the best way to overpower them is with complete love and acceptance of this. This does not mean complacency; sometimes it can mean more action than before, because we then know what is happening and what we can do, and we are no longer letting our capacity for action be crippled by fear, which is the true root of all other negative emotion and is in many ways the foundation of the Other Thing.
Our True Self and its natural instinct – the part of us that is still connected with the One Thing and that never left the River – lives in Love and knows things are always perfect and complete, and that the flow of the River always takes us exactly where we need to be. Metaphorically, it is the tail, fins and gills of the fish in our story. But the state of things until now has developed a conditioned “instinct” we have come to identify with – the identity of the “limbs” we have grown. We can call this “ego” (as long as we don’t think of it as a bad word). This part of us always feels “one thing away” from the happiness or sense of completion that we desire, whether that “thing” is an object, an action, a word or even simply a thought. Such modes of constantly pursuing a completion that eludes us have come to be defined by the usual meanings of words like “work” and “effort”. Let’s call this “outer work”. But the removal of this dam requires a different kind of “work”, and a somewhat new definition of “effort”. If you can imagine the difference between the effort it takes to grab tightly onto something and the effort it takes to let go of it (especially if you’ve been holding it for a long time), then you have a vague sort of idea of what I mean. Let’s call this “inner work”. This work is passive, and in many ways is “effortless”. This is, fundamentally, the kind of work that is needed from us to bring down the dam. The goal of all of this is to fully integrate the inner True Self with the outer Ego – to bring our “limbs” into the River, making all our outer work an extension and expression of our inner work. With this integration comes the experience that such “outer work” no longer stems from a place of negative compensation for something that seems “missing”. The “inner work” has an inner truth, which is that “nothing is missing, and everything is already complete and perfect just as is”. The “outer work” has an outer truth, which is that “something is missing or wrong, and I must do something about it”. Although these two truths seem to conflict each other, they are two halves of a whole, of a single Truth that is gradually coming together in clarity for every person on Earth to feel, know and live in every moment. This means knowing what the ego always wants to know – that you are infinitely important, that everything you do is too, and that you are worthy of all the Love you could ever want – without having to try or feel a need to prove any of these things. You are the puzzle piece that ties it all together… but so is everyone else, whether they know it or not. Let us call this “Truth of Self”. This is the truth of the One Thing, the water of the River. The process of rediscovering this truth is One with the process of removing the dam. Everything about the human Ego that we have ever seen as an “overblown” sense of self-importance has been an expression of this truth attempting to assert itself in an environment that seems to deny it. People often become so wrapped up in this need to compensate – in the identities of the “outer work” – that they either act out of fear and manifest more, or pursue self-interest at the expense of others. We ALL have had elements of these things within us – they are the elements of energy that add sticks to the dam. In extreme cases, such people have become very powerful, protected like the beavers who “lodge” inside the dam. But they still have their Truth of Self, even if it makes it harder for you to discover yours. Such challenges make us stronger and help us grow… and soon, with your help, the dam will be gone and this will ALL make sense without having to try, because it will be a natural understanding of the Universe.
A PERFECT WORLD?
If you were surrounded by an environment in which all things were naturally connected into a perfect, infinitely changing Flow, the things you would do to contribute to such an environment would present themselves to you naturally. Whenever you felt “one thing away” from completion, that “one thing” would simply be whatever you did in that moment. Eventually, any worry or fear about what to do in any moment would dissipate entirely and be only a memory of the past. The seamless design of infinite interconnection would be manifest in the lives of everyone, and you would be filling your true purpose in every moment with everything you did. The Truth of Self mentioned above would be an ongoing understanding of every person in the world. All “outer work” and its truth would be a natural function of connection with the “inner work” and its truth.
In the past, political efforts like communism and socialism have been made to recreate this state of society, but with the reality of the dam it has been impossible for such creations to exist without being darkened by elements of power, greed and control. The metaphysical connection of consciousness was simply not there, so the truths of the “inner” and “outer” works could not be fully connected. But now that the dam is coming down, such a reality of equality and interconnection is very likely to occur as part of a natural balance of universal energy, without the need for the political control that has previously been associated with such models. Some people sense the approach of a reality like this and, out of fear, label it as a sinister plan to repeat past failures – but this fear comes from the illusion of surface appearance causing a denial of inner awareness that the One Thing – the natural flow of the “river” – is actually returning to our world. When we have trust and faith in this process, we become an active part of it and work to reveal this truth to ourselves and to others, which can remove this fear and resistance on a collective level. The primary energy that accomplishes all of this is Love.
What I am describing is Utopia – the manifestation of Heaven on Earth. It is an ongoing sense of perfection and completeness that is constantly becoming in its fullness. It is the metaphorical reality of the River. Despite much of the external appearance of things in our world, such a reality is not only possible – it is much closer than we may think. In fact, it already exists, just beyond the veil – the “dam” – of our perception. That veil is dissolving, getting thinner by the moment. But its appearance has been getting darker and more opaque as this has happened, causing many to believe that it is further away from us than it ever has been. The external layer of the dam seems as big and strong as ever, but this is paradoxically because it is about to come down. We all know that we are here to accomplish something great, but if we are fooled by this external appearance, we may get frantic or dismayed at thoughts of how we are going to do so. In this state of mind, we inadvertently try to build towards this desired reality with “outer work”, forgetting that in the reality we want, all such work is an extension of “inner work”. We keep going and going, always feeling as if there is something left to accomplish before we can feel that sense of completion… or we stop moving entirely, not knowing what we can possibly do. But Heaven on Earth cannot be built with either approach. Heaven is something that can only be discovered as something that is already there. This discovery IS the dissolving of the veil, the felling of the dam, and the return of the River. It is the uniting of the two halves of the Truth of Self. But without a full acknowledgment of the inner part of that Truth, this cannot happen. This acknowledgment is how we bridge the gap and discover Heaven on Earth so that we can build it even more. That inner truth is simple: that everything – absolutely everything – is completely perfect just the way it is, right now in this moment.
The reason this truth often seems contrary to practical living is that it has been missing for so long that we have identified deeply with its absence. How can I fill my true purpose if I am not motivated by a feeling of “lack”? You do have a true purpose to fill. Rest assured it will be filled, by you, while you are alive. This is the way the Universe is designed; it can be no other way. But being motivated by a sense of lack or incompleteness tends to carry with it some energy of worry, fear or judgment. And since we build our reality with what we believe, any energy of “outer work” that we apply from a rooted belief that something is missing actually works to create more of this belief, which makes it increasingly difficult to fulfill our purpose. Without letting go of that belief, this cycle can continue on and on. This release is not instantaneous; it is a gradual process. It requires that we work constantly, every day, at understanding that everything is perfect as it already is. It means letting go of whatever we have to let go of so that we can see this truth, a truth that is beyond the definitions with which we have previously limited the concept of Perfection. This release is often difficult and sometimes seems impossible. We often do need a sense that something is “missing” in order to find it. But if we let go of the judgments that can accompany these external appearances and instead turn inward, we can discover the quiet, powerful sense of Heaven within us that is about to burst through the seams of our collective global consciousness… and in doing so, realize that we are only working to reveal a perfection that is already there, but hidden.
Seeing everything as already Perfect is the ultimate act of Universal Love. Every time we consciously choose this Love over fear, hatred or judgment, we pull a stick out of the dam. We are faced with numerous opportunities every day to do this. The Dam itself has become such a complicated energy, intertwined in aspects of our daily lives that seem unimportant and trivial to this process. They are not. Every small opportunity to practice Universal Love is like a twig in the dam. If you actually had a physical dam to bring down, would you not do it because it was made of small twigs? Would every twig make you think, “this one isn’t important! Where are the big ones?” If so, what would happen if you kept waiting for the big sticks and never found them? This dam has been designed so that the twigs form only the outer layer… the only way to get to the bigger pieces is to address the twigs first. We often feel powerless to bring down the immense evils of the world, as if the “twigs” of our every day experience are of no consequence to such a task. If, however, we try to remember that every tiny moment is intricately connected with the Whole, we know that the small things we do can have dramatic effects. Subtle shifts in inner perspective count greatly toward this process, too. Once we start doing this enough and removing the twigs that form the outer layer of the dam, we find that doing so brings us to the larger sticks, which can then be addressed. Every little twig we work to remove is connected to the twigs of those around us. What happens if we take this a step further and encourage everyone we see, through our example, to do the same thing and to see the hidden perfection in absolutely everything around us? This naturally leads to more and more removal of what is blocking us, closer and closer to the water of the River. Once everyone comes to understand, in their own way, this broader concept of Perfection, the dam will be no more and the “river” of Heaven on Earth will be a reality. But we cannot truly have an effect on the perspective of others until we expand our own.
RELEASING THE “OLD TRUTH”
As we surrender to the flow of the River and allow the truth of Infinite Perfection to reveal itself within us, our “outer work” gradually becomes more fully connected with it. But sometimes (and especially during this process of transition), we find it necessary to do “outer work” that is motivated by its “outer truth” – that something is wrong and that we must fix it – without that truth seeming at all connected to the inner truth that everything is perfect. If we do not remember that these two seemingly contradictory halves of the Truth of Self are uniting into One, then this can become very confusing. As this merging process happens, something else is happening: the outer truth, as isolated from its other inner half, is becoming somewhat obsolete, at least in the extremes of its manifestations. It is becoming the Old Truth. The Old Truth is at the root of all suffering. As this Old Truth prepares itself for removal from our world, it is becoming more pronounced so that we can draw our attention toward what we either need to accept as Perfect or what we need to change in order to be able to accept this. This has been happening on both the collective, socio-political level and on the personal level, because these things are of course reflections of each other. This merger of Truth requires that the Old Truth morph into one that can be blended with its other half. This basically means a shift to “If I cannot affect it, it is Perfect in this moment as it is, and if I can, I am only working to reveal a Perfection that is already there.” Determining which of these is preferable in any given moment is a matter of one’s personal path, but one thing is certain: that the more we do our “inner work” the less we find a need to change things in others.
When seemingly negative things are beyond the scope of our direct influence, we often feel that all we can “do” about them is judge them as flawed or wrong, and when we can affect them, we are often addicted to similar judgments because the Ego wants to “own” whatever degree of Perfection we might “establish” with what we do. In a way, these two are the same, because the ego claims both to define itself and its sense of power. But these principles are remnants of the Old Truth. They have become like toxins in the collective bloodstream of society that are now coming to the surface as boils so that we can address them. Since they are outgrowths of the same thoughts that went into creating them, their manifestations seem to make us want to think the same things, but if viewed properly can be seen as opportunities to release the thoughts that created them, rather than fueling the issues with more of the same energies. This means accepting the things we cannot change and taking responsibility for the things we can without identifying with the Ego. Right now, these “boils” of Old Truth are helping us to do these two things by showing us how we can use our power and how we cannot.
On the sociopolitical level, this manifests as large social changes that seem to limit the individual and that we cannot change. Right now, the surface appearance of the world has been working hard to show us a picture of increased powerlessness, tempting us further to believe that now, of all times, would be the least likely time for a shift like the one I am talking about to occur. But this is ALL illusion. The ones who have worked to keep the dam built are having to work so much harder in these ways for one reason and one reason only: the pressure behind the dam is building up with such incredible force and strength that it will not last much longer. This pressure symbolically represents an energy that we can actually feel within ourselves if we only turn our attention inward and let go of external appearances and definitions. But if we don’t do this, and instead keep looking at the external world outside of us, we only see a bigger, stronger dam. This, for many, has become increasingly disconcerting. Even many who have long awaited the River have become dismayed in various degrees, wondering what has happened to the knowing they had while young that the One Thing would return and that they would be there for it. This is only a result of being fooled by the illusion itself – which is just another experience such people have chosen to show themselves how powerful their mind actually is. Surely, we all have been doing this, at least to some extent.
On the personal level, the feeling of powerlessness can come when we have difficulty expressing our Truth alongside equal truths that seem to contradict it. This is coming up because in the River, all truths have equality, even if they seem to contradict each other in the presence of the Dam. The meaning of “truth” in the River is beyond the need for opposites like good/bad and right/wrong. Transcending the duality of opposites means recognizing that there are two forms of truth at the core of every conflict, even when they seem mutually exclusive. If there were not, the conflict itself would not exist; this is universal law.
In both cases, to avoid alienation and overcome powerlessness, we are required to expand our perspectives or unite with others of similar perspective – and each usually leads to the other. Both the solidarity of the global protest movement and the dynamics of interpersonal communication have evolved because of this need, and both have been enhanced greatly by the digital revolution. If we view all of this with the right eyes, we can see that it is working to blend even our collective Ego into the unified understanding that we are all, in fact, One.
REMEMBERING HOW TO SWIM
I assure you that the River is flowing back into its bed. The One Thing is returning. In fact, many streams of its “water” are already flowing around us; we need only to become one with them again. We are all connected as one consciousness, even though the external, mind-identified world has created the biggest and most powerful appearance of difference that has ever existed in this world, and perhaps even in this Universe. But infinite unity and infinite diversity are two halves of a whole. The river is the former and the riverbed is the latter. Unity is the Love of the One Thing, and diversity is allowed to develop because of the dam and the dry environment of the riverbed. If you have been educated on the forces that have seemed to make this all difficult, don’t blame this all on Lucifer, a dark cabal of bankers or the “illuminati”; they are parts of this balance. Besides, you added to the process… remember? Don’t “blame” yourself for it either, because blame implies fault and reason for regret. Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be, including the challenge of seeing past every appearance that it is not. Graduating to the next class level in the great School of Earth means seeing past the differences, past the dam and past the dryness of the riverbed, past the surface of all things and looking at all things and all people with the heart and eyes of unconditional Love. Since we are connected, YOU – and the sticks and twigs that are yours to remove – are absolutely essential to the process of this Ascension (as it is being called) back into the River, back into your true Self. Please join us in this worldwide mission.
If you feel disempowered, start with the small twigs. Figure out what you judge as flawed in the world around you, and release whatever you must in order to allow it to be what it is.Then, if you feel you can help it to change, help remove the dam by moving bigger sticks. But if you don’t remove the small twigs of your judgement, hatred or fear that layer the outside of your desire for action and change first, a great part of your energy goes toward the building of the dam itself without you realizing it. If, however, you accept things as already perfect and then add to that perfection by working to reveal it, your power to bring down the dam builds exponentially.
This may sound relatively simple, but it can be challenging in practice. It does, however, get easier as it goes along, just like the removal of the twigs leads to the big pieces – the sticks and logs – that are blocking out the big flow of sacred water. This water is what you want, whether you realize it or not. Do this and I swear to you that you will feel it, know it and want more. You will know that it is the One Thing, and that it has always been there, just beyond the thin appearance of a veil that has now become disguised as an impenetrable dam. Trust that this process is already built into your ability and that if you just do what comes naturally, you will succeed.
Many are already experiencing the flow of this water, basking in the sacred glow of the One Thing and learning to use their limbs to help them swim in its River. At the same time, many see only the “strengthening” dam and find it almost impossible to turn inward, as if such a transition will threaten them. There are people positioned right next to each other in their daily lives that are experiencing completely opposite perspectives on this scenario, while much about their environment is the same. Some are in heaven, others in hell. Which perspectives are more true? We each determine what is true for ourselves. If the appearance of the “Dam” – of the outer conflict and difference in the world – makes it seem impossible for you to be happy and feel connected with those around you, then that is what you will experience, because your thoughts have incredible power. If, however, you choose to believe this message (and many others like it) and look for the inner unity we all share, you will be more open to experience the truth of the River, of the indescribable One Thing you never really completely forgot… but you MUST be willing to accept the truth that if the dam seems even stronger to you, it only seems this way to compensate for the fact that it is going away. Plus, many of the biggest logs in the dam are being removed behind the scenes right now, which is about to kick-start this process with immense power. Let go of the attachment to your dry-land identity, and I promise that you will still be yourself. In fact, you will be much more of yourself.
If you still insist on believing that none of this is actually happening – or that it should not happen for some reason – please ask yourself why you believe this. Many fear the loss of their identity, as if the unified consciousness of the River would make them lose their sense of “self”. All I can do is promise you that this is not the case. You do not lose your sense of self in this process; you gain far more of it. All of the “doomsayer” predictions that have evolved around the year 2012 are but collective manifestations of the natural human fear of ego death. But “death” of the Ego does not mean loss of the self or the personality, only the end of identifying completely with such a limited expression of the True Self. We have come to identify so deeply with this partial “self” that we equate the release of that identification with actual, physical death. In this way, fear of the River is just like the fear of death, because we are stepping into the unknown. Many feel it necessary to deny the removal of the dam out of a desire to protect themselves or their loved ones. Either way, Love is the reason. Can you not see that this Love is part of the River itself? One big thing about the River is that we all get to much more consciously create our reality, but the water itself is pure Love; refusing it only blocks that out. At first, there may be people who build their own little dams, denying that the River is even there. We all might be doing this already in our own little ways. So, to that part of you, I ask: how badly do you want to be right?
YOU ARE THE CENTER OF THE PUZZLE
All of Earth is rising in vibration right now, and quickly. To conclude, let’s add in one more quick metaphor: imagine a completed jigsaw puzzle. If you asked a piece how it felt, it would say it felt infinitely important, knowing it tied the whole puzzle together. If you did the same with a piece from the same puzzle, shaken up in its box, it would tell you otherwise – that it felt alone and disconnected. But would that in any way decrease its importance to the whole picture? Not at all… in fact, you might be pleased to help it back into its rightful place, because then the thrill of reconnection would completely validate to that piece the importance of its seeming disconnection in the box. So what does it mean for Earth’s vibration to increase? It means that the puzzle pieces are coming back into place. Yes, this means that the box is being shaken up extra hard, but that doesn’t change the truth of what is happening. In fact, to those with the eyes to see, it is only an indication that things are about to come together in a much larger sense. But since your very agreement to identify with thought in the first place was what built your part of the dam – was your part of “shaking up the box” – then your very same willingness to release thought is required for things to come back together, for the dam to fall and for the puzzle to reassemble. Unnecessary thought is what builds the dam and what shakes up the box. It blocks the flow of the Infinite Love that is knocking quietly at the doors of your awareness. This is what Ascension is… the opening of oneself to an energy of Love so powerful and all-encompassing that it becomes the essence of everything to you. In truth, it already is. WE just need to get out of our own way to experience it again. This means letting go of the constructs of thought we have come to identify with and allowing ourselves to embrace larger forms of Truth that transcend the duality of opposites, of alternate perspectives being “false” so that ours can be true. In the old mindset, “love” is something that can also have an opposite, like hatred or fear. The Greater Love – that of the One Thing, the water of the River – is an infinite energy of connection that has no opposite. What we have experienced as darkness and negativity have been part of the game. It has been part of that Greater Love, even though it has not seemed like it. That Love carries with it an awareness of connection and meaning that makes all of this amazingly clear – but if that seems preposterous or unlikely to you, please simply try to let go of such thoughts. Trust this message and know that this really is happening and that You are a part of it, even if you don’t feel like you are. You are the puzzle piece that ties the whole picture together. Youare at the sacred Center of the One Thing. You are a fish with limbs, standing there and looking at a dam that seems bigger and more powerful than ever… and it is you who will find that by simply pulling out a few twigs and releasing all of that fear and judgment, the illusion will break, along with the dam. That water – that LOVE – is what you want. It is what you need. It is what you ARE.
And believe me when I tell you that you already know how to swim.
meaningofstrife 