SEPTEMBER: Are You Just A Body Or Is There An Eternal Me?
ARE YOU JUST A BODY?
OR
IS THERE AN ETERNAL ME?
“Life is real, life is earnest, but the grave is not its goal. From dust though art to dust returneth was not spoken of the soul.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Hello dear friends,
As I find my mind wandering back to a previous and precious moment in solitude, I realize how happy I am to once again come together with you in the silence. I’m remembering a moment - actually around 4:00 am, right after I had finished my first draft of my book, Thank God I’m Crazy, (Probably around 2009). Very swiftly, two poems just seem to flow through my mind, and then my hands quite unlike the way I normally communicate, and there was a sort of iambic pentameter rhythm to the words. Having never studied poetry, I doubt that my lines are within the rules of any accepted format, yet, the clarity of the words coming through left no room for doubt. I’d like to share one of these poems with you, but first I’d like to address the considerations that inspired these thoughts.
There’s one thing we all don’t usually like to talk about and that is that our body will die. That’s the elephant in our collective room of consciousness. But life as we know it in the body . . . who we really are is not an illusion. We are real! Many spiritualities around the world teach of life as an illusion or dream, as does A Course in Miracles. If that were the only truth we could stop there and loose ourselves to the madness . . . which we often do for a time.
But we can’t stop there. There is something that drives us toward more. Carl Jung believed we have an inexorable drive for wholeness. We crave joy, we yearn for peace . . . and even then, somewhere inside us we know this is not enough, and that this world of form is not our home. Only the truth can bring us joy. The truth that we are not separate and that we are one is a forgotten longing in our heart, and a knowing somewhere in the recesses of our mind. Try as we may to get around it, love is the only way to know truth, and love is the only pathway to our joy our peace and our oneness. This is why our choice is our power.
A good example might be from the ancient teachings of the Vedanta, where maya is referred to as the illusion of life, and causes the material world to be seen. Maya is a seeming true experience in itself, but it is untrue in comparison with the absolute truth which is Brahman, the only real truth. So, the ultimate truth, or spiritual enlightenment, would be to see Brahman and maya—and distinguish between them. Just like the illusion of a rope mistaken for a snake in the darkness disappears when true knowledge of the rope is perceived. So too, maya is to be seen through.
A Course in Miracles teaches that as the miracle of our choice of unconditional forgiveness and the shift in our perception occurs, love will reveal itself . . . one holy instant at a time.
“The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness . . . such is the only rule for happy dreams.”
A Course in Miracles
Each chapter in Thank God I’m Crazy is titled a dream episode which is one in a sequence of many dreams that altogether make up the illusory experience of the life of Grace. Meanwhile life becomes more fun as I choose the Brahman—or the right mind, which for me is the loving guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s so worth it!
“In the end, the dream serves to bring us home to ourselves, and to God, to find the sanity glowing in the illusion of insanity, to find the love that transforms our nightmares into a happy dream of life.”
TGIC – LINK TO TGIC
Here’s my poem . . . Hope you enjoy it.
FOREVER I BE
I am not a body
The body bewitches me,
To dance in fraud
As the ego would be
To strut in my power
In the illusion of the hour,
And languish in futility
‘Tis a mindless parade of emotional debris
Oh, woe is me
What a masked fool I be,
To costume my glory
In a delusional magic story
When all I need is in the still,
Then do I see my own forgotten will.
Oh, laugh sweet fool,
The masquerade which hides my rule
Disregard the organs
That pump anger and fear,
Rejoice in the melody
My song so dear
Be quiet for one holy instant
Know the treasure of forever that is mine,
Recall the divine harmony of my song
Now is forever, and I’ve been gone long
Hear it now
The harmonic notes of you,
They prosper on laughter
They sing on divine tones of forever after
There is no past, there is no future
Awaken from the dream of fear,
Tune into your power, that loving force
Surrender to eternally euphoric intercourse.
By Grace Avalon
So, until next time,
When you find yourself staring into the headlights of fear, I hope you can stop . . . allow yourself to laugh at your temporary insanity . . . and say, as I often do, THANK GOD I’M CRAZY! 😊
***** SEE ONLY LOVE FOR THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE *****
Thank God I’m Crazy available in paperback and e-book on:
Thank God I’m Crazy includes pictures of places which took place in Grace’s life, as seen in her visions. Grace Avalon, teacher and intuitive counselor, has taught A Course in Miracles for nine years. She gives presentations, seminars and workshops for anyone whose known abuse, thought they were crazy, or wants to live a joyful life.
*** Marianne Williamson, (NY Times bestselling author, teacher, and internationally renowned speaker) , has said, “Grace Avalon inspires all of us to trust the wisdom of our hearts. Here is spirituality in practice.” ***