In The Beginning Was...
Two Stories. Pick one.
You have heard these two stories before, so I'll give you the cliff notes.
One story is finished.
The other one—well, we will each write its end in a manner and time of our choosing.
The first story can be summarized by, "In the beginning was the word." *
This is the story where everything is perfect, created by thought and spoken by one power called God, the Infinite, the Divine... pick one that works for you.
In this story, there is only good because good is the principle of God's nature, and what is called man is the compound idea of all that God created.
The second story begins, "But there went a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." **
And so begins the drama of our lives today. It's a reality show.
In this story, everything must struggle and strive to live, and nothing is perfect.
The plot of the second story is that God, and therefore we, know both good and evil. This lie is the father of all lies and is told by the one liar. ***
The outcome of accepting this lie is division and separation.
It produces fear, and its children are called jealousy, greed, anger, violence, and depression.
The definition of terrorism is "the systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal."
>The goal is fear. The goal is division. The lie of the second story acts like a terrorist.<
It frightens and controls us through manipulation and claims to be our thoughts.
Its goal is to make us believe that it's possible to turn Spirit into a material object where it can be measured and controlled.
Suppose we accept that an Infinite Spirit can be brought into the material.
Then, the one liar can claim that love only comes through a person or two, income comes only by working for it or chance, health comes only by following material laws, and that purpose can be lost or forgotten.
In the second story, promised lands are material places and must be fought over. Heaven is won by subjugating or sacrificing, and death is the only way to return to the light.
Its goal is to make us slaves to this false idea.
This can only happen if we agree to know both good and evil and if we believe that there are "others.”
This is the story where we have a choice.
However, we do not get to choose the ending because this story never ends. It just tells its tales over and over again.
No, the choice we get to make is when we want to leave the second story and return to the first one, thereby choosing the end of our involvement in a reality show we cannot, nor would want to, win.
What does the Infinite know about evil or bad things happening to us?
Based on the first story, the answer is nothing. God, Good, knows only Itself.
This is comforting and something to celebrate.
However, unless we grasp how and why this is true and choose to believe the first story, the liar can easily manipulate and control us.
The liar claims that a way to escape this second story is to live a good life and that when we die, we will return to heaven or paradise.
This can't be true, for in the first story, there is only life—no birth or death.
The good news is that returning to the first story is easier than that because we have never left heaven. We are still there—or here.
Our belief in the second story, with all its versions, hides from us the heaven present now.
The "but" of the second story produces a bubble of perception that surrounds us, symbolized by the mist that rose from the ground.
As Don Juan said, "We are perceivers," but our perception is caught in the bubble of its own device." ****
Happily, the truth of the first story, like the sun, often breaks through that mist and reveals heaven to us through the love that we see, experience, and express, through the love that the leaf of every tree speaks, and the sun testifies to it as it shines in every corner of every life.
We are not slaves to the second story.
We are the word of God made manifest.
The dominion given to us in the first story is not the dominion over objects or people but a dominion over our thinking.
The only measurement we should ever look at is how much more our thoughts stay in the truth of Good in every moment.
There will be a time when this measurement dissolves, too, along with the bubble of perception that hides everything's true nature.
For now, we can ask ourselves, "How does the God of omnipotent, omniscience love, know, see, and perceive this person, place, or thing?”
And let go of any other way of seeing and knowing.
Of course, as in all things, this begins within and with ourselves.
Therefore, the next time the voice that claims to be us—a friend or the media but is the liar from the second story—begins its terrorist behavior and tries to frighten us by telling us how many mistakes we have made or suggesting that we are lost, we can make a choice.
We can return to the perfection and beauty of the first story.
This is the truth of our being.
We are Spirit.
We are all the idea of God known as man.
Claim this truth for yourself.
Stop wondering if it is true and know that it is.
Prove it to yourself by making this stand and witnessing the outcome.
As we stand in the sunlight of the love that is God and face down any darkness or lie that attempts to claim power by knowing that it has none and cannot make us its slave—it will dissolve just as the mist dissolves in the sun.
The love we do and receive and the tolerance and understanding we demonstrate act like the light breaking through the mist.
As we deny the lie of good and evil and claim the power of good, we can expect to see the light of love dissolve the mist everywhere and for everyone, and terrorism in all its forms dissolve into the nothingness that it naturally is when we no longer participate in it in any form.
*Bible: John 1: 1
**Bible: Genesis: 2: 6
***Bible: John 8: 44
****Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda