Ownerless, Boundaryless, and Timeless
On very rainy days, across the street from us, a stream forms in our neighbor’s yard. Gathering speed, as it nears his property line, it flows under the road and empties into our yard.
If it is raining hard enough, it continues its journey down our bank, through the bushes and trees, and into our neighbor’s side of the bank before tumbling into the stream that runs behind our house.
I know this stream comes from another neighborhood, passes through our property, and travels under another street before merging into a beautiful pond.
After settling into the pond, it flows out into another stream, which eventually merges with a bigger one.
All this water is traveling, flowing, and merging across unseen boundaries without worrying about crossing the boundaries of ownership and property lines.
Where we live, there is a cat that belongs to one neighbor, but his territory extends into the entire block. Every day, he patrols each of our yards, following his own path with no regard to boundaries.
We often see the hawks that nest in our tiny backyard forest flying over the pond a few blocks away. There are no boundaries or property lines for them either.
The birds we feed are sometimes gone for days. I figure they go on some kind of bird convention. Whatever they are doing, it is not on a piece of property that they own.
This same idea applies to time. We measure time in microseconds. Nature has no such measurement.
When the power goes out, we are thankful for the clocks that run on batteries or the generators that run our refrigerators or computers.
However, a glance outside tells us that nothing in nature has noticed the boundaries of time.
Life continues to be ownerless, boundaryless, and timeless.
As humans, we set up so many boundaries and rules. Some of these are property boundaries.
However, we also own ideological, religious, and political boundaries. We have height, weight, sex, and age boundaries.
Yes, some boundaries, like fences along a cliff, act to protect us from unseen danger.
However, most of our boundaries are to separate and divide, as if that was a natural thing to do.
Nature tells us otherwise.
Spiritual boundaries seem the most ridiculous to me.
How can we say that God is Love, all present, and set a boundary on who or what is loved by God?
We set that boundary within ourselves because an omnipresent, infinite, divine force that flows like water and shines like the sun on all equally could never set boundaries on Love.
I have had this picture in my head.
Imagine a beautiful, huge, cut diamond sitting in the middle of a large open space, filling it with light.
Diamonds, as we all know, have multiple facets, and the more we view the diamond from every angle, the more beautiful it becomes.
This diamond is attracting people from every direction. Millions of people are traveling hundreds and hundreds of different paths, and they all lead to the diamond that is radiating light.
That diamond is a lovely symbol of Truth.
It doesn’t matter what direction we come from, what path we walk on to get there, or how long the path we are on takes us to get there, we are all headed to Truth, multifaceted but always One.
As each one of those people shares the diamond’s beauty, it makes the diamond even more radiant and beautiful for the next person.
Just like sharing Truth’s infinite facets, whether one-on-one or in gatherings of all kinds, it makes Truth even more beautiful to us.
Truth, light, and love are ownerless, boundaryless, and timeless. Isn’t this what nature has been symbolizing for us all along?
As we walk through our days, we could take the time to notice the strings and ties of boundaries that have attached themselves to us and disengage from them.
We could open ourselves to seeing the divinity and beauty of all things and people.
Instead of fighting for our personal, country, and ideological boundaries, we could all look to the diamond of Truth and walk together to a more complete understanding of Its nature.
Boundaryless peace and love are the essence of the Divine and, therefore, the essence of each of us.
The lie that claims otherwise in order to divide and conquer must be dismissed—one event, one thought, one action—with one person at a time, and we are that person.
Whatever path you are walking on toward an increased understanding and expression of infinite Love, I honor and salute you as a traveling companion.