REALITY

I have always loved a good book.

Sometimes, I encounter a book that is so compelling I become completely immersed to the point where time stops and I become the characters in the story. I join them. I feel their emotions, intensly. I laugh and cry real tears with them.  

When I finish an engrossing book, I am full. 

My mind and heart are open.  I am grateful for the vision, that opens up before me.  A vision that I was not able to see or perceive before I read the book. Sometimes a book's message is so important to me, so timely, it will stay with me forever and became a part of how I think and who I am.

Movies are similar.
 I once watched a 3-D surround sound IMax movie about Antarctica.  I shivered when the ice glaciers and bursts of cold air seemed to barely miss my face.  I could almost touch the ice, the seals, and penguins, the cold air.  But, as crisp, and real, and beautiful as the Arctic was in the film, I knew that I was not really in the Arctic. The movie was simply a projection of truth.  It was showing me something very true and real, without me actually being there. A mirror of truth.

I believe that the physical world is real to the spiritual world, as an important book or movie is to our lives.  Movies, and books, provide a hint of what our lives are really all about.  Our life is our book, our story, our movie, if you will.

 Our lives matter.
Our physical lives are very temporary and leave an important message on our soul and the souls of those we encounter.
 But our lives are not real in the way our conscious mind thinks they are. Nothing in this world can ever really hurt us because when the "movie" of our life is over and we leave the "theater" of this earth, we return to a reality we can not fully begin to fathom while here.

 I can relate to stories of people who have had near death experiences, but, I can tell you that it is not necessary to die and come back to life in order to perceive this reality. I have experienced a magnificent, vast, and magestic spiritual world that is right here, wrapped around me, and somehow inside me at the same time. I am aware that my physical brain often blocks me from percieving it fully. It is a world of beauty and light and love.  A world where evil and suffering do not exist.  

I used to be afraid to die because I thought I would be gone.  Now, I am closer to my soul.  I know that I can think, see, feel, hear, smell, and communicate, without my phsycial brain or body. In fact, my brain filters reality, and separates and dulls my senses.

Our physical world is a projection of the truth.
 Although we all eventually die here, nothing can ever really kill us.  There is nothing to fear.  Our soul is eternal.  I fight every day to swim through the muck that sometimes feels like 'real life' to touch and feel this truth.

The truth:
I am embraced by the Creator of life and truth, who is connection, unconditional love, and acceptance.  I am loved.  I am real.  I am important. I will always be.

This is reality.

This is eternal.  

Nothing else will last.

Not evil, and not death, and not suffering.

Evil and suffering are a product of our physical reality. They are vital to our important life's work here on this earth. The possibility of evil provides for our independence, and ability to choose the kind of life we will live, and leave behind.

Yesterday, watching my husband paint, I became aware that we are each an artist with a canvas as long as our years on earth.

This morning I thought about the news of murdered children, Israeli, and Arab.  I prayed for those who are feeling depressed and hopeless.

Prayer is so very powerful.  My thoughts and prayers create my reality.  I have seen this over and over in my life.

When my mood is dark, when my thoughts are dark, and when my heart is closed, I am aware that I am blocked from reality.  I pray that the Creator of life and love, open my heart and my mind to perceive the beauty, the truth and the joy all around me.  A spiritual reality is always right here, existing on a parallel frequency, one that we are fully capable of accessing.   

 There are times when my initial reaction to a life event is fear, shame, pain, and despair.  I have faced death, survived rape, and lived beside rapists and murderers in a mental hospital.

Perhaps because I now know these were gifts, I am not afraid.

Perhaps because of these gifts I have a different view of reality.  I am not afraid of hateful people because I know they are confused and suffering.  I know that nothing can happen to me that is bad.

 I am not afraid to question my thoughts and beliefs about good and bad.

 I am not afraid not to know, and to just be.  I am not afraid of life and what it has to offer.  I am not afraid of pain or loss, nor am I afraid to die a physical death.

I cannot ever lose my soul, my connection to the Creator who is love and truth and life.  

And that connection is all that I will ever need.