You’ve Had it All Along

“…the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

- TS Elliott

One of my favorite movies from childhood, that has not lost its appeal as an adult, is The Wizard of Oz. Besides the whimsical fantasy that delights the imagination and the relatable journey of a child dreaming of a happier life, there are powerful metaphors laced throughout this classic film that speaks to us of our search for healing, wholeness, and ultimate satisfaction.

The end scene (spoiler alert) of course reveals to Dorothy what her search and journey did not disclose; that what she was looking for was not apart from her. But as one of the characters asked, why she couldn’t have been told that earlier, the wise and good witch Glinda replies, because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

You and I are no different. We have been told repeatedly through scriptures and sages throughout our lives that there is a Presence and a Power within us; that we have been wonderfully, heavenly made in the image and likeness of God, and yet we still may cling to believing we are a separate, isolated individual confined within the limits of a body, vulnerable to the travails and suffering of life in a material universe. And in this illusory sense of self, we are in perpetual search for the Wizard, that person, place, or thing that will save us from our troubles, give us the answer to our most vexing conundrums and lead us to our happy place. And because we do find shreds of wellbeing and fleeting moments of happiness from these fanciful pursuits, we errantly believe we are on the right track.

However, what we really, really want is deep and lasting peace; happiness that does not rise and fall with circumstances, situations, or any worldly metrics of good and bad. Religions make claims that we can have this experience and yet often take us on circuitous paths that confound the truth and make this ultimate reality a condition for another time and place. But what about now? If God is real, infinite, and eternal, as all religions profess, then why wouldn’t true happiness be here for me now?

I believe that Jesus was a teacher of Here/Now Reality. He affirmed that Spirit was closer than hands and feet, closer than your very breath. He said, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and suggested that to behold this dimension of reality we must not “look here and look there,” as that will only frustrate our success in the recognition which can only be found here and now within you. Even Christianity, which is more dualistic in its theology, asserts that “original sin” is our imagining that we are separate and apart from the oneness and wholeness that is God and that all misery and suffering arises from this mistaken belief.

So, knowing this reality is not apart from us, how can we have our own aha Dorothy click your heels moment of revelation and return home? First, there must a shedding of the false skin, which is releasing the belief that “I” means our body/mind. Jesus said, “before Abraham was, I am.” Quite obviously he was not referring to his body, rather referencing a Divine Identity that preexists and post-exists incarnation in a body. It is the “I am” of you and me that is neither personal nor time-bound. It is the essence of you and I that transcends time and space and is invulnerable to the vicissitudes of the human journey.

Once aware of this mistaken identity we can begin to disentangle the untruth that has robbed us of our essential happiness. We can begin to release these labels, dissolve the distinctions that wall off our connection with the Allness of life. Here is a simple process: Recite these phrases in a contemplative fashion, realizing the significance of these insights as you say them:

I have a body, but I am not my body I have desires, but I am not my desires I have feelings, but I am not my feelings I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.

The very act of noticing these aspects of ourselves pulls us out of the spell that conflates what I observe with what I am. Freed from this illusion, we enlarge the aperture of perception and enter the vast theater of awareness that can observe characteristics that we’ve formerly believed comprised our whole identity. What can be seen and felt cannot be the true seer. As we witness these aspects of ourselves, we are less likely to identify and define ourselves by them. This awareness moves us closer to the liberation that Jesus experienced, the Truth that will set us free from the dream of separation and take us home, Sweet Home.

Peace and blessings,

Larry