Let me tell you a story. It is not an unusual tale but quite a commonly told one. You could ask “why anyone should read a story that has been said many times before,” but bear with me. This is a story that needs to be said again and again, till you believe it. It is a story that is so real that people find it scary. They prefer to think of it as a fairy tale, a legend. It is not something they want to believe. Interested?
“Once there was a being. Full of light, full of spark, full of the Divine. The Divine in a moment of love created this being. At first this being, lived in the Divine, in God. It knew nothing but fulfillment, peace, and happiness. Love was its only experience, its only truth. As time passed, the being got a mad idea in its mind. It got the idea of being itself; a being separate from God. No sooner than it had this mad idea, did it experience it. Since it was made by the Divine, it had inherited all the creation powers of the Divine. Gifted with all the powers of God, it instantly created for itself, the first experience of separation, being without the Divine.
Unable to bear the feeling, the being went on a creation frenzy. It created guilt to make itself regret what it had done. Then it created the fear of being punished by God. Unknown to itself, in this entire mess it had generated something previously unknown to it when it lived in the Divine – fear. As fear reared its ugly head in hundreds of forms, this being in an attempt to feel better, created countless ways to defend itself. As times passed it felt worse and worse, and it created more beings like itself to try and pass on the burden of this fear it felt. When that did not help, it created other forms to feel better.
The more it tried, the worse it got. It created countless scenarios in which it kept recreating its fear. In the end, it had created a world, which was nothing like the one it first knew. The memory of its time with God, hurt so much that it did everything possible to forget that world. It convinced itself all that was a dream. It attacked God for leaving it alone. It blamed God. It got angry with itself and attacked everything to prevent itself from feeling pain and suffering. Eventually the being believed it was completely lost, alone and could only die to free itself of this mess.
God was watching all this. He held the being in his arms. Omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God watched his child sleep and dream up all this. “Wake up,” he keeps whispering to his child. “I am right here; you are right here. Wake up from this nightmare. None of this is real, none of this means anything. Your mind holds only what you think with God. Remember that truth. Forgive yourself for dreaming this dream and you will wake up in my arms. Its only forgiveness that can offer you everything you want. That is the key to your happiness.”
God still waits patiently, knowing fully well his child will wake up. The being, his child has never left home. It is where it always was. God watches his child toss and turn, fret and cry. He wipes the tears his child cries as it dreams and smiles. “It is a dream,” he whispers in the child’s ear. “Listen to my voice and wake up.”
Now that you have read it, do you want to wake up?
Living in Grace 