Servantship
It appears an odd word,
yet within it lies the meaning of sacrifice,
of Love,
of true Being.
Servantship is a vocation
to which one is called,
not by a God who exists apart from you,
but by that one true God
who abides eternally
in the Heart of one’s heart,
and is forever the Soul of one’s soul.
For the one true God
is your only Reality,
and in this does the recognition dawn
that you -
who would insist
on the smallness of yourself
as you have dreamt it to be -
contain, in truth, all wisdom;
that you
contain all perfections
holy men would so diligently seek
and ignorant men would mistakenly seek
in the destitution
of their worldly dreams.
That one true God
to whom you are eternally united,
so that no boundary between you
can be distinguished,
is that which has sustained
the infinite forms
of your dreams,
their incessant creation fueled
by the one thought of separation.
And now,
in the time of Recognition,
after the allure of the dream has paled
and finally lost all trace of significance,
and in that perfect silence
where the sleeping Son no longer rebels
against the simple
and loving
embrace of the Holy Father,
the light of the living Christ is rekindled.
As a flame in a windless place,
its light grows ever brighter,
dissolving all traces of the shadows
which have kept it hidden,
lighting up the dark places
where the dust which is the world
has settled,
until even the dust is dissolved
and becomes as Light itself.
The doer is undone.
The maker of the world is unmade,
and Christ again,
lives.
Here,
the end of all fruitless journeying.
Here,
the ceasing of all strife.
Here,
the realization of the only Truth,
beyond all utterance,
beyond the understanding of the world,
beyond even the dream
of the one who would seek God.
For the seeker is no more,
as if he had never been,
save as a fading memory of a dream
dreamt long ago.
Returned to the embrace
of our Holy Father,
the one who has returned acknowledges:
“I AM that One.”
Christ lives, and Christ alone.
As it is,
has been,
and forever shall be.
The awakened Heart
is likened unto one
who has journeyed
to the summit
of the highest mountain.
Here,
she looks out upon
the distances traveled,
the many landscapes
stretching out below her,
the seemingly infinite shapes and hues.
She beholds all the worlds of mankind,
and sees them as empty,
as a moment’s diversion,
fragments of but one dream.
She beholds herself as the one dreamer,
and she would that
every vestige of herself
be nudged from sleep to waking.
And now,
the transformation is completed.
Resting in the Light of Remembrance,
embraced eternally
in the arms of his Father,
the only begotten Son abides
in the Kingdom
prepared for him
in that most ancient
beginning before time is.
Her will has become
as her Father’s.
United again as one,
the first movement of that Divine Will
stirs in the vision before her.
Compassion arises
for the whole of Creation
and she sees without effort
the task set before her:
the awakening of the whole of herself,
now recognized as every soul,
every blade of grass,
every wisp of breeze.
Awakened
as the source of all things,
existing in all things,
the one Son,
united with the Holy Father -
the brief dream of the Prodigal Son
vanquished -
looks out upon himself
with but one desire: Awaken!
Restored to her rightful place
at the right hand of the Holy Father,
purified of all distortions
born of a moment’s dream,
a movement begins.
Felt in the heart,
it expands first upward,
upward beyond the crown of the head,
then outward,
filling every cell
of a body transfigured,
brought evermore
to the form of a vehicle
that will serve only the fulfillment
of her task.
And then,
when the Father and the Son together
have prepared
the body and mind of Christ,
the movement of Divine Will
becomes downward,
compelling the arisen Christ to step
deliberately and without haste
in the direction of all that now lies
before Him,
far below Him,
spread as far as the eye can see,
slumbering at the base
of this great Mount Zion.
Now,
her steps
become more certain.
Now,
his steps
become ever lighter,
unburdened from the weight
of a self that never was,
yet clamored for a food
which never satisfied.
Now,
her steps
become ever more directed
from a source perfectly trusted,
and with each step,
dissolving
is any need to know
where she goes,
what she shall eat,
or what she shall wear,
for her Father knows
she has need of these things.
He knows but one thing only:
he goes as the wind,
caring not the direction of his travels,
remembering not
the direction of his coming,
abiding always
in the Light of the Holy Father.
Behold!
The servant is born.
For the first shall be last,
and the last, first.
The only begotten Son dreams.
And in his dream is forgotten
that which eternally
he is.
And the first has become last,
even as the creation
of innumerable worlds arises,
replacing the splendor
of Remembrance
with the lifeless,
enchanting,
ever-changing forms of mere illusions.
And the last has become as the first.
Yet,
within the worlds
of her dream
lies the crystal clear gem
of Reality,
for the unspeakable Love
which the Father is
illuminates the dream of the Son,
granting her perception
of all that she would choose to perceive.
And the Father merely waits,
abiding wholly in the purity of his Light,
seeing naught but the splendor
of his Son,
waiting for the one who lays dreaming
to awaken.
The first is, indeed,
now last,
and what must always be last -
mere illusions cast by,
and within,
the mind of the Son -
has become first:
the Kingdom is forgotten.
Habituated
to the play of shadows,
no more than projections
of his momentary thought,
the Son suffers the worlds
of his own making,
reveling in transitory pleasures,
enduring the pain of countless wounds;
yet he continues on,
proliferating the worlds of experience,
seeking ever more desperately
for what he has long forgotten,
knowing not what it is he seeks,
calling it by various names,
striving endlessly
to discover his salvation
in the worlds he has made,
insisting it be found there.
And the Father waits,
abiding in the purity of his Light,
seeing naught but the radiant splendor
of his Son.
The maker of the world,
but not of Reality,
unknowingly remains impelled
to experience again and yet again
the fruit of pride:
vanity of vanities.
Insisting on her chosen thought,
enmeshed
in a deepening web of shadow,
yet she cries out desperately
in the aloneness of her soul:
“I am,
I create,
My will be done!”
And still,
the Father waits,
abiding in the purity of his Light,
seeing naught but the radiant splendor
of his beloved Son.
As the offspring of Light Divine
wanders from world to world,
ceaselessly moved to act,
seeking
without knowing he seeks,
searching for the Kingdom
without knowing he searches,
creating and devouring the forms
of his apparently endless dream,
an impulse begins to grow.
At first unnoticed,
soft,
and seemingly far away,
overwhelmed by the noise and conflicts
of his making,
it grows.
Through endless circles
and a myriad of landscapes,
ceaselessly
through agonies and ecstasies
disguised in infinite masks,
it grows,
becoming as a Voice
whispering beyond the threshold
of his hearing,
whispering a song
forever eternal,
forever untouched by a single jot or tittle
of all that the Son experiences.
It is a song
of Truth beyond all doubt,
a song
of Reality uncompromised,
a song
which sings of the imperishable essence,
the very essence of his being,
a song which is
the Love of the Holy Father.
Though the Voice sings the song
without ceasing,
the Son hears not,
her ears turned not
to the Voice whose song
is like one crying in the wilderness,
but to the din
of ephemeral shadows
cast upon the walls of her prison,
recognizing not the Light
which lights all darkness,
believing still that darkness to be
the Light she would seek,
the Light that will illuminate her way,
and reveal the treasure
she believes resides there.
And still,
the Father waits,
abiding in the purity of his Light,
seeing naught but the radiant splendor
of his only begotten,
his beloved,
his Son,
eternal.
Still,
the Son travels.
Through valleys
of the shadow of death,
climbing mountains
made of the stones of uncertainties,
fording rivers whose far shores
often cannot be seen,
rivers wild with the tumult of emotions
arising like angry waves
from depths already seething
in memories
clutched tightly in the grasp
of the one who believes in shadow
and worships it,
knowing not that he does so.
And still, the Father waits,
abiding always in the purity of his Light,
rejoicing in the perfection of his Son,
waiting for the child
to make but one simple,
quiet choice:
to awaken!
As she travels on,
there comes now a moment here,
and again there,
moments sadly fleeting,
yet filled with the clarity
of the song that calls unto her.
Were she to turn but for an instant
and embrace what the moment would offer,
the journey would be no more,
the simple choice recognized,
and made.
It is but his weariness
that forces him to pause,
to rest in that silence
which is the doorway to his Heart,
where alone fulfillment resides.
The treasure rests
in the palm of her hand,
yet she comprehends it not.
Habituated only
to the grasping of illusion,
she has not the capacity
to recognize what has touched her:
the Light of the Father
that would loosen the knot
binding her to enchantment
with unceasing emptiness.
Believing himself restored,
and himself the restorer,
he plunges headlong once again,
going on,
going-where?
He mistakes his endless circling
for clear direction to the finality
he would make,
failing to see he travels
but the same valleys,
the same mountains,
the same rivers.
Cleverly cloaking these
with her own shifting perceptions,
she beguiles herself into believing
not that she sees differently,
but that what she sees
is different and new.
And yet the Father waits,
ever so patient
with his beloved Son,
abiding eternally in the knowledge
beyond comprehension,
that the dream his Son would dream
in truth, exists not;
rejoicing without ceasing
in the radiance of his holy child,
untouched eternally
by the illusion of sin.
A deepening weariness grows
in the heart of the dreamer,
a weariness
neither understood
nor recognized
by the mind accustomed to shadows,
nor a body blind
to the seed of Light within it.
The dreamer moves on,
yet the weariness remains within him,
unvanquished by his fruitless pause,
restored not by his habitual escape
from shadows.
Disconcerted,
she moves along familiar byways,
increasingly unable to blot out
this persistent
though subtle
weariness,
an ache that remains with her,
no matter the form
or intensity
of her efforts to be free of it.
And now,
fear arises.
It is a fear unlike
any he has experienced
within his countless journeys
in the fields of illusions.
Not a fear
from which he can hide,
nor a fear
he can successfully suppress
by heaping upon it
the weight of evermore enchantments.
It is a fear
to which she is unaccustomed,
for it stems not
from her experience of the world,
but grows quietly from
and remains present within
the core of her being.
Intensifying his efforts
to find solace in the changing landscapes
of his dreams
serves only to confirm
the reality of his fear.
Unlike anything
she has yet encountered,
this fear becomes a constant
though unwelcome
companion.
It becomes as a child
who increasingly refuses to be ignored,
and the dreamer of a thousand worlds,
proud author
of a multitude of illusions,
survivor of numerous heavens and hells,
trembles.
In his trembling,
he does not pause in his vain pursuits
as much as he is made to stop,
and looking at
what he would resist seeing,
he beholds:
The salt of the world
has begun to lose its savor.
Weariness
perceived as fear
appears to her as an unknown force
from which she cannot hide,
yet cannot embrace.
It seems to run before her
as she scampers first up one hill,
greeting her face-to-face at the summit,
and fording rivers
swum countless times before,
she emerges only to find it
waiting on the far shore.
Beginning to sense
that this unknown force
is not to be cast aside,
the dreamer laments within himself,
and in the midst of all his doing,
the faint echo of a sound
he has forever dreaded
is heard.
The doer of all deeds is shaken,
the foundation of his creations
wobbles and weakens;
he beholds the force within himself
and,
for the first time,
acknowledges his impending death.
Though she acts within her worlds,
striving to continue
in the only way she knows,
seeking fervently
to return and remain
in familiar terrain,
the forms of her dream
hold not their enticing allure,
and her efforts to remain
in all that she knows
provide no satisfaction.
Her thirst is not fulfilled,
and even her sleep is troubled.
The dreamer,
saddened by the growing loss of luster
beheld in his dreams,
becomes as one who grasps at mirages,
finding naught but emptiness
in his hands,
yet continues to grasp
because it is all he knows to do.
She waits for a death
she is sure will come,
both loathing it
and secretly longing for it.
She is defeated
but knows not how,
nor by what.
The dreams,
that throughout countless lifetimes
had fed him with the promise
of fulfillment,
wither,
like parched leaves clinging to branches
whose source of water
is mysteriously severed from unseen roots,
while the power of his life
drains from his limbs.
The proud dreamer
has not the energy to dream,
and believes beyond question
that where there are not dreams,
there is not Life,
and the growing emptiness
is as a torment to him.
She raises her head only occasionally,
and feebly,
hoping to the end to see in her dreams
the Life she had always sought there.
Finally,
wearied to the bone
of fighting what he senses
but cannot see,
of what he feels
but cannot grasp,
the dreamer releases not only
the last vestige of his will to dream,
but lays down
even the dream of the dreamer,
and dissolves into what he knows
must certainly be
his final, and consummate,
death.
And the first shall be last,
and the last, first.
And now,
the dreamer is laid to rest.
It is a rest
from which there can be
no hope of arising.
Unlike the many pauses
in which the maker of all worlds
merely retreated to gain strength
for his journeys,
this rest
transcends the world.
It transcends the body,
the mind,
and all the dreamer
had thought himself to be.
It is a rest
in which even the soul reclines,
turned away
from all enchantments,
dissolved in the Mystery of all mysteries,
beyond the pale of words,
beyond all imagined things.
Verily,
the dreamer
is no more to be found.
Vanished without a trace,
not only of her ending,
but of her beginning;
the journey which seemed to be,
is not.
And the last,
made to be first,
is again become last.
Not by a force which comes
from outside the dreamer,
but a force which already abides
in the very seed
of the dreamer’s beginning;
the certainty of his death
is present in his birth
and must inevitably flower,
its petals blotting out
the very dream of the dreamer itself.
Yet what is perceived
by the dreamer
as the darkness of certain death,
the giving up of all hope for salvation
in the things of the worlds
she has conjured into being,
is not darkness,
but Light.
It is that Light which lights all things,
the echo of an endless song
coming as a thief in the night,
the eternal voice of our Holy Father.
And the Voice
has overcome
the shouting of the world,
restoring the Son
to a rest true and deep,
a rest which alone can heal and transform
the heart of his holy Son.
The one who would be
the dreamer of all worlds rests,
unseen by a world
unaware of what occurs in its midst,
all boundaries
that have defined her form
dissolved in incomprehensible Light.
The Son abides
in the rest of perfect Grace.
What was last
and made first
is again made last.
And all the heavens rejoice
beyond the capacity of the world
to hear.
And now is the world,
entranced by the power of its dreams,
lifted gently toward
the open arms of God.
At the end of a holy instant,
incapable of measurement
by a world imprisoned in time,
the rest of the only begotten
Son of God
gives rise to a movement
not born of a mind
bound to the illusion of separation,
but of the eternal Heart
of the arisen Christ,
a movement that would take him
not back into the dream of the world,
but ever deeper
into the Reality of his being:
a journey within the Kingdom of Heaven.
Awakened,
the mind free
from the shackles of want,
the body free
from useless demands
made by a self that never was,
a heart beating only
by the breath of the Most High,
the arisen Christ moves
where once the world arose,
seeing naught but the glory
of his Father’s Kingdom:
radiance beyond description,
joy without boundary,
purpose in which
fulfillment is certain.
Here,
no trace of effort
is to be found.
Here,
no taint of striving
clouds his perception.
Here,
no constriction of the heart
by the grand illusion of fear
is felt.
Reduced to simplicity,
exalted above all things,
the one transformed
by the miracle of Grace
lives and walks.
Behold!
The dreamer,
now transformed,
is reborn as the one
through whom the Father alone
works to transfigure the world.
For darkness shall become as Light,
extended without end
until Creation itself is no more.
Indeed,
the first is again, first.
As it was in the beginning,
is now,
and forever shall be.
The Prodigal Son
is returned,
and all of Heaven is shaken
by the praise of the Heavenly Host;
the Father and the Son
rest together as one
in that peace which forever passes
all understanding.
To any among you
who has ears to hear,
let her hear.
And all things are made new.
