The Whole Shebang

Yesterday I decided to join the human race - instead of just hanging around on the edges of the experience, waiting patiently for humanity to 'get it' ('hanging around' as in doing a lot of reading and of following events on the Internet, keeping an eye on the process leading up to Ascension) - and take up on unsolicited offer in the mail to get into the local Aquarium for half-price, with its off-season now beginning.  After taking a while to find the building (there is another big building in the shoreline area of Long Beach that could be, and was, easily mistaken for it, with huge depictions of whales and such adorning its blue and circular edifice; alas, it is just a business-as-usual convention center), I enjoyed my afternoon there thoroughly - for example, found out more about the California coastline and its wealth of life forms than I ever knew before, even after spending the bulk of my youth growing up by it - and then, before returning to my little hideaway cove, like a dour grouper, I decided to browse in the $-a-book store nearby.  I had found out about it back towards the start of my current stay here - some four months ago, now - and had 'given it a shot'; but have been so busy checking books out of the Main Library and buying some on-line that I never went back for a second perusal of their goodies.  This time I came across - in the New Age & Astrology section - an interesting-looking book entitled 'The Awakening Heart' by Betty J. Eadie.  I had heard the name before, in my fairly comprehensive awareness of, and exposure to, the Near Death Experience literature, but, for whatever reason, had never 'tuned into' hers.  This time (her original book was entitled 'Embraced By the Light') something spoke to me, and I bought it (if that's the correct word for getting good reading for a buck a book).  I'm glad I did.

I'm just now getting into it, but it is proving itself promising.  Already on the second page of her opening Author's Note I was 'caught'* by one sentence in particular; to wit: "And I learned that God loves all of us unconditionally, that we are eternal spirits who have come here to grow and learn to love..."**  And learn to love...what an excellent summation of the answer to the age-old questions of why we're here, what life is all about.  But in reading further, there is more 'meat' in here to digest; the meat of the human experience; and I was immediately touched by her personal human story.  In particular, that of her pain in feeling separate and alone, and not remembering her mission, that brought her back from the dead.

It reminded me of a time in my life when - no; I take that back.  More than once I have felt such frustration, experienced the pain of a state of separation and aloneness; when I cry out Come on, people.  We have work to do.  We're here for a reason; and it's not to get sucked into, enamored of, the life experience, the material realm, as an end in itself.  It is here for a reason, too: as a means, to help us, enable us, to achieve our end, of growth, in consciousness, and in particular, Love.

And as a means rather than as an end, it's like money.  Which has become seductive as well; an end in itself,  rather than the means it was supposed to be, started out as: merely the means by which to facilitate exchange, beyond the relative 'crudeness' of both barter and of carrying around sacks of gold.  A more convenient entity: a medium of exchange.  Which in its essence is neutral in itself; standing for something else, a good or a service  But when the concept of 'interest' was added to it - i.e., usury - it became a thing desired in and of and for itself; a commodity in its own right.  When Man could make money on money, he began the descent into matter more forcefully than before its invention, and the concomitant taking of his eye off the ball, of, in effect, creating community.  That change of focus, of emphasis, has built cities; and, it has lost souls in the process.

Momentarily.  Because souls - unlike anything material (including diamonds) - are forever.  And their Creator will wait patiently to the end.  The end, of our return to our 'Father's house' - to our Source; completely.  From our wanderings in the deserts of our making, and the 'checking off' of the various stations of the Cross back to our true Home, in the bosom of our Creator.  The Cross, being the weight we bear until we accomplish our mission: of returning to that bosom, the heart of our Father-Mother God.  For the point of the whole exercise, of Creation, has been to expand the quality, the essence, of Love.

That which is behind - and makes up - the whole Big Bang.

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footnotes:

* there's another aquarium-visit expression.  Please humor me.  When you just swim around in life, in the tank of Life, there's not a lot of action going on to cultivate a really BIG laugh in the joy of that life.

* the sentence concludes: "...and that we are received back in heaven with great joy and celebration"; and she concludes that paragraph with an excellent summatory statement: "The essence of what I learned is that love is supreme, because God is love, and the only way to be like him is to love as he does...unconditionally."  Does one really need to read any further?...but as I say: I'm glad I did.  The 'filler material' of life is worth a fortune, in the cultivation of awareness, and in the experience of compassion.