What's the Big Idea? or The Long and Winding Road

(Note: This essay includes references to "Seth" who is an "energy gestalt personality" channeled by the late Jane Roberts. For more information about Seth and the Seth Material, please visit The Seth Home Page.)

All That Is (or God if you prefer) had this incredible idea "one day." I am all that I know. What can I be? I could be anything. I could be a lot of things. But how can I be more than what I already know I am.

After much anguish, lots of "soul searching" and self-exploration, AHA! To become all that I could be, I must forget what I am. To be another, to be many, to be an infinity of beings, I must forget that I am ONE. To be an infinite multiplicity, and allow for infinite creativity, infinite expansion of possibility, I must discover all that I am not, by forgetting what I am.

I am ONE, I FEEL fine, I am... LOVE, what ever that is, my feeling of being, my OKness, my I have always been, I will always be, "problem? No, problem, all is well." POOF! Love fractions into infinite creative self-expression of selves. The blessed multitude who are free to discover all that is. While remaining as the ONE, the undifferentiated loving Self, also drifting into distraction and self-forgetting, and endless daydreams.

But ultimately there are potential "dilemmas" and "struggles" inherent in individuated existence. What happens when forces conflict? What happens when within consciousness, within being, opposing ideas arise, conflicting impulses develop. What happens when my sense of who "I" am, what "I" am doing, is opposed by "other aspects" of my being?

Perhaps the answer is that I confine myself to "my own domain", limit myself to my own turf, confine my boundaries, narrow my scope, draw in my perimeter, reduce my possibilities and the force of my being.

Inherent in the paradox of the many in the one, is the possibility of identification with what is less than whole, less than powerful, less then free, less than "the rest", less than love, even less than being, or NOT BEING AT ALL. Death and annihilation.

Also inherent in the paradox of the many in the one, is that the many ARE ONE. And following the ultimate logic of Seth's teachings, his description of the "pyramidal gestalt personality, that is All That Is", and "there are no limits to the self", and "there are no real separations in the self", leads finally to identification with All That Is.

Seth is very emphatic about our individual worth, I think particularly since so many of our religions and spiritual teachings anathematize the individual and exhort the individual to overcome their "egoity and selfishness". But he also points to the INHERENT NON-EXISTENCE of the individual, since we are all a part of All That Is.

This is paradoxical to the extreme, but only I think, because of how the history of human thought has evolved so many separations and categorizations between the parts of things. Clearly we are all dependent on our environment and surroundings, and clearly our life and experience, our thoughts and very being, partake of everything around us and are made of that. We breathe, we eat, we experience, think, and feel our surroundings, as well as participate in and create them.

But, as we explore deeper and deeper into the nature of our individuality, what are we going to find? We are going to find more and more of All That Is. Ultimately we must discover that we ARE All That Is. Not just a part of it, but ALL OF IT.

What is the blessed destiny that we are each called to? We are called to accept ourselves. Love ourselves. And allow ourselves to discover the source of our being.

And what shall we discover? We shall discover that we are infinite power, infinite creativity, infinite love. And what is infinite power, infinite creativity, infinite love? It is All That Is, or God if your prefer.

Each of us is blessed to discover that we are EACH to become THE ONE, than which there is no other? We are EACH given permission, in fact MADLY INSANELY exhorted to presume to be EVERYTHING? We are EACH and every one, to accept our status as infinite love, infinite power, and creator, source, and subject of all experience, the infinite consciousness of being?

That is correct. And to the degree that you accept the blessing, your birthright, the destiny that is given to you to realize, then to that degree it will be revealed and lived by you.

So what are all the "Masters" and "Teachers" and "God" calling us to? What is "Enlightenment"?

Enlightenment is the realization and acceptance of our status as God. Enlightenment is the recognition that we are infinite power and infinite love. Enlightenment is the recognition that the nature of existence is consciousness, and that the ultimate "meaning" of consciousness, is the Feeling of Being, which is LOVE.

So as we explore our identity, our experiences, our thoughts and feelings, and the problems and frustrations of our lives, the pain of change and death, the fear of pain and loss, and attempt to understand and answer the suffering we feel, what do we find? What is there to discover? Why is this all happening, and how do we answer our questions, dilemmas, suffering, and seeking?

We answer them by experiencing and allowing them. By giving ourselves permission, trusting ourselves, trusting the nature of our being, that we will endure and survive these explorations. But not only do we endure and survive, we triumph. We exalt in love, freedom, and joy. And we discover, we realize, who we are, the nature of our being which is consciousness, and the creative power of consciousness. Free to create, both pain and sorrow, horror and glory, freedom and limitation, a self, and infinite selves, a way of life, and all ways of living, being.

And ultimately, through the power of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-revelation, as well as acceptance of our greater self, the one in all, the other beings and things of our world, from which we are not separate, we discover ourselves.

But strangely enough, and this is missed by most of our religions, east and west, the journey does not have to end with infinite love. It can BEGIN with infinite love. To be "Enlightened", is to be reborn into our True Nature NOW. To be enlightened is not a gradual process of awakening to the discovery that we are all that is, and experiencing the cosmic consciousness of omnipotent and omniscient existence. To be enlightened is to surrender to love, and spend the rest of our journey of self-discovery delighting in the ever expanding, never ending, infinite power of the creative force of consciousness, and the inherent feeling of consciousness, the feeling of being, which is love.

Our nature, our being, All That Is, is not withholding this feeling from us. We are not cursed or condemned to suffer unlove until we are big enough, or strong enough, to encompass love, security, safety, self-acceptance, feeling at one, living without anxiety. It is our birthright, and is the "gift" we discover in ourselves through awakening to our nature.

And that gift is given in the beginning, from the start. Tragically the only one withholding love from us is ourselves. This is hard to swallow, when we experience ourselves as alone, persecuted, and unloved. Once our heart has become frozen with the shock of believing we are alone, separated, and threatened, we are forced to re-learn our truth, re-discover our heritage, realize love. Awaken to our freedom.

And what about "God's great idea?" What about forgetting who he/she is to explode into infinite creation? From the point of view of "some suffering slob" it might seem look a horribly BAD idea, if it resulted in all the misery of our world. But in the end, or when you feel your sorrow, grieve with compassion for the world, awaken to love, and follow the eternal journey to the final awareness of your infinite and total identity with All That Is, it will have all been a dream. A magic fairy tale with the happiest ending that ever could have been imagined.

And for now, fortunately, there is help from those who call us, remind us, of who we are.

To remind us of love.