“Love comes with a knife, not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation!”   Rumi

At this moment, Love has a knife at our throats. Love is not shyly asking, “please wake up”, rather it’s a demand in the form of extreme discomfort that doesn’t care if we like it or not, only that we get the point.

When we see through the mirage of thought ~ the untrue stories we fall asleep to ~ then we stand ready to take the position of true leadership within ourselves, no longer looking ‘out there’ for something or someone to save us, instead claiming and internalizing what we already know is True.

Willingly embarking on the arduous journey of unraveling the false from the true takes a lot of effort and courage. Looking honestly into the shadow of our own ego is a tremendous feat that cannot be taken lightly or treated as insignificant. While the journey is ever-more, where we stand now is a marker – a different station where we are awake enough to know we can no longer claim ignorance and can no longer blindly follow any illusion-based idea, our own or those of others for that train has left the station and Love has a knife at our throat, “Get real”.

We stand in awe of this amazing Presence, this Power of Life that cannot be negotiated with as something separate from ourselves. Instead, we can enter into sacred relationship with this Power as The Beloved. A Love relationship with the Light of our Being has nothing to do with ego dreams of grandiosity, for this Love doesn’t focus on anything ‘out there’ as primary at all. Quite the opposite, when we surrender the separate and limited view of the split and insane ego mind, the natural, innate Intelligence governing all also governs our vision, seeing simply and clearly what is Divine in us as well as what isn’t.

Regardless of what dreams the ego mind conjures up, we can remain peaceful and vigilant at the same time, protecting through no wimpy Love the hard-won Light within our own recognition. By staying in direct communion with the Christ-like, Divine nature of our true Being, we fan the flame of Preciousness that has been bestowed upon and within us.

Evil is both real and not real. It is an aspect of us, who we are as humans and so we must identify with it whether we see the ‘big picture’ of our Infinite, Inviolable Selves or not.

The paradox of being All That Is and also an individualized character in the dream of separation is both real and not real. Whether we can wrap our heads around this or not doesn’t change the ultimate simultaneity of this paradox and experience. This is how the game is being played, like it or not.

If we can face this seeming duality within ourselves, we can begin to question and examine ‘darkness’ with more curiosity and openness, versus hard and fixed beliefs, judgments and fear. From this clearing, we can lean into darkness for a closer investigation and begin to merge with the shadow aspects of ourselves for no other reason than to expand the light of our own conscious awareness.

Darkness comes upon us in many, many ways. The natural or conditioned reflex is to look away, for what we call darkness is never, ever anything we want to experience. However, there are times when we cannot shy away, like when we perceive a direct threat in our immediate experience or when we’ve simply had enough of feeling like our life’s blood is being sucked away bit by bit in subtle and not so subtle ways. In either case, we do see ourselves as victim of a wrong.

How do we come to terms with knowing that we are All That Is and feeling like a victim at the same time? In the world of paradox, this is yet another one to take a closer look at.

When we feel victimized, we contract, tighten, shrink, narrow, decrease and constrict. But if we consider that by definition, “expansion” or evolution can only happen through contraction (or a perceived contraction) then we can begin to see that whatever is constricting us, is actually exactly what we need to be in the presence of. Darkness allows for expansion. That which we really, really don’t want to feel IS the way ‘out’ into expansion. Since expansion is the apparent flow in this dream state, both contraction and expansion must have their moment or movement and neither can be skipped over or ignored. Rather than move too quickly from discomfort, the observer lingers for awhile to fully witness and fully experience what arises.

However great or small, discomfort is the portal to be entered in order to move into greater expansion. When we can see darkness as an invitation from Grace, we can be transformed. And when we transform, the projected world ‘out there’, also transforms BUT, the transformation never has it’s beginning ‘out there’, but rather is birthed within and projected as a new transfiguration ‘out there’. Through the individualized dream character, a new dream can start and be the embodiment of a different understanding, a ‘new’, more expanded paradigm.
This is not a formula nor is this even something that can fully understood with our minds. Rather is it something to be lived every day, a process that requires observation and patience and trust. We learn to allow the process of observation without judgment to play out, like a pull toy that simply needs to reach the end of it’s programed story. Stopping the pull toy before it’s done simply keeps the cycle repeating over and over again. Allowing the conditioned story to play out fully and completely creates the space for new revelations to appear, not because we’re calling the shots, but because we’re not.