A Parable Of Risk:
Betting On The Here & Now

by David Zoe

Wayne had waited all of his life to begin loving, to enter into communion with all beings. It seemed to him that there was always something more to atone for before he could feel himself worthy of Love. Another act of forgiveness to go through, another bad habit to overcome, another day of meditation, one more retreat, more solitude, always, always, though, there was the waiting.

The call had resonated so deeply with him, he knew he had to follow. Where would it lead? He wasn't sure he could handle another journey and it's always accompanying dark night of the soul. He didn't want to head out again only to always be with himself, only to return to where he always is, to that place where all find themselves. Here. And that's when it deepened. It broadened, sweeping him up in waves of Love and Understanding. It was a felt sense of completeness, total and without exclusion. "Is that it", he thought? "That's all? You mean I need not go anywhere, need not do anything? And all this searching, all this time spent chasing my tail like a dog, only to find out, now, that, It never not Is, that, It Is ALL, even me, with all my insane judgments and chattering voices, sweeping emotions and compulsive desires.

At that moment time ceased. At that moment the Reality of Eternity was no longer some fancy intellectual concept but known beyond a shadow of a doubt as the only Real experience he had ever had. The doors of perception flung openly madly revealing previously hidden dimensions of the Real that he now knew were the fundaments of all Createdness. Like so much ice melting in the sun of spring his once rigid boundaries were soon to be no more. The expansion of self to Self was merely his own Essence unfolding like a thousand petaled Lotus. A fragrance, an aroma wafted all around his boundless nature. Music, celestial tones emitted from his very Self, for he was the music of the spheres, the infernal Stars, the exploding Galaxies, the plains and rivers of Light and Love that rolled through them, the Awareness was him, was All. He could now chase down dreams with the innocence of a child, wherever and whatever---even whomever--- he would place his Awareness on he would become the Essence of.

"What Love", he thought, and it would increase. "What bliss and joy, what peace and understanding, what connectedness", and it was so. The separation ceased to be. He now knew that it was his travels, his journeys, his beliefs that he had to do in order to be worthy of that had prevented him from Being his Real Self, from embracing the Totality that simply IS, that he know knew to be ALL, from the heights of joy to the depths of despair. He was never, is never, not Divine. He was never, is never, not at One with All That Is. And so long as he believed he needed to go here or there, do this or that, in order to become worthy of being Who We Always Already Are he would fail to recognize his most Real Self; the Self that is One with All, that is not separate, but is of the same substance, the same Spiritual Presence, that constitutes all of manifest reality.

Was it a coincidence that at precisely the moment he realized it would only happen here, only happen now, It did? Was it merely an irony that when he ceased the search, the search ended, and not only ended but revealed to him what always already is the case, is the Condition of Reality? All he could do was laugh. There was no punishment needed, no judgment called for. In fact he now knew that as an Eternal One he co-created this game, this searching, these dramas, so that All might not be so bored with ItSelf.

Time wasn't an issue. Time doesn't matter to those who know Eternity. So what's the rush when you will never not Be? What's the headlong fury for when the Truth is that we have all time at our disposal, that our games have no whistle that is going to blow, that the only end to the drama comes when we choose to enact another role or choose to detach from all roles and enter once again into the Unified Field of Oneness? Judgment dropped with this understanding and Wayne knew that as he would re-enter the world of Game-players and Mask-wearers he would now allow all to play the part they believe is theirs to play, he was beyond judging others, for to him he now saw the Truth; that it would merely be judgment of Self, the Self that is unassailable, the Self that is you, him and her, this and that, those and these, us and them, here and there, One and All.

We are Wayne.