2-19. Suffering is optional. You are already Complete. The degree to which you hold yourself apart from the Universe determines your imagined pain.
It is so very easy, in this world, to imagine that you are separate from all else that Lives. This thought, this miscreant of imagination that pervades so much of this world’s determination of that which much be real, is pervasive and almost unavoidable. It is found in almost everything that occurs in this world, from the moment you arrive as a newly born babe to the instant of time that elapses and is cast to the winds of indeterminate fate, releasing you from your current incarnation but holding no promise of a future beyond this life. Who could possibly be faulted for assuming that all that they see with the eyes of their body and all that they perceive with the limited senses of this world must be all that there is now, has ever been or will ever be? Who would be found to be the madman who alleges it is but the most rational of logical arguments that presents the summary conclusion that because what you see appears to be all that is real, that must delineate the limits of all of existence? Indeed it would be the philosopher or spiritually questing questioner who is left to be ridiculed, cast out from the halls of inquiry to wander the wilderness alone, searching for the “more” of existence that can never be found through the rational structures of scientific evaluation of the physical world, for indeed that which the shaman seeks is not of this world but of another, a world that has no direct relationship with or simple congruence to the world of matter and form. But those who quest do not do so alone and they do not seek in vain for answers that cannot possibly be contained within a perspective that insists that all that is observable with the body must be the limits of all that could ever be possible. The knowledge, acceptance, discovery and transformative power of simply allowing yourself to ask “could there be more” is more than enough to begin your personal journey into the Truth that lies, likely now dormant but still just as potent as the moment it was Given to you by God, in the depths of your heart which you have turned away from in favor of the rational and the immediately apparent. Do not assume that your body must function as a barrier, as a limiting agent of separation or as a demarcation point at which all that is not you is decisively determined. It is not. There is no separation for all that is, all that Lives, is eternal and it is always already Complete. But this Completion of the Spirit, this Perfection of Love that resides in your heart but that will be unknown until you are at least willing to accept that it might even be possible that it exists, is not a function of this world and it is not a material item to be discovered, examined and quantified. That you have suffered, albeit at your own hand, is nearly certain for few enter this world and fail to accept, to one extent or another, that what they see with their limited sensory perceptions must represent all that is forever Real. It does not. But you have chosen this illusion of separation from all else that Lives, and as such it is solely your responsibility to release it back to the shadow world of the ego’s lies and deceptions that have for so long attempted to blind you to the connection that you share with all else that Lives. All the pain, loneliness, fear, regret and anger you have experienced found its taproot in an all-consuming, apparently everlasting and tremendously ever-present assumption that you must be but a single being, a solitary soul, alone in an isolated island of flesh, eternally unable to experience the innate and inalterable connection that you share with all other Souls. Had you not accepted this presentation of illusion as indisputable fact, as a fate sealed and as a destiny already elected for you without your consent or permission, you would not have suffered so at your own hand, blind to the beliefs that beset you and driven nearly insane in your grief at a connection now lost, a joining of minds now broken, a Heaven of Peace dissipated into the bitter winds of rage at the apparent destruction of that which can never be taken from you. You are not alone. You are not cast out of Heaven, forced to walk this world in spiritual darkness, unable to connect to others and alone in a prison of flesh and bone that could not possibly constitute a sufficiently permanent enclosure that would be in any way be fully and wholly appropriate for a Child of God. There are indeed degrees in these dreams of disconnection, loss, pain and torment that wrack your soul even if you are unaware of the torture you alone subject yourself to when you try to cleave the permanent and Perfect bond that unites all that is Created as One Life, everlasting and Eternally Complete, just as it was Created. These degrees are determined by your level of acceptance of the teachings of this world and the amount to which you desire to internalize them, giving birth over and over again to the orphans of despair that are created from the assumption that what you see with your eyes must be all that could ever be all that is actually Real. There is so much more than just this, Perfect Child of God. So much infinitely more that to attempt to hold out this world as being at all reflective of the Glory and the Enormity of all of Creation is as asinine as trying to compare a mote of dust to the amazing power of a star such as the one our Earth revolves around each year. These two things, while both being material items, composed of assemblies of atoms and molecules in various arrangements, bear such a tiny similarity that they cannot fairly be set against each other and have any genuine comparison drawn between their differing structures and functions. Such is the difference between this world and all of Creation, for Creation is Infinite and this world is anything but infinite in any meaning of the word. Degrees of imagined separation do not bind you to this world or to its purpose, which is forever to simply be a place in which you can dwell until such a glorious day that you are willing to cast off the mantle of fear that a belief in death will eternally require. When the Truth of your Connection is accepted, the Love and Light that comes with turning back towards the Glory of God and finding that your Home has forever been with all that Lives, which is Eternal and inalterable in its Perfection, will wash away the darkened stain of fear that you have painted upon your heart. Degrees of change will you shift and slide through as your shed the self-imposed bonds that you anointed upon your own brow, choosing to close the perception of your heart to itself, asking your mind to blot out the Memory of God in favor of a wretched existence that can only lead to desolate death, which from the perspective of this world must constitute an eternal end, a dark night of nothingness, a loss of all that ever was and a rending of your consciousness down into the blackest oblivion of nonexistence, disappearing into the void of unawareness and becoming lost to this world and to yourself. This is not what death is, for all that Lives is Eternal and all that is Created is Perfect, just as it was Created. You have chosen to believe that you are incomplete, in some strange and imperfect fashion, in a manner that could never be Real for what God Creates is just as God is – Perfect and Complete, now and forever. You are this Completion of Love now incarnate, a Perfect Soul dreaming of life within a fragile and eventually very frail body, destined to be born and then to die in such a short instant that to measure the life of a single person on this planet against the unimaginable span of all of Eternity is a meaningless and purposeless endeavor. Suffering, at your hand or at the hands of another, is always optional for it involves an acceptance of that which has never been Real. It requires a taking up of illusions in favor of Truth and an exchange of that which is Permanent for that which is eternally temporary. Your dreams of isolation and death will end, for never have they presented the Truth of your Creation in any way at all. They were but the darkness of the ego, a desperate attempt to substitute illusions for the Light of Love and the Certainty that because you are Complete, Perfect and utterly Whole, just as you were Created, there can be no true pain for all that you have felt that was awful, horrible, isolating, perversely and pervasively ponderous in its attempts to befuddle your mind to the Truth of your Perfection, was but the meagerness of the ego’s beliefs held out as truth. Allow the Light of Love to shine forth again from your heart and be free, Perfect Child of God, for you are already Complete and in your acceptance of this inalterable and eternally intractable Perfection, you will find relief from all that has ever seemed to have the power to have caused suffering in any form, now and forever.