The Only Thing That Matters (3 page)

You are being invited to meet Yourself here—and that is precisely what you came here to do. (To
Earth
, not just to this book. But it will
happen
in this book, and be demonstrated in a most unusual way.)

One of the things that you already know, but that you sometimes forget, is that
nothing happens by accident
, and that
there's no such thing as coincidence
.

It is because you know this is true that the appearance of this book in your life at this exact moment cannot exactly be a shock.

Of course, it wasn't intended to be a shock. It was intended to be a
confirmation.
And confirmation is very timely
on this exact day
, because there are energies, situations, and circumstances in your life right now that have tempted you to seriously
question
what you know—if not deny it altogether.

Don't do that.

Do.

Not.

Do.

That.

That will not serve you.

This
will.

Moving even more fully into this moment and this experience will.

Trust that your Soul knows, always, what will next serve you. In fact, that is
why
what happens next
happens next
.

4
You're About to Become an Author

N
OW WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE
what happens next. You're not going to believe what happens next.

You're going to be writing this book
.

“That's crazy,” you could say. “I'm
reading
this book, not
writing
it.” Ah, yes, but wait. Magic is about to happen.

Have you ever heard the statement:
We are all One
? Of course you have. You've heard it a thousand times. But have you ever considered what it would be like if it were
true?
Not just conceptually, but actually,
factually, functionally?

Well, it
is
true.

Actually.

Factually.

Functionally.

There's no one else except You, in various forms.

To many people this at first sounds “way out,” and too abstract to embrace as a working notion of reality. Yet considered within a larger context, a very broad context, it might begin to fall within at least the outer reaches of the realm of possibility.

Let's take a look.

All of us are made of the “same stuff,” having evolved from the same First Source. To use an analogy: When the ocean first appeared, and then expanded, it was not created as something other than its drops. A drop of the ocean is the same as the ocean. It
is
the ocean, in smaller form. No single drop is
other than
the ocean. All the drops of the ocean are One Thing: THE OCEAN.

It would not, therefore, be inaccurate for one drop of the ocean to say to another drop: “We Are All One.” The second drop would simply say, “Of course we are. Just because we have been
singularized
does not mean we are
other than
each other, nor are we other than that of which we are a singularization. We are all the same thing, The Ocean, in singular form.”

This is also true about human beings. We are all the Same Thing, simply individuated. We are not separate from That From Which We Have Emerged, nor are we “other than” each other.

Now you might think, “Well, that's all very nice, that's a very nice model of the world, but there's no way to put that into practice in the reality of our daily lives.”

And it would be understandable if you thought that. We are, after all, appearing to be separate beings, even if we aren't in fact. We are, to be sure, acting as if we are separate beings—even if we are all the Same Stuff. We are acting so much so that if the various Parts of Us told
other
Parts of Us that We think there is only One of Us, the other Parts of Us would laugh at Us.

And if We
insisted
that We Are All One, the other Parts of Us would do more than laugh at Us. They would put Us away somewhere, so that We could not contaminate the rest of Us. And if that didn't shut us up … well … they would have to take other measures.

Why? Why all this ominous stuff that sounds as if it's coming out of a bad movie? Because the idea that We Are All One
upsets every applecart in the world
.

It upsets our global economy for sure. How would we proceed?

It upsets our global policy for sure. How would we proceed?

It upsets our global society for sure. How would we proceed?

And … here it comes … watch out now … it upsets our global theology for
absolutely
,
positively
sure. How would we proceed?

Everything we thought was true would not be true. Everything we thought was
not
true would be true. How would we be able to stand up for ourselves? How would we be able to fight for what is right? How would we be able to justify
killing
each other over what is right if we thought that we were killing
ourselves
over what is not even true?

Okay, so maybe We should just drop the whole idea. Erase the statement: We Are All One.

Forget We said that.

Allow yourself to encounter this material as if someone else wrote it and you're just reading it. Maybe that's enough for the first sit-down with this book. That's the safe way, and so it may be the better way. At least for now. Perhaps We can get back to this a bit later … like, maybe, 10 chapters from now … after more groundwork has been laid.

Or maybe not. We'll see.

No, wait. We have to. It's an absolute Must, because it's this Awareness that creates the only context within which The Only Thing That Matters can emerge as an experience in our lives. So before we're done here, you're going to be invited into a felt sense that We Are All One—because
you're going to be writing this book
.

But not just yet.

For now, let's get back to the original literary style. That style assumes this book is being written by someone else and you're reading it. Let's accept that idea and return to the original question: What
does
matter? And … if you pay attention to only
that
… what of the
rest
of your life?

How do you live in this world without paying attention to the things that you used to spend 98% of your time on? Hang out in a cave? Enter a monastery? Become an ascetic? “Drop out,” as thousands did in the sixties counterculture of hippies in communes disillusioned with conventional values?

No. The idea here is not to walk away, or to walk around in a meditative daze, abandoning all constructive activity. The idea is to
refocus
your life's intention, so that one day it may be said that 98% of your time is being spent on things that
do
matter.

The surprise here will be that when this happens, your activities themselves probably won't change very much. Even if everyone on the planet read this book, agreed with it, and began spending 98% of their time on what
does
matter, people's activities wouldn't change that much.

People would still get up and go to work—or create some way to survive.

People would still marry and have kids—or create someone to love and by whom to be loved.

People would still run and jump and dance and sing and laugh—or create some way to entertain themselves, to bring joy into their days and nights, and to be happy.

So the question becomes: if what humans do won't change that much, what will make what they do suddenly
matter?

The answer lies not in what they do, but in
how and why they do it.
The answer is: something matters if it leads to and produces a particular kind of result—a result desired by the Soul. A result desired by Life Itself.

It is when the way in which you are doing anything
facilitates
the Larger Goal that you are seeking to reach that it
matters
.

Yet what human beings are doing cannot facilitate what they are trying to accomplish if they don't
know
what they are trying to accomplish. They must be aware of the Larger Goal they are seeking to reach. And therein lies the problem.
Most people don't know what they're doing
.

That is not meant in any way pejoratively. It is a simple statement of fact. Most people have little understanding of the nature of the Journey they are on, much less how to arrive at their desired destination.

It is the things they are doing day-to-day that play a huge role in moving them toward,
or away from
, their Larger Goal, yet most are not aware of where they were intending to go to begin with, and so, as one comedian wryly noted: “If we're not careful, we'll all wind up exactly where we're headed.”

Today the earth is populated with billions of people desperately hoping to “get somewhere,” but having no idea of where they're going.

The first step in moving into clarity on where you're going is moving into clarity on where you are
right now
, on
who
you are to
begin
with, and on
why
you are
here
.