The Only Thing That Matters (34 page)

We would produce a new kind of leadership on our planet as well. Not leaders who say, “Ours is a better way. Our political philosophy, our religious persuasion, our sexual orientation, is
better
than yours, so follow us!” but rather, leaders who say, “Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way. But if all walk together, if we all
work
together, if we all
pull
together, we can create a way to
make
things better for
all
of us—black
or
white, gay
or
straight, young
or
old, male
or
female—because we're all in this together. Nothing separates us except that which we allow to stand between us simply because of a thought that we hold in our head—a thought that was probably not even our own experience, but that was picked up from
somewhere else.

We would find that our differences do not have to produce divisions, our contrasts do not have to create conflicts, our aspirations do not have to generate castigations.

In short, we would create a new way of being human.

40
Let Your Soul Talk to You

D
EAR AND
G
ENEROUS FRIEND OF
T
HE SOUL …
you
are
generous, you know, and you have been generous here, with your time and your patience. You've allowed certain notions here to be restated and repeated, creating emphasis on the points in this exploration that
deserve
emphasis.

There is much of which you have reminded yourself here, and much could have been lost were it touched on only fleetingly. So thank you for that generosity. A final thought, then, is offered here.

There are millions of them. Billions of them.
Trillions
of them. They're called Moments. Strung together, they're called a Life.

No single Moment has a prescribed length. It could last one second, one minute, or one hour. Or much longer than that.

Yet there is something unusual, something unique about the Most Important Moments: the longer they are, the shorter they seem; the shorter they are, the longer they seem.

If you've ever spent an evening saying a final good-bye to a dearly loved one, you know that the minutes go by oh, too fast. If you've ever spent even a few seconds looking deeply into your beloved's eyes, you know that time can stand still.

Thus, a few seconds can seem like an hour, and an hour can seem like a few seconds. It is their
content
that produces our experience of their length.

In whatever way they are experienced, however, Moments come and Moments go before you know it, and then they are called Memories. They become etched in your Mind. They are yours for a lifetime, and no one can take you away from you.

Nor can you rid yourself of the ones you don't wish to keep.

Moments that will soon turn into Memories are going on right now, as you're reading this, and through all of them—the slow ones and the oh-too-fast ones, the good ones and the not-so-nice ones, the fun ones and the ones that are boring or dreary—there is only one thing that matters.

Because most people have no idea of what that is, they miss it. Moment after Moment after Moment, they miss it. After a few years they realize this, but by then it's too late. Nothing can be done about the Moments that have passed.

But there's good news here. Something
can
be done about the Moment that's
coming up
. And about the one after that. And the hundreds more that will arrive this day. And the thousands more that will appear this week. And the millions more that will happen this month. And the billions more that will occur this year. And the trillions more that will present themselves before one dies.

Yes, about those something can be done. And as you contemplate
what
you can do about those in your life, and what you
want
to do about those, you will know one thing. What you
don't
want to do is
waste them
. Not anymore. No, not anymore.

Beginning now, you can make an inner commitment to have regular “visits” with your Soul. Use the tools offered to you here if you think it might feel good to do so. Go to the place, and come from the place, where your Mind meets your Soul as often as you can. This is the place of Self-Realization to which you are called by The Divine. From this place ideas will seem to be “brought” to you every day. Sometimes you may create it so that it “looks like” these sources are outside of you, and sometimes you will allow yourself to experience that there is Only One Source, and that It is speaking as you from within you.

In particular when you experience the One Source coming from within, keep a record of what you are “hearing;” write down the words you are given. A journal of these insights will prove invaluable to you later—maybe even
moments
later, just a breath after committing them to writing, and in some cases years later, when you will turn to your journal and open it to just the right place at exactly the right time.

In the second part of the Addendum to this book is a small sampling of the kind of messages that can come to you. These may appear—as may this whole book—to have come to you from a Source outside of yourself. They are but an example of what can and will move through you when, with Willingness as your guiding energy, you invite into your Mind your own Soul's wisdom.

Our exploration here is now ended—and your own explorations have now just begun, at a new level. Experiment with what you have remembered here. Step into the rich and full living of it.

Truly spiritual people—people who see themselves as more than mere chemical creatures, but as spiritual beings who have placed themselves on Earth for particular and special reasons having to do with much more than simple survival—are aspiring, determined, committed, enterprising, motivated, and deeply purposeful. They want lives “overflowing with significance” (to borrow a wonderful phrase from Karen Armstrong in
The Case for God
).

Look to see if your life is now overflowing with significance or with struggle. Do you see daily events as presenting opportunity or opposition? Is there any possibility that your life would or could change for the better, no matter how “bad” or “good” it might be now?

If you believe that such a possibility does not exist, that life is one travail after the next and that's just the way it is, you have no doubt experienced it that way for a very long time, for you see no connection between your declarations and your demonstrations. Remember this: Life will always make you right.

Yet if you believe that, yes, there is certainly a possibility that life could change for the better, and could become less of a struggle, what do you think could cause that to happen?

“I don't know!” you might cry out. “I've been doing all I can! I've been begging God to help me! But He just keeps piling it on!”

Indeed.

And the suggestion here is that you could view each of life's events and circumstances as “piled on” opportunities for the expression and experience of the grandest part of you—the part of you that is Divine.

You see, if you “beg God for help,” that is your announcement that you need it. And your announcement that you need it produces the exact experience it announces. Yet if you do not beg God for help, but
thank
God for helping you already—helping you to fulfill your very purpose for being here—then you
switch the energy in your life completely around
. Encountered in this way, with gratitude, with compassion for yourself, and with deep understanding, every event can be a blessing. You might even make that your new mantra:

E
VERY
E
VENT
I
S A
B
LESSING

There is a miracle awaiting here. The miracle is that this shift of your thinking about what is now occurring—this … this
recontextualization
… of the moments of your life—can have an effect not only on those very moments, but on your future moments as well. For life is a copying machine, cranking out faithful duplicates of what you put in. If you see today's events not as opportunity, but as opposition, tomorrow's events will prove out your theory. Life wants you to receive what you want to receive, and what you want to receive is announced by exactly what you declare yourself to be receiving now. This brings up the classic question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? And the answer is: Yes.

Now you can peer deep, deep within that enigma, or you can lose patience and stand outside of it. Yet it is within the enigma of Life that Life's enigma is solved. It is by looking right at the puzzle that the missing piece is found.

But don't believe this simply because it is written here. Watch your own life closely. And, should you choose to recontextualize your experience as we are suggesting here, look to see if you don't at least, if nothing else, find a little more peace.

Then, from this place of greater inner peace, undertake a quiet exploration of how your life's moments might begin to change even further if you were to ask life's key question at every decision-point throughout your day:

How does what I am doing right now
serve the agenda of my Soul?

Once in a while, rephrase the question if it helps. As you find yourself moving through your life busily responding to the day's demands, or perhaps busy reacting to a person or situation that may not seem the most pleasant to you, ask yourself this about your response:

What does this have to do with my Sacred Journey?
What part of my Divine Purpose is this serving?

And finally, at any time during your days and nights, as you look out upon the world and experience yourself within it, you might find it wonderful to softly inquire:

How do I choose for Divinity to be expressed
through me in the next grandest way in this moment?

This much please know right now: You have been richly serving The Agenda of the Soul and The Divine Purpose since you began reading this book. It's been said a number of times, and we'll close by saying it once more: You did not come here by accident. You did not find this book by chance. This does not mean, however, that it was guaranteed you would read it, much less follow its suggestions.