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REPLY TO THREAD
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But if I changed the way I looked at certain things, then all the drama would go away.
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Original Message
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“It means, always keep your mind open to things that you may not have personally experienced.”
Okay, I’ve got my mind open.
“In this case, let’s go back to something that you can pull up from your own memory. Talk about taking something from your own ‘walk through life’--did you ever find yourself out walking when suddenly it began to rain?”
Of course. More than once.
“Good. Now did you experience that moment, the reality of that rainfall, as an annoyance and a bother, or as a wonder and a delight?”
Well, I can remember, actually, experiencing both. I mean, I remember one time that this happened when I absolutely experienced it as a bother. I was furious that it had started raining. I ran for cover as fast as I could, but it was no use. I got soaked.
Another time I remember walking with a young lady friend of mine on a summer day, and the sky opened. We were in a parking lot with lots of space and the young woman abruptly tore her clothes off and began dancing in the rain! She was dancing and hopping and jumping for joy, and I was standing there dumbfounded, my soaked head of hair falling in streaks across my forehead.
She laughed at me and dared me to join her. So I did. And we danced around that parking lot for almost five minutes before the police came. The officer was very nice--it was a woman, actually-and she simply asked us to put our clothes back on because she did not want to have to arrest us for indecent exposure or becoming a public nuisance. All three of us laughed, and we followed her request, but it was a moment in my life I will never forget. It was sheer, unbridled joy. It was joyful mischief.
“And, of course, I knew about that moment--which is why I used this particular example. Now let me ask you a question. What was different about the rain?”
I’m sorry?
“In what way was the rain in the first incident different from the rain in the second? Was it wetter? Was it raining harder? Were the water drops colder or bigger?”
No. Everything was just about the same, actually. It was no more stormy or furious during the first rain than it was during the second. Both where just nice summer showers.
“So what WAS the difference in the two experiences?”
The way I looked at them. My perspective. In one instance I had on a business suit and was heading for a very important meeting, and my perspective was that the rain was a nuisance. More than a nuisance. It was an intrusion on my plan. It was an obstacle in my way. In the other instance I was dressed quite casually and had no specific time that I needed to be anywhere. It ‘looked like’ the rain could be fun.
“Yes. And who created those perspectives?”
I did, of course.
“You could have decided that the business meeting wasn’t that important, or that your showing up a little messed would be completely understood and wouldn’t matter, yes? You could have ‘seen it that way,’ yes?”
Yes.
“So now think of the rain as ‘ultimate reality.’ You couldn’t change the fact that it was raining, but you could change your experience of the rain by changing the way you looked at it. You couldn’t change Ultimate Reality, but you could experience Ultimate Reality any way that you wished.
“This is the biggest secret of life.”
But it isn’t always so easy!
“It IS always so easy.”
But if I changed the way I looked at certain things, then all the drama would go away.
“Ah, now we’re getting to it…”
An extract from Home with God by
Neale Donald Walsch.
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