An Epic of Truth

Recently, I was reminiscing to some adolescents my memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series. In this series of stories, the reader had control as to where the tale progressed. For instance, the story may describe that you have encountered a magical elf who invites you into his cave for a meal. Next, it presents the option for you to join or decline the magical elf’s invitation. If you decide to join with him, the book instructs you to turn to another page and continue that storyline. If you decline, the author would instruct you to another page number, and the story would continue there. However, no matter which choice the reader enacted, most certainly, one choice would lead to destruction and the end of the story (eg. You join the magical elf in his cave and it turns out that YOU are the meal) and another would progress the story to a happier and more peaceful result.

Now, if you look at our daily experiences, they often appear to mirror the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Each day we receive a myriad of choices to decide. Some of these choices appear to lead to perceived experiences of misery, stress, or fear, while others progress to a happier and more peaceful result. For the most part, it appears that we alone are the decision maker, leading ourselves blindly through this story of our lives, hoping and praying that we have made the correct decisions. However, one idea we seem to forget is that, even though we appear to be the main character within this story of our life, the story is already written and we are merely having experiences through the illusion of perception.

Our perception tells us that each choice we make is necessary for our survival and self-validation. In this mistaken identity, we see ourselves in the position of vulnerability and needing ultimate control. Consequently, from this mindset, we struggle with this role of seeming self-author and feel left abandoned to figure out the plot, denouement, and epilogue without assistance or security. In this alignment with self-doubt, we struggle with every circumstance. We think, "Dare say what could happen if I let my brother or the world progress in a manner for which I am not in control or prepared? What then?" Surely, this vulnerable self continues to think, "I will need to correct and define all, in order to keep the correct story on track." However, it is only our perception that believes every life circumstance has the ability to make or break us. In Truth, there is always a way that cannot be threatened. Moreover, in this way, there is a far more peaceful adventure calling to us for Self-discovery.

A Course In Miracles teaches that the cornerstone and foundation for a Teacher of God is trust. This is simply because without trust we are stuck in the pages of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, feeling vulnerable and without control. The Course instructs us specifically to wholly trust that Our Father completely provides all, without any slight chance for threat, because it asks us to remember our True Author and not the mere adventurer of our self-forgetting mind.

Personally, the best manner for which I have realized trust is through surrender. Having recently completed a period of forty days of surrender, truly, I have found, that the more we remember to render over to God what has always been His Own, before a thought of beginning or end could emerge, the more we are yielding over to the True Author of peace and love without end. Sit for a moment and consider how every day would be radiant with perfection if on rising, we could immediately ask Holy Spirit to show us our way. Imagine the peace that could settle across your awareness if you gave this first thought to Holy Spirit even before an inkling of personalized thinking or seeking could arise attempting to choose in desperation its own story. Actually, this is possible and is the best way to read our story. Here we ask to settle within the comforting arms of Our Father, trusting that He is reading us our story with complete knowledge for all we could ever desire to be. As we surrender each judgment, fear, concern, or doubt over to Him, we are clearly asking God to lead the way, remembering His Will is our own.

The ego does not believe that the magnitude of this surrender is possible. It alone believes that without complete control only all hell will break loose. Furthermore, it attempts to convince us that surrender is sacrifice. Catch yourself now thinking this and seek to render over even this thought to Holy Spirit, trusting that He knows exactly the right place each thought belongs. In fact, seek to surrender every moment, trusting in Holy Spirit's guidance, as an infant would cling to his or her mother for comfort. Let yourself settle with relief into His Presence, cozy and peaceful, tucked in and ready for Your Father to tell you the story of your Self. Listen to His words of Love and pure knowing. He will always and all ways lead you to a deeper knowing of Whom He Created. Call yourself to this image as you notice each need to be in control, and as you do, soon you will notice a trust arise from within that knows itself without doubt or fear for what could happen on any progressing page.

Finally, as we ask to hear God’s telling of Our story, in every moment, we are asking to be taught and teach only love. From this point of Vision, there can be no justification for separation, condemnation, or judgment within the world, simply because God's Story realizes the Love within all. With this Love, we come to reveal our plot, setting, process, events and moral without any mistaken identity. Here, even the character we play has the perfect purpose beyond the pages it seems we turn. Seek only to call this awareness into your vision as you walk the world, and as you do, you are enacting a Nobel Prize worthy bestseller dedicated only to the magnificence You are.

You are love.