The Wall

Sometimes my hunger for communion with God feels like I am standing, nose to surface, against a dense heavy wall. Pressing my face against the flatness on one side, energy vibrates the fine tips of hair upon my cheek and tantalizingly I sense His presence just out of my reach. No matter how much I lean in, the activity on the other side sounds like the adult’s voices in Charlie Brown cartoons. My thinking mind cannot comprehend its specifics and all I hear is the distorted wah-wa-wah-wa-wa. However, I still desperately long to be a part of the experience. Heaven is in me, right? Should I not be able to figure out God and connect? My curiosity heightens to uncontrollable peaks. The charms from Spirit’s guidance lure me in, having me yearn to be two-dimensional. If I were within the wall, at least I would be one-step closer. Why can I not just pass through? Why must I endure the torture of separation and isolation?

Surely, if I rely upon my intellect it can seek a translation. Concentrating with all my might, my eyes squint in focus. Thinking can attempt to put all the pieces together. Maybe this “wa-wa” means “love” and “wah” means “now.” Argh! This is too much for me! Fists of fury only leave me bruised. A reservation of human “sanity” heaves rocks of judgment. Yes, perhaps I am just fooling myself and being only fraudulent rather than peaceful. These perceptions contain no audible sense! What if I lean in tauter than ever before and consume myself with every nuance that the wall contains. Yes, maybe if I devote myself to studying the wall it will reveal a secret entryway. Yet in time, even as the wall becomes the center of my attention and I memorize every bump and buckle through my fingertips, a grand key is missing. I still see the wall, recognize the limitation, and suffer in tremendous loss. The wall presents as unsurpassable. Bricks built upon steel webbing resting on iron rebar and founded in cement. It is all so real, and this trap binds me.

God is on the other side of that wall, and I am just out of touch, unsure of exactly how to conceive His Presence. Meditation contains distractions, prayer has me seek requests, and book after book only leads to more questions. Too often, it seems that only my imagination is destined to fill in the gaps. The desire to transcend the wall is significant, but the thickness and texture appears so unalterable. As a member of the community of spiritual seekers, I believe that each student can understand this feeling and does experience these boundaries. We all come into contact with similar walls in our own pursuit towards enlightenment. Rarely, does our peace of mind unleash itself effortlessly. Maybe as you read these words, you are familiar with both the solid barriers and the yearning to overcome them. Doubts, frustration, thoughts of unworthiness, perceiving myself to be a hypocrite and a fraud, there have been many times when these judgments face me sprawled like neon colored graffiti and all I see are bricks. Why does the wall win this round?

Some days I wish to return to the days when I thought the world was all that did exist. At least in those days, when success within earthly welfare seemed to be the only option, I accepted it without much distraction or resistance. Rarely during those experiences did I argue with my ego. Yes, crash and burn did occur, and seldom did I feel completely satisfied. Possibly, I could sweep those failures under the rug. No, that will never work. Once you accept the peace of God as the way, the truth, and the light, you cannot play pretend anymore. Just as covering the eyes only leads to false blindness, if I were to elude my heart’s desire the only result would be pointless numbness. However, I still wonder if I am going about enlightenment all wrong. Is this wall the best that I can ever achieve through the spiritual pathway? How much time will it take to succeed? On my best days of devotion, will God still seem muffled and out of reach? Honestly, I do not know the answers to these questions... and doubt I ever will with this taunting ego.

Ah, but wait… maybe that is the key to the whole problem. Who is the one that is asking these questions? Who is the one that feels it needs and wants to know? Who is the one that feels constrained, judgmental, desperate, and frightened when expectations do not go according to plan? Hmm. The Course tells us that we should resign as our own teachers. It says repeatedly how we are poor learners and will continue to have significant handicaps in our progress as long as we insist on teaching ourselves. That is the key to overcoming the wall. The wall is representative of all the barriers and resistances that we, as investors in the ego way of thinking, erect between God and ourselves. For some seekers the wall is our attachment to the body and all its accoutrements. Are there football teams, barbequed chicken wings, shopping, and sex in Heaven? Who wants to know? For other seekers, the wall is our fear of ego death or the loss of self-control within our life’s passageway. Will God choose every experience and relationship for me? Will I always want to listen to Him? Does He really know best? That does sound like a sacrifice. Again, who wants to know? For me, the wall is my wish to have my cake and eat it too. Basic math will tell you that it is impossible to do that unless I bake two cakes. However, the Kingdom of God is One, and truly, it cannot be divided between illusion and reality while remaining as God Created.

Within the teachings of A Course in Miracles, Jesus asks for our undivided attention. He states that we should resign as our own teacher and although this request is unambiguous, beads of sweat form from the fear and trepidation I envision. Sinatra's anthem echoes far off and I cringe with thoughts of resentment and sacrifice. Why can I not have it my way? Jesus’ answer is simple: “You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind.” Therefore, as long as we identify with the fears of the world, entertaining a single step in the dances of doubt and self-control, we cannot know perfect love. If you are still unsure, perhaps the origin of the word “perfect” can reveal an additional key. In literal terms, the word stems from the components per meaning "completely" mated with facere, which means, "to perform.” Accordingly, if reality is the eternal existence of God extended or enacted completely, at the same moment it cannot also be split or fractioned. All that exists already performs completely. You or your will need not add any other thought to the completion. In fact, if there was a possibility to add or if God needed you to add to His perfect kingdom, this would mean that only incompleteness existed at first. Yes, you cannot have your cake and eat it too, unless you have two cakes. Likewise, we cannot learn of completion when we seek only to see with split minds. As long as we do, we will be seeking to fit a square peg into a round hole.

We can see this plainly by asking what the purpose of the wall is. The word “wall” literally means “defensive fortification.” Any wall, including the walls in your home, does stand merely to divide or to take possession of space apart from other space. That is their only purpose. My investment in the wall is my investment in fear, separation, and the need to have my own space. Sitting here and looking around this room, I wonder what the experience of living in my house would be without walls. Comparatively, how would living be different if no separation existed between the rooms of my life? Imagine, without the walls, how much more I will be able to see. Without walls, every space would reveal all that is. Yet, to the ego’s mindset, the possibility of revelation induces fear because it needs the walls to perpetuate its game of hide and seek. The ego will tell you that it needs the walls in order to keep your house standing. In a very rational way, the ego is correct. In order to have “your house” the walls are indeed necessary, otherwise the teetering of uncertainty will surely keep you on guard. These walls keep me in my life, my territory, where I can temporarily sit perceiving peace. Imagine the discomfort if we had no barriers? There would be no outside or inside and your living space would completely spill over onto the living space of all other people. How odd it would be live without walls, either real or imagined.

Consequently, as long as we fear the potential of living in complete openness, the more we are unable to understand or learn perfect love. The ego cannot understand what it cannot see, and it cannot see because it hides behind the wall. Take a moment now to envision a dam. Imagine it standing as the tides surge against it. Metaphorically, the upwelling of water represents the natural flow of our Self-energy, our God Being. What is the dam? The dam is the limit that we, in our fear, erroneously construct and reinforce through our mistaken identity. Always, when it comes to our eternal Self, the Holiness we are extends in only one direction. This extension is the direction of God’s Will. As a result, no matter how many dams we erect in opposition to this Will, the presence of the water is unchangeable. Not once does it change direction or become different. Flow is flow as God is God. No obstacle can truly restrict the Will of God. Our temporal distractions are mere collections of sand to the stream of True consciousness. Truth is, purely and simply flowing forth. From the viewpoint of the levee, the waters appear storm-tossed and menacing. As the pressure against the wall’s resistance increases, the levee perceives itself fighting for its very existence. However, to the water, it easily and simply streams forward following its inner guide and purely existing in this moment. Never does the water fear that it cannot get through this one seeming blockade. To the water, there is no blockade, only another opportunity for greater flow.

Therefore, do not fear any of your walls. Each wall is merely an attempt for you to claim the need for separation apart from God. They are nothing but distractions. Furthermore, you do not need to remove these obstacles with your own dealings. Every dam always falls to the wall that appears to obstruct it. The water always does find its way to the ocean of Love. Studying and dissecting the wall, with your own thinking, will only result in your own investment in the wall. However, giving over each branch, brick, and spoonful of cement to Holy Spirit will result in discovering the Self that exists always. One tiny crack in the levee leads to an outpouring of God’s overwhelming gush of Truth. Holy Spirit already knows where these tiny weaknesses in your argument reside and He will show you exactly what you deny but have never completely forgotten. Take a moment now to close your eyes and imagine that wall. See it for all that you perceive it to be in this moment. Breathe deeply and quietly say a prayer asking Holy Spirit to show you where the loose stones dwell. In this prayer, realize that you are not the mover of obstacles. Holy Spirit will show you how your investment in obstacles was nothing but an investment in foolishness from the start. With this surrender, you will see how each stone slips from its place with ease and quickly with a gush of overwhelming might, all that once appeared as restrained now flows freely with a certain peace.