Everything and Nothing

I am going to try to express something here this morning that is almost beyond my mind's comprehension. So bear with me.

I'd like you to imagine having everything. Everything that you could possibly want or choose for yourself, including endless choices, is yours. Imagine having excellent health and energy, well-being, great food, friends and a lover or husband or wife or whatever it is you choose to have. Imagine having everything you could possibly want as far as material wealth goes. Imagine being in the most wonderful place in the world, a place that you have always wanted to live in. Imagine knowing that you can go anywhere at any time and stay for as long as you care to. Imagine having so much money, say you won the lottery or something, so much money that you couldn't possibly spend it all in one lifetime. Imagine nothing lacking at all.

Let that feeling fill you. You have everything. Everything on every level. Feel that for a moment. Really feel it. Sink into it. Ride it. Fly with it. Sit with it.

How does it feel? Now that you are used to it a little bit, how does it feel? It feels good, doesn't it. But there's something else there, a sort of emptiness.

Everything. Everything. Everything. Every single thing that I could possibly want is right here in front of me or is readily available. No wish unfulfilled, no want unmet, no desire unrealized. Hmmmm. I'm not happy. I don't know what to tell you! I'm just not happy. There's no challenge. No reach. No reason to have to do anything, so why do this instead of that? There's no story, no difficulty met, no limits overcome... Oh, sure. I have my past. I have all the lack and limitation of my past, but that's all just smoke in the rearview mirror now. I'm looking at absolute abundance. I feel sort of deadened by it, sort of flat.

Sigh.

Okay, let's pull ourselves out of there and come back into where we actually are - somewhere between yes and no, between heaven on Earth and a hell of our own longings and wanting.

Now, imagine that you have nothing. For the sake of this delving into not having, let's assume that you are fed and clothed and housed in some bare and basic fashion. A sort of prison environment. Your most basic needs to keep your body alive and relatively healthy are met, but only just. No art, no beauty, no music, no friends, no books, no colours, no comfort or only just enough to allow for sleep. No connections, no ability to make choices because how could they possibly be realized when there is nothing. Nothing is yours. You hold nothing. You own nothing.

Fabric covers your nakedness. Something vaguely approaching the look and taste of food goes into your stomach every day. A bare room and a place to sleep are all you can count on. Other than that, you have nothing. How does it feel?

Go into it. It's dark. It's dim. It's empty. It's uncomfortable and depressing. It leaves you with nothing but yourself. How does it feel?

Now that you're fully in it, how does it feel? It feels pretty bad, doesn't it. But there's something else there, a sort of fullness deep within. I sense something so infinitely beautiful and perfect in its being deep within. In this emptiness, there are no distractions from this perfect fullness within me.

Nothing. Sameness. Emptiness. And then, from deep within, this ALL that is sustaining. It is this, I think, that keeps people alive when they have nothing. It is the ALL within them that we then sense in them when they emerge and we say, "How was she able to bear it? She is so filled with fortitude, with Self."

So, which do you prefer? The everything, or the nothing?

Well! No one would prefer the nothing. Having nothing! But I don't choose the everything either. No, I choose something inbetween. I choose exactly what I have. Every single thing that I have and every single thing that I don't have and every single moment that is perfect and every single moment that is not. That is what I choose.

And this thing that I strive now to bring to you, this realization that is almost beyond my mind's ability to comprehend - is that very paradoxical truth that I choose to not have everything that I choose. I love beyond all, all, all that I do not have all. I love that I am still in the game. Do you see? It's a game that we are playing here. If you had everything, everything, there'd be no game. The game would be over. If you had nothing, you'd be back where you started this game - at the beginning and you'd have to build up a 'life' again. No problem! I can do that. Once I get over the fear and panic and self-doubt... which of course are part of the game.

It's all perfect in its being and not being. And last evening, sitting in silence, in darkness, I realized that. I realized how it is perfect in all of its being and its not being. I realized how I wouldn't have it any other way. I realized that every pain, every ache, every loss, every humiliation, every failure, every hunger, every sadness, every pit of depression, every fear was perfect, is perfect and will be perfect. I realized that they serve. They serve me. They serve the God that I AM. They serve in ways so inclusive, so unconditional, so All-That-Is, so graceful, so loving, so very very loving, that my mind cannot fully comprehend. They serve by bringing to me every colour, every hue, every nuance of shading and light that is experience. It is all perfect.

I realized that I am always where I choose to be. I chose this life of lack and struggle. I chose it. I chose the pain, the aches, the losses, the humiliations, the failures, the hunger, the sadness - oh yes! I chose the sadness. I chose the depression, the aloneness, the fears. I chose to be here. In this world of yes and no. Yes and also no. I chose this game of being and not being.

I choose it still.

And I have one more question for you. You know what it is. You know.

Do you choose to be here, in this game of yes and no? Do you?