Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson –
Goodness, I feel like I have been turned inside out, taken apart and put back together again.
Nothing catastrophic had occurred. No accident. In fact, some lovely things have been happening. Our son who lives in France arrived for a visit. That is already a celebration! He and my husband and I did a big, long trip up to an arid game park up in the Kalahari. And I think in a way that set the ball rolling. Just being in those empty spaces. Looking with concentration. Watching for game. All the birds and the raptors new to me. Everything both quietens down and gets loud at the same time. And there is no being busy busy so there is time and space to take note of one’s thoughts, and oh my word, one’s judgements and behaviours.
I enjoy listening to Eckart Tolle and a while ago he did a reading from Accept this Gift: Selections from A Course In Miracles compiled by Frances Vaughan and Roger Walsh. It is maybe more of a distillation than a compilation. Now I had heard about A Course in Miracles but had felt that it was not for me. But I was riveted by the reading and found a copy and started reading it slowly, slowly. Isn’t it so odd, so wonderful how something can turn up when one is able to hear it.
The next message you need is always right where you are.
– Ram Dass –
I had been struggling with being afraid. And denying even to myself that I was struggling. You know my husband has Parkinson’s disease, was diagnosed maybe some 5, 6 years ago and we have both been coping fine but recently he developed sciatica again and this time it was really debilitating and suddenly I was plunged into this vortex of fear and worry and wanting it all to be different. I tell you, those are feelings that will take away your peace and your joy and make your days grey. And I notice and you probably notice too that my husband has the Parkinson’s and I indulge in the angst.
What time but now can truth be recognised.
The present is the only time there is.
– A Course In Miracles –
And that was where A Course In Miracles came in. I KNOW that worry is a nonsense. I know that to be afraid of what might happen is a time-wasting thief that steals today. And I know that not accepting what is, is insanity. I have for the longest time embraced teachings that tell me that. But somehow, I had allowed myself to let go of reality and start living in the land of what if and poor me.
The past is gone,
The future but imagined.
These concerns are but defences
Against present change.
– A Course In Miracles –
I don’t know why these are words I could hear. Maybe it is because they are so direct. So unequivocal. Easy to grasp and keep a hold on. And when I did drift away again into being afraid and cross and self-pitying, they were an anchor that brought me back. And of course, it is that ever wondrous thing, love, that brings us back, that keeps us in what is real. Once I could WANT to love what is, just because it is, I could find my way. Once I could see that what is, is mine, all mine. It has been given to me. If I love it, it makes me happy. I get to decide. Somewhere up in the Kgalagadi I saw and understood yet again that peace has only one home and that is in me.
I am responsible for what I see
I choose the feelings I experience
And I decide upon the goal I would achieve
And everything that seems to happen to me
I ask for and receive as I have asked.
– A Course In Miracles –
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