topazz28's Blog

Heavenletter #370 Published on: October 30, 2001

When you say that something should be one way or another, you are imposing. Should is a judgment that allows no argument. Where does should come from? It comes from past beliefs. Beliefs are opinions, usually strong opinions. Because you believe doesn't make it so. Your belief has nothing to do with it. Sometimes your belief in your beliefs is like the story of cutting the feet to fit the bed.

You can believe in something all you want, but that does not make it so. I exist, but I do not exist because you believe in Me. I exist because I exist.

The world thought the earth was flat, but that belief did not change the curvature of earth.

Do not try to make the world match your beliefs. That is an attempt at ultimate control.

A belief imposed is a judgment. A judgment is an altercation. It is a denial. It tries to erase what has already transpired. Trying to erase says it was a mistake. It may not have been to your liking, but you do not know enough of life to say it was a mistake.

Some so-called mistakes have been great blessings. Much good can come from what you call mistakes. Is every try that doesn't accomplish what you think it ought — is it not a step?

Be wary of your strong opinions. Why must an opinion be strong? Why must it be a conviction or a long-held belief? Why must your thoughts be like gavels that come down hard?

Why must your toast always be buttered?

Why must all your beliefs be so? What is at stake, do you imagine?

Beliefs come from the past. Beliefs are a holding on from the past. Beliefs are not inviolate. They are not a one-thing only.

Openness comes from the present.

Let in what comes in today. You do not have to buy it all, but you can consider. When you go into a marketplace, you do not condemn the items you don't want to buy. You buy those that make sense to you.

But let Me tell you this: There is no belief you need. Beliefs are not what you need.

Awareness is what you need. Awareness is what I give to you. I do not give you beliefs. If something is true, it doesn't need belief in it. If something is not true, all the belief in the world doesn't make it true. Beliefs are commonly-held world thoughts. Beliefs may not be dependable.

But Truth can be relied on. Truth opens itself. It is not a closed book. Truth, unlike beliefs, does not go only so far. Truth goes to the ends of the earth. What is true is true everywhere.

Do not mix up facts with true. What you call facts are pieces. Truth is always whole.

Beliefs are names for certain ideas, just as you name a certain range of time as yesterday or Wednesday. It is a name. It is not inviolable. In another country, the same frame of reference has another name. But those names serve a universal purpose. No one believes that the name made the fragment of illusory time.

Concepts hardened become beliefs. Do not believe so much in beliefs.

Bringing others to your beliefs — what does that accomplish? Does that confirm you are right? Another person's opinion bolsters yours?

Jesus did not look for bolstering. And he did not try to make people believe. He tried to reveal. He said, "Here God is." He said, "Come out of the darkness, and see what is right before you."

Once you see, you have seen. What you have seen cannot be upturned. Maybe you do not see it today, but you did see it. Can you pretend you did not? And yet you have done that. You have pretended away and submerged your own vision.

Even to see truth and the beauty of truth may seem like a revolution. But truth is not unheard-of. It has been heard of, and it has been seen. You have seen it.

Look for awareness, and not hardened beliefs.

Heavenletter #934 Published on: May 12, 2003

A lapse from greatness is only a lapse. It is not absence from greatness. That greatness has been out of your sight doesn't mean it's not there. That you are disbelieving of the power within you does not mean you don't have it. It means that you have not yet seen or seen well.

And yet you have had glimpses, for you do have a suspicion that what I say is true. There is a shred of doubt in your disbelief. Even 1% of God power is powerful indeed.

You already know that you have been powerful enough to cause pain to others. One curt word from you has been enough to make others quake. You can press down on another's heart or you can lift it. You have the power to make others happy at no cost to yourself. And now you will do more of it. Practice making others happy. If only for a moment, drop hints of happiness. Help others to suspect that there is something eminently worthwhile within them too.

You are powerful enough to be a messenger for Me. Why send small messages when you can just as well send great ones? You don't mind being My messenger, do you? It is a great enough thing to be a delivery person for God. You will not find greater. Be wing-footed Mercury today and wrap My messages around the world.

I dropped a message of love in your heart, and it has been sitting there. When you withhold My messages of love from another, you withhold it from yourself. Why would you do that? Why would you deny yourself one of the great pleasures of the universe?

Just think of it. You are in a position to give light to another's heart. You are a light-bearer. Light is easy to carry and easy to spread. The light in your heart will sparkle another's when you do not keep your light imprisoned. Light is unhappy when it is kept back.

If you feel averse to making another happy, are you averse to giving light its freedom?

The light in your heart is not yours to keep. It is not meant to be stored there. Your heart is a way station. Your heart is a drop-off point. Delivery companies do not wait for people to pick up packages. They deliver. Weighty and bulky are the packages they deliver.

The light that is within you to give weighs nothing and doesn't take up space. And yet, when you deliver it, you feel lightened. Your heart soars. Your head spins with joy. You become less full of thoughts and more full of heart. Has it not been that your head has been over-active and your heart restrained?

Enough of hiding My light within you. I planted light in your heart for a reason. It is not to be saved for a better time. There is no better time. You are a mover of My light. You have had enough time to think about it. Now start moving it.

You are like a diver on a high diving-board. He keeps leaning to jump, but stops himself each time.

You are like a sneeze that is forthcoming but doesn't quite make it.

Be full-blown with light from your heart today. This is not a personal thing I speak of. It is My light within you that is yours to share.

Today you will count hearts. How many hearts can you round up today? Start with your own. Embolden your own heart. Dare to shine My light wherever you go and whatever you see. Let My light fall equally upon the universe of man's heart.

There is not a scale with skepticism on one end and innocence on another. Innocence is not blind. Innocence sees clearly. Skepticism sees from watchful eyes only partially open.

Skepticism is like a tiger ready to pounce.

Innocence is the pure flowing water without debris bobbing on it.

Innocence isn't filtered.

It is its own filter.

Pure light has no need to be filtered.

There is nothing to filter.

Pure light knows no ending. It reaches everywhere. There is nowhere it cannot reach.

Pure light not only reaches you. It also emanates from you.

The pure light within you echoes the pure light of Heaven. Pure light can only reflect itself. When your eyes witness pure light, they witness nothing else. When your eyes witness pure light, there is nothing else to see. When you witness pure light, then you know you are One with your Creator. Light fills. Light cannot separate itself. Light is infinite, and you are Infinite Light, as I am Infinite Light. Infinite is Our Light.

Wherever your body sits at this moment, no matter in what dark dungeon, you are My pure light. And that is all you are. That is the extent of you. But you believe in the location of your body more than you believe in Me.

To have no light would be an awful thing. It would be pointless.

To have light and not know you do — that is worse than pointless. It is ridiculous to waste light.

If you had no light, you would not exist.

Do you exist? Can you say you do not? You, the you I speak to, has never known nonexistence. Sometimes it is hard for you to acknowledge your light because you have never been without it, but you have looked away from it. Now you have to look at your lighted heart. Why do you have to, you might ask. You have to so that you can know who you are. You have to know who you are so you can stand up and announce yourself. You have to introduce your Self to yourself. It does not matter who else knows Who you are. It is enough that you and I do know.

When you know your power, you can use it.

When you don't know your power, you don't use it, the same way you don't turn on a light when you do not know it is there, the same way as when you do not know the royalty of your birth, you don't claim it.

You have to know something.

Start with knowing who you are and what I am and what you are here for on earth. You are here for something. You are not here for nothing.

From on high in Heaven, I see your light flashing. That is what I see from where I am. And that is all I see, your beautiful light. Cannot you see even a little bit of what I see? Imagine that you are I. Come beside Me now. Look from My vantage. See all the beautiful Godlight reflecting back to you. You are the viewer and the reflector of the original Godlight.

There is great love within you that has been repressed. When you hold your fist tight, what gift can your hand give or receive? A fist is a closed hand. And your heart became a fist. Somewhere along the way, your heart closed unto itself rather than opening like the rose of its nature.

You cannot make a rose bloom. You cannot take the petals and force them open. But you can encourage the rose to unfurl and to reveal itself. You can let go of your resistance to the rose's blooming.

Your heart is a rose afraid to stand up straight and to open itself to the sun and the rain.

Your heart has been hidden. Even those of you with so-called big hearts know the truth of your heart that you have denied.

An open heart is a receptor of love as well as a sender. It is not a prover. Remember the reception of love. Love from an open heart doesn't just dash out every which way. Your open heart is the station of love. It beams light and it receives light. How much depends on its openness.

But when a rose blooms, it does not grab onto everything within its reach. It emanates. A rose blooming is simply what it is for all to see. A rose blooms but not for an audience. It has an audience, but that is not the reason for its audition. From where does the will of the rose to bloom come?

The rose of your heart has curled into itself. It has backed away from an audience. It wants to be a secret heart, but it keeps secrets from itself.

Your mind has told the heart to close up, but it is the heart that has to tell the mind to open.

A heart closes because it has listened to the warnings of the intellect.

Your heart is guarded because the intellect tells it to fear damage.

But any damage comes from wariness.

An open heart cannot be hurt. When the heart is truly open, it is a neutral channel, and there is flow. There is only flow. In the closed heart, something can get stuck. A truly open heart is at no risk because of its openness. Openness is safe.

The intellect, however, wants to sink its teeth into the heart. It wants to keep some things out and keep other things in.

But a heart is not a censor. The mind is a censor. The mind is a gate. It is a warden. It is an issuer of passes or a withholder of passages. But the heart of itself is a passage.

The mind weighs the content of the heart. It measures. It allows or disallows. The mind is a clamp on your heart. It gives orders: "Stop! Go! Watch out! Don't get wounded! Look, you're wounded!"

The heart is innocent, but the mind is suspicious.

The mind is meant to reflect the heart. The heart is not to reflect the watchful mind. The mind is to follow the heart, not the other way round. But you have followed the gossip of your intellect, much of which was fed to your intellect by others' words.

At this point, you may say: "Okay, God, you're right. But what do I do now? How do I change the state of affairs? I'm willing, but how do I send the sentries away, and let the rose of my heart bloom?"

And I say to you: "The willingness is enough. That is the signal for the guards to disband. Your willingness comes from your listening to Me. Truly it is not your intellect that listens to Me. It is your heart. You are learning an accepting heart as you let My love, in words or not in words, seep into you. My love calms your intellect and assuages your heart. My love helps your heart to get its signals straight. My love helps the mind to rescind its interference and go back to its own realm."

You have misunderstood the meaning of an open heart. You thought it was foolish. But an open heart is made of truth. And only truth can enter.

An open heart is like a babe's mouth that knows its own taste and spits out what is not to its taste. This is not judgment.

The taste-buds of an open heart accept love, give love, and do not separate the love within a heart into compartments. By its very neutrality, an open heart does not expect nor avert. Truth comes in and stays, and falsehood doesn't.

The true love you seek is within your own heart, and I put it there. An open heart is its own true love.

Open your heart to Me so that I may swim there. Do you not want Me in your heart? Do you not want to be pulled to Heaven? Let Me in. Uncramp your heart, and open it wide to Me.

Heavenletter #827 Published on: January 23, 2003

Your whole life is in service to Me. You lay your life out before Me. Your life is like a prayer or a thanksgiving. You are beautiful to behold. Your Human life is but a ringing out of love or a wringing out of hands, love recognized or love overlooked. One way or another, your life is woven across the universe. Your life is My tribute to you, and now make it your tribute to Me.

Remember Whom you are on earth for. What else need I remind you of but that. How excellent are We in Our love! We serve one another, and so We make earth Heaven. That is how. That is Our graciousness. The grace of God and the grace of you. The grace of you is My grace. Bestow it.

I operate on many levels, and so do you. The circumference of you is far greater than the girth of your waist. It is far greater than the waves of your brain. The waves of your heart are another matter. They encompass everything. That is how you are immeasurable. You who are dimensionless nevertheless exist in many dimensions. You exist everywhere. There is no end to your heart and no end to your domain.

Yet you think you are bogged down in life. You think there is an extent of you, that you are boarded up. Because you were plunked down on earth, you think that earth is all there is or all that life is about. But your life on earth is an infinitesimal part of your life. Even while on earth, you are not limited to earth. You go farther a-field than earth. You reach all the way to Heaven.

Heaven is not far from you. It is part of your sphere. Heaven is right in the center of your heart. Heaven has been objectified, but it is the Great Kingdom within. There is really nothing else but within. Within is the extent of you, and within is limitless.

This is not imagination I speak of. The truth of you may be unimagined, but it is not dependent upon what you imagine or what you think you know.

Pound your heart because it has been impounded. Pound your heart so you begin to know the threshold of your existence. Pound your heart so that you know it is there, beating a rhythm so universal and so beautiful yet, incredibly, often mislaid or forgotten. Remember the beat of your heart.

I set the rhythm of your heart. I set it to go with Mine. My heart is not physical. My heart is love, and your heart is too. Your heart has been set to go off. Any minute your heart is going to start its journey of giving love, and that is the same as your journey Heavenward. Your heart is your point of departure and your greeting as you reach Home as well.

You are ready to journey to the inner chambers of your heart. You are ready to acknowledge realms in your heart you have never acknowledged before. This is your greatest journey, the heart within. And how close you are. Put your hand over your heart and listen to it. Recognize its beauty. Despite what you may think, your heart is not bedraggled. Your heart is eternally young. Innocent is your heart. Innocence is the treasure of your heart. Your mind learns and holds many things. But your heart adheres love, and that is what your heart is for. Let the love in your heart beat to the rhythm of Mine to your heart's content.

Heavenletter #628 Published on: July 9, 2002

The beauty you see outside your window is your own. You can interpret My statement here any way you want, and you will be correct. The beauty belongs to you. It is there for you to imbibe. The beauty offers itself to you. And you are also the beauty that you see. You are seeing yourself in the foliage. You created it there, outside your window.

Create more beauty with your thoughts. Do not relegate yourself any longer to mundane thoughts — what does something cost, how will I get everything done, what is happening to the world, will I ever be truly happy.

Do you see the distaff in those thoughts? There seems to be an element of no. Come from a more assertive stance.

Think this way: "Oh, how much I desire this! It is important to me. The truth of my desire brings the means… I am moving forward today. God says all is well with the world. What does He have in mind? Surely something wonderful is in store for me today, and I will know true happiness. I wonder what form my happiness will take today. What wonders will God perform, and what wonders will I accept? What are my privileges today, and where will I scatter touches of God's grace?"

When you look outside your window and see the trees and other plantings, you see a wholeness. You glance at perfection. You do not turn over every leaf to look for imperfection. You see greenery, and you see leaf on top of leaf, and you see waves of color and light peeking through, and when you look high enough, you see the sky above. It is like you soak in the beauty, and so you own it.

But when your view is of people walking past, you tend to see in an individuated manner. You see this one, you see that. This one pleases. That one doesn't. You have lost the wholeness by looking at the particular, and yet the Humanness that goes past your window is also Nature's beauty. And yet you look to be displeased. Can you tell Me that that is not so?

Today look at the people passing through your life as an arbor of trees. You do not analyze the trees. You look at the beauty of the wholeness. You anticipate being pleased. You look for the pleasing.

No matter how much you have seen the trees, each time they enliven your heart. The beauty doesn't pale because you have seen it many times before. Every time it is new to your heart. Every time.

Oh, if only My beautiful children would continue to see the beauty in all the passing throng. How can it be that the beauty of My greatest creation is so often forgotten?

The people of the world are like the trees of the forest. Human beings grow, and each variety is precious. All yearn to reach the sun. All are growing toward the sun. Not one Human being grows down, whatever it may seem to you. Each grows Heavenward. I would like you to see the wholeness of My children more clearly. Perhaps if you would look for it — do you think that then you would find it easier to experience? So I ask, What have you been looking for? What are you looking for?

Start looking to be pleased. Look up at each being who enters your vision with new eyes. Let your heart rise up, and enjoy the wholeness.

And, if you cannot see the wholeness in another, then offer them yours. Let your wholeness overtake theirs. Wrap them in your wholeness so that they will know their own. This is My trust I have placed in you.

Heavenletter #961 Published on: June 9, 2003

Consider that today is like a map you unfold. You open it up and you look at it and see where you are traveling. But the day itself is not a preview. It is the actual route you travel on. There is no definitive map. All days are for you to travel on without precision.

Look at days the way I suggest you look at people. They are not for comparisons. One is not better than another. One may have more appeal than another, but each day is its own day. Greet all days genially.

There can be many turns and surprises in your day. Your days are not foregone conclusions. Days are wide open.

Be you open as well. Be open to where the road of today takes you.

Walk lively on it.

In your garden, you do not try to make red roses yellow. You savor one as much as the other. And if you happen to adore one more than the other, you know it is only a game you play in your mind.

But the play of your life, you take very seriously. You take yourself very seriously. Is that not so?

You have My permission to smile a little. You have My permission to smile a lot. Smile at yourself and how vehement you are about life, how you vent on it, how perturbed you get with it.

Nothing is the day's fault.

Days are not meant to please nor displease. That is not what they are there for. They are for you to sail on.

Rough sea or smooth sea, you are the sailor.

Furthermore, you are the captain. But you are not the controller of the winds nor the tide. You are not at the mercy of them either. You are a companion. The winds and the tides have advantages for you. They wake you up. They are not meant to always lull you.

No one knows what tomorrow brings. And few know the treasures today has brought. You may not have opened them. You may have put them aside, or away. You may never want to open them. You may want to resist them, ignore them, refuse them. Regardless, a day holds treasures for you.

The worst day still has a glimmer.

Days of themselves are benign. They are impartial. It is you who is partial to some and not to others.

It is not the day that you are to make something of. It is yourself. What dial do you set?

Be magnanimous to your day. Pour blessings upon it. Each detail of the day is a particle of life given to you. You chug along on bits and pieces of your day.

Days segment your life, but truly they are a flow of wholeness. Remember wholeness. Remember your wholeness.

Wholeness walks on wholeness, yet you have seen yourself as the jerky motions of a stuck movie-reel.

You are part of a parade of life. Step right up to it. Move along. Enter your lifestream, and keep flowing in it. You are not a minnow. You are a whale. You are more than a whale. You are a whale and the stream and all that transpires and all that does not. There is no expiration date on you. Grab where you are, and keep going. Remember Who made you, and remember what you are created of, and remember what you are for.

Surge forward in the daily-ness of your life. Hold on to the banister of love. It will lead you. It will take you everywhere in the created and uncreated universe you wish to go. Keep step with your day.

Heavenletter #331 Published on: September 25, 2001

You do not know what path you are following. You do not really know that you are following a path. You think you just stumble along, not really knowing where you are going. That is better than thinking you know exactly which way to go.

The path in life you follow is trust.

Trust in Me, and you will have more trust in yourself.

You do not have to grope in the dark.

You can trust that I lead you.

You can walk with confidence even in the dark.

Pick up your feet is all. That is all you have to do.

Keep going. Keep going forward.

I have given you a rope. It is Our golden connection. It is a sure thing.

I pull, and you follow. I give you lots of latitude. It is called freedom. Nevertheless, I urge you forward. I entice you. You want more knowing, and you want more freedom. You are free to come to Heaven whenever you wish and whichever way you wish. You can make it harder or easier.

It doesn't have to be hard, your stalwart journey to Me. Don't be in such a hurry. Consider your life a meal you eat. Don't rush through it. Don't try to get up from the table too soon. Be easy with your meal. Eat all the courses, and enjoy each one for what it is.

You do not try to make the entrée dessert. You do not try to make dessert the main dish. Be happy with what is put before you.

Your outcome is assured, so why then do you rush so? And where do you rush to?

I am right where you are. I am looking over your shoulder right now. I am right with you at every moment. Feel My presence. It is a loving presence, is it not?

When you let your sense of presence supercede the events around you, then your presence and Mine are alike. They set the same tone. Then you become the Listener. You become the Exuder of Love. All it takes is to let the outer noise fade a while, and set your heart to My station, which is clear and has no static.

Static does not come from Me. My voice is as clear as a bell. In the midst of anything, you can hear it. You just have to tune Me in. You don't have to tune everything else out. Just turn in My direction, and I will set your antenna.

So today We are talking about direction, the direction you go in, and the direction you set your ear and heart to.

Somehow you think there is something hard about following Me when it is the easiest thing in the world.

All your life you have followed something. You have followed world thought, or you have followed an individual, as if they knew the way for you.

But now you can walk directly to Me and let Me take you by the hand. I will gather you into My heart and keep you close to Me. Your awareness will unfold, and you will know where you are and what the purpose of your being is.

Be with Me.

Stay with Me a while.

Keep Me company.

Treasure Me. Keep Me with you. Hold Me in your heart.

Run away with Me. Let's elope, you and I. Let's fly to Heaven. Wherever your feet are, you can stay with Me in Heaven. In other words, you can knowingly place yourself in the center of My heart and stay there no matter where else you find yourself.

Once you have found Me, found Me in your awareness, you cannot lose Me. I am irrevocable. I am irrevocably yours. You and I are One.

Let Us identify what it means to be in truth.

Let Us identify what it does not mean. It does not mean to tell someone that you don't like the way they dress or part their hair. It is not reforming the world nor expressing your thoughts or preferences at every moment as they occur to you. We are talking about YOUR truth, not what you think about whatever has been going on here and there.

When you are fully established in your truth, when you are fully in it, there will be no need to think about it or find out what it is. You will be there. When you are in that state of awareness called love, you are in your truth. You are not fully there yet. You are closer, but not all the way. Meanwhile, let's find out what brings out that love deep within you and that tells you more about yourself.

As a sovereign self, whirling about in the universe, it behooves you to know what is going on with you. It behooves you to know what is original with you, which thoughts are yours, which have been adopted, and where your heart innocently lies and where it does not, not as analysis, but as a sinking in.

Your truth could be to follow the common sentiments. It could be. But most likely not. Most likely you are a maverick who has not noticed yourself yet. What does your heart like of itself? What makes it happy? Perhaps not all the things you thought, because your heart right now feels errant from itself. Become acquainted with your heart and what it tells you.

We are talking about the inner truth you make yourself aware of. What kind of a creature are you? Who are you when ego is not at play, when conforming is not at play, when truth is the focus and not presentation? Not what is your role in life, not what is your place exactly, but where you are right now in your heart of hearts?

When you are in your truth, there is great calmness. In your truth, you make great peace with yourself. There is no effort when you are in your truth. When you are in your truth, there are no secrets. You do not hide yourself. You do not put a face to the world. You put yourself.

You do not run away from the world. You meet it.

Before you answer a question, you think a moment about what your answer really is. Your answer may not be what it always was. You may have no answer. You may have only question.

No matter how far away from your inner truth you may have been, swing around to it now.

This is not a revolt. This is not abandoning anything and striking out. It is simply noting yourself and going on from there. It is simply picking yourself up now. And, as much as you are able, reflecting light, with thought only of noting where your heart is right now and giving it its due.

This doesn't mean to never do what you don't like, but it does mean not to get in the habit of it. It means not to go so much by protocol, or at least to know when you are.

When you take a bath, for example, take it not because you must, not because it is expected of you, but take it for the pure joy of water, for the pure joy of a few moments splashing about, being you, enjoying the moments of you in a tub. Enjoy you.

Even when you wake in the morning, you have a tendency to carry the night with you. If you did not sleep well, you say, "I had a bad night."

Here you are, now awake to the day, and you carry nightshade with you.

The night is over. Let go of the night. Greet the day. Call its wondrousness to you.

Last night was last night. Do not make it linger. Take care of this minute of today.

You tend to live in memories. If last night did not please you, why do you harbor it?

And if you slept wonderfully last night, why cling to that? Memories, short or large, recent or long ago, are nothing but old thoughts. You cannot carry everything with you.

Memories are a possession. Don't let them crowd out the discoveries of today.

You are a voyager, so pay attention to the voyage you are on right now. No one voyage is the sum of your life. No battle is the epitome. Life is what is before you, yet unchanneled, yet undetailed, yet unspoken, yet unheard, yet unwritten, all new.

That is a favor, you know. It is not a favor to hold onto thoughts that go nowhere. Where can a former event go but into the memory bank?

What has transpired may or may not have left its mark, but you cannot make it mark you anew. The mark it made is not the big thing. You do not need to keep your attention on the mark. Your life itself is the big thing.

There is a tendency to mark lines on your life. Better to live it. Your life is a flow, and you cannot hold the waves to you and make them stay in place. A captured wave is no longer a wave.

Life is a passage, and you cannot cage it. Move on, move on.

When you let go of the past, the crests and the troughs, you have new energy. The past is stale energy. Better to unloose yourself from the past. Crest or trough, anchoring yourself in the past will keep you back from rising higher.

Your life is instrumental. It is important to Me.

If your life is music, you cannot continually play or yearn for the last note. You go on to the next.

If you are a composer, today you arrange notes in another way. What opportunities for infinite combinations are at your fingertips.

Do not stem the tide of life with memories or predictions. Old thought or predicted thought, it is vagrant. Leap to the future of this moment.

Your thoughts are often like condolences, and condolences last only so long.

You do not need to console yourself with thoughts from the past or wishes for later. What consolation do you think you require?

If you wrote the past in blue ink, you can now choose green, or orange. All the colors of the rainbow still exist. Choose anew. Every day, choose anew.

So what if the past gets lost? That is better than your getting lost in the past. Anyway, the past is not misplaced. The past belongs in the past.

You do not need to keep such good records. Records of your life are not your life. Plans of your life are not your life. Records are records, and plans are plans, but they are not life.

Consider your life a bagel, and bite into it today. Old photographs are not better than the ones taken today. Your life is still here. You walk through your life today. Make fond memories today. And if you cannot make them for yourself today, then make them for another.

You are not here for yourself alone. And you are not here for yesterday or tomorrow. You are ever-present today. Enjoin this day, and write it on the sky.

When you attach another to yourself, you have attached yourself to them. Attachment is a clinging, and when you cling to something else, you are clung to it. You give up something of yourself when you attach to something or someone. It is never worth it. Attachment is never cost-effective. You give too much or take too much, and you lose yourself.

Connect yourself 100% with Me, and then you cast love on others but do not adhere nor be adhered to. Meld into Me, not to any other. No one has the capability to give and accept love as I do. Furthermore, I offer My love so that you may give it to others also. My love doesn't end anywhere. It stops everywhere; it stays everywhere, but it doesn't stop in one place as a finished object left to stay there.

Blood flows. Is blood the same contained in a closed-in vial? Does it nourish life in a container? The answer is no.

And so, love that sticks itself somewhere and adheres as though that somewhere were life itself, loses its vitality.

Neither attach to others nor allow others to attach to you.

Attaching comes from a perceived need, perhaps that you are not enough, and you need more, or more substantiation. The truth is that power supreme runs through you, and attaching to anything makes you — and them — weaker, not stronger.

Perhaps you don't know the difference between strength and weakness.

Do not misunderstand. It is not strength that says, "I can do it all myself." That is weakness masked as strength. But strength is knowing from where help does indeed come.

Attach to Me because that is giving yourself freedom from attachment. Attaching to Me is aligning with Me. You follow where I go as I hold you in My vast love, and that is your strength, and that is your freedom. My love is your freedom.

There is no love without freedom.

Love cannot be contained in small objects.

Yet it is contained everywhere. It is the content of everything. It is the content of you.

When you have a dear butterfly who alights near you of its own free will, why would you catch it in a net? And if the butterfly wants to fly off without your immediate presence going along with it, why would you protest? Why would you mark boundaries for those you love? Why would you inhibit love?

Remember that you attach to ideas. Attachment itself is an idea. And most of your ideas are mistaken. They are mistaken for something other than an idea. They are mistaken as rights or virtues or debts or demands or penalties, all of which are also only ideas. But you think these general ideas of the world justify your personal illusions. You think perhaps your ideas support your personal denialship.

Know that when you have attachment, you also have denial.

But do not wrack your brains over these matters.

Simply turn your attention to Me.

Ask Me to remove justification and illusion and denial from you.

Ask Me to polish your clear awareness.

Ask Me to bathe you in My light.

They are pretty much the same. Clear awareness, My light, and absence of justification, illusion, and denial.

My light will remove anything that is less than My light. All impurity vanishes in My light. My light does not block anything. My light opens everything. My light does not merely light up your whereabouts. When My light shines on you, it takes you somewhere. My light lifts you up to where you can see yourself aglow in My light. When you are in My light, what can you see but My light? What is there to see but My light?

You have aspired to too little.

Aspire to more.

Aspire to everything that God gives you in the light of His love.

Aspire to My holdings.

Aspire to My light and My vision, and then you are everything. You are everything holy. All I have made is holy. And I have made everything. And all I have made is Light.

All help comes from Me. I am the Source of Help. No matter by what route, no matter through whose hands, all the love and wisdom and goodness that you receive come from Me. I am the Giver. And you receive. Many hands and hearts pass Me along to you, yet all love originates with Me, from Me, and, actually, back to Me. That is the long and the short of it.

Now that I have said that all the good that comes to you is from Me, you may ask if I take responsibility for the not so good that seems to come your way or whether I shirk responsibility for that. Certainly, I Who am the core of you, am responsible for free will. But free will puts responsibility on you. You are My responsibility. What you do is yours. I am telling you how it is.

Many hands and hearts spread My love. That is their choice. It is also their responsibility. They move their hands with love. That is My Will, yet it is their choice.

I have given you all the sweetness in the world, and it is yours to do with as you will. I have given you all the ingredients, and you are the candy-maker. You can make candy hard or soft. Hot or cold. You can make candy just as sweet as the original, or you can withhold and make it less sweet. You can alter it. You can disguise it. You can add a bitter taste to it. You can make sweet sour. You can bury it. You can store it somewhere. But you cannot evade sweetness forever.

You may feel that I have set you up. I give you sweetness and yet I seem to have made all the other tastes readily available to you. And then I have the nerve to tell you that only sweetness is true and that all the other tastes are illusion. You say that I may not have actually put the other tastes into your hands or mouths, but I laid them out where you could reach them, and that I am, therefore, responsible. Okay, let's say I take the responsibility. What then? Where does that leave you? Will you pout, or will you move forward in life?

Perhaps what temptation amounts to: instead of reaching for the sweet, you reach for the not-so-sweet. You take it as a sugar-substitute or some kind of erroneous compensation. In any case, you delude yourself that it's just as good, or better, or more thrilling, or more evident.

Yet I will tell you that there is nothing more thrilling or sweeter than love. There is nothing to compare it to. Whether you are the giver or receiver of My love at any particular moment, nothing equals it. Nothing comes close. Only love equals itself.

So why, I ask, would anyone give anything else? Why, I ask, would anyone accept anything else? Of all the treasures in the universe, what can possibly compare to the love of God and, therefore, to the love of man? Love is the original. Love is it. Love is all.

When love is malformed, it is called hate or anger and other things. When love is twisted, it is called many things as well. When love is cut, denied, abdicated, smashed, shackled, forgotten, there are also other names for it.

Come, fight no longer. Surrender to love.

Heavenletter #188 Published on: May 5, 2001

How long you have searched for the love of your life! The lengths you have gone to! The time you have spent. All the effort, all the primping, all the book-reading, all the advice, all the attention you have put on finding a man or a woman who will sustain your heart forever. And some of you succeeded, and more of you did not.

It is much easier to find Me, and I am, in truth, the love of your life. Do not belittle Our relationship. I am not a second best. I am not when all else has failed. I am not second string. Have your Human loves, and be faithful to Me. Live life on Earth, and soar in Heaven.

We are compatible. All of Human life is compatible with Me.

Look, We are One. There is One Sun, but many rays of it. You are one ray. You are one of My rays. And you are equal to all others. Some shine on the east and some in the west or the north or south, and sometimes you are all-directioned. You radiate Me to and fro your Human loves.

Your love is like the rays of the Sun emitted by the Sun. You are a ray of the Sun, and the rays of the Sun, the light of love you shine, are Mine, for I am the Sun and you are My rays of it.

It is not that you have to love Me. It is that you have to accept My love so that you can beam it. It is My love you shine. The more you accept My light, the more you shine. The more you shine, the more you are in accord with My Will, for My Will is for My love to shine and to shine everywhere through you.

You have thought that you were always seeking love, to give it and receive it, but the truth is you have been afraid of it. You have had a sense that love really was foreign to your nature, as if it were a hat you picked up somewhere and put on and wore as a thief or imposter, when all the while the hat was truly yours — you were the hat! for love is your nature. Love is your nature. Love is the essence of you. Don't deny it.

When you are in your truth, you are love. When you are away from love, you are not in your truth. With or without love, an act may appear the same. Love doesn't mean acquiescence. It doesn't mean passion. It doesn't mean sacrifice. It doesn't mean absence of self. It means Self.

On a bad day, you will say you are not yourself. Never were truer words spoken. When you are out of sorts, you are out of your truth. That is what makes you so uncomfortable. You feel awry because you have distanced yourself from the love that you truly are. You can never be unlove. You can be distraught, however. Distraught means distracted. You actually are quite skilled at distracting yourself from the true love that you are, and therefore from My love. You cannot undo My love or yours, but you can distract yourself. You do distract yourself. And when you distract yourself, you distract others as well. When you are distracted, you are not seeing. You are seeing something that isn't there. And then everyone else seems to see what you think you see.

Be My light rays. You already are. Let My light radiate from you. Do not frown. Frowning blinds you to yourself. Let yourself shine My beautiful light in all its glory.

Heavenletter #871 Published on: March 9, 2003

When you feel embroiled in the world and susceptible to it, overrun by it, unbearably sensitive to it, then ease your heart by stepping outside your life a little. In your mind, take yourself out of the arena. Instead of being the main character in your novel, be a narrator who is not so involved in it. A narrator stands back a little. He is not centered on himself. He is interested in the story and the unfolding of it. He has impressions of it. He sees from a certain vantage. He is there, but he is an audience. He cares but is at a distance from the page.

It is like this: When you bet on a race, you are exceedingly involved in the outcome of the race. You have added an investure to it, and so it is more significant than another race another day. You have made it crucial when it is only another race.

Today, or whenever you feel overcome by life, release your investment. Observe. Watch the story as it unfolds. Let life become like an envelope you open to see what is inside. It is only an envelope with something written inside it. Perhaps an unwanted bill. Perhaps a check. Perhaps a Dear John letter. Perhaps an invitation. But you are you after reading the letter as well as before it. What has really happened? Are you different?

Or you have banked on a certain letter, and no letter has come, and so you feel empty-handed and empty-hearted.

Become like a banker who is not spending his own money.

Be like a reporter rather than the foot soldier he reports on.

Life, as it is lived, is communication.

Not all the messages you receive are about you.

Be like an actor on a stage who has a bit part. You are on the stage for just a moment. For the sake of the play and the rest of the cast, you give this moment all you've got, but you know it's only a part, and you do not take it overmuch to heart, for you also know you are the audience who watches the play and then walks away.

Your life is not at stake. Your life is not indemnified. Your life is a climate. Seasons change. Today is only one temperature. Today's breeze is a passing one. You may feel hot or cold, happy or sad, but those are passing things. Do not take passing things overmuch to heart.

There is a tendency to think that every day is a verdict on you. But life is not a court case. You are not on the stand.

Consider life more like a casual thing. Consider it more like your puttering around.

What makes you happy? Do that today.

Do something today that you have not done in a long time. Or have never done and would like to. Let this day called today be one in which you offer yourself the gift of nourishing your heart. If it means staying in bed and reading a book, so be it. If it means walking in the woods, go for it. What could this day mean to you if you allowed it to be a gift to yourself?

And if this is a workday, and you feel you cannot take the day off, then make this workday what you would like it to be. Go to work as though this is your first day.

If you want this day to be new, have new thoughts. Surprise yourself.

Try looking forward.

Take a different path to work.

Enter a different door.

Greet everyone.

Treat yourself to today.

Watch it unfold.

Heavenletter #322 Published on: September 16, 2001

How can a heart that longs for truth yet be cruel? Cruelty has lengths, but you have all touched it even if only in thought. Why does cruelty so consume your mind? Why does an ill-advised action of another consume you? Why does your belief in evil on Earth make you doubt Me? Doubt the cruelty instead. It is an aberration. It is an insult to My love. But dwell on My love and not the insult of the world. The more you dwell on My love — the more you immerse yourself in My love — the less cruelty will manifest anywhere.

My children have made an altar of cruelty. They exalt it in the newspapers. They set up courts for it. All the attention on it perpetrates it. And yet I exist.

The thought of legalized cruelty undoes you. The thought of mass cruelty makes you weak. Think, instead, of the goodness that reigns even amid the cruelness of man. Heroes are born there. Heroes come out of there. Kindness even in the midst of cruelty shines, for light reveals itself more brightly against the dark.

I am not an endorser of cruelty. I make no excuses for it. But I gave My children free choice. I cannot deny them it. Free choice does not mean only the choices I would make. It does not mean only the choices you would make.

More love has to be perpetuated upon the Earth. I give My All, but I do not interfere. I prevail. One pound of cruelty does not touch one ounce of My love. A ton of cruelty does not touch one gram of My love.

You do not know what anything is for. You do not know what anything does.

The reverse of cruelty would be love. It is a distaff side of love that would be cruel. Cruelty is an attention, and in all attention is love. Love, distorted as it may be, can be twisted into a cruel form of love.

Love begets love. Cruelty begets cruelty. Attention on love begets love. Attention on cruelty begets cruelty. Make more of love and less of anything less. Note the love that glows even in the midst of cruelty. Consign yourself to the love of God and man, and not the cruelty that separates My children in the world.

Sew the seams together rather than bewailing the split. You do not have to shake your fist at the cruelty. You do not have to pretend it does not exist, but your thoughts about it give it honor. You put it in the limelight. Do you have to?

Great mercy can step on the ashes of cruelty. Be merciful even to the cruel. Be merciful even to mass cruelty. Forgive yourself for your nether thoughts of it. Do not wring every drop of cruelty out of the remembrance. There is no need to prove that cruelty plays itself out in the world.

How you think and what you think about matter to the world.

Your mind can never understand man's inhumanity to man. It is not understandable. Man's search for power is not understandable. That man would deem weakness power is absurd, but what man of strength would have to be cruel to another?

The problems of the world are not yours to solve. Problems are not solved on the surface of life. Be the love you are. Exercise your heart. Contribute your love. Dismay and abhorence do not nourish the world.

Love triumphs over all adversity. Remember the beauty of life. Remember goodness and mercy. Remember that you are a congregation of My love. More will join you.