"Sparkles" Artwork and Writing by Sandy Jones

Excerpt from

by William Samuel

THE MAGIC OF A SPECIAL PLACE

We should all have a special place. Let me tell you about mine.

Not far away is a rolling hill, a green pasture now, and down those smooth slopes at the bottom lies a square field, corn and cotton in the Summer, vetch and oats to re-kindle the soil in the Winter, surrounded with old, black hardwood posts and rusty wire, wild ivy wrapped around—and honeysuckle, blooming and sweet and droning with bees.

Along the west edge of the field and down to the river stretches a cool forest, not virgin, but many years since it was timbered, filled with shaggybark hickory, pine, scrub oak and those noble sycamores patched with pure white and crowned with thin silver leaves that flutter in the least wind.

My path takes an unnecessary turn from the straight way to pass a special cluster of those soft regals of the woodland. I have a friend among them, an elder statesman that stands a hundred years tall, has seen many an Alabama thunderstorm, and oversees a small opening in the woods marking who knows whose once-upon-a-time patch of melons and greens. If I’m not in a hurry to get down to the river I stop there and sit down and lean back against my sycamore and watch its shadow grow long across the opening while distant birds go soaring in the Summer wind. It is a warm place to dream and turn loose cares and let troubles go winging with the clouds from the south.

Everyone should have such a place when things seem oppressive. Everyone has such a place. Maybe not in a patch of wood along a river bank, but mayhap in the Tennessee hills or the mountains of the West, or a backyard garden or the shady corner of a porch. It may be a special chair alongside an apartment window overlooking a glistening wax-leaf privet and walkway grass, untrimmed and bending in the West wind. But wherever, all of us have a “place” wherein thoughts come forth of an especial feeling quite beyond the usual—clean thoughts of wistful grace and gentle uplift like a sycamore—warm, tender and powerful.

These “places” are not mere locations bound about in finiteness and time. Dear reader, I suspect you already know that they are the manifestations of the Heart’s Secret Place. They are the products of the Within.

This wondrous place of mine with its guardian sycamore is not bound to a dimensional woodland a few miles away. It is here right now, closer than breathing, closer than fingers and toes, a simple second’s silence from seeing and being. It is in the Mind’s eye and I may visit it in a twinkling!

Come with me and I will take you there.

ENDING THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND

“Mr. Samuel, I have been searching for Truth with all my strength, but…”

The struggle to understand is damning. Excessive effort is anathema to Truth. The very one who strives with might and main to crash the gates of comprehension is the one who will NEVER find the feast within.

Crumbs, mayhap. Here a “healing,” there a “demonstration,” line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, but never Wisdom ITSELF. Never Realization ITSELF. The one who struggles will ever be the struggling one. The one who climbs toward Truth will ever be the climber. The one who grits his teeth, juts his jaw or argues is the metaphysical masochist who beats his head against a wall—a self-constructed wall that exists because he would insist that an ignorant identity is his present identity. That pseudo-identity and the wall of ignorance are one.

Listen softly. Listen gently: whatever wig-wagging gyrations the leaf on a tree may perform, it is the tree living the leaf and the leaf is nothing of itself. The tree is the leaf. The leaf needs naught but to be itself—which it is being already in fact, through no prowess of its own.

Listen again: the bud on the bush, closed within itself in darkness may think it is an identity capable of independent action. It may feel it is blooming itself through its own great effort, but when the bud opens into the light of day it looks ‘roundabout with new amazement and declares, “BUSH am I, not bud! BUSH is being all I am. BUSH is this IDENTITY, not bud, not Bill, not Ruby. And bush is being ALL I am. As a bud I am nothing of myself, at all, at all! BUSH am I, neither suffering nor afraid.”

Reader, do you see this? Do you see the wisdom of letting go? Do you see the stifling, self-perpetuating arrogance of viewing oneself as a bud-identity struggling to “break through”? The effort to lift ignorance up to Wisdom merely perpetuates the belief of an identity in need of an uplift. We let go excessive effort. We sit easy. We rest in the already.

My quest for Identity took me many places in the world and I have studied at the feet of many “enlightened” teachers within and without. Each in its own way said the same thing— that “perfection is already spread over the whole face of the land but men perceive it not.” “I have sought Truth all my life, but lo, that that I seek, I am!” “Not with a mighty effort but with gentleness and grace.” “Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Dear reader, for whatever it is worth, I tell you that REALITY, PERFECTION, JOY, HARMONY, the already Isness that the SUPERNAL is, is being the present awareness reading these words. GOD is being the awareness-I-am, this life “we” are. GOD is the responsible one; not you, not me, not us. ISNESS is this AWARENESS being “us” and Isness ALONE is responsible for it.

We begin the break with “mortal mind,” the mis-identification, the “old man,” “the liar from the beginning” when we admit to the empty nothingness of an ego struggling to comprehend the Truth—and acknowledge the allness, the exclusive ABSOLUTENESS of God. There is nothing unenlightened about the awareness reading these words. All there is to ignorance resides in and as a role we play as a taskmaster of awareness, trying to force it to do the taskmaster’s bidding. Only that ignorant taskmaster needs a “breakthrough.” But, as bush is being blossom, so God is being this only Identity. We stop playing the struggling idiot to joy as the wisdom Identity is—already!

LIVING THE TRUTH IS NOT LETHARGIC

There is an experience of direct Enlightenment that reveals the already harmony, perfection and singleness of God, man and the universe.

Every inclination of the human nature is to continue striving for goals, conditioned as it is to believe it must do something to maintain its position.

Every urge within the human breast is to resist the NOW, so it is natural to hear the human charge of lethargy brought down on every statement of an already perfection.

Jesus began his ministry with the statement that the kingdom of heaven was already at hand, but there was nothing lethargic about his life. Everyone who begins to examine and live these principles will find the experience anything but lethargic! See for yourself. New actions, new experiences, new revelations will burst through any fear of lethargy or non-action that you may be harboring still. You will find yourself living a new life of wonder after wonder after wonder. And you will wonder ever after.

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -