This life is a Come As You Are Party, and it was at a Course In Miracles Conference in 1993 when I first realized it.
I had gone to my room to take a nap, and was awakened after ten minutes by a powerful urge to go straight down to Tom Carpenter’s workshop.
Tom serves as a channel for Jeshua Ben Joseph, more popularly known in this culture by the nickname “Jesus”.
I was excited! At that time I didn’t often receive what felt like inner direction. I assumed I was going to get some pearls of wisdom at the workshop to assist me in my life.
I walked into the room, and Tom (Jeshua) was fielding questions.
I held my hand high, and he met my eyes immediately.
“Do you have a message for me?” I asked. “I was awakened in the middle of my nap and told to get down here in a jiffy. What am I to receive from you?”
I waited, opening my heart and mind for some pearls to come forth.
Jeshua answered, gently and clearly, “Why do you assume you were guided to come here because you had something to receive? Perhaps you were awakened from sleep because you had something to give.”
His re-frame floored me.
I had been seeing myself as someone who was broken, and on a quest to be successfully repaired. Through the eyes of Truth, Jeshua saw me whole and complete, here on a mission to give my gifts.
He invited me to make a quantum leap: to give up this business of needing to be fixed and, instead, be about my Father’s Business.
Releasing the perception of myself as damaged goods has been a continuing process for me. My ego is so quick to jump in and present evidence in the courtroom of my mind that makes a case for my inadequacies.
When I lend the power of my belief to such self-prosecution, I am motivated to become a seeker, and, like a fish going off on a search for the sea, I journey near and far to fix something that isn’t broken.
The world is full of seekers, people operating from the mistaken premise that there is something wrong with them.
As Swami Beyondananda is fond of saying, “There is a seeker born every minute!”
My seeking has led me to all kinds of teachers, methods, practices, books and workshops. I regret none of these life experiences, for they all have broadened me as a person.
But there came a time when all of them seemed to be saying the same thing: “Give up seeking, start finding. Stop searching for truth, and start living it. Stop fixing yourself, and start giving your gifts.”
The problem with seeing yourself as a seeker is that no one ever comes along and says, “OK, you have officially graduated from the school of seeking. You now are a powerful being, whole and complete, with permission to extend your gifts and uplift the world.”
Or, if someone does say that, you may have gotten so comfortable in the identity of seekerhood that to just believe them and discard the role is too threatening.
But we all will discard it eventually.
The call to awaken is far too compelling to resist forever.
Dr. Donald Epstein, founder of Network Chiropractic, reminds his students to set goals, not for what they want to get in life, but for what they want to give.
When I set my goals and my focus on the gifts I want to give, I magnetize all that I need from the universe to take the next step, and each step after that.
I love watching how life supports those who support life.
I used to believe that I must become perfect, or close to it, before I could offer myself to God and to the world.
Now, although I still have a pesky inner critic occasionally trying to hold me back, I have fired him as my guidance counselor.
I have learned to listen to a wiser and far more loving guide within me.
Now I can say with gusto, “Hey, I am not perfect, and I probably won’t become so in the near future. I choose to give of myself anyway, warts and all. God, use me thoroughly, all of me, including my apparent weaknesses. In fact, let my warts serve as an inspiration so that others might see me and say, “He’s out there sharing his gifts wholeheartedly, and with such obvious imperfections! Maybe it’s time to offer myself wholeheartedly as well.”
It may seem outrageous and maybe even a little arrogant to behold yourself as whole, capable and good enough just as you are, but there is no humility in the comfort of a wheelchair when you have been given the power to walk.
I challenge you, if you have been sitting on your assets, to rise up and walk, dance, serve and give of yourself with all of your heart and soul.
If you are waiting till you are fixed, healed or perfect, you will put it off forever.
If you dare to start living as if there is nothing wrong with you, life will meet your dare and put you to work.
And in doing God’s work, you will be far too busy and happy to spend another moment trying to fix yourself.
We have been napping, you and I, and we have been dreaming a frightening dream. In our nightmare it seemed that we were broken and guilty, and now we are waking up to the truth that we are quite whole and holy beings.
This is the quantum leap, the death of the mythology of original sin and the opening of the gates to a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Please do not wait another moment for permission.
It’s your own consent you have been waiting for.
