The Wizard of Oz

   
     We have all been entertained by this enchanting fairytale, I'm sure but the story also has a deeper meaning that we have perhaps overlooked. It is another fairytale that helps to light the way on our voyage of self-discovery. We are here to remember the glory we knew before the world was, to really know the Happy Innocent Child Heart we are. That is the purpose of our fascinating adventure on planet Earth. Our mission is to find the Heart Child we once knew, to test and prove our findings to make sure we have the authentic, legitimate One, just as the scientists do with their experiments. We then are the living proof and we pass on our findings to our world.
        

    It is probably safe to assume that most of us on 'The Path' got to where we are today because we initially had something unpleasant to deal with, something we wanted changed. We wanted our toys fixed. We thought we would find a way to make all our problems disappear. As Dorothy Gale from Kansas, we set out to seek a better life "somewhere where there isn't any trouble". We were living in The Meadow (in Kansas) but we didn't know we were.
 

    We have wandered away from Home and lost our way. "Toto, I think we're not in Kansas anymore!" When we left Kansas we abandoned our Heart, we left our Child Heart Home in The Peace-filled Meadow . We are stuck now in the make-believe space/time world with a pseudo-me who relies on history, conditioning, analyzing, competition and struggle, we have created the sense of duality, the pairs of opposites, the tree of good and evil.

            As portrayed by the brainless Straw Man in search of wisdom, the heartless Tin Man yearning for a heart,  and the cowardly Lion seeking courage, we are suffering from amnesia, we yearn for Light, for our Sweet Heart's gentle pure Love, its infinite wisdom, its courage and strength  and we desperately want to find our way back Home. These three characters also represent the division or separateness experienced by this pseudo-identity. We look outside our Self for what we already are. We are what we see and we would appear to be rather vulnerable without the Heart.
           
    Dorothy is told that the way Home is to 'follow the yellow brick road'. We can never be separated from what we are. The Yellow Brick Road is the shadow that leads directly to the tree and it is a challenging obstacle course, an often-bumpy ride, designed for the purpose of understanding and loving the world we live in. It is the laboratory where we can learn by testing and proving our findings. The images are our grist for the mill. The wicked witch of the west presents images of fear, of loneliness, of lack, disease,
storms, draughts, wars, a myriad of images of powers from outside of ourselves. This is all material for our laboratory. Do we believe what we see, hear, touch and smell? Are these things real? Do they have power? Is there anything beyond my present understanding that can give my life more meaning? Who is this me I see, what is this you I see....and on and on... We learn about who we are by seeing what we are not. Since our essence is Light and that Light is everywhere present, it fills our eyes and we cannot see It because we are It. We see by contrast: turmoil shows us Peace, arrogance delineates humility, ignorance delineates wisdom and so forth. I should say here that when I use the word Image with a capital I, I am referring to my Real True Self, the invisible, everlasting, immortal One that is the Original Image of Its Source, and when I say 'image' I am referring to what you look at in the mirror. Likewise for Light and light. I refer to Light as the Brilliant Still Light/Life/Awareness that is the Source of the light we see and that light is the moving light that we see by contrast. We discover Light by examining light and this light leads back to its source, to Light, the Essence of all that we see.  This is the Light, Awareness that some of us call God. I am the Child/Heart/Image of this Brilliant Still Infinite Light of Awareness. There is no power in the little me/image, the power is ever in Awareness being all that Is. Awareness is the Light, without Awareness there is
no Light.
   
Identity=Awareness=Now=Experience.

If I have $10 million in the bank and I don't know it am I rich or poor?
            Fear appears to us in many forms. If I see sick, poor, lonely, angry, impatience, jealousy, storms, floods, famines, disease, planes falling out of skies, or something out there threatening my well-being...whatever the image, I am seeing the face of fear, the shadow I am afraid of because I cannot see the Real. It is the image I give power to when I cannot see the Light of Truth. Without the eyes of the Heart, my vision is dim, distorted so I start with small steps. I do not try to change anything in my world but I try to
understand it and to love it. The images are my teacher. They are the tools given me on the Yellow Brick Road that allow me to test my glimpses and glimmers of light along the way, to prove them true, then to live by my proven discoveries and to pass on my findings to my world. These images refresh my memory of Home and are the antidote to my amnesia. When I pass on my glimpses and glimmers, more is given me. It is a continuous uninterrupted flow if I don't put up dams of doubt and fear in the way.
     
     My Heart is under lock and key. I am the guardian of the prison, the gatekeeper. I need to open up a way for the imprisoned Splendor to escape. What appears as fear is Love in disguise. The fear comes to unlock the prison of my Heart. This can be a painful process. I may cringe at the first image that comes to frighten me but if I look it squarely in the eye my Brave Heart, will start to shine through and It will 'rise' again into full view. An image of turmoil appears to delineate and cause me to remember the Peace I already
know because I am It. When I see it, I feel it... it is a familiar feeling, I am touching the lost Love of my Heart. I am getting closer to Home.

            We may, for some time, be tricked into thinking that our 'demonstration' is to change the images from bad to good. If we manage to do this we may think we have found The Way, that we are the 'chosen ones'. Our temptation to believe in what we see as the good images is often harder to discern because the 'bad' images get our attention by causing us grief, pain and distress and cannot be ignored. The serpent is the 'good' images because they make us feel comfortable, therefore we want to believe they are Reality. We are tempted to believe that we have found IT if images show us human success, dollars in the bank and so forth. We are often comfortable with our 'little lives' but we are still puzzled by the crazy world 'out there' that would seem to be disintegrating and falling apart. However, the day may come when we discover, much to our chagrin, that these fleeting things are still images, the 'moths that rot and rust...' My world is a reflection of my Heart. It is my own creation, what I see is what I AM so I don't want to settle for a 'hot house orchid' when the real one is just a view away.

            As I face my many challenges I begin to understand the fickle 'images' because I am discovering the Reality of Image, the Child Heart I am. Armed with Truth, the images no longer haunt me. So, we do not resist or try to change images but focus on keeping the Heart ever open and pouring, honouring every feeling, every situation, circumstance and condition, knowing that all of it is not outside the Awareness Being me but that all is to be understood and loved. Power is always and ever in the Awareness. We have been
settling for an impostor thinking we have found the True One. We must be diligent for the Precious Pearl comes at a great price. The Child Heart does not know inequity, period. Images of evil can be our friend and good images are often the real trickster. Let us look again, perhaps the gem we have is only an imitation..
           With perseverance we find Balance. We learn it all line upon line, precept upon precept, little by little. If we wander off the Yellow Brick Road we get temporarily caught up in the dream, analogous to Dorothy, et al falling under a sleeping spell... We dust ourselves off and keep going. We expand our view from seeing ourselves as a little point in time and we gradually see that sphere is all-inclusive, it includes, plane, line and point.     Point is limited to point and cannot see outside of point. Line includes and understands point, plane sees and understands plane, line and point and sphere is all-inclusive. Likewise, the subjective solipsistic view of life includes all, from the agonistic, the atheist to the objective view of religion and metaphysics, it includes all (image within image within image). When we find our subjectivity, our solipsism we find the wings of freedom because from the top of the mountain we can see all views. All that IS IS because
God is being It. We can fly and soar in the Freedom of "I and the Father are One". The government is upon His shoulders.

        The Wizard of Oz was himself a man from Kansas. He plays in the children's playground, in The Meadow.  He is the guru or teacher who points Dorothy in the right direction but he cannot take her there because she has to discern for herself that the wise wizard she sees is her Self.  The Great Oz presents Tin Man, Straw Man and Cowardly Lion with tokens that change their belief, the view of what is that allows the Child to magically appear.   Dorothy wakes up from the dream of separateness by the click of her
ruby slippers. 

           The recognition of the Child is a prerequisite, our ticket into the Meadow. There is no way to get there but to Be there. The belief was the eye opener.  There is no other time and place, It is all Here Now. We can change our view, our experience in the twinkling of an eye, as quickly as Dorothy can click her ruby slippers together!
            Dorothy 'returns' to Kansas with only memories and a bump on her head to show for her trip.  Out of the dream world she sees the Perfect Place that Is, that always was and ever will be.  The wicked witch of the west helped her to face her fears and to see that they have no power because all these images are what they are, the tree's shadow that leads to the tree. Glinda, the good witch, teaches us that there is no Truth, Life to images, whether they appear as good or evil and helps us to touch the Beauty of our Soul. And we know it now "There's no place like Home, there's no place like Home". There is no wall. Heart/Home is not tomorrow for tomorrow is Now and it is not over there somewhere 'over the rainbow' because there is Here. The tree of good and evil opens the Eyes of our Heart and the secrets are revealed. My World is New! There is no place like Home, no place like Home! I live from the Infinite Source/Life, not from man whose
breath is in his nostrils. I am the Light of the world, the Light of Awareness Being All.

"Unless ye become as little children
Ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven"