“You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.” – Alan Watts

+++

PODCAST version of Today’s Contemplation: click HERE.

Listen to my song “All Are One” on YouTube by clicking HERE.

My albums and books Mercy Reigns & Listen to Your Heart are available for purchase HERE. Also available on Amazon.

+++

1 Corinthians 12:12

As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.

+++

The mystics and the saints down through the ages all understood what St. Paul states here.

While the world appears to be made up of lots of separation, lots of contrast, lots of this and that, the mystics see those as illusions.

The truth is that it’s all one.

We appear as individual parts, but we are actually parts of one body which St. Paul simply calls Christ.

This is more than the historical Jesus.

Christ is much larger if you will.

It’s the energizing entity that holds all things together.

We come from Oneness and will return to Oneness.

When all is seen and experienced as One there is harmony.

That’s the transformative journey we are meant to have.

In heaven there are no challenges; no obstacles.

In this earthly realm, however, we each get the opportunity to experience separation.

Our egos build whole false selves out of the experience of being set apart from everyone else.

It’s part of the exercise of living a human life on planet Earth.

What Jesus and other enlightened people throughout history wanted us to learn was that we are all actually one.

All seemingly-separate-things are actually in communion.

Bread and wine are one with Jesus’ body and blood.

I remember the first man I prayed with while training for chaplaincy. He was on life support in the ICU of a hospital. His eyes were open but he couldn’t speak due to the breathing apparatus affixed to his face.

As my eyes looked into his, there was a mystical moment – or minute – I can’t recall how long, when I realized he was me and I was him.

There was only Christ.

It was the Mystical Oneness of all Life; the “I AM” in its fullness.

As Jesus said, we must lose our life to find our life (Matthew 16:25).

The ego-generated false self must be let-go-of.

This false self is a necessary part of our human journey, but we cannot get attached to it.

It dissolves at physical death, so we might as well die before we die.

For when we let go of the delusional idea of who we are, our true self appears.

As St. Paul also said in Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”

So, don’t sweat the small stuff, my friends.

You are an eternal being, one with God, and infinitely loved.

Live in that experience.

+++

Listen to the song of the day “All Are One” on the Mercy Reigns album by clicking HERE.

Purchase my albums/CDs and books by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!