See God        (face to face)

     Considering that our circumstances, identity, memories, thoughts, and beliefs are all quite personal, and also that these are the things that define our lives, it is hardly surprising that we take life personally. However, if we consider that all of these things are simply our responses to being alive, and none of them can be seen as the life force itself, then we can also see that life really isn’t a personal matter. We just take it that way.

     The old recognition that when you wear shoes the earth is covered in leather, could just as easily be phrased "when you have an ego all of life is personal". But it really isn’t. Life is at the very least a planetary phenomenon that we are part of, not an individual circumstance. What we make of it may be personal, but the fact of it is not.  To see truth, we must transcend the petty and mundane, the personal and particular, the imaginary and believed.

     The “me” that each of us pretends to be on our societal stage is a creation of our own making. The names, numbers, history, preferences, identifications, alliances, and allegiances are all make believe. Together we make them up, and together we believe them. We do exist, and we really are something, but it is not personal and particular. We are never separate from the rest of the universe, except in the workings and agreements of our minds.

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