XML FeedsAs If In A Daze
Consider for a moment the world to be like an infinite cloud, one in which you’ve been living your entire life, one in which there were no limits and where the cloud never stopped being a cloud. You have had it wrapped around you since the beginning of time. In this cloud people and things have been appearing to you out of nowhere. It was always like that; there never was anything else than this, never anything else but your world.
Over the years you’ve become better at managing your fears, better than you used to, and have come to feel more secure, even though things are not quite as you would have preferred them to be. But anyway, it’s your world, the normal one, the one you’ve grown used to. You’ve made some choices and have created this world in some sense, according to what you needed and to what you thought was right. The things you didn't like appear to be «gone» now. Maybe there were people you didn’t like; they appear to be «gone» now. You would like to keep it this way.
There is nothing wrong with this – necessarily. We have all been there. However, in this world of yours, you may not have considered the possibility that there could be a «somewhere» outside your cloud, and that if you were there, you would see other clouds too, and that you could move back and forth a bit, as you wished. From this point of view, you’ll see your cloud as a cloud and yourself as...well, yourself. You would also find that not everything within your cloud was really ever self-evident or «natural», and that there always were other possibilities too.
Later you’ll also find perhaps that things cannot really be «gone», not truly, and that they don’t simply cease to exist just like that. – Fundamentally things never «happen». It is the same with people: we are not simply «born» and we do not really «die». There's no such thing as time; no past, present or any future. Maybe you’ll realise at some point that all the energy that ever existed and that ever will be is here now. It has always been like that, and profoundly so. Therefore there cannot be any «outside» nor any «inside» either. It just seemed to be like that for a while. Fear loosens its grip on you; the age-old spell is being lifted. There is deep silence where turmoil once was. You are at the threshold of Understanding.
You are almost back to where you started from, but it all feels very different now. It is not your world anymore. You don’t quite know yet what it is, but there’s great freedom in it. –Is it a new beginning? It is beyond words. It is unspeakable.
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The title is from H.C. Andersen's The Ugly Duckling: "At last, too tired to move, he was frozen fast in the ice. Early that morning a farmer came by, and when he saw how things were he went out on the pond, broke away the ice with his wooden shoe, and carried the duckling home to his wife. There the duckling revived, but when the children wished to play with him he thought they meant to hurt him. Terrified, he fluttered into the milk pail, splashing the whole room with milk. The woman shrieked and threw up her hands as he flew into the butter tub, and then in and out of the meal barrel. Imagine what he looked like now! The woman screamed and lashed out at him with the fire tongs. The children tumbled over each other as they tried to catch him, and they laughed and they shouted. Luckily the door was open, and the duckling escaped through it into the bushes, where he lay down, in the newly fallen snow, as if in a daze. But it would be too sad to tell of all the hardships and wretchedness he had to endure during this cruel winter. When the warm sun shone once more, the duckling was still alive among the reeds of the marsh. The larks began to sing again. It was beautiful springtime."
Image from PickPik, Royalty-Free photos. The author writes poetry HERE. [ tinyurl.com/ydedee39 ]
AWIP: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/spiritual-matters/2021/01/15/as-if-in-a-daze
