NOTES FROM LOLLYGOG

By William Samuel--- December 1968

AWARENESS, LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS ARE ONE

A monumentally helpful point for us to "get straight" is the simple, basic and very gentle fact that awareness-consciousness-is God's action not the personal tool of an ego. In our work here, awareness, consciousness and life (Life) are synonymous terms. Awareness is the action of God, the activity of Mind, the life that God is. Indeed, the consciousness presently reading these words, that perceives the Winter scene outside, that hears the rustle of pots and pans in the kitchen and gathers in the evergreen thoughts and feeling of the coming season, is the living that God is, the awareness that Mind is, the all and only perceiving of Deity going on. This consciousness right here and now is the life divine that never ends-the awareness of God.

There are not two awarenesses, one that belongs to Bill, Liz, Lynn or world, and another somewhere afar off, marvelous and mysterious, that belongs to God. All there is to "mortal mind" is the now-to-be-discarded notion that the consciousness reading this essay belongs to a finite personality with a responsibility for "his" experience. Consciousness, awareness, "seeing", "perceiving"-or whatever else it may have been called-is God's responsibility and God's consciousness in action.

Conscious of what? Of all three is to be conscious of: the infinity of all that God, Reality, is. This life we are is God's own Self-appraisal, God's Self-seeing, Self-knowing, Self-being.

Reader, listen softly: Awareness and life are one. Relax for a moment and admit the simple, gentle Fact that All is all, hence the consciousness that even now surveys this printed page is the goal of the sages from time immemorial, the living that God is, the Life Divine that nether begin nor ends. See this! Comprehend this! Admit this. Rest here and find the old fears vanishing like the morning mist before the sunshine.

Our heritage is the life that God is. Who could want more? Who needs more? What a delight to discover that this seeing, this hearing, this feeling, this visioning, this listening, this delighting Here and Now is the all and only action of God being God.

What can happen to this consciousness, the life-I am, the awareness I am? Naught but what can happen to God. And what can happen to Singleness, Omnipotence, Purity, and Perfection? Nothing, nothing! I tell you the seeing of these words is God's Eternal Self-witnessing in action, already here, already now. No wait. No struggle. No suffering. No testing or waiting through the pendulum's dark swing in order to find a measure of relief at that other end. The struggle has only to do with the fruitful but not necessarily easy, task of letting go the old view of oneself as the possessor of Life, as the grand custodian and manipulator of experience.

Example: Look outside at the sleeping tree there. Who sees the tree? Bill or Deity? Does a body do the seeing or does Awareness, Consciousness, Life see it? What sees the tree? Consciousness?-or a body-centered custodian of consciousness? Where is the tree? 57 feet 6 inches removed from a body-oriented big wheel container of awareness, a judge who likes or dislikes what he sees?-or is the tree within awareness? Is the seeing of the tree the activity of a separate-from-the-things-I-see recipient-of-life, a so-many-year old male or female, a pump filled organism who looks out through bloodshot eyes and answers to the name of Bill?-or could it be that it is Deity being the "seeing"? Indeed, isn't it just possible that Isness, Reality, God, is the seer "seeing" and being the seen? Could we be Life Itself rather than the recipient of it? Indeed we can! We are!

But lordy, lordy, what this does to the old theological concept of a bestowing God. What this does to the old theological view of a man born in sin, a recipient of Life-or to the oft expressed metaphysical view that Self-ignorance, via its own effort, must lift itself up to Wisdom. We awaken to find the great gulf twixt God and man has gone. God is no longer remote. We are no longer a fawning, cringing recipient of Life worshiping a non-existent Bestower. This life right here is It. This living, this seeing, this being is the It that God is Being. "Closer than breathing", even as the prophet said.

Reader, there is nothing difficult nor abstruse about this view of the universe. We shall all grow into such a view-the world shall-and it is coming rapidly. It comes gently and easily if we lower the walls and relinquish the old concept. It comes with a wall cracking, bud bursting blast if we insist on continuing with the wall building ego role of yore-a role that may seem personally delightful but has been a near-fiction from the first: a role apparently calculated only to give us the present wherewithal to speak with authority and be effectively about Father's business of removing the restrictions and tending the New Garden that Now is.

We awaken with joy to find that it really has been the Father's pleasure to give the kingdom to us. We find Mind's action of Self-appraisal to be our Identity. Mind knows Itself as Itself, and this life we are is that knowing going on!

"Seest thou this?" If so, it is time to "be'sest us this" and begin to live the Millennium it is our heritage to be.

ECCLESIASTICISM AND IDENTITY

During the final days already in progress the dissolution of all that stands between ourselves and a full knowledge of the Truth will come. The Light is already here. New ideas are coming into common focus and old landmarks are being taken away. Cherished notions, oft the pillars of society, are crumbling with the shifting sand they stand on.

Everything that appears to hold mankind in bondage will finally give way. Freedom will out. The New Light is irresistible because it is God's Light, God's Self-appraisal, God's Self-revelation going on, and already the only real fact.

As usual, the very institutions whose first purpose was to tend the New Vine of Life as it broke forth into the garden are now busily trying to confine that infinite vine to their narrow plots, pruning every new limb and burning every seed the vine produces. Even as in days of yore, ecclesiastical pomposity would attempt to regulate and administer the Light rather than be the Light-and like dogs in the manger, neither eat the oats nor let the oxen eat. Those who would labor for love of the Vine, rather than for the plot within which it grows, oft find themselves alienated by the body of laws developed through the years to regulate the conduct of the gardeners-the Vine itself having long been lost sight of by the walls of human regulation and the caretakers of the plot. However, as appearances go, those walls are coming down, too, cracked asunder by the same Vine they would hold to a 5000, 2000, or 60 year old position.

In lighter vein, all of this reminds me of the palatial house filled with church officials who were constantly giving their poor gardener the devil. Half of them objected when the gardener turned the water sprinkler on the other half objected when he turned it off. Furthermore, those who wanted him to turn it on objected to the way he did it and those who did not want him to turn it on objected to the way he didn't do it.

All the while, the poor gardener-and the disorganized neighbors-went on enjoying the flowers. But, as you might suspect, that hardest working one of all was finally tossed out, or harassed into quitting, I don't remember which, and at last report the Church's garden was not doing so well.

The free public garden out along the edge of the woodland, however, has never been so lovely-and no walls have ever been built there to be removed. The Garden is the very consciousness that reads these words. Who or what can hold it in bondage?

ABOUT CHRISTMAS

The Christmas season commemorates our own awakening, birth of the Christ Truth within, arrival of our own identity. The Christmas season marks the prodigals return from the land of husks. This is the time when the fires of the hearth are rekindled-the time for coming home.

Coming home to what? To consciousness, to Identity, to the heritage promised us from the beginning, to the Love we are, to the carefree Child we are. To warmth and tenderness, simplicity and gentleness-to the happiness that Reality is!

Reader, if I could give you the gift of childlikeness, I would. But this is our nature already-and this is the only nature that comes to see, accept and live the Real. Intellectuality decries the season, anxious to have it over. But childlikeness sees the sparkle of silver tassels all year. Childlikeness listens to the laughter of angels every minute. Childlikeness tastes the sweet sugarplums of Simplicity right here, right now -and feels the gentle Love of Christmas forever!

Happy Holidays, William Samuel (1968)