Time to Wake Up! by Emily VanLaeys

Even in the early days of my life I wondered about the mystery of life. Where had my consciousness been before I was born? Why couldn't I remember anything prior to my near-drowning at the age of two - my first memory - when I saw my mother swimming toward me under the water in Aunt Rose's pool? Where would I have gone if I had drowned? I instinctively knew that a part of me would never cease to exist, but I knew so little about that part!

Later, at about age ten, I remember thinking that my true self was not the same as the persona I projected to my family and friends. One night I stepped outside the front door of our house, composed myself in what I thought was a state closer to the "me" that I really should be, and went back in. Speaking to my parents I said: "Do I sound different to you now than I usually do?" The answer was, "No? Why would you think that?"

Why, indeed? But as the years passed, I read one enlightening book after another, and gradually learned that my intuition had been right all along. This physical life is but a misplaced punctuation mark in the epic story of God's only begotten child - the universal consciousness - which began eons ago. At that time we decided to use our God-given free-will to venture out from our spiritual home in order to experience the carnal delights of the material earth. Originally this incarnation into physical bodies was just a vacation -- a week-end trip to the Garden of Eden where we could smell the fragrance of the flowers, feel the soft breeze ruffle our hair, and the silken skin of our mate's body against ours. We enjoyed listening to bird songs; tasting the fruits of the trees, and the roots of the earth. Then we'd return home, to be nourished again by the light and love of our Creator; to be reminded of our true nature as beings of light.

Gradually, we forgot our connection with the divine - we lost our faith in the perfection of our Creator's universal design. We became fearful, and as we began to think more in terms of protecting our physical form, we identified more and more with our physical selves, and less with our higher, divine selves. No longer able to move back and forth with ease from our true home to our vacation home, we began to believe that the material world was the real one - perhaps the only one! We became entrapped in the material world, so that only through death of the physical body can we be reunited with the one divine consciousness.

We have been asleep now for many centuries. But, like Sleeping Beauty's wedding guests, we will awaken when the Prince reveals the truth with a kiss. His truth is that love is the law that unites us, and love is the only law we need, to awaken from the confusion and nightmares of our slumber. For, if we examine ourselves through the eyes of love, don't we see that the wars and other evils of history are only nightmares? Such barbarism can't belong in the real life where we will spend eternity. And we realize that all of the power struggles between us are just silly nonsense because nothing in this world really matters except for our ability to love ourselves and all of Creation.

Those of us who grew up wondering what was wrong with this world, and why we didn't feel at home here, are learning to radiate light, like the fairies who waved their magic wands to guide the Prince to Sleeping Beauty's bed in the castle tower. Soon our light will shine so brightly, that every eye will spring open, our inner beauty will awaken, and we'll find ourselves in the kingdom of love .