I would venture to say that most of us feel like we are in a box or our own quarantined prison. Furthermore, if we are all honest with ourselves, we probably felt like we were in prison before the pandemic. Unfortunately, in the here and now the world is closing in and the universe is giving us a vivid picture of what being imprisoned feels like. Everything in our world right now feels foreign to all of us. None of us were prepared for what the coronavirus has unleashed on the world and the results of the pandemic. If ever there has been a time of uncertainty and doubt this one appears to top them all. The bottom seems to have fallen out in the world we live in and does not seem to be bouncing back with any resilience. When we all feel like we have hit the bottom we desperately grasp for something to hold onto because it hurts so much. Our fear of what will be is carrying us all away into an untold world. As I have mentioned in my writings this can either be looked at as the bleakest of all times or we can look at this with love, kindness, compassion and welcome this unknown with curiosity. Instead of looking at this time of unimaginable change as a victimization of the world and everyone in it why not embrace it with love. I know that probably sounds crazy to some of you, but this coronavirus pandemic will not last forever it is a time that we have been given for global healing. Yes, a gift of healing we have a choice to go with the tides of fear, resentment, anger and attack on our brothers or we can look at everyone in this world fighting the same battle. The coronavirus has leveled the playing field we are all in the same boat there is no differentiation, color, ethnicity, or religion. I am suggesting that each and every one of us open our eyes to a clearer world view stop the me against you mentality. The Course refers to this as kill or be killed or victim versus victimizer. It is time for us all to wake up and realize that our senses lie. Whatever we see in our world is an external picture of an internal condition in our minds, the ego world that pits one against the other. Caucasians against Blacks, and vice versa, Asians against Caucasians and vice versa, and the ultimate in our country Democrats against Republicans and vice versa. When will the world wake up and embrace there are no differences? This pandemic is giving us all an unbelievable opportunity to do this different. Are you going to continue to suffer in our self-created prisons or are you going to open your mind to the truth there are no differences amongst us, and we are all interconnected, “ONE”?

IS IT BAD OR IS IT GOOD?

The truth is we never know if what happens in our lives is good or bad. As humans we love to define everything put it into categories and nice little boxes. However, things do not stay in boxes before they fall apart. This is the secret of life; we do not know. Keep in mind that the people who say they know really do not know either. The coronavirus is new to the world and no one knows how to address this pandemic. If you are listening to the news on a daily basis think about how many times the authorities have changed their stories. For instance, don’t wear masks it will not keep you safe and now we are mandated to wear a mask. Then it was this medicine called Chloroquine which works for malaria and some of the physicians in New York reported that they were taking it to keep them safe. The next day the authorities were saying no Chlorquine does not work don’t use it, it is harmful to you and the FDA has not done enough clinical trials to determine its safety. There are other examples, but I do not want that to be the focal point of this article. What I do want to hammer in is that we have choices. No matter what anyone says we are intelligent beings who have the ability to determine our path, we can go left or right and maybe even take the middle road. When things don’t make sense and feels like what we know is falling apart take time to be mindful there is no rush to make a decision there is no ultimate finish line with a medal for first place. There is no definitive problem to solve in the world because the problem has always been there and will always be there, the problem is in our minds! Sometimes we think if we solve a problem that will bring us pleasure but we don’t really know because just on the other side of pleasure is pain and loss. Again, we are back to nothing here lasts forever everything in this world we live in is impermanent.

We could say that the authorities in the world believe they are on the path to find what is truly helpful for humanity. But do they really know? Aren’t they just as human as we are and don’t, they make mistakes just like us and aren’t they susceptible to all of the same viruses, diseases and fears just like us? The answer is yes. No one in this world has the inside track! No one in this world can give you a guarantee that this will cure you and that will result in death. Why is that? Because as soon as we humans think we have it figured out the ego mind will morph it into something else. Yes, we have talked about this before. Who is really in charge of this world we live in? As my mentor Dr. Kenneth Wapnick would say we think this is a world of 2×2 = 4 or 2+2=4 but this is really a world of 1+1=1. This is the only problem we have here, and the only solution. This problem that we think we have in the here and now is a familiar one and has been around since the beginning of time.  The uncertainty and chaos have always been here in the physical world we live in. The reason why we cannot figure this out is because we are always looking in the wrong place in the outside world when it is an inside job. This can be traced back to the central doctrines of Socrates and Plato, who both questioned the reality of the physical world and its defectiveness. They both urged us to not put credence in our senses as they lie. According to Socrates and Plato, “We must recognize that the soul is a different sort of object from the body- so much so that it does not depend on the existence of the body- for its functioning, and can in fact grasp the nature of the forms far more easily when it is not encumbered by its attachment to anything corporeal.” This is very similar to what we find in Buddhism and A Course in Miracles, it is in the mind and there is only one truth that lives forever and that is love. Therefore, the causes of our pain and suffering can always be found in our physical world. It does not matter if the pain is physical, mental, global, medical educational, psychological, social, economic, political or catastrophic the ego world will always be involved with the solution and lead us to think that there is a solution to this problem where there is none. Does this all sound familiar to what is going on right now, I hope so. All of the aforementioned are happening right now during this pandemic. Why, because the answer to this problem is not in the 2×2=4 or 2+2=4 world that we live in. When we as beings can recognize that there are no differences among us and that we are all connected as brothers that we are all sons of the same God that is when the world will change. According to Socrates and Plato the wisest men are those that realize “they know nothing.”

There is Buddhist story I would like to share here: There once was a family who had a son that was very important to them. All they had was their farm and they needed their son to assist them for financial support. They received a horse and the people in the town said that is good luck. And then their son was training the horse and he was thrown from the horse and crippled. The people in the town said that was bad luck. And the very next day the army came through their town and was taking all able-bodied men and their son was unable to go. The people in the town said that was good luck. The point is we just don’t know if it is good luck or bad luck because the problem is not in the world it is in our minds. Buddha states in the first noble truth, that our suffering is inevitable as long as we continue to think what we see and who we are lasts forever. There is no security, no guarantees in this world, no promises that can be made or kept because everything here falls apart and disintegrates in the end. The world can offer us no security because the security that we all search for is the one place we cannot see, hear, smell or touch, it is in our minds. That is the only place we need to go to for our peace and no one can ever take that peace away from you if that is where you go. One of my most favorite books is The Little Prince, there is a quote in the book where the fox says to the little prince, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” We can even look at what Freud emphasized in his work, the unconscious mind governs behavior, more that people know. Again, we are told over and over again for millenniums that the answers we seek are not in the world we see but, in our minds, and yet we refuse to look in the place where it is.

THE WORLD IS GROUNDLESS AND THERE IS ONLY ONE ANSWER

What an opportunity to change our minds. In the here and now we are presented yet again an amazing opportunity to check in with ourselves. We are all feeling like there is no ground to stand on right now. This is an opportunity to shift from the physical world to the mind or from the body to the mind. The healing we all search for endlessly and what we all need is to realize there is no separation, no differences, the world lies. There is no separation from each other the world is proving that to us yet again with this pandemic we are all susceptible to the same disease. We are all one, united together under the same God. It is only when we recognize this that the world, we live in will stop sending us the same message of disease and suffering over and over again.

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the writer Dostoevsky, but in his book “Notes from Underground” which was published in 1864, he attempts to make a case for disproving the “rational egoists” and utopian socialists of his era. His claim was that reason alone could not perfect the world. In this novel he discussed destructive human behaviors that result from a misguided sense of profit and if everyone in the world knew what was in their best interest, they would do it. Right? No, not so much, it is not what we see in the world. What Dostoevsky contends is that this underestimates our human desire for free will which is our God given right. He argues in this book, “that humans value the ability to exert their own will-even if it runs contrary to their best interests, more than they value reason.” In this book he is attempting to reveal that reason and rationality has a way of imprisoning us, because it denies us our true freedom. Dostoevsky was highly suspicious of utopian socialists. His concerns were that you cannot organize rational human behavior or ignore the complexity of humans. Dostoevsky’s message was to question the freedom these utopian socialists proclaim because it could possibly lead to invariable uniformity which he called totalitarianism. If this sounds familiar to what we are currently hearing about in May of 2020 it is because it is too familiar! Totalitarianism is defined as a “system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.” Wait aren’t we a democracy, isn’t that what we are told? What about the Constitution? This is what was once the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, and the Peoples Republic of China under Mao Zedong and North Korea under the Kim dynasty, but not the United States of America.

What are we missing here, what is the message we are not paying attention to? Oh yes be mindful lest you miss what is going on. Oh yes, we are right back to the meaning of all of this the 2×2=4 or 2+2=4 world. Let’s not forget that both of these formulas are mathematics, and no one argues with that or science in this world, right? But they are not looking at the real world they are looking at the physical world and the answers do not lie in the physical world for what we are experiencing. The answers only lie in the 1+1=1 or 1×1=1 world. No one here is going to argue when they see a wall a wall is a wall but is it? We still have the freedom to choose we have minds, a mind that is connected to the ONE the ALL and no matter what we see in this world we can go to the mind for the true answer. Nothing here truly defines who we are because it is not defined under the physical laws of the universe because it does not address what we cannot see, the spiritual world, which is God. The physical word does not address what Buddha and Jesus came her to teach us. There is only one way to heal the mind and body in this world and that is to go home to our minds where peace and love reside. The truth is we are all ONE and that is what will heal the world. The laws of this world are really decrees of death and dying. A Course in Miracles states, that everything in this world lies. There is, “Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” As Dr. Kenneth Wapnick stated, “indeed 2×2=5” which really means 1×1=1 this is the only true representation of truth. Do not forget, the ego invented science and arithmetic, “God only knows one”. What’s more what is only ONE cannot be separate because God only knows perfect oneness.