At the end of every year people all across the world take a good hard look at their lives and decide what they want to change. They examine their body flaws, incomes, relationships and so much more then map out a plan to fix everything. But you know what? There is only one single solitary problem. One. That’s right. I said ONE. It’s the umbrella that covers everything.
The only problem that exists, ever existed or ever will exist is people forget who they truly are.
For most people, myself included, there isn’t a single moment of waking up and saying, “Oh, that’s right, I’m God. I can quit worrying about fixing myself and start living a life of total success.” Yet daily exposure to the idea that God and I are One has changed me.
In the beginning, the problem was accepting this concept as more than a platitude. Sure, Jesus talked about our Oneness. It’s taught in Hinduism and in Buddhism. In many spiritual circles these days it is called Non-duality. In more scholarly versions it is called Monism and sometimes Pantheism. But honestly, how much sense does it make when we really get down to the bones of the matter. I can name a host of things I need to change about myself and my life every single year. How God-like are those flaws we all have? And how does it make sense we’re one with God when we have them? These are the questions I struggled with continually until I came up with the oxygen factory analogy which allowed me to visualize the concept and allow it be Truth.
Imagine you are in an oxygen factory. There is a large tank in which the oxygen is stored and piped into the smaller tanks. These small tanks of oxygen get sent to facilities like hospitals and nursing homes as well to individuals. The oxygen put into each tank is 100% pure oxygen. Not once has the large tank run low and the oxygen put into a smaller tank ended up lacking something. “Sorry Frank. I know ya need it, Pal, but your tank was at the end of the run and is only 25% as effective. We’ll get ya next time… if you make it.” That just doesn’t happen. Nor does it happen with us.
God is that large tank of oxygen and from Itself pours out to create each one of us. In filling us, the God-substance has not been diluted. We are not 25% as effective as God. We ARE God and we are wonderfully effective. As Ernest Holmes put it in Creative Mind, we are “Power knowing Itself” from which all is made. We just forgot who we are.
Having read this, you may not feel it can solve all your problems, but I guarantee that even just seeing the idea is the open door to remembering who you are. This one small way of shifting your thoughts about yourself is an act of awakening and one must be awake for success. I mean really, when was the last time you saw a sleeping man handed the gold? Today is a new beginning. It’s really the best beginning of all time because today, every time you are tempted to think of yourself as flawed, failing and less than you would like to be, remember you are made from the very substance of Spirit and you have not been watered down.