As a river empties into the ocean,
empty yourself in reality.
When you are empty into reality,
you are filled with compassion.
When you are filled with compassion,
you desire only justice.
The will, or reality becomes your will,
When you are filled with compassion,
there is no self to oppose another, and
no other to stand against one’s self…

EVERY SO OFTEN I catch myself eavesdropping on some pretty, profound dialoguing between my “ego-self” and my “higher-self”, or the “Voice” (of wisdom) as I call it.

Frustrated with recent events in my life, I caught myself reveling, once again, in what I thought was a long gone “ego pattern”. Ordinarily, “old me” would have been happy to throw a pity party for myself. However, this time, instead of participating in the gloom and doom fantasy I caught myself just before entering the "point of no return."

Barely keeping my bearings I managed to remain in a state of mind that allowed me a glimpse into my ego’s portrayal of me in my life’s “play”. Enlisting myself as an observer and being able to witness my ego’s re-enactment of its patterns, actually could have been quite humorous if not for my vested emotional interests. Just as I was diving, head first, into this pool of murkiness, a big “aha” came to me. I heard my victimized ego agonizingly ask, “Not again? Why me?” But instead of tears – the “Voice” replied, “You may not have what you want, but you got what you have asked for!” (Course in Miracles.) “Even when you pray,” the Voice continued, “you beg, plead and negotiate for what you think will ‘make you happy’ - when you never believed you deserved it, or the happiness in the first place.” I had to chuckle, because it was true!

Sitting with this thought for what seemed to be an eternity, the Voice spoke up again. “It’s all in the asking,” it said wisely, as always. “You need to ask the right questions of others, yourself, and even the universe, in order to get what you want.”

Feeling my soul relax into another one of life’s simplicities, I recalled a story about a wealthy man who enjoyed inviting people of lesser means to his home for a feast. When all were seated, the host rang a small crystal bell to indicate to the servants that they could begin serving the meal.

In this home, this wonderful man also had a room where he displayed beautiful gifts. One by one as the guests departed, they would be escorted to this room and told to pick out any gift of their choosing. One day, a man from a neighboring village was led to this room. But he came out empty-handed. The host was shocked, “Isn’t there anything I can give you? There are goblets of gold and silver,” he exclaimed, “and there are gifts that most men could not afford. Yet there was nothing you would want to claim as your own?” The guest replied, “All I really want is a little crystal bell like yours.” Although the Master thought this to be a strange and not a very useful request, he was glad to give the man what he wanted.

Arriving happily at his village, the man announced to his entire neighborhood that they were invited to dinner the very next day. Everyone showed up, wondering how such a poor man could afford to feed multitudes of people. When everyone was seated, he picked up his little crystal bell and, just as the rich man had done the night before, he ceremoniously rang the bell. But nothing happened! He rang it again and again, louder and even more zealously, yet nothing happened.

Humiliated, the man ran all the way back to the rich man’s house and accused him of trickery. He even accused him of switching the bell on him. Indignantly the Master said, “I did no such thing. It was the only bell I had and I gave it to you”… The humiliated man irately yelled, “Well, why, then, did the servants not appear with platters of food when I rang the bell?” The Host howled with laughter and blurted, “You need to ask for what you want and not for what you think you will get!” In other words, the man got what he asked for, not what he wanted.

In order to get clarity we must all become as the customs agents, standing at the borders of our mind and allowing entrance only to the thoughts that serve us well. We must learn to focus on whatever we want to multiply in our lives. Feel it, relish it, and experience it with all of your senses. When you can feel it in every cell of your body, it will be in the process of manifesting itself in your life. For:

Once we allow - we own it…
Once we own it - we create it…
Once we create it… we have it…
Once we have it… we can choose to enjoy and create more..

As my friend Arjeje always signs off his e-mails to me:
“Love the life you have, and have the life that you love”.
After all, it’s all in the asking!

© Aliza Guggenheim, 2004