 Dear Friends,
Do you remember that part of Alice in Wonderland, towards the end of the story, when the queen and her army were bearing down on Alice, waving their weapons and shouting ‘Off with her head!’? At first Alice was full of fear but then, suddenly able to see things as they truly were, she cried out, ‘You are nothing but a pack of cards!’ And with that her oppressors vanished and she woke up.
It's funny how the things you read in your childhood can make such a deep impression. Times without number we have thought of that episode from Alice in Wonderland. Times without number life has become so oppressive, and we have been so full of fear, pain, worry and anxiety, and then that immortal phrase has popped into our minds, ‘You are nothing but a pack of cards!’ And then we wake up.
It's as if two realities are competing for our attention all the time. First there is the dream reality, where external appearances have power over us. And then there is the waking reality, where external appearances only have the power we give them. In the first reality – the dream one – we are infinitely weak, because we have given all our power to illusory things. Even the self we act from, in that reality, is an illusion. In the second reality – the waking one – we are infinitely strong, because our power is vested only in the truth. In the waking reality, we do not put our trust and our belief in any external appearance or phenomenon, but only in the real Inner Self – the Christ-Self, the Soul – and we know that this Self can never be hurt, harmed or even touched by any outer appearance whatever. On the contrary, its power to heal and harmonize is infinite and invincible, and can never be taken away from us by anything or anyone. And the moment we remember that, the moment we wake up, we observe how external events start unfolding in quite a different way – because the power driving them is coming from quite a different place!
We have noticed how, the more we develop the potential and the insight to escape the dream reality, the more apparently threatening it becomes – in a sort of last ditch attempt to force us to believe in it. At times like these, it is a great temptation to combat the perceived threat with the illusory self. You know, as if Alice had decided to try running away from the queen and her soldiers, or to turn and fight them with a sword of her own. But when we do that we are, of course, only sucked further into the dream, chasing after some dream-solution that only recedes further and further into the distance.
This seems to be true collectively as well as individually. A lot of people say that the human race is, at this moment, very close to the boundary between the existing, dream reality and a new, higher reality. In which case, that would account, wouldn't it, for the immensely threatening world conditions that seem to be building up more and more with every day that passes. Again, this could be seen as a last ditch attempt on the part of the old reality to maintain the status quo. Seen from that point of view, it’s quite a compliment really, a sign that the human race really is capable now of something higher. But, with the compliment, comes the temptation. Will we choose to act within the dream, or to wake up, and then act?
If each of us were taking this step alone – this moving from the old and familiar to the new and unfamiliar – it would seem impossibly difficult. Indeed, when we think we are alone, it can often really be impossibly difficult. With the old and familiar so set on maintaining the status quo, freeing ourselves from it can seem like escaping from a huge vat of chewing gum. A lot of people could do it together perhaps, but one person alone?
That's why we need to support each other, and to remember always that, in fact, we are never alone. In the truth, we are one. It cannot be otherwise.
There are other things we can do, too, to help ourselves when the ‘chewing gum' is getting us down. Walking outdoors so that nature can re- mind us of the truth is one helpful thing. Reading texts that remind us of the truth is another. In this Review, we have several titles we would especially recommend for this purpose. First, there are The Prophet's Way and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann. Then there is A Course of Love by Mari Perron and Dan Odegard, Loving What Is by Byron Katie, and also The Book of Mirdad by Mikhail Naimy. All five of these books, we feel, are quite magical. And there others, too, of course, because this need for books that strengthen the soul and weaken the ‘chewing gum’ is never far from our minds. We are always looking for reading material that will have this kind of effect.
Books For Giving
Of course, another thing we can do to help each other is remember the watchword: ‘Pass It On’. That's why we've started our new ‘Books For Giving’ scheme. From now on, each Cygnus Review will include a book we feel has a specially important message, and this will be offered at a really low price if you buy more than one copy, to help you to be able to afford to give it to as many friends as possible. In this Review, the book we have chosen is The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann.
With much love from all of us,
Geoff, Ann, Martyn, Jackie, Emma, Sarah, Regina, Irina, Penny, Sandra, Belinda, Mary, Derek, Eddie, Louisa, Jon, Sam, Tobi & Pat
Text & photographs © Cygnus Books 20-Jun-2006
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