Heavenly death

fear, freedom, and their kin.

You cannot count on the experience of fear to cease in order to be free from fear. That would be contingent freedom, and therefore no freedom at all. Freedom is not prey to fear. True freedom is so free that it can masquerade as fear if it chooses, parade as vanity, and equally separate from these appearances without the slightest effort. Gaining power over fear is to recognize oneself as that from which fear springs. 

The Kingdom of God is both within and without, a destination ever-present.  It is truly your essence, your source, and it is also true that you do not experience it until you die, ye who were born into sin. That is, ye who were born into radiant flesh and the resplendent play of appearances. The one who believes that the splendorous and frightful veil appearances defines all that one is, that one must die indeed, if ever did such one really exist. 

That one dies, just as the calcified form and content of experience softens. Glorious calcification, heartily hardening the veil upon birth, such that each of us can walk the walk. It is grace that allows us to move through space and time into timeless space unbidden. “Enter heaven only after you’ve done this this this this this this and finally die, at long last.” Whoever said so was spot-on. This is the only way our immaculate unfolding delivers the goods. What must be overcome–at some point or another–is the belief that only certain deeds earn you the right to die into bliss, and that death is anything other than surrendering into the arms of love. You can surrender blissfully while embodied, which is all that any of us are doing. Each step is a step toward true death (and false death, if you like). Our experience of embodied limitation is immaculately untenable, love’s greatest reflex.

Own fear. Disown fear. Own pleasure, give it away. The Highest couldn’t care less, or more. It adores and adorns its loins’ fruits, each and every one. Our ethics are God-given only insofar as humanity is God-given. Good and bad belong to this world. The law is not bestowed. It is created through us, by us. To defer the power of law to the Unseen is an unsuccessful attempt at forfeiting responsibility, perhaps because we believe it is a heavy and unpleasant burden to bear, perhaps because we believe salvation is dictated by rules, contingent upon our obedience. Freedom is not earned, it is done.