UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. – Henry David Thoreau

It has been said that truth lies at the heart of the paradox. This may offer some consolation to those who are trying to follow the seemingly contradictory imperatives to both be in the moment and to transcend the here and now.

Being truly in the moment can lead to that very transcendence. It may be like going through a black hole of nothingness only to discover a profound somethingness on the other side. Both are part of the same continuum; it is only the mind that separates and hence it is the mind that needs transcending. Think about transcending space and time.

We don’t literally move beyond space. We move beyond our conceptualization of space. Time doesn’t stand still. We take ourselves out of time when we become lost in our present experience. Two vehicles that are moving very quickly down the road, traveling at the same speed, would appear to be standing still if they were side by side. It is the scenery which appears to be rushing by.

When we eliminate the boundaries of the mind, we enter the zone where the now and the eternal are one. Once we find the plateau of peace, we may choose to go there more often.

The irony is that in order to be there, we must be willing to let go of all attachments, especially the attachment of holding on! We are like a child poised at the edge of the swimming pool, one part wanting to dive in, and another unwilling to let go of the solid ground. You cannot immerse yourself in the water while keeping one foot on the shore. Once comfortable in both realms, one may go back and forth at will. In making the shift from land to water, we must orient the physical body in a completely different way.

We must surrender to a new kind of balance. In the same way that we trust the buoyancy of the water to support us, so in transcendence we trust that we will be buoyed up by some mysterioius force.

We don’t always see the support that is here for us, inherent in our perfect Universe. Soul takes flight within the human form when we stop holding on to that edge of three-dimensional consciousness. The reason that this kind of letting go may be so difficult is because it is like a little death.

Babies have a natural fear of falling, and physical beings at first have a natural fear of surrendering. Just as babies grow up and may learn to delight in jumping from airplanes, so physical beings can learn to delight in the art of voluntary surrender. Each time we surrender, there is a release, and we die to an old way of being. Like the Braxton-Hicks contractions of pregnancy, these little deaths prepare us for the ultimate letting go.

The soul, like a parent at the side of the pool, urges us to take the leap, to jump in and experience a different way of being. There is nothing to fear. As we learn to move effortlessly back and forth, the prospect of our own death is no longer frightening. Instead we can think of it as a kind of cosmic retirement.

Experiencing the transcendent state is something everyone can do. Using drugs for this purpose is like replacing fresh flowers with plastic ones. If you fill your garden with imitation flowers, you may never make the effort to plant real ones.

The deep joy, the purity, the integrity and satisfaction of learning to release our souls naturally cannot be duplicated by altering the body chemistry. You can drive your car in a marathon while others are running, and you will reach the finish line faster than everyone else, but you will never understand the experience of those who completed it one step at a time.

Gwen Randall-Young is a psychotherapist in private practice and author of Growing Into Soul: The Next Step in Human Evolution. For articles and information about her books and “Deep Powerful Change” personal growth/hypnosis CDs, visit www.gwen.ca