Retreat into your mind

Wouldn't it be nice to retreat to the sea, the lake, the getaway in the mountains and woods? Perhaps such closeness to nature is close to you, but try to understand what it is people seek when they venture there, away from the humdrum of urban life and its myriad worries. 

Now what if you retreat into your mind and in instant renew yourself in the peace you find there, just as if you had spent days or weeks in that nature getaway?

What do you find there? I find peace, the immovable and constant presence of Father - whether seen or unseen, felt or unfelt, heard or silent - the weight of His presence, unadulterated by condemnation, worry and any fussing or displeasure. He is ALWAYS with you. But you must learn to find Him, there, in the secret place (Psalm 91:1) in the Holy of Holies.

There all the worries of the world fall apart. Even your pain and bitterness, the grief and bereavement, the heartbrokenness and loneliness... it is all gone. These unpleasant things that occupy your mind and stress your body, what are they but passing shadows.

It is said somewhere that though we walk through fire it shall not burn us; how much I have experienced that. Yet what if I was - think to yourself this - what if I was as a fire, utterly consuming everything that comes my way, so that I am unmoved by desires within and circumstances without, so that I stand as a man, never chasing anything and running away from nothing, here I stand, here I am.

And all these unpleasant things that cloud my mind and soul, what are they but whisps of wind? What am I but a flickering candle flame in the dark too?

No. I am not such a flame nor mere whisp of wind. 

I am an eternal being in mortal body. What can man do to me? What can this world do to me? What can ever stand against me if God is within me?

I am an eternal being - I will outlast all of that - an eternal being, in a mortal body.

I am not the sum of my experiences nor my expectations. I am not my body with its various hunger pangs and wants. I am not my mind with its cluttering thoughts, whether they be random and cumbersome at times, or curious and imaginative. I am not those things, these temporary things that come and go. These things that seek to divide me and pull me into a million ways, that seek to confound and divide me.

I simply Am. And I Am One.