The Question revisited

Remember I asked recently in personal Godwriting™:  "God, how can I feel alone here when there is You?"

A little later I will tell you God's answer. 

Here's what I was going through at the time. (Interestingly, at  first I mis-typed going through. At first I wrote "growing  through." May I be growing.)

The ostensible cause of the desolation I fell into was a lovely loving occurrence that touched me very much. It was just a few minutes of words, and yet, right afterward, it was like I had fallen from Paradise. Suddenly, I felt desolate, alone, and old. This was not a thought-out thing. The fact that simple love from a beautiful being  had been expressed to me, left me crying my heart out.

I feel rather than think.  I do recognize the Vastness and Universality of God's love as He shares Himself with all of us, yet I take in God's love the way a child must.

I am not criticizing myself here, I am observing.  Sure, it would be wonderful if I never had that question to ask, yet I saw the way I felt as an awareness.  I didn't see this as a fall from grace. Not at all. I was in Paradise, after all, or I couldn't have fallen. Did we not come from Paradise?

What actually transpired that left me feeling bereft won't sound momentous to anyone. It doesn't sound momentous to me either. However, on some deep unexpected level, it was momentous.

In my life I have been privileged to know in person a couple of what can safely be called very high souls. Certainly, they are pure souls. My recognition was not instant. My awareness grew.  At the same time, it didn't take long.  I did not consciously think: "Here is a great soul." In retrospect I name these two as great souls. They have an effect on my heart that is not explainable. Often, when I am with them, I experience that everything is right with the world.

God tells us that we are all equal. All souls are great.  I know this, yet with these two human beings I speak of, I have times of experiencing what it must be like in Heaven.

The core essence and initiation of my experience with God may be this: God sees something in me that no one else does.  I cannot name what it is that God sees.

And these high souls I have been privileged to meet do the same.  They see something in me that no one else does. They don't say that. They don't tell me that, yet when their attention is on me, I know it, and I am elevated. My heart is elevated.

In a comment to the earlier blog entry called The Question, Heaven Admin expresses so well what I strive to say:

This feeling is something like what I imagine the ugly duckling would have felt. It's like living in a world of strangers with rare passing moments of familiarity yet always solemnly knowing that nobody will ever understand. I remember experiencing this feeling often, however I was not aware of what I was experiencing. It was like being in a cloud of mixed emotions without the knowledge of anything existing outside the cloud. So the cloud becomes the world.

Something happened to me once. Since then I know that there exists a vastness beyond the cloud and that there is not my heart and your heart — only one heart that we share. The cloud is still there, only now it’s a momentary thing that can be stepped out of...

Right now I am talking about Effendi, the beautiful Sufi who has just returned to Fairfield from Turkey and the many places he has traveled to in service to God. You may remember that Effendi hosted Heaven Admin and me when we were in Istanbul, giving a Godwriting workshop.  Of course, Effendi's name for the Creator is Allah.

Upon Effendi's return here, this is all that happened. Not momentous. All it was is that, right away, Effendi had someone call me to tell me that he was back and that he wanted me to know that someone would pick me up to bring me to where he is right then and to all meetings he has in the future and to remember that we are family. Later someone told me that the first thing Effendi asked at the meeting was: "Where is Gloria?" Later someone else told me that Effendi was missing me very much.

Incredibly, I didn't go at that time. I let something stop me.

Effendi sees something in me that maybe only one other person sees. I don't know what it is that is seen.

When we are in Heaven with God, it must that we are brightened like this with every soul we meet.

On Earth, I have experienced moments of Heaven. I experienced it when Christ came out of the picture as bright swirling light and talked to me. I experienced it when my daughter appeared to me in bright swirling light when she was having surgery. At these moments, there was supreme -- I do not know the word to encompass the feeling -- happiness, joy, bliss don't say it.  Maybe the word I want is Oneness. Yes, I think that's what it is.

I don't see bright swirling light with Effendi. I don't see light at all. He asks nothing of me. He doesn't ask me to become a Sufi. He doesn't ask anything of me. Indeed, he honors Heavenletters™ and has encouraged many of the official Sufis here to come to a Godwriting workshop. I do believe that I have the heart of a Sufi.

I am grateful for the way I feel when I am around Effendi, yet I want to be sure you know this is not hero worship. Part of the joy, I am pretty sure, is that, for a while, individual Gloria no longer exists, or no longer exists to the usual degree.

Last night I did go to a general meeting with Effendi. Effendi remembers everyone's name. He singles out everyone. How he does it, I don't know. His presence brings out the best in everyone. I imagine that everyone at a meeting with him feels especially singled out as I do. Nevertheless, he did give me lots of attention. Oh, oh, my ego. How I love to feel special.

Even so, I feel my soul has been lonely for his soul. Souls don't know distance. Nevertheless, my soul was lonely for his.

When the meeting was just about over, Effendi said before the group:

"Gloria, you and I are on the same path." I do not know what he meant. Next meeting, God willing, I will ask him.

I promised that I would tell you God's answer to my question which was: "God, how can I feel alone here when there is You?"

God's answer was:

This is the human condition.