You are an explorer on a treasure hunt, or you are a deep-sea diver, or a miner for gold. You are a seeker. You seek the knowledge of life. You keep seeking Me. You look under each leaf, yet the Holy Grail you seek, you already have. It is not misplaced. You simply have forgotten for a moment.

All treasure is within you. All that is not treasure is also within you. It seems that you experience life as it lands on you. Whether you call an experience to you or it enters your world unbidden, you are the experiencer of it. You deal with it on your own terms. You bow down to events in the sense that you perceive them as true. You may punch them in the nose, yet you are bowing down to them.

When you see certain developments or elements in life as foes, to you they are very real. They must be real, your mind says, for you can see them and touch them. You can cut life in two, as it were, or life can cut you in two. In any case, you take everything that occurs seriously. You may even see life as a vendetta. You may see life as an opponent who follows you everywhere, setting traps for you, determined to outwit you.

No matter how physical, no matter how visible, no matter how much others' eyes agree with you, all that occurs actually occurs in your mind. I grant you, you may not be able to change the outer appearance of events, yet all depends upon your perception.

You would say to Me: "God, do You see that dust storm? It is a dust storm. I did not imagine it. The dust is getting in my eyes. The dust hurts, and the dust blurs my vision. Everyone else in my world is also experiencing the same dust storm. It's on the evening news. How can You say a dust storm does not exist?"

I say to you, beloveds, that that is just it. The dust storm exists in your world. It has been sanctified in your world. Everyone acknowledges it. Your very mind ponders the dust storm. Regardless of what occurs outside, the dust storm exists in your mind, beloveds.

Feast or famine exists in your mind. If you had no mind, neither feast nor famine would exist. They would not exist for you.

Now, meanwhile, you do have a mind housed in a body that experiences world life as very real. Life is happening right now, you say, as We speak. You say you are somewhere, in a car or in a room in a house. You wear clothes of one kind or another. You have bills to pay, and work to do.

Of course, all this is real to you. When you were a child, the sights of the world were pointed out to you. The Reality that exists beyond what is called the real world is spoken of every once in a while, and yet this is a land you have not quite explored. You don't really know how to. You have searched for this seeming far-off place. Pretty much you have dabbled in it and perhaps not taken it quite seriously. Haven't dared to take it quite seriously. Haven't quite ventured to discover this oasis in the midst of the world you live in.

It seems to you that you have no choice. Dust falls on you from a dust storm. You have to clean up after it. You see the dust storm, and you see yourself as a victim of it.

Consider, if you will, that there can be a higher purpose to even a dust storm. There can be more to a dust storm than you see. There is more to everything than what you see.

A dust storm muddles your view. I am saying, beloveds, with all respect, that everything muddles your view. I am saying that it is possible to see through dust storms with clarity.

You can deal with dust storms, and you can see through them. There is more to the story than what you see.