Gloria to Mother Divine:

Dear Mother Divine, what is sadness?

Mother Divine:

Sadness is recollection of the past which is gone and cannot return and a prophesy of something in the future that may never be that you miss ahead of time. Sadness empowers lack and loss and impossibility. Sadness is like a bath that is a bit too hot, but you sink into it anyway.

Sadness comes in wisps.

Why did you think to ask about sadness?

Gloria:

Recently Sandra found in her belongings a program from a school play when she was in ninth grade and I was a first-year teacher there; I was listed in the program under my maiden name as a director of the play. Being reminded of that alone made me feel a little sad. After Sandra read what God had to say about clutter, she threw the program out. Really, what's the difference if she threw it out or kept it?

Mother Divine:

Reading your maiden name stirred a network of memories. Oh, how you would like to hold on to the perishable past!

The thing to remember, dear sad one, is that the twists and turns of the past brought you to where you are now.

Like a cab driver, the past dropped you off at your new address. Courteously thank him for the ride, tip him, let him go off without a backward glance from you. Enter the present which is your direction now, and let the cab and its driver drive away and recede in the direction they came in.

You wouldn't trade your present for your past anyway!

In the word memory, your two lips meet and press against each other. Mem. Unbeknownst to you, the word itself recalls babyness and its brief passing moment in your history. All time is brief because it is an illusory wisp of eternity. All past is babyhood. All sadness is a cry for a return to babyhood. It is a call for a beginningness.

In this day before you, you have a beginningness which is passing as we speak. Everything in the relative world is passing.

There are two ways to look at it. Either way, it never was yours.

1. You were on a stage and wore costumes. You played the part of baby, child, ingenue, adult etc.

2. You rode on a level escalator. Your rode past store window displays of your life. You were the watcher of your life. You passed these displays on your way to more displays.

With either view, what continues is your core and God. They are permanent. This lifetime is not. It isn't real, Gloria, any way you slice it. It is a carnival ride, and there is always getting off.

But you, the rider inside the form you inhabit, are real, and God, the Father, is real, and that is what there is. And this is a beautiful Is. A permanent Is. An eternal Is.

All sadness is of time, and time is part of the illusion of the carnival ride. Don't waste your illusion of time on time passing. A breeze passes by, and you do not mourn its passing, for the unforgettable heart of God beats and is unbeatable.

Get past time. Pass it. Get out of it. Pass by the past. Go past it. Enter eternity.

Gloria:

What is sorrow then, dear Mother Divine?

Mother Divine:

Sorrow is an acute form of sadness. You think sorrow is based on the present, but sorrow is also of past and future.

In the present moment of eternity, sadness and sorrow cannot exist because awareness of the present moment is the heart's awareness of God and joy enjoined.

Love mourned is not love. It is a recollection of love, or attachment to love. Love can never be bound nor lost. Like God, like you, like all the Heavenreaders, love is.

Consider love an impulse. What happens to an impulse if you try to contain it? What happens to a budding flower if you press it between your two palms and keep it there?

Do not compress love, but expand it.

Don't point your love in certain directions. Let love be. Let it be what it is.

Don't tie it, not even with ribbon.

Don't box it, even with gold.

Don't wrap it, even in silk.

Free it.

Let the canary out of its cage.

Let it sing.

Let it fly and go its way.

Let it alight also.

Bare your heart to it. Say:

"Here, Love, my heart is a base for you. Come here anytime you like. Fly in and out and bring me all you want. My heart's door is open. I will not legislate you. And I will learn that all love is one. I will learn that love is not for this or for that, but that love claims all.

"So I will let my heart be claimed by you, Love, and as you claim, you unclaim because love is a flow and cannot be bound.

"Love, you are boundless. You are the beholder but you never hold. You are the container but never contain. You are the content, but you are never contained.

"Love, what are you? Are you me?"

And Love answers, "I am. I am all that is. Thus I am you. I am you no matter where or how you find yourself. I am in your sadness, and I am in your joy. Where you abide, am I. Where life is, am I. Where life be not, am I. Indestructible am I."

And you ask, "Are you then God?"

And Love answers, "I am the flow of God. Love is God flowing. I am the flowing robes of God. I am His flowing thought and His flowing awareness. I am His attention, and I am the object of His attention, but God is the Attender."

Now, I, Mother Divine, tell you to never mind, don't try to understand. Don't try to find. Just be lost in love, and you will know.