I overheard you whisper, not a prayer, but a realization that seemed to force its way into your heart which has been dangling for so long. You sang out:

“Beloved God, You Who Bequeath Yourself to Us, You Who Knows How to Love, You Whose Eyes Light Up When You See Us, I thank You for All Your Gifts to Us. Holy Are You, and Holy-Making Are You. I wish to be holy, not as a Saint, no, not at all -- like a human being desiring to be closer to You, God, and closer and closer until You bring me into Your Inner Courtyard, and I live Oneness with You.

“Where did the Littleness of me, the me I thought I was, go? I was a pretender to the throne. Now, with Infinite Patience, You have removed the Peacock Feathers from me, and here I am, melted into Butter, Absorbed in You, One in You. While I am on Earth, I continue to be a body that is not you. My body is the Dust unto Dust. My Soul is the Pure Light of God.

“Ego in the form of conceit just doesn’t live in this body any more. Ego simply couldn’t remain in Your Presence. Ego had to get out of me, for, of course, I had to transcend anything that was not the Truth of You, God. I had to let joy in through the Door of my Heart and ego out the door. “Shoo, ego,” I said, “Shoo.” Ego skulked out the door, and I, as God’s Pure Light, am left.

“That Which I Once Thought was myself was an Intruder, an Eluder, Interloper, a Veneer. The Interloper left, and I was left. I, in God’s Truth was left. All my life up until now, I had been taken over by Illusion and Frantic Activity. Now I am a Dancer of Truth.

“I sing: 'The wolf is dead. The wolf is dead.' The wolf is dead to me at least. The scavenger is gone. The deep-feeder of the spoils has left, and the Dancer of Truth is left.

“I am so deep in joy that I can hardly lift my eyelids. I remain. The riff-raff has gone. The body is a shell. I am not a shell. The shell no longer hides me from my Self.

“I don’t know how to explain this. I even love the ego who has had to flee. It sang its song. Now its voice has been stilled, and Your voice envelops me and envelops the world. No longer am I sophisticated. I am restored to my original innocence. I can hardly speak. I am new at this, new at being a flower growing solely from God’s Heart, arising in an innocence I can hardly believe. Everything that was not God in me has gone its merry way. The individual I was but a vestige of my Original Self. I am now My Original Self.

“Can I sustain myself now? Only the Heart of me which is the Heart of You, God, remains. I am a Star in Heaven. I am Light Breaking Through. There are no longer barriers. You, God, and I have blended. No, not blended -- merged as One. To think of it, We were always One, yet I used to stand on my ego’s shoulders, and I was like a vagabond holding out my hands for alms from the broken world.

“Now I AM. Now I AM Pure Being. There is hardly anything left of me. This was always the Truth, yet my attention was diverted to baubles I called jewels yet were not. Now I am simply here, and that is enough. This is all I want, to be here with You. That’s all there is. I mean that this is the Greatness that is. No longer do I chase after that which does not exist, and is, after all, a crumb or two to feed ego. I am no longer a feeding ground for ego, and now I do not know what to yearn for, for I am contained within God, not contained really, more like a blossoming rose without thorns, more like Godliness Itself, more like the Breath of God. Now I notice I am inseparable from God and God is inseparable from me. Yes, this must be Oneness. It is so simple, it can only be that God pulled me over closer to Him and His Might.”

I reply to you. Yes, I welcomed you long ago. Before you knew it, you – the former you you thought you were -- were already beginning to realize what has always been so.