T. 18. VIII. 7 – 10. Jesus: “Do not accept the body as yourself, for it is but a little fenced-off aspect of what you are! The sun and ocean are as nothing beside what you really are. The little sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and the tiny ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you!
Would you remain within your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all that he surveys, who looks on what is really nothing, yet would still die to defend it?
What this little self looks upon is not your real kingdom! Arched high above the world you see, and surrounding it with love, is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep contentment to every part. The little aspect that you think you set apart is no exception!
Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit is its meaning! It is completely impartial in its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give.
In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be from there that you would call on love to enter? Look at the desert; dry and barren, scorched and joyless; that makes up your little kingdom. Seek now to realize the life and joy that love would bring to it from where love comes, and where it would return with you.
The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you’ve built around it! It waits for but your little willingness to let it come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust.
Give them now a place of refuge, prepared by love for them, where once a desert was! And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this newly holy place, but they will not depart alone, as they had come. The love they brought with them for you will stay with them, as it will stay with you! And under love’s beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.
Go out and find them, for they bring your Self with them. Lead them gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there! Then will it grow and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from love, nor leaving you locked inside of yours. Now will you recognize yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, with all the love of its Creator shining upon it.”