The stories we tell

My experience of life is really not about the apparent events and circumstance I find myself in and subject to. This is what the ego would like me to believe—that there's all these things going on that determine my experience of life—but it is another part of the illusion and how it plays out and controls me within this apparent world.

What I have found is that I am constantly telling stories. I have noticed that everyone around me is constantly telling stories. The whole world seems to be constantly telling stories and for now that must be part of the story I am telling, at least until I have relayed this understanding and then I'll change my story about all this.

This story telling plays out in many ways. It plays out in many obvious day-to-day ways and it also plays out in many subtle ways within each person that is not yet experiencing their freedom. It is this story telling that writes the script for the dream or movie that I often refer to when talking about the illusion we find ourselves in. It is this story telling that provides (or is) the script running through the movie.

The other day I was at the supermarket with my brother. He met up with someone he knew and they talked. When I came and waited for him I listened to what this beautiful man had to say. He talked about his story. This man did not meet my brother in that moment. He met with his story (his ego) and used the situation to perpetuate his story/ego. I am using these words 'ego' and 'story' together in this way because the ego is in many regards simply an agglomeration of all the stories I tell myself.

So this man started to share his story. It was a story about something that was apparently troubling him at work that week. Not a personal struggle but rather the story that "certain people were not doing their job properly and this meant this and that and the other thing, and what can I do when they don't do this and that properly etc." This had nothing to do with what was peacefully here NOW as they met and communicated together. It was a story. It was a story, what's more, from the past that was overlapping into the present and hence blotting the present right out of his experience. I see this sort of thing going on all the time. When people gossip and chatter about stuff, they are, in my experience, simply sharing stories from within their worlds and the worlds of others. Gossiping is story telling. It has nothing to do with the truth. These are not true stories that people tell. They are all fiction.

The other way in which this story telling game plays out is within each person. I have observed within myself that when I am coming from a place of ego/mind I will immediately start telling stories about the world I perceive around me. If someone comes up and says "Jonathan, you're an ass hole and I hate you" I might tell a story that goes something like this, "Oh, this person is so mean and horrible, how dare they say this about me. I am not an ass hole Oh I feel so hurt. What a horrible thing to say. You have hurt and offended me. How could you. Fuck off and don't ever come into my world again.". Underneath another story might be playing out, "Oh, gosh, am I really an ass hole? Am I really a bad guy? This person hates me... what's wrong with me? Why am I hated and hateable? Oh this really hurts me"

This is all story telling. It's all fiction. This person shared his story with me. The story he had around me was that he hated me and I was an asshole He told me this fictional story. From a place of ego-mind I then started to tell me own story. It's as if he gave me a chapter of the book (the life-long story) and then I provided the next chapter as a continuation of his chapter. I maintained the continuity of the story.

If I was not hearing him through the eyes and ears of the ego-mind then I would have heard a very different story and hence told a very different story. This man in his world would have said what he said, yet what I would have heard might have been something like this. "Jonathan, I am in pain and I am calling out for love for I am blind to that Love that I AM". Then rather than telling a sad story around this event in my apparent world I would tell a story of Love for that is naturally would the next chapter would entail for the book has continuity otherwise it's not a book (well, unless it was a book of short stories!! Which is often how it is). It's like in a movie. One scene leads onto the next and there is a continuity of theme running through them.

Hence if I have heard this man's call for love then the only story I will tell will be loving one. Likewise, if I have heard a story of attack and hatred then the next scene in the movie (the scene where I am lead actor) I will tell a story of attack and hatred. Most likely it will be a story of attack and hatred toward myself, and that might then lead on to the next scene where I tell a story of attack and hatred toward this man.

Yet when I have only heard a call for love then I am immediately within a love story. Love stories begin and end with love. As each moment is the alpha and omega within itself (the beginning and the end) then this story will be wholly (holy) loving. I will hear this man's story, "Jonathan, I am in pain and I am calling out to your for love", and I will then tell my story. Depending on how centred I Am within God's Vision will determine the exact story I tell. If I am centred in God's Vision of this man the story I will tell might go something like this, "God is the only power. God is all there is. God is love and God know only Love and knows nothing of pain or suffering. I am an extension of God, therefore I am love and I know nothing of pain. I am wholly love and this world is an extension of my mind. This man I see here is an extension of my mind. I share my mind with God and hence this man is Love and knows nothing of pain or suffering. For I AM wholly love within this man and he is I also."

That's a rather long story and it can be told in just two words, depending on how close I am to God in my experience of Life. That whole story could be condensed down to, "GOD IS". or "God is, and That I Am" with the deep feeling that what I see before me is me. It can even be told without any words at all. That's when the story becomes a blissful silent state of prayer or meditation—silent communion. Here there is simply, yet profoundly and truthfully, the feeling of truth—the truth being that this man and I AM one and I AM an extension of God, I am love.

As you can see, these are two very different stories. This apparent situation with this apparent man has happened FOR ME and not TO ME. It has happened for me so that I may set myself free—both within this apparent man before me and within my apparent self. One was a story about fear and hatred, but it can only be told if there are ears to hear it. If I don't have the ears to hear it then it doesn't exist. The other story was a beautiful love story with a happy ending—one where everyone lives happily in heaven. Again, this love story can only be told and heard if I have Vision to see it. That Vision is God's Vision. It is not something the ego can ever possess. If the ego does appear to be telling a loving story then it's just a fairy tale it's telling me in order to try and avoid being seen for what it really is—the product of hate, fear and separation.

What I wish to impress upon your mind is that you are constantly telling stories. Most of these stories are fiction. Some get pretty far out—science fiction perhaps!! Most of these stories are lies. They have no basis of truth in them. I know that if you really recognise what I am saying here then you will start to see that you are literally telling thousands of stories and not just about what you think you are experiencing in this moment but about nearly everything that has every happened to you. These stories are all being told over and over again all the time in every moment. It's no wonder the mind can seem so busy and noisy all the time. This noise is mostly all these stories playing like stuck records going in a loop.

I know this is how it is because this is what I have seen within myself and my part within this illusion. As I AM you it must be exactly the same for you. We might appear to tell ourselves different stories yet even that is an illusion. I have found that there are only two basic themes to every story. I either tell a story of fear and attack or a story of Love and acceptance. All the billions (trillions) of stories that appear to be possible all come back to a play on these two themes in one form or another.

This article is continued in "Unraveling The Story".

In Love,

Jonathan