awakening

She was a teeny tiny snail hiding against the furthest back wall of the open inner cavern of her shell. The left side of her viscous body contracted into a declaration of overwhelm, as every day she brilliantly performed ‘all the impossible things’ to keep the peace. The right side of her body however, contracted into a declaration of “NO!” that felt loud, unapologetic, and angry.
On occasion the inner cavernous experience became too much to bear since she was chronically enmeshed with either the right or the left side of her body. So, the tiny snail would burst out of her shell, if just for a moment, to experience what she called a ‘’bubble of awakening.’ In these rare moments she felt free, blissful, and limitless. These moments were brilliant, but ultimately overwhelming since they were short lived and without lasting effect. This was a difficult life. She felt projected from her inner life experience to the outer moments of bliss, only to collapse back into her heavily conditioned and familiar inner reality.
One day the ageing, wise snail of her small group slowly slithered up to her side. He had been eyeing her, seeing her suffering for some time. He parked his shell close to hers and waited patiently and peacefully for he was in no hurry for her to realize his presence. Eventually she did, and her tiny snail head slowly slid out from the shell just far enough to see him. She blinked and squinted, and magically his presence alone gave her permission to begin a rather long monologue of lament. She whispered at first, a small voice strained with pain, but as she came further out of her shell, her voice got stronger and louder! Her complaints were valid, he nodded, as her fatigue was monumental, and the aloneness she felt failed her precious life.
The wise one asked her how it is that she wanted to feel. “Safe,” she replied. “Safe to be me without being responsible for other people’s happiness and enormous expectations.” She could feel the weight of this burden along with the old, old longing to please. Eventually the tiny snail had said enough. Wordless, she allowed all sensations to rise and fall. The paramount effort of critical self-awareness dissolved, and the vast, open, transparent field of Awareness became the foreground and background, infinitely and eternally. All that rose as a thought, feeling, or sensation, simply dissolved back into the wordless void of love without any desire for attachment or identity.
This was no ‘bubble of awakening ’discovered as an exit strategy from the inner shell story, but a realization of God and Beingness. Truth and presence surrendered the story of the tiny snail as a transient creation with no judgement. God as Awareness and Love experiencing its creation through the snail and the snail knowing herself as That. As her personal identity project collapsed, she realized the truth of all beings, and she could simply, beautifully, purely, be.
The two snails relaxed in the sun with nothing to do, change, or fix. A bubble of quiet, palpable joy emanated from their tiny snail souls providing a lens of silent awe and wonder. The solidity of their shared inner stillness witnessed the movement of life in, through and around them with a deep, abiding care. An impersonal, cosmic love that beckoned no action, but a silent recognition of itself.