Yesterday I read a wonderful analogy written by Rev. G.A. Kratzer in 1914.
Imagine that you are a small round hole in a giant frozen lake of ice. One hole in a frozen lake of billions of identical small round holes that stretch as far as the eye can see. And every hole in this lake, including you, is imbued with consciousness and sees itself as a unique “personality” separate from the other holes.
Rev. Kratzer imagines the thought process of one of these holes: “I love myself as a hole; I love my personality, my individual form, and my separateness from others. Then, I see all around me these other personalities, these other holes. I love the form, or shape, and general character of some of them; and others I dislike; and those which are far from me, I do not know at all, and I am indifferent to them. But here, near me, is a hole which I admire very much. It is so finely shaped, and so large, and I can see so much of the clear water through it.”
I took Rev. Kratzer’s thought process a bit further: “These holes near me, they’re my kind of holes. I know them. I feel safe with them. We’re a community of like-minded holes. But those ones over there, they seem different than us. Is it my imagination or do look a bit darker than we are? Whatever it is, they definitely seem different. I don’t trust those holes. And as for the ones I can’t see — Well I’ve heard about some of the far away holes. I’ve heard they can do this or they believe that. That’s not we believe here. I worry about those holes.”
I hope you get the idea here.
Then Rev. Kratzer goes on to say: Spring comes. The sun shines warmer and warmer with each passing day — and slowly the ice begins to melt. Each hole’s boundary gets a bit larger and larger until soon all the barriers are melted away. Suddenly there are no holes with their separate so-called personalities, their love of self and of other personalities. They have all disappeared.
And yet, Rev. Kratzer goes on to say, “No hole has lost anything that it had except its limitation. It has kept all the good that it had and has gained all the good that all the others had, and all that was in between that none of them ever had, in a surface sense of things while they remained holes. Each has lost its love of holes in the love of the whole.”
Furthermore, before the sun melted away the ice, had each little hole stopped focusing on its holeness and looked below the surface, it would have realized the depth and breadth and beauty and all-inclusiveness of this immense and glorious lake of which it and all the other millions of holes were temporary manifestations. Each hole would have realized that it and all the other supposed holes where actually part of the True Whole.
Knowing that, how could each hole have not helped but love every other manifestation of itself — the Whole — the far and the near, the familiar and the foreign? For each hole would have realized that to like or dislike any other hole on account of shape or color or size or distance was an illusion — because in truth there are no holes. Only One True Whole.
I loved reading this. It is such a beautiful way to think about the heart-centered practices of wholeness and we. We are never not part of the Whole. No one is ever not part of the Whole. We are all part of the same Whole. And the Whole We is Love.
Everything that is happening right now in the world is bringing all the lies that we have allowed ourselves to believe — or even just passively accept— to the surface to be seen. And when they are seen in Love, then they begin to melt away because they are lies.
When Truth encounters a lie, is the Truth changed? NO! It’s the Truth.
When a lie tries to make itself more believable than the truth, well that’s like the darkness coming to the Light to do battle with it. How’s that going to go? Not well for the darkness. Because the moment darkness encounters Light, the darkness begins to fade.
The Truth is that Love is what made us and what maintains us. And the lies that we allow ourselves to believe of separateness are what is causing all the harm in the world.
So today, any time you feel an excuse arising to see yourself or anyone else as different or separate, think of yourself as a little hole in a frozen lake. And imagine the warmth of the Truth that we are all together in Love begin to shine through that lie. Then feel all the old ideas you’ve carried about your own separateness begin to melt your boundaries away. See yourself, feel yourself as you already are — One in the Wholeness of Love. And then when you think, do, act, or say anything, feel that thought, action or speech emanate from Love instead of the illusion that you’ve been living of you as a little separate hole.
This is the heart-centered practice of living as the presence of We. This is the Love that heals by helping us see that Love is really all there is, all we all are, and that none of us can ever be separate from one another in Love. Now we just need to go out and Live Love. Every day. No exceptions.
This is how we love our world whole.
#LoveViral
Try this heart-centered visualization practice by listening to this video: