The year 1939 gave us the Technicolor masterpiece known as The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her companions journey through a fantastical land in pursuit of cherished wishes. It's a stirring tale with an entertaining conclusion. Yet the narrative also conceals a cogent metaphor for our own spiritual journey. One which I'll playfully call "The Wizard of Of."
What happens when awareness becomes aware of something? That simple preposition - "of" - creates the grandest illusion of all: separation. Awareness is simply awareness, pure and complete. But awareness of creates duality. Subject and object. Me and you. Here and there.
The clever wizard of this enchanted realm of of, known as the ego, performs its most spectacular magic trick by convincing us that separation is real. That there's a "me" experiencing a world "out there." The ego is a master illusionist, keeping us distracted by endless drama while hiding behind the curtain of mind.
Like Dorothy and friends seeking qualities they already possess, we journey through life searching for completion, love, and peace from external sources. Yet what we long for has never left us. It's our very essence.
Think of experience like a movie projected on a screen; characters encountering triumph and tragedy, hope and despair, love and loss. But what are all these dramatic scenes made of? Simply screen. Try to reach for the Ruby Slippers and we'll only ever touch the screen.
Similarly, everything in our lives is made of awareness. The apparently solid objects, the people we love, the problems we face — all are composed entirely of awareness. Pure consciousness expressing itself as form. As we read in A Course in Miracles, "Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward."
When we pull back the curtain on the wizard of "of," we discover there never was separation. The wizard, our ego, has no real power except what we've granted it.
The journey home isn't about acquiring something new or traveling great distances. It's about recognizing what has always been true: awareness is all there is. And in that recognition, the spell of separation dissolves into the eternal joy of oneness.
Join me in Thursday's class where we'll explore practices for recognizing and unmasking the Wizard of Of and discover the infinite peace that is our true nature. I look forward to seeing you then.