Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human The Little Soul

The Story of the Little Soul by Neale Donald Walsch

Once there was a little soul who got very excited one day and ran to
God, and said, "I know who I am!"

And God said, "Thats nice who are you?"

And the little soul said, "I am the light."

And God said, "Thats right you are the light."
The soul thought for a second and said, "But I want to BE theLight."

And God said, "But you ARE the light."

And the soul said, "I know I am the light but I want to BE the light.
I want to experience myself being the light. I want to know myself in
my own experience."

God said,"Oh I see! you want to experience being who you already are."

The little soul said,"Yes, thats it, I want to experience myself
being the light - not just know it, but experience being the light."
God replied, "That is understandable but it is a bit of a challenge,
because you see there is nothing else but the light for I have
created, naught but the light for you are as a candle in the sun. You
are there with a billion-billion-billion other candles that make up
the sun. But the sun would not be the sun without you. Nay, it would
be the sun without one of its candles and that would not be the sun
at all. Yet how to know yourself as the light amidst the light is
truly a puzzle," said God.

"Well," said the little soul, "You're God think of something."
And god said, "I will and I have here what it is we will do. You
cannot experience yourself as the light amidst the light. So we will
surround you with that with which you are not. We will imagine
together that which is not you and we will surround you with it, and
we will call it the darkness. We will surround you with the darkness.
We will surround you with the opposite of that which you are so that
you may know in your experience how brightly you shine."

The little soul said, "Ok, I am ready bring on the darkness. I can be
the light."

God said, "I will, for you have asked for this and requested it. I
will surround you with the darkness and yet in the moment that you
find yourself so surrounded by the darkness, raise not your fist at
heaven and curse the darkness not. Yet be a light unto the darkness
that you may know who you really are. And that all whose lives you
touch might know who they really are, as well.Let your light so shine
before men that they will see the glory of themselves reflected in
you.
"You may do this with any aspect of divinity you wish," said God to
the little soul. "So choose well and choose wisely in this and in
your many lifetimes, for life has, as its "soul" purpose, the
choosing and the being of an aspect of me that you are."
God said, "What do you then choose in this your next lifetime?" The
little soul excitedly said, "Wow! ...I can be anything you are?"

God said, "Yes, all of it or any part of it here are your choices. So
what do you choose?"

The little soul said, "You mean in the next lifetime I can be happy
or joy or wisdom or peace or love or, or.."

"That is right," said God.

The little soul, "I choose, I choose that! That is what I want to be.
I want to experience that."

God said, "My, my, my.....this is your big day, for you have chosen
forgiveness. You want to be forgiving?"

"Yes, yes," said the little soul. "That is what I want to do. I want
to experience myself as forgiveness."

"Well," said God, "there is only one problem you see. There is no one
to forgive."
"No one?" said the little soul.

God replied, "Look around. Do you see anyone less perfect, less
beautiful less wondrous then you?"

And in that moment the little soul turned and saw that all the souls
from the universe had gathered for they had heard about the little
soul's discussion with God. And the soul looked around and all she
saw was wonder and beauty and perfection even as she herself was
perfection, she could see perfection all around and the little soul
said, "So I can see nothing but perfection all around. Who then shall
I forgive, for there is none less perfect then I. How shall I
experience forgiveness?"

Just then a friendly soul stepped forward from the crowd. "Do not
despair you can forgive me."

The little soul said, "You? Who are you?"

The friendly soul replied, "I am one among many. I have chosen to
step forward. I will provide you with someone to forgive in your next
lifetime.I will do something in this, your next lifetime, that you
can forgive."

"What..what," said the little soul, "what will you do?"

The friendly soul replied, "we will think of something."

"But, but why," said the little soul, "would you do that, for you are
an object of beauty as am I, a being of total perfection, whose light
is produced by the very vibration of your blessed and glorious self.
So rapidly do you vibrate and shine that I cannot gaze upon you. What
would cause you to slow down your vibration to such a speed that
you would become heavy enough to do this horrible thing? Why would
you do that?"

And said the friendly soul, "it is quite simple. I would do it
because I love you. And do not look so amazed. You have done it for
me as well, do you not remember? Have you forgotten me so soon? We
have danced this dance before you and I. We have danced this dance
before.
"We have been the all of it do you not remember? We have been the up
and the down of it, the left and the right of it, the before and the
after, we have been the good and the bad of it. We all have been the
all of it for each other. Surely you remember when I was the victim
and you were the villain? Surely you remember? But you are right
about one thing, it will not be easy slowing down my vibration
exactly as you have described. It is not a simple matter, so I have
only one favor to ask of you in this next lifetime..... that you may
be forgiving."

"What," said the little soul, "I will do anything. anything. I get to
experience myself as who I am. What could I possibly do for you in
return?"

The friendly soul replied, "In the moment that I strike you and spite
you, in the moment that I do the worst thing possible to you that you
can imagine, in that self same moment, remember who I really am.
Because if you forget me as I am now, I will not remember myself at
all.
"Worse yet, you are liable to forget yourself too and then we will
both have forgotten who we really are, then we will need a third
person to help us remember."

____________________________________________

-- "Well," said God, "there is only one problem you see. There is no one
to forgive."
"No one?" said the little soul.

God replied, "Look around. Do you see anyone less perfect, less
beautiful less wondrous then you?" --

Reminds me of many of the relationships I have had where I have felt wronged and felt I have wronged others. Created Equal and Being Equal and this excerpt from the story have reminded me of arrogance.

For those who believe in God as God, a higher power, a greater intelligence, etc. who are we to say that we are above others and in so being deserve to forgive.

It can be a confusing lesson. We are taught to forgive. Forgiveness is a virtue but at the same time I feel that is a way of saying that we are better than those that we felt have wronged us. Have we not wronged others in our time?

As I'm writing this, this is getting more and more complex in my mind but it's simplicity is evident as well. Very transcendental IMHO.

Allow me to ramble some here. These are all the angles I can think of right now:

Person A wrongs Person B
Person B feels wronged by Person A
Person A asks for forgiveness from Person B
Person A asks for forgiveness from God
Person A asks for forgiveness from themself
Person B forgives Person A
God forgives Person A
Person A forgives themself

Can Person B REALLY forgive Person A. Literally? Or is that saying that (like the story) that Person B is better than Person A?

Walking away from all that this is my thought:

When we feel wronged or wrong another who should do the forgiving and who should be forgiven?

or

When we wrong another, who should we ask for forgiveness? Them or ourselves?

or

When we feel wronged by another should we 'let go' of it and leave the forgiveness to God and the person we felt wronged by?

or

Is forgiveness something we shouldn't worry about at all? Should we simply 'let go'

Thoughts?

PS Sorry if I confused anyone.

I don't think there's a magic bullet or pill here.

Each situation is different for each person.

I used to have difficulties with my mother. I held grudges against her. Whenever I would talk to her and bring up something I had against her, she'd quickly evade addressing the issue by saying things like, "Don't you think I've done enough for you?"

Eventually we got to know each other better. Our relationship, over time and as a result of me going to therapy, got better.

There came a point where we could just sit with each other and say almost anything and not feel like we were attacking or being attacked, it was just stating facts. Once, when I was talking to her and I felt it was safe ground for me to present one of my grudges, I said, "You know, it hurt me when you ...." and then I told her.

She sat there, absorbed it, and said, "I'm sorry I did that to you, that makes me feel awful." She started crying. All the anger, all the animosity, all the negativity I had felt for years, all the buildup and festering was suddenly wiped away. All I needed for her was to recognize the fact that what she did had an effect upon me, to take some notice and responsibility, and then all the hurt disappeared.

I told her it was ok, and that she didn't need to worry about it, that I just wanted her to know that what she did hurt me. And it was over. The ghost was exorcised.

Could I have just "let go"? God knows I tried. But I needed the event.

Some people, when a family member is murdered, need to know that the assailant has been brought to justice and is being punished, is made to feel pain. This alleviates things for them. Some people feel that this makes it worse.

Everyone is wired in their own individual way.

So much is said in done in the effort of making things the same and labeling that love ... however, love and compassion is found in noticing and appreciating differences as much as it is in noticing and appreciating sameness.

The development of cognition in a child as regarded by Piaget indicates a growing ability of discernment. That is, a child learns that the whole world is not an undifferentiated mass of stuff that is the self, but that there is a me and not me, that the child has hands and fingers ... that an object is different from a background ... that objects have permanence when taken away.

A lot of spirituality seems to be aimed at removing the distinctions learned because of the development of basic cognitive abilities.

We are different. There is ugliness, and there is beauty. Everything *isn't* beautiful. I think that trying to make everything beautiful is an attempt to run away from ugliness so one doesn't have to cope with the fact that there are, yes, ugly things, ugly people, and ugliness inside and about the self. It really is a form of cowardice, IMO, and an attempt to run away from the world.

The world is complex. Why smear it with one great big broad stroke and rid existence of its intricate beauty? A beauty that is given meaning in part by ugliness?

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited July 14, 2004).]