It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For
the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin,
and it was MADE to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely
allegorical, for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves
within a body know yourself as an IDEA? Everything you recognize you
identify with externals, something outside itself. You cannot even think
of God without a body, or some form you think you recognize.

The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny
senses, you will not see the grandeur which surrounds you. God cannot
come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will always
seem to shut Him out, and to keep you apart from Him. The body is a tiny
fence around a little part of a glorious and complete idea. It draws a
circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven
splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your kingdom,
where God can enter not.

Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And to defend this
little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe. This
fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but
appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the
smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface
of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it
IS the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean.
Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this
infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart against the universe. The
sun becomes the sunbeam’s “enemy” which would devour it, and the ocean
terrifies the little ripple and wants to swallow it.

Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and
meaningless activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared
and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. Even that segment is not lost
to them, for it could not survive APART from them.
And what it thinks it is in no way changes its total dependence on them
for its being. Its whole existence still remains in them. Without the
sun the sunbeam would be gone; the ripple without the ocean is
inconceivable.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by
bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a
disconnected thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought
by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained,
needing each other for some things, but by no means totally dependent on
their one Creator for everything, and needing the whole to give them any
meaning, for by themselves they DO mean nothing. Nor HAVE they any life
apart and by themselves.

Like to the sun and ocean your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny
part regards itself AS you. It is not missing; it could not exist if it
were separate, nor would the whole be whole without it. It is not a
separate kingdom, ruled by an idea of separation from the rest. Nor does
a fence surround it, preventing it from joining with the rest, and
keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is no different
from the whole, being continuous with it and at one with it. It leads no
separate life because its life IS the oneness in which its being was
created.

Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as yourself. The sun and
ocean are as nothing beside what you are. The sunbeam sparkles only in
the sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in
neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain
within your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he
surveys, who looks on nothing, yet who would still die to defend it?
This little self is not your kingdom. Arched high above it and
surrounding it with love is the glorious whole, which offers all its
happiness and deep content to every part. The little aspect which you
think you set apart is no exception.

Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its
total lack of limit IS its meaning. It is completely impartial in its
giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would
give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be
there that you would call on love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and
unproductive, scorched and joyless, which makes up
your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy which love would bring
to it from where it comes, and where it would return with you.

The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier
you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life
springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and
quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust.
Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a
desert was. And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from
Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this holy place, but they
will not depart as they had come, alone. The love they brought with them
will stay with them, as it will stay with YOU. And under its
beneficence, your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone
who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.

Go out and find them, for they bring your Self with them. And lead them
gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there. So will
it grow and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms
locked away from love, and leaving YOU inside. And you will recognize
yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom
of Heaven, with all the love of its Creator shining upon it. The holy
instant is your invitation to love, to enter into your bleak and joyless
kingdom, and to transform it into a garden of peace and welcome.

Love’s answer is inevitable. It will come because you came without the
body, and interposed no barriers which would interfere with its glad
coming. In the holy instant, you ask of love only what it offers
everyone, neither less nor more. ASKING for everything, you will RECEIVE
it. And your shining Self will lift the tiny aspect which you tried to
hide from Heaven straight INTO Heaven. No part of love calls on the
whole in vain. No Son of God remains outside His Fatherhood.

Be sure of this; love has entered your special relationship, and entered
fully at your weak request. You do not recognize that love has come
because you have not yet let go of all the barriers you hold against
each other. And you will not be able to give love welcome separately. You
could no more know God alone than He knows you
without your brother. But, TOGETHER, you could no more be unaware of
love than love could know you not, or fail to recognize itself in you.

You have reached the end of an ancient journey, not realizing yet that
it is over. You are still worn and tired, and the desert’s dust still
seems to cloud your eyes and keep you sightless. Yet He Whom you welcomed
has come to you, and would welcome YOU. He has waited long to give you
this. Receive it now of Him, for He would have you know Him. Only a
little wall of dust still stands between you. Blow on it lightly and
with happy laughter and it will fall away, and walk into the garden love
has prepared for BOTH of you.