THE APPLE METAPHOR
| I am about to create a metaphor. This is a metaphor that you may use for the rest of your life. It is important therefore to understand that this is not to be taken "LITERALLY". This metaphor is designed to describe life and its process for EACH of us; giving us perhaps a little something tangible to hold on to as we pass through this wonderful experience we call time/life/god. |
| Create a picture in your mind of a nice, round, juicy red apple. Call this apple "Time," and call the inside of the apple "Space." It may be a little difficult to think of the inside of an apple as space because there is so much Matter there. However, if you saw how much Matter there is in what we call "outer-space," you would see that the molecules of this imaginary apple are at least as far apart as the solid matter of the cosmos. |
| Now imagine that you are an infinitesimal microbe, small but very much alive, moving through a tunnel in this apple. The walls of the "tunnel" are the Corridors of Time. Along the Corridors are markings that make each millimeter of wall different from any other. Do your best to form that picture in your mind. Now, notice as you move through this tunnel that time is not passing. YOU are passing through TIME. Continue to see that Time is not going anywhere. Time is "in place" right now. It is static, stable, stationary. It is always there, right where it is. Wherever you are in time, it is always Now. IT IS YOU THAT IS MOVING THROUGH TIME. Now imagine that the microbe that we are calling "you" is a part of the apple. Imagine you as a tiny part, an atom if you will, of the apple itself. And so, you would be moving through yourself, right? You are an atom of this apple, a part of yourself moving through yourself. THE IDEA HERE IS TO USE IMAGERY AND WORDS THAT WILL HELP YOU TO FORM AN INDELIBLE IDEA IN YOUR MIND ABOUT THIS METAPHOR. Now, you are traveling from the outside to the inside of the apple---from the outermost part to the innermost part of the Self. Got the picture? This is your journey through life. The markings on the tunnel tell you where you are. These markings are actually pictures, and each marks a moment. Every Moment is like a snowflake. There are no two alike in all of Eternity. You look at the images as you go by. You focus on them, and you move through the tunnel in this way, focusing on one picture after the other. Finally, you get to the Center of the Apple. This has been your destination all along. This part of your journey is now over. For each of us this part of the journey signifies Death. Completion. This IS when you "die." You have moved through the physical world and you have reached the Core of this sphere that contains all time and space. You are at "dead center." This is where Knowing and Experiencing merge. You then have certain experiences there after which you emerge from it and head toward the opposite outermost part of the Space/Time Continuum----the other side of the sphere. You have made it to the other side. Here your reality is very different. Entirely different. So different that It would be as if the apple had turned into and orange. This is what we shall call the spiritual realm, and comparing this to the physical world (you are now in) would be like comparing apples and oranges. :) So what happens when I enter this different reality - when I get to the "other-side" of Center- what happens then? How you experience what you come to know depends on how you leave Center. If you release your issues and leave them at the Core, then you feel "Centered" because you have not taken your "core issues" with you. IF you do not release them, if you just do not want to let them go, you will take whatever core issues you have not fully released to the "other side," where you will confront them again and have a chance to deal with them there. If you have ended your own life consciously with the intent to escape these core issues, you will not escape them, but will choose to reverse course and return to the physical world, taking the same Time Tunnel and moving through the same experiences all over again, from the very beginning. Core issues here in this Metaphor pertain to your IDENTITY. Core issues may take many different forms, but they all come down to the Only Question There Is: Who Am I? Your experience at the Core WILL be one of knowing yourself fully. Indeed, you will never know yourself more fully. Yet, you may or may not choose to release any issues you have. It will all depend on where you wish to go from there. What you wish to Know. What you wish to Experience. Now, When you get to "the other side" --- when you discover that the "apple" has turned into an "orange" (or, in other words, that you have moved into a whole new reality)---you will realize that you have come there for a reason, for a purpose and that your work on "the other side" is wondrous work, exciting work, joyful work, but that when it is done, it will be time to journey back. It is the True self, the Full Self, that you were introduced to and reminded of at the Core. The conditions on "the other side" are perfect for the work of knowing the Self completely outside of the Core, and in doing this, you make your way along the continuing Corridor of Time to the outer edge of "the other side." Once at the outer limit of "the other side" - that is, once you have taken what you have come to know as far as you can go in the realm of knowing, you metaphorically turn around and come back moving through the spiritual realm once more, this time heading back to the core of your being with all that you know. Taking your knowledge back to the core of your being. You will engage in the most sacred of processes: the recreation of the self anew. Having once more moved through the experience of Total Immersion---of being "one with God"---you are prepared to be born again. Reentry into the physical life, an extremely "heavy," dense existence compared to what you have just embraced---procudes a loss of the full identity you have established. THIS IS BY DESIGN. IT IS THE DESIRE OF ALL THAT IS -TO KNOW ITSELF IN ITS OWN EXPERIENCE. THIS IS THE REASON FOR ALL OF LIFE. WE RETURN TO THE PHYSICAL IN ORDER THAT WE MIGHT GAIN A WORLD OF EXPERIENCE. |
You may arrive at this awareness at anytime, and end your struggle
in any moment. This opportunity and this experience are not held in
reserve for only the moment of your death. If you watch closely you
will see that each day of your life is crowded with "little deaths." You
may use any one of them as a platform for this realization.
in any moment. This opportunity and this experience are not held in
reserve for only the moment of your death. If you watch closely you
will see that each day of your life is crowded with "little deaths." You
may use any one of them as a platform for this realization.
| Defined - Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a term is transferred from the object it ordinarily designates to one it can designate only by implicit comparison or analogy. |
| This complete Metaphor is better explained with much more detail in one of Neale's latest books: Home With God In A Life That Never Ends www.cwg.org |