In “The Wizard of Oz,” the ‘Great and Powerful OZ’ was a dramatic and convincing illusion produced by the ‘little man behind the curtain’.  Through non-dual teachings, the irony hidden beneath the OZ story is finally revealed.  The shattering and transformative truth is that the ‘little man’ pulling the strings in the novel is in truth the absolute and infinitely free and creative Source of all that exists, masquerading, in incredibly convincing fashion, as the ‘little man behind the curtain’.   The veil that needs to be lifted is in fact the belief systems generated and adopted by the ‘human mind’ which convince it of its limits and its pseudo identity as a flawed, handicapped and virtually powerless human individual.   As a result it is consequently destined, or doomed, by its beliefs in a ‘real cage’ of limitations and inadequacies to suffer the ensuing ‘personal’ torments and failures which result– generally for the balance of his or her life.   A deeper irony here is that our Ultimate Self, which affords us an unconscious yet unlimited power and absolute control over all which manifests as ‘Reality’, and which is our core identity and one ‘true nature’, is the very power which enables ‘the mind’ to manifest, embrace and experience our ‘personal life’, the one which we inhabit and usually suffer to the hilt!

By actually accepting and acknowledging our one true infinite and all-powerful nature, at first through discovery and belief at a conceptual level, and later embracing and embodying it at an experiential and visceral level, the whole host of problems and struggles which formerly preoccupied our life either fall away completely or fade into casual and impotent peripheral artifacts barely worthy of our notice.  Spiritual Masters have taught for millenia that the Absolute Source or ‘Self’ has always been the core and substance of our very being and, in fact, need not ever be found or acquired, as its living truth cannot ever be ultimately denied or negated.  It forever merely awaits acknowledgement, recognition and acceptance.  We can, however, as a direct consequence of our true power, continue electing to play these silly and needlessly painful and often tragic pseudo-identity games for as many endless incarnations as may suit our whim and fancy, or just our cravings for drama.  Or, we can just say “NO, that is really quite enough!!”  In the end we will not have lost our lives, nor the world.  We will have only surrendered our illusions about them!  Our lives may then unfold as luminous expressions of true joy and gratitude, once obscured but now wide awake.

by Les Collins