Heaven Abounds in You

Introduction

Welcome Home! Welcome to Your Self! This is a journey that leads you deep within. It is a thought-provoking exploration of who You are, your reason for Being here, and the Oneness of everything as an expression of the Divine Universal Source. It is no accident that you are reading this text at this time. Everything is in Divine order. This is an eclectic look at that journey in format and content. It is to and fro just as our journey is, just as Life is. There may be some surprises! This is not a sterile, sanitized version of spirituality. It is interlaced with Life as it is lived by human beings. It is expressed as our connection with each other and our connection with the Divine. It explores the heights and the depths of that journey as we attempt to remember that there is only One.

It is exciting that science is catching up and able to substantiate what some have known spiritually for millennia! All of this is old wisdom—only the presentation changes. How wisdom is presented makes all of the difference in the world. It's like seeing the spectrum of light reflected through a prism. Every rotation of the prism allows you to see a different color. It is my hope that you experience a spark of awakening or deepening of your knowing. We all awaken. It's just a matter of when.

My personal and professional journey as a child and adolescent psychiatrist is reflected in these pages. Ultimately, I am a healer, both for others and myself. I found that repeated exposure to medical information was necessary during my many years of psychiatric training. The Divine often presented the wisdom in this text to me in different contexts then revealed something new. So know that the capitalization of certain words and anything that appears repetitive is intentional. This wisdom is layered in order to facilitate your remembrance.

I refer to God or the Divine Universal Source by many names because there are many spokes to the center of the wheel. I refer to this Divine entity as "He" because this is the reference that was used as I grew up, but this is not meant to be limiting. My use of the term "It" at times is because He is Everything. It is not meant to be disrespectful. It is meant to be all encompassing as He Is. What I call Him seems less important than knowing who it is that I am speaking of or calling upon. As Shakespeare said, "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."2 For me, spirituality is about being connected to Him all of the time and living Life from that connection. There are many paths to the One.

Some of the quotes in this book are from family, friends, and the community. They are average, everyday "folk." Some might call them ordinary, but they are extraordinary in their wisdom and their ability to convey it in a way that most people will understand. Their wisdom is striking in its simplicity, and it has universal appeal. This begins with six-year-old Christopher Albert and carries all the way to our elders, Mrs. Josephine Hood, the mother of 17 adult children, and Mrs. Marian McCollum. Legacy was written to the African-American adolescents in my high school's mentoring program in the hopes of awakening them to the legacy granted to them by their ancestors. However, Legacy, like all of this wisdom, is for those who are open to receiving it.

Conversations with the Divine have been included exactly as they occurred. He first spoke to me as an answer to my prayers in my twenties. I said, “I need a sign, but You know me. I'm blind! So I need it in big neon letters!” He responded in the big, booming Moses-and-the-burning-bush voice. He was concise, and I got the message. He spoke to me a few more times over the years, but conversations began in earnest during the writing of this book starting with The Divine Calls Us to Love. Believe me when I say that I was stunned and amazed that first time and the times that followed! Looking back, He has spoken quietly to me throughout my life; however, I just called it my Spirit. The Divine speaks to you as well. He invites you to return to You, to be in the world as a physical manifestation of Him, and to love as He does. Every moment can be a spiritual practice and is an opportunity to be connected to Him all of the time, to know Eternity all of the time. Heaven abounds in you! This is an invitation to live in the fullness granted to You by the Divine.

Namasté,

Balin A. Durr, M.D.

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Prelude to the Journey

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1

He Is…We Are

The Creator of all that is has many names as we are many people. This includes the One, the Divine, God, Source, Universal Consciousness, Higher Self, Universal Wisdom, Buddha, Life, Allah, Atman, I Am, Eternity, Beloved, and many others. Some are used interchangeably, but I like calling Him the Divine because it reminds me of His magnificence and our Divinity.

He is the morning sunrise and the evening sunset. He is the desert sands and the world's vast oceans. He is the sweet twitter of a bird; the thick, luscious green grass; and the hypnotic savannahs of the motherland. He is everything that we can think of and that which is yet to be revealed. There is no place where He is not and nowhere He has not been. Stretch your hand outward, and He is there. Journey to the stars, and see Him twinkling at you. He creates with infinite vision. His splendor is unbounded and will carry you where He wills it even unto the corners of Forever.