Most of my life I spent my days constructing a box.   It has been comprised of my awareness of own limitations.

Some of these were imposed by my physical awareness (I am not an athlete, I am not pretty enough). Some were provided by others (my culture, my society, my family, my religion). Some were imposed by my own mind (Why am I so alone? Who will love me? Who would I be when I die? Where would I go? Will I just go out like a light? How? When? Where? WHY?).

These made the box seem very solid and real. How did I know it was real? I kept running into the walls, and banging my head on them. It hurt.

As a teenager I didn't like the box. It was dark and cold in there. I was so damn alone. I talked and talked but it didn't make any difference. I didn't get any closer to anyone. It wasn't fair. I resented it. I would gather my strength and run into it with all my might. It held, stronger than ever in the wake of my resistance. If I continued to try and break out, I feared its strength would take me over.

So I retreated back inside the box, telling myself that it was my choice to do that. I may never leave, but now I told myself that it was my choice to stay.

I decided to decorate my box. To make it pretty. Couldn't live with it, couldn't live without it. Might as well make myself a home.

I furnished it and made it habitable with soft ideas and comfortable thoughts. Everything fit. White noise cushioned the chatter of my thoughts. Repetitive and droning, they soothed me to sleep.

I took a nice clean brush and washed the walls til they were white. The place seemed brighter and brighter. I lit a cheery fire in the hearth, and stocked the shelves of my library with books I collected . . . works of fiction to distract me, and works of non-fiction to help me better understand myself. There were books that were described as holy among them.

My books and comfortable thoughts made a difference for a while, but after a time that didn't even work. I was constantly being made aware that the box was still there. Situations and events caused me to reach out to the limits of my box, and I rubbed up against the sides so hard at times and for so long that the whitewash wore off. I rubbed so hard that they became polished like a mirror.

Man, 'o man, that made the box uncomfortable! When I took my eyes off the stuff in the room and saw myself reflected in those mirrored depths, I didn't like it one bit. Like a Fun House mirror, all the distortion sometimes made me laugh at its foolishness, but most often made me cry from fear at its savagery.

One night I had a dream where I was driving a car, very erratically. I ran the car into a ditch beside a bridge. I walked across the bridge. Several women came out of a low building with a geometric shape on the front and approached me. One of them embraced me. She looked a lot like me. She said, "I am so glad that you are here! What do you wish to know?"

I said, "Everything."

It was not long after that a tool that was to assist me in gaining my freedom came into my life. It came in the form of a sacred text. Words infused with an energy I had never before encountered.

The first time I read it, it seemed like a foreign language. The words bounced off of my box and back at me in a way that pierced me . . .and scared me. But they did come back to me and hit their mark. I began to see a bit of light, different than before.

As I read words that spoke of . . .changing my mind . . .of miracles more natural than breathing . . . reassurance that I have never been alone. . .

Not comprehending what was happening. . .the thoughts the words generated deep within me began to extend . . .and when they found the sides of the box, they rested there. I still did not understand much but I had learned to send my thoughts out with gentleness.

The sides of the box began to dissolve of their own accord. No pressure, no force, no foolishness or savagery. And what came back to me as a result of that gentleness . . . I came to understand as Love.

After a while the words did not read so much like a foreign language. I began to hear a song emerge as I continued to allow the thoughts the words generated to extend.

Situations and events caused me to extend to the limits of where the box used to be . . .and beyond. I felt strong! Finally, I knew! Perhaps now I had left the box behind for good.

I became comfortable in a whole new way. Things looked different to me now that I had changed my mind. A new version of what I thought was real and true! Like version 2.0!! It felt good!

But . . . I had asked to know everything.

Situations and events continued to cause me to extend . . .their sharp points causing my thoughts to extend deep into my truth . . .only to bounce back at me with such force that they sent me reeling into a darkness I had never encountered before.

I felt like I had been rendered blind. I might as well have been.

It made me yearn for the comfort of my old home, my small box with the comforting fire. . .and my books so well designed. . . but that place was gone forever.

Groping around, I finally found something there. It was another's hand. In the darkness I could feel its weathered skin, its fingers, the strong yet gentle muscles by which it held mine. In the darkness this hand felt huge and strong. And it was all I knew for sure.

Holding on, I closed my blind eyes and rested. It was during my rest that I once again heard the song.

When at last I opened my eyes I was bathed in light. My eyes were unaccustomed to this brilliance . . .but I was once again able to read from this sacred text . . .but this time the words were clear and read like music. I could hear harmonies now.

The song's lyrics revealed to me that even when I had exceeded the barrier of my small box, another box awaited me. This one was so insidiously transparent as to convince me that it did not even exist. It had become my eyes, my ears, my hands and my heart. It had become me.

My ignorant arrogance blinded me to it.

As light dissolves the darkness for what it never was, does Truth dissolve ignorance. Gratitude for the light continues to dissolve any residual arrogance. My small willingness, my asking to know . . .allowed It to energize the words that set me free.

Their acceptance dissolves even that which I am blinded to.

I now allow my thoughts to extend into the clear blue sky, a sky that does not have a ceiling. Unless it does. If and when I find the next version of the box, I won't be any more ready for it than I was the first two. That I also know as fact.

I asked to know everything. I keep hearing that song . . .

Perhaps this will be Version Free.0.