The Runner's Litany - The End of the Race

This inner dialogue addresses the eternal questions of anyone searching for himself, beckoning him to quit the spiritual race rather than continue to shift gears.

A stern eye observes me permanently. I am judged. A vice tightens around my breast, and I’ve gotten used to its pain. Judgment and pain have been my companions for so long. Remorse gnaws away at me, even unconsciously. Sometimes I think I suffer from other ills and the confusion with this one makes it even more insidious. Spiritual words have only added to my pain. The eye is sterner and sterner, the fear of God’s sanction has been added to that of men.

I think that if I don’t accomplish my duty, I’ll have to come back for a lap, or roast in hell. So, I step up the pace. My heart weeps inside me, almost all the time, unceasingly. It would like to weep openly, but the stern eye keeps watching and the vice tightens a little more. I ask for love but I don’t see it anywhere, with the result that it won’t filter through to me. The vice is also tight around my heart.

I’m he who doesn’t love himself.

I start running again.

Then I saw that the eye was in me, that it was "me". Still as stern, it won’t let anything get by and maybe its judgment is not as fair as I thought. The vice hasn’t slackened, not yet. The vice hasn’t slackened off yet. I don’t even know if this is possible, but some people seem to think so. I can see the difficulty action has in flowing freely through me. What "I’ve done" continues within me, pursues me in "myself", and prevents me from experiencing peace. I run as fast as I can, pursued by my missed opportunities, mistakes, remorse, inadequacies, the feeling of smallness, tinyness... I’m he that doesn’t love himself and who’d like to love himself.

But one day, there was a word and suddenly the stern eye began to blink, very briefly, but long enough for me to realize that Peace was there. The word said: "All Is Fine", and I saw that the way I looked could be different. I saw that peace was present, even if nothing had changed, just the way of looking. But the word did not come from me and I don’t know how to reproduce it within me. The vice slackened.

I’m he who wants to love himself but the race continues. I saw that this wounded heart wanted an infinite love which it despaired ever finding. The vice tightened again. The eye made me understand that it was still there and that I can’t ask for what I don’t deserve. Others can, but I’m not one of them. I’m just a mismatch. And the world makes me know that I am. The stern eye brings me back to my rightful place, between the two jaws of the vice. I’m judged. Yesterday’s words have flown away. All that’s left is just the usual pain. From time to time, there are a few breaks in the cloud, just enough to keep me dreaming. I dream secretly, but I adjust myself openly to "reality".

I don’t know if I’ll be able to love myself one day. Am I even allowed to dream about it?

The word, again, I don’t know why I believe in it: "You’re perfect. Everything’s in place". The eye blinks again, like each time, dazzled. And in the space of the batting of a stern eye’s eyelash, Peace slips through. Remorse, inadequacies, pains of adjustment vanish into thin air, in the "twinkling of an eye". That’s all there is, just an eye that closes and leaves the way open for another way of looking. All my desperate efforts to find the relative peace are nothing compared to the revelation of that Living Peace which is there, beyond everything I had practiced, all my thoughts, all my certainties... and which makes it possible to abandon all these things without any feeling of loss.

I now know that I can love myself.

The race is suspended. I am he who listens to the word wherever it is expressed, in the whisper of life I was incapable of hearing, busy inside my vice finding solutions to problems I had created. The stern eye softens. The look of Peace takes its place again. I know it’s the look of Peace. I know it is its place. "All Is Fine"... An inner smile accompanies the word, as if it were uttered by a being in whom I had every confidence, as if God were suddenly whispering it to me, after centuries of silence. I receive the confirmation of my perfection which is His, I’ve waited for it for so long that I burst into tears. Even the stern eye cries with me. The vice slackens. I Am, and that’s perfect. I am he who loves.

I am the end of the race.

This article is an excerpt from Thierry Vissac's book "Race over - the ultimate dialogue", published in French in 2002 and translated into English but not yet published. We are looking for a publisher in the U.S.A.

By Thierry Vissac