Please record on tape in your own voice the following exercise. Then close your eyes and listen. Use your imagination to dream this story.
In this dream I find myself in the most beautiful forest at mid-day. I am completely comfortable surrounded by beauty. I see the sunbeams lighting the trees and the flowers. I see butterflies and I hear the sound of the river. I walk to that river where an old man sits beneath a big tree. With his white beard and strong, kind eyes, the man emits a radiant aura of beautiful colours. I sit in front of him and wait until he feels my presence and looks at me. I ask, ‘How can you send out these beautiful colours and can you teach me how to do it?'
He smiles at me. ‘Your request brings back memories for me because one day I saw my own teacher doing the same thing and I asked him the same question. As an answer, he opened his chest and he reached in and pulled out his own heart. From within it, he took a radiant flame. He opened my chest and put that flame inside my heart. From that moment on, everything changed inside me because that flame was unconditional love. I felt the flame of that love and it became a consuming fire.
‘I shared that love with and gave unconditional love to every cell in my body. That day I became one with my own body.
‘I decided to love my mind. I loved every emotion, every thought, every feeling and every dream. That fire transformed my mind completely and my mind loved me back so much that the fire grew even more and I had the need to share my love even more.
‘I decided to put my love in every tree, every flower, every blade of grass and all the plants in the whole forest. They reacted to my love and they loved me also and we became one.
‘But, still my love grew more and more so I had an even greater need to share my love. I decided to put a little piece of my love in every rock, in the dirt, in every metal on the earth, and they loved me back. We became one.
‘My love still grew. I decided to put a little love in every animal that exists, in the birds, the cats and the dogs. They loved me back and they protected me. We became one.
‘My love still grew and I decided to love the water. I loved the rain, the snow, the rivers, the lakes, the oceans, and I became one with the water.
‘When my love continued to grow, I decided to love the atmosphere, the breeze, the hurricane, the tornado, and we became one and they loved me back.
‘My love did not end there. It grew even more and I turned my face to the sky where I saw the sun, the moon and the stars. I decided to put a piece of my love in them and they loved me back and we became one.
‘Again, my love expanded and I decided to share it with every human, with the elders, with every man, woman and child, and we became one.
‘Now, wherever I go, I am there waiting for myself.’
Then that old man opened his chest with his hands and took his heart out before my eyes. He took a flame from his heart and he opened my chest and my heart and he put that flame in my heart. When I awoke and opened my eyes, I felt that flame become a fire. Now I share my love with you.
At this moment, I open my chest and in front of your eyes I open my heart. I take a small flame and I open your chest and your heart. I put that flame in your heart. That flame of my love is the flame of the Christ.
And that is the dream
From Beyond Fear, copyright 1997 by Mary Carroll Nelson and Miguel Angel Ruiz, published in the UK in 2003 by Rider.
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Inspirational features 
