This chapter reads a bit like a biology lesson. My objective is to impart some old information in a new way. Sometimes restating something in a way that is less familiar will get people to think differently.

Has this ever happened to you? You have been telling a friend or family member that they need to make a change in diet or behavior, let's say to stop smoking, but nothing you have said makes a difference? Then, suddenly, a doctor comes along and says the exact same thing, and the individual acts like he or she is hearing the advice for the very first time. And suddenly a behavioral shift is made.

Let's consider the creatures that live in a pond and try for new insight. Something might break through in your awareness and out of that who knows what profound changes could occur?

In our pond, a frog starts its life as an egg which then evolves into a tadpole. Now, everyone knows that tadpoles live their lives under water, swimming around like little fish. They have no legs and no lungs, and for all intents they might as well be fish, eating and swimming in the murky pond. The difference is that this underwater animal will one day make a quantum leap and become an altogether different type of creature: a frog.

If we could speak to the tadpole and interview it, do you think that the tiny tadpole could even imagine life on top of the water, on the lily pads, in the reeds, on the banks of the pond? There would be no points of reference in the tadpole's existence for the new life that he will one day experience as a frog.

In his case, the first creature is so radically different from the second. The egg is planted in water and water is where the tadpole lives. Yet, the frog that he will become is an amphibian, also comfortable in the air and able to transcend the restrictions of the pond.

Suppose now, that we were to interview instead a full grown frog. Could it recall tadpole memories? Could it remember his life at the bottom of the pond, a time with no legs and no hopping or croaking? Could the frog reminisce and say, "Yeah, that was me then, when I was really in the murky swim of things"? Would the frog consciously retain a trace of the former things? Yet, every frog was a successful tadpole: two phases, one being.

Let's speculate even further: Do you think a tadpole consciously believes in frog life? Might we presume that a tadpole is quite busy with tadpole existence and staying out of the mouths of hungry fish? That too much "frog thinking" on the part of the tadpole would not serve a purpose and might even be confusing and detrimental to its development and survival?

But let's just say that we could convert the tadpole into a conscious frog-believer. The new frame of reference would at first appear to be foreign to the life he lives as a tadpole, but then later, it would all fall into place. The good news of frog life would be about an entire realm of being that had not yet been experienced by the tadpole, for it is the next phase of development.

Now, let's really stretch it: Suppose there was a tadpole church? And sitting in a watery pew the tadpoles heard this sermon preached from 1st Corinthians:

"All flesh is not the same. There is the flesh of tadpoles and the flesh of frogs. There are water bodies and earth bodies. The splendor of the water body is one thing and the splendor of the earth body is another." (Are you with me tadpoles? Amen!)

"If there is such a thing as a water body, there is also an earth body. The first tadpole became a water being, whereas the last tadpole has become an earth being, a frog. Observe: frog life does not come first, the tadpole body comes first.

"The first being was made of the water, the second is of the air as well. As we have worn the likeness of the being of water, so shall we bear the likeness of the being of earth and air." (Halleluia!)

Can't you just see the little tadpoles listening to this sermon? Some would have fallen asleep, of course; others would be saying, "No way! What is this preacher talking about? He's getting too far out for me."

Then the reverend would try to grab their attention with another quote from 1st Corinthians, chapter 15:

"Listen, I shall unfold a mystery. We shall not all die, but shall be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet call. This perishable water being must be clothed with the more permanent; what is transient must be clothed with the imperishable.

Then The Right Rev. Squiggly would leave his text and say, "Within each of you tadpoles is an inner pattern of a frog. This pattern of the frog within comes with its own power and with a set of instructions for the next phase of your existence. This pattern is a spiritual cause that lives inside of every single tadpole that has come into the pond, and it seeks to express itself through you as the great and powerful frog that you are."

Returning to the Scriptures, Rev. Squiggly would continue: "Greater is he that lives within you than he who lives in the pond." (1 John 4:4.) Then for emphasis, the Rev. finishes the sermon with this quote: "The life I now live is not my life but the life which the frog lives in me!" (Galatians 2:10.)

Now, Rev. Squiggly is on a roll and he says, "If you are guided by the frog, you will not fulfill the lusts of the tadpole." (This really makes some of the parishioners squirm.)

C'mon, let's stretch our imagination even further. Suppose that tadpoles had been given freewill and could choose how to live their lives and were not totally guided by instinct. A tadpole could live his life on purpose with his higher frog self, doing whatever needed to be done to follow the inner instructions for the quantum leap that he would experience into frog life.

Or the tadpole could live for just the present moment, to gratify his senses and to explore behavior that might prove detrimental to bringing out the frog in himself, his hope of glory. This might include over-eating or eating what was not good for the inner frog pattern. It might include algae abuse, getting high on pond scum. It might also include consciously and unconsciously refusing to cooperate with the inner frog instructions, holding on to negative patterns of pond codependency, thereby thwarting his transformation and leading to death rather than rebirth as a frog.

Suppose now that this had been the predicament of the pond, and that for years the tadpoles had indulged in behavior that kept wiping them out before they got to frog consciousness; that they kept on falling short of the mark and were caught up in the sins of the pond.

Then maybe a John the Tadpole would have to come into the picture preaching, "Repent now, for the kingdom of the Frog is upon you."

Perhaps a Jesus the Tadpole would appear in the pond to so live his life that he became a Savior for the tadpoles. This Jesus Tadpole would be totally in touch with his Higher Frog Self, and he would teach, "The Kingdom of the Frog is within you. Seek first its glory and its righteousness and all good things will be added unto you."

He might even say, "I and the frog are one. Who has seen me has seen the frog.'

Probably, they would put him to the test, even crucify him. But just when everyone thought Jesus Tadpole was dead, Mary Magda Tadpole and the other tadpole women come to the place where they had laid him and an angel would address them, saying, "I know you are looking for Jesus Tadpole who was crucified. He is not here. He has been raised again as he said he would be. Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has been raised from the pond and leaps before you into Galilee."

Now, let's get out of the pond and back onto the pages of this book. Reality time.

You are a multi-dimensional being. Right now, you identify with your physical, material body, but there is more of you still to come. You have power, will and freedom to live your life totally for the satisfaction derived from this physical dimension. Or you can chose to live your life in such a way that you cooperate with an inner awareness of Principle.

Don't let the spiritual vocabulary confuse you. When you think of yourself as a spiritual being, it is really yourself ahead of yourself as you are now.

Here is the point of this chapter: Unlike tadpoles that are totally guided by instinct which controls their choices, we are free. Out of this freedom we can continue to identify with the material being as the end, the ne plus ultra, the crowning achievement. Or we come to comprehend that there is an untapped potential which permits consciousness to evolve ever higher in our expression of being.

We have choices to make: either to identify with the material world -- both its pleasures and tribulations -- or to understand that this is merely a passing phase, that within us is a potential that has the power and substance to express a brand new being, a quantum shift, the Christ!