The doctor called to say her husband had experienced a massive heart attack during his physical exam.

Gladys Johnson raced to the hospital wondering later if she'd ever managed to hang up the phone.

She tried not to think the worst, but as she reached the doorway of her husband's room, she lost her composure.

All she could see was a massive tube, all kinds of machinery and squiggly lines on the monitor overhead.

What has happened, she cried? A stroke, the nurse, and answered grimly.

He's stable now, but not very responsive. Gladys filled to her knees at the side of the bed and gripped her husband's hand tightly.

I love you so much she whispered pressing his hand to her forehead. She prayed and told him how much she needed him to recover.

Mrs. Johnson, what are you doing here, the doctor, question from the doorway? Little rudely, Gladys thought.

I'm praying for my husband, she said, but Mr. Johnson is in the next room.

In her emotional state glass, it entered the wrong room. Oh dear, I hope I didn't disturb this poor man, she said, as she left the room.

Well, he's been unresponsive for a while so the doctor, I doubt, even heard you.

The next day when Gladys visited her husband, she noticed that the bed in the next room was empty.

What happened to the man next door, she asked?

He gained consciousness shortly after you left the doctor replied, or running some tests on him now, but I think he's going to be okay.

He said an angel spoke to him last night and told him to get better.

When there is a presence that's loving and accepting, known or unknown, just presence, loving and accepting, there is in some way the healing of homecoming.

Conversely, the habit of feeling separate is so deep that when there's a message of rejection or threat, it deepens the grooves.

This world can swing in both ways.

Tonight what I'd like to talk about is how we sustain a sense of separateness from each other.

How is it that we, in our moments and in the big swaths of our life, create separation?

And how do we wake up out of that to know the truth of who we are?

The Buddha described our habit of feeling separate as a trance or as a dream.

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