What part do my old relationships play in my awakening process?

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More likely than not, all your relationships could be called “old” relationships. You have a story about each one of them, from those recently formed to the ones you have had since childhood. More accurately, particularly with those bonds that are long standing, you have a multitude of stories. Within these narratives you define who that other person is to you: what they are like, what they provide for you, what you like and dislike about them, and the particular role or roles that you play in the relationship. You might be aware that you don’t seem to be the same person in each relationship. Perhaps you like the role you play with some acquaintances better than the person you find yourself to be with others, and so are more likely to seek them out so you can like yourself better.

Why do I call all relationships “old” and what does all of this have to do with awakening? Your natural state is to be awakened or absolutely in the now, taking nothing seriously as you are fully engaged with what is in front of you. In the now there are no old relationships. There is no history. If you are with another or even thinking about them, and you have any expectations based on stories or histories, you can know absolutely that you are not in the now. That means that you are asleep. You are not seeing the truth as it is. Your mind is creating scenarios about the other person and about yourself that have nothing to do with the truth of this moment. That’s what the ego mind does; it likes to create little dramas. What might it look like to be in the now with a relationship? We have talked recently about observing the observer. You have an observer who is looking at this relationship, at the other person, and at yourself, whoever this self is. It simply observes. Meanwhile your ego mind is making judgments based on what is observed. The truth of you, however, is the observer – not the analyzing mind.

It is not a question of needing to let go of old relationships that keep you stuck. Stuckness will then be created with any new relationship you attract, no matter how “spiritual” it might appear to be. It is also not a question of becoming a recluse and having no relationships, so there is nobody to create stories with. The ego mind will always find a substitute; you will find some place to project. Rather it is a question of stepping back to the observer, focusing on the noticing rather than your analysis of the noticed. As you are able to do this, you will see that every story you have about other people is false. If you are purely observing another from your true self, rather than from your analyzing mind, you will simply see their Divinity, and be absolutely in love with it.

This is a process that We invite you to play with in each and every relationship. It doesn’t matter if it is a relative or family member, a childhood friend, a longstanding friendship, an enemy, an old or present lover, a co-worker, a clerk in a store, a stranger you pass on the street, a celebrity you have never met, or a character from a movie, show, or book. This observing can be applied in the same way to every scenario. If you are in the physical presence of another person, recognize when you are doing more than just noticing. Pay attention to where there are any thoughts, expectations, judgments, likes or dislikes related to what is being observed with the other person. Just notice it. Be aware if a part of you wants the other to change in any way. Discern if you want to receive something out of the meeting. Notice that. In this awareness, the job is not to change yourself; it is not for you to stop having these thoughts. Just notice. If you have thoughts about changing your behavior, acknowledge that. Who is noticing? Your mind will likely keep active; your only job is to try to remember to recognize what you are doing.

By doing this you will, one by one, destroy every old relationship. These associations are based on stories. With them you tie yourself and the other up into specific positions and roles. The absolute freedom of the now is denied. Your behaviors and your perceptions are limited by these beliefs. In addition, your happiness likely is dependent on the other acting as you wish them to, leaving you upset much more often than you might wish. In the now there are no old fossilized relationships. Each moment is brand new. It has no history and is connected to no future. For some reason that is beyond the understanding of the mind, another person is brought into your presence. What a curiosity that is! Why? What is this all about? The only way to find out is to watch and see what happens. Whatever it is has never happened before and will never happen again. It is absolutely fresh. It is now! It matters not if this is a person you have never encountered before or a partner you have spent decades with. Let everything else go and allow yourself to experience this now.

A Course in Miracles reminds us that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. To the ego mind it feels more difficult to deal with the older relationships in the now, to hold them in a different way – particularly those with family. How do you view your parents, or your children? Most of you no longer live with your parents. One or both of them may no longer be living. With or without their physical presence, you still have a relationship with each of them. All you need do is to pull up the memory of an old story. You find yourself having a physical reaction, perhaps your heart beats faster or you are flooded with emotion, and all this with no physical presence. A parent may have done something that felt hurtful to you when you were seven years old. Now you are fifty and you pull the story up and feel hurt all over again. This certainly is not your first bout with this memory and will likely not be the last. Can you join me in appreciating the humor in the situation? Any outside witness could testify that your parent is not at the present moment doing anything to you. It’s just you doing it to you, while projecting blame on your possibly senile or dead mother. This is not living in the now. In the now you have no relationship with anybody who is not in your physical presence. But, since you already have the story pulled up, why not take a step back and watch it from your observer self. Look at it. Again, if there is any judgment or emotional response, that is not the watcher. Notice that. Who is noticing that? Keep stepping back to the watcher who sees the story, sees the child and the parent, and sees the adult replaying the whole scenario. The observer doesn’t take any of it seriously. This watcher doesn’t believe it is real or unreal. It doesn’t blame or take pity. It just notices.

For those of you who have such stories with your own children, let’s look at this from the viewpoint of your “home movies”. As they are growing up, your mind perceives all their vulnerable, fragile places. You feel a need to help them survive in the world with these deficiencies. Perhaps they are now adults, living on their own. These old stories keep being projected in your mind and you worry about them. Based on a story that was never true, but just a projection, you carry with you a constant pain. Then, just to add even more humor to the situation, your children probably react negatively toward this interference in their lives. They don’t want your story running their life. They may hide much of their life from you. The story keeps you from a now relationship with them, with another adult. As with the stories with your parents, notice all of this from the observer. A few laughs can usually be helpful in this process. Be aware of the fear, judgment, and guilt. Step back and watch from your observer self. You may be experiencing your noticer if you find yourself having feelings of absolute love for your family members. This love doesn’t worry about them and has no concern over whether you have done enough or done the wrong things. All that is experienced is a loving acceptance of what is.

This applies to every relationship. What stories are you still holding about any romantic relationship that broke off? Look at any specific groups of people. What stories do you hold about the other gender, about certain generations, about specific educational or intellectual levels, about financial status, about race or nationality, about religion or the lack thereof? The stories are endless that the mind creates. Each one locks you into a place where you are not free in the moment to truly be with others, whether in your thoughts or in their physical presence.

Having read all of this, you may still feel helpless in your ability to get to your observer self. How do you stop looking from the ego mind? You start by paying attention. If you simply stand still and accept all your mind stories, you will remain in the same cycle. Begin with a willingness to observe from your watcher self. It might sound trite, but where there is a will, there is a way.

There is a conundrum here. We are talking about a difference between Oneness and duality. You cannot hold the two simultaneously. The ego mind can only operate from duality. The truth of you can see only Oneness. How do you leap this chasm from duality to Oneness? The answer is that you can’t. The only thing you can do is to be aware when the ego mind is operating. You can notice that you are creating and operating from a story. Who is doing the noticing? That’s a good question to keep asking. You have no ability to control and change the mind that is creating stories, judging, and being overcome with emotions. Rather than futilely trying to become the noticer, you might ask yourself what qualities the noticer wouldn’t have. As you notice your mind or emotions acting in certain ways, ask if those are traits of your noticer. Ask if what you perceive is actually true. If you keep looking at these activities and are brutally honest with yourself the answer will eventually be no, these are not qualities of the observer. It is not possible for the noticer to change the noticed, nor would the noticer have any desire to do so. All that you can do is to slowly increase the frequency with which you are able to notice. At some point there may be a synaptic leap from duality to Oneness. You can’t make it happen any more than you can make a seed grow into a plant. You can nurture it through cultivation, but you can’t force it. At some point you may suddenly be fully aware of the absolute insanity and humor of the ego mind and stop using it.

Meanwhile, you have one simple job. Notice. You don’t have to change yourself, anybody around you, or the world. Just notice. There is no better place to focus this awareness than with your relationships, so that they can all become new relationships. Each meeting with another becomes like good improv theater, flowing with what presents itself, enjoying the spontaneity of the interchange, and allowing your guidance to carry you. There is no question of where it’s going, only an enjoyment of where it is.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Do I create my reality or does Spirit?

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It seems that this month’s question is one of those chicken or egg quandaries. Let’s begin in this manner. When you say “I”, that means the question is emanating from your ego. The ego “I” is the only one you can relate to because there is no true “I”. Only your ego can be asking this question. Then we have the dilemma of deciding what the hell is meant by “reality”. If reality is defined as how you perceive the world, then of course you are the creator. Everything you see in the illusion is your projection, is your creation. Your body, the people around you, the physical world, the weather, the drama, the governments, sports…..it’s all your creation in terms of what you perceive. The important question now is do we want to label your perceptions as reality. I have told you many times, including earlier in this paragraph, that all this is an illusion. Yes, your ego self creates these illusions. I can hear the wheels spinning inside your mind and you’re thinking “Sanhia, you are really not answering this question for me in a satisfactory way.” “Do my thoughts affect this “reality” I’m in, or is Spirit running everything?”

That’s a very good question, but I want to return to what I have already stated. If you are speaking in terms of this illusion being “reality”, you are absolutely in charge because you choose your reaction to each moment. You choose how you perceive; you choose to judge; you choose your emotional response. If you are asking if you have the power to absolutely control this illusion, to make it exactly what you want it to be, the answer is yes, to some degree, but no, not really. If you have a child whom you perceive as lazy, never helping around the house, leaving messes all about, and so on, do you have the power to change this behavior in your “reality”. Those of you who have been in these shoes are laughing and thinking, “Not a chance”. What you do have the power to affect is in how you choose to react. Here the only limits are the belief structures you restrict yourself with. You might tell yourself that any rational person would react in a negative way to this behavior and try to change it. If you are cut off in traffic by another driver, the “natural” response is to honk your horn and display your middle finger. Otherwise, they will never learn proper driving etiquette. I ask again, how successful do you think your expressions of anger are in changing the other driver’s habits? So, if “reality” is what is happening in the outer world, you probably have little power to affect change. You do have the power to stop thinking you should be changing this “reality”, you can give up the thought that it should be different. It is insanity to believe that if you honk your horn loudly enough and thrust your finger far enough out your window, suddenly the highway will be a peaceful place filled with courteous drivers. Maybe the thousandth time of asking your child to clean up after themselves will magically work. Maybe this is why the illusion is referred to as a dream. You have the power to accept how it is. You have the power not to be upset by what is.

The question now comes back that if you are actually not creating this “reality”, who is? Is it just random? Does Spirit create everything that seems to be happening? My answer is “absolutely”. Then you ask me if Spirit has a screw loose? Why would Spirit create this mess? You cannot even begin to grasp the answer to this question without accepting that nothing going on in the world matters at all. I am not saying this metaphorically; this is as close as we can get to expressing the truth in words. Nothing in this world has any value or importance. The only purpose for anything in this dreamscape is in assisting you in waking up. You have no other function or purpose other than awakening. This is not to say that Spirit won’t use you in the master plan of awakening everyone, but while you are asleep you can have no awareness of how Spirit might be using you. When awakened, you are aware that your only function is to do as Spirit asks. Again, this function is not one of saving the world; the universe is going to disappear. It is only in supporting others in awakening and you will not have the responsibility of figuring out how to do that. Spirit will guide your every moment. Everything that happens is guided by Spirit. Everything is planned. Not only is everything planned, but Spirit knows exactly how you are going to respond. Therefore, it is impossible for you to make the wrong choice. Self judgment and guilt are absolute wastes of time. Spirit/God can hardly hold you responsible for doing as you are expected to do. Spirit creates the situation and you respond. If you are in resistance to what is presented and think it should be in some other way, the lessons continue to be presented until you realize that all is as it should be. Maybe that happens in this body and maybe in another. None of that matters because none of this, including time, is real. Eventually within the dream you will have that moment when you realize you have been rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic, trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. You will laugh at your own insanity, let go, and accept the glorious perfection of everything you are and have been experiencing.

You, and here I am speaking to your ego self, fortunately cannot control this illusion that you have been projecting outside of yourself, this dream world. If you could, you would choose from your ego and remain forever asleep. But that’s not in the cards; you won’t be able to accomplish that. On a good day you may fool yourself into believing that you do have that power and want it to continue indefinitely. Ultimately, the weather will change. That’s the nature of duality, of this illusion. Every up is followed by a down, and vice versa. They may not seem to be in balance but neither of them can fully disappear. In Spirit, in Divinity, everything is perfect. There is nothing you would consider changing. The stubbing of your toe, the kiss of the sun, the sting of a bee, and the laugh of a child are all part of the perfection of the now.

I want to repeat that as you are dealing with your life each day, you cannot do it in a wrong way. You are just following the plan. The end of the plan is the awakening and the awareness that it has always been a dream. There is no way you can make that happen today, nor is there a way to stop it from happening now. It’s simply not in your control. The plan is all there. The perfection of it is beyond ego comprehension. The enormity of the seemingly infinite interconnections of Spirit’s plan should be humbling to your ego thought system. If you are reading this message, if you are taking it in, if you have been choosing to listen to Spirit and to let go of your ego mind, all of this has been planned. None of it happens by accident. If you seem to be either ahead of or behind another in your awakening process, take no credit and leave no blame. All is going according to plan (not to speak of the fact that your placement of your “growth” in relationship to others is likely to be faulty). Your reaction to what you are reading here is also planned. You cannot make a mistake.

Those of you who feel all alone, who think nobody understands you, feel that God has abandoned you, or believe that you can’t hear Spirit – know that Spirit is with you at every moment. Your consciousness of this has nothing to do with it. Spirit is always whispering in your ear, whether you are listening or not. There is never a time when you are alone. You are truly One with Spirit and with each other. Absolutely One. Ego believes in your separateness. Again that is why there is a call for gratitude for your inability to be able to control the dreamscape “reality”. The ego can only use its power to maintain the sense of separation. Otherwise your ego disappears. For the ego to make such a choice is not in the cards. Ego dies from a lack of attention.

In truth, this is not a chicken or egg question. There is only one answer and that is that Spirit creates the “reality” of your dream world. Spirit controls every aspect. Spirit does this through a loving, connected “spirit” of Oneness, leading you step-by-step to stop listening to your ego and to hold Spirit’s hand and experience the Love and Oneness. Your ego wants you to believe that you can and should take control and make the world the way you want it to be. It’s never going to happen. When you experience being One with Spirit, you will find that you do “create” your own reality, but this is a co-creation with Spirit; Spirit speaks and you act. There is an absolute alignment. You would never want it any differently. There is nothing you would rather do.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Why is it so difficult to accept everything that happens in my world?

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I agree with you. It does feel hard. The ego way, the way you have all been taught in one form or another, is to be ruled by negative emotions. However, it does not serve you or the truth to point fingers at the outer world for your difficulties. You brought all of these challenges in with you. You manifested in your world what you believed to be true. Your ego tells you that it is good to have negative emotions. It serves you to get angry with those who do what you think is wrong. It benefits you to complain about what you don’t like. Your ego supports you in feeling yourself to be a victim; this is so much better than to be a victimizer. In this the ego helps you perceive things in such a way that you are always innocent and the other is always guilty. We could draw up a long list of ego supported negative emotions, each one being a subset of fear. As long as you allow these negative emotions to rule your life, of course, they will. You will remain asleep and out of touch with Spirit.

The world around you, your creation, will slap you on the back and tell you what a fine job you are doing, that you are all in this together dealing with an unfair and painful existence. Waking up is leaving the way of the world. Why is it so hard? Because it is so hard. If it were easy We wouldn’t be writing these messages and you would all be awake. It is hard because you still have a strong belief that your ego is right and most everyone around you seems to be in agreement. Mostly it is difficult because you can’t find anybody else to do this work for you. You have to take responsibility for choosing to awaken and then you have to do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile the world, to the degree that you show your hand, thinks you are totally nuts. You can’t blame anyone else for your failure to awaken. It is totally up to you. I understand the enormity of the challenge, but you have no other choice but to remain asleep. And that isn’t much of a choice because you have already begun to distrust your ego and there may be no going back. Rather than having a foot in each world, you will find no place to call home. You will awaken if you “keep your eye on the prize”, but it is going to take time. It will not happen all at once.

Let’s begin with negative emotions. If you were to decide to eliminate them from your life, it wouldn’t happen quickly . Even if you choose to jettison anger, you will keep getting angry. Your fears won’t quickly dissipate. You cannot effectively drop these negative emotions by making a mental decision, but everything starts when you have that intention. The next step is to pay attention to your behavior. Notice the negative emotions. Do your best not to judge yourself for having them, to not throw more fuel on the fire. Your job is not to judge, simply to notice. The goal is to be constantly aware, but, again, this won’t happen overnight. That is all there is to begin with, so let’s play with this a little, take it for a walk in the park. You go outside in the morning and find it to be either warmer or colder than you would like. You silently complain, or to another if you have a companion. “Why isn’t it warm the way summer is supposed to be?” or “It’s too damn hot!” This is not accepting what is. It is having a negative emotional response to the moment. You enter a store and run right into a person you don’t want to meet. “Why do I have to see him? Oh, no, he’s coming toward me! He’s going to want to talk. Why does this happen to me?”  Little things happen all day long. “Oh! I dropped my favorite cup in the sink and it broke! I got it from my grandmother! I am so upset”. Little things. It doesn’t need to be bombs dropping in Ukraine, viruses, or governmental actions. Any little things you react to each and every day are what you are to notice. Your job is to be aware of your negative responses to them. You can come up here and sit with Us and observe, “There I go”. Together we will look without judgment. You notice that it happened. Then you see if your perceiving was judgment free. The more often you are able to catch yourself, the more often you will be able to do so without judgment, or you will at least be aware of the negative emotion of judgment. Again, this is not about changing your negative emotional responses; it is just about awareness.

Let’s look at your negative emotions from another point of view. What possible benefit can you reap from having a negative reaction to a situation? Is your reaction to the weather going to change it? Is getting upset with running into that man in the store going to make him disappear? Will your upset over the broken cup put it back together? You may have been told that there is no use crying over spilt milk. That may be true. Your negative emotions do not help to eliminate undesired outcomes. They do succeed in helping you to feel bad. How would you feel if you didn’t have the negative emotional reactions? How would it be if you simply accepted what is? “This is what the weather is today.” “I guess Spirit wants me to meet this man today.” “It’s just a cup. I have others.” Why not let go. Why choose upset when peaceful acceptance is a viable and more productive choice? You can be joyfully in the now or you can be consumed with negative emotions. This is why I tell you that everything that happens is perfect. I have designed everything to support you in awakening. In your awakened state you will understand and welcome this perfection. Negative responses do not allow you to be present, to receive the gifts, to feel the Oneness. When you choose fear over love you cannot experience the Divine Now.

This lack of efficacy in your negative emotions may help motivate you to do this work. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose, except the fleeting pleasure that sharing your pain with another brings. If you think your negative emotions bring something of value to you, I encourage you to spend some time with that thought. Look deeply. Is it really true? Is this something that you want? See exactly what the benefits are to you. As long as you find plusses there, you will surely stay with them. Otherwise continue to pay attention. With the intention to leave behind your negative emotional responses, for now you merely observe. The transformation will happen in stages and only as quickly as it can. How can you be free of negative emotional reactions if you have one when you notice you are still having them? That may be a little convoluted, but think about it. Nothing more is asked of you than the awareness of when it happens. Noticing is what you do in the now. Negative emotions are never about the now. Someday you will be fully aware of how silly they are.

It is Our job to assist in the transformation. If you set the course of awakening and then begin paying attention, We will bring you everything you need in order to let go of these habits. We will take you step by step at the pace We know is right for your awakening. As we’re sitting up here together in the clouds, looking down on the battlefield, We will assist you in the noticing. Feel free to ask Us why We brought something and to ask for support in receiving the gift. Listen. You might hear a response. Sooner or later it will happen, and then it will happen more frequently. You may not be able to hear Us over the loud chatter of your ego, so it helps you to quiet yourself as you climb up next to Us. If you can’t silence your ego, then simply notice that and the accompanying feelings. Waking up does not require finding the holiest place on the planet, or going there and falling at the feet of the holiest person on the planet and saying, “Show me the way.” You do it right here, right now. You notice; you pay attention, and you listen for the inner voice. No special place, no special person, no special practice. One way you might recognize the diminishing of the hold your ego has over you occurs when you begin laughing at yourself as you notice your negative emotions being expressed.

In conclusion – and of course there is never a conclusion because there is no beginning or ending; there is no time – what makes it so hard is two things. First is when you believe in your ego and trust it is telling you the truth. It is when you justify the righteousness of your negative emotions. “Anyone would react this way to this horrible world!” This makes awakening nearly impossible. There must first be a willingness to stop surrendering to the negative response. Most of you are more likely involved with thing two. It feels so hard to change your ways. The answer again is that this is not your job. Changing behavior in the outer world is not what awakening asks of you. A little willingness is all that is needed. That, along with a commitment to paying attention more and more often, is all that is called for. It becomes a matter of persistence. Nothing sexy or “woo woo” about it, just showing up and noticing. Then, like Michael and Ulla’s cat when she catches a mouse, you bring it to Us and set it down at Our feet as an offering. We know what to do with it and are always grateful. We will do the heavy lifting and present you in turn with your next gift. If you have difficulty fully receiving what appears – no problem. You still have your intention; you are still trying to notice; and We have an endless supply of next gifts for you. Another time you will notice or you may have no negative reaction. Celebrate! Pop the cork! More will follow. Here is Our money back guarantee. If you express an intention to leave your negative emotions behind and pay attention to when you don’t, they will begin to fall away over time. As they do, you will find yourself increasingly recognizing the perfection that each moment brings to you.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

What do we do with the war in Ukraine?

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I have been asked to address the war in Ukraine. The first thing to notice is who is whispering in your ear and triggering fear. The answer without exception is that it is the voice of the ego. If you have been listening to the voice of Spirit you would be filled with acceptance and peace. Looking at this war would be no different for you than watching the sun rising in the morning sky. The ego voice asks, “Sanhia, how can we be in peace in the face of war?” You have the question reversed. It could better be stated, “How can there be peace in the world when there is war within me?” That is where the war exists. The world is never the cause; it can only be the effect. The cause remains within you. If you support one side over the other, you are creating war. You are filled with judgment, separation, and the perception of differences. You are guided by anger and blame. You are seeing a world populated by victims and victimizers. This is all projection. It is your guilt, your helplessness in the world, your fear of God. It is your fear of having no control over what might happen to you, of your own victimhood. It is your fear of death. All of this is ego projection, every bit of it.

The big question is, “What is real?”  What is it that you fear happening? Is it your fear for what might happen to others, or is it really fear for what could happen to you? The ego voice wants to convince you that your concern is for others, for the victims of the bombings, for the refugees, for those who have lost family members or their own lives, for the loss of homes and the destruction from the bombing. There is no way to be gentle about this. The ego is whispering bullshit into your ear. This has absolutely nothing to do with anybody else. It has only to do with you. This is your fear of death, of loss, of victimhood. This is all your projection. Corona did not do a complete and thorough job of relieving you of your fear of death. Of course it couldn’t; that is your job. Spirit can supply you with the classroom and the lessons, but only you can take them to heart and search for the truth. Death as you know it, the death of a human body is not real. It is no more real than the body itself. The body and the death of it are your creations, not God’s. The fear of death is the fear of something unreal happening to something that doesn’t exist. The fear is your creation, so only you can release it. There is no change that can happen in the world to release you of your fear. The movement can only take place in your own mind. Now you have been presented with another opportunity to do that. For those of you who are in Sweden the pot is sweetened as the war is closer and the refugees are at your door. For you in the United States the pot is sweetened by having your old nemesis, Russia, the evil empire that vowed to bury you, once again rearing its “ugly” head. How much fun is this? The illusion of the pandemic has been replaced in one fell swoop by the illusion of war.

As long as you believe that who you are is your body, you will fear death. All around you will appear to be violence or the threat of violence. When you absolutely realize that you are not your body – that you are not a physical being but are Divine and eternal; that you simply are – the death of the body will have no meaning for you. In this awakened state it will not matter; you might even be looking forward to the leaving. There is no in-between place here; either you are a body or you are. If you hold on to the reality of your body, your fears will remain with you until you become so tired of it that you finally choose to focus on Spirit and the truth hard enough to break through the wall of untruth. How do you do that? Stop feeding the illusion. When you realize your fear is being projected, whether it is upon those who seem to be victims or those who appear to be the perpetrators, notice what you are doing. Take responsibility. Your only job is to release untruth until all that remains is the truth. Seek the truth and it shall set you free. The existence of fear indicates you have work to do. Bring that to Spirit. Come sit up here above the battlefield with us and observe your ego self operating in the world. Watch without judgment, simply observing the “human condition”. You are not asked to change how you act in the world, only how you hold those actions, whether they are your own or those of your mirrors.

Let’s look at this from another perspective. You believe that certain individuals or groups are controlling what is going on with this war. Whether you hold Putin, Russia, or hidden forces or conspiracies within other countries as being the responsible party for the hostilities, it is actually Spirit that is bringing everything about. There is only one reason for the existence of these events and that is to help each one of you to wake up. That is the only job for you to take on in the wake of this war. When you feel badly for what is happening to others and wish to change those outcomes, you are expressing an arrogance that is far from the humility that can lead to awakening. This “caring concern” is an expression that you can do Spirit’s work – God’s job – better than They can. You are acting as if you know what’s best for everyone. Yet, you haven’t even figured out what is best for you. Is it good for you to live in fear and guilt? If you were correct that the world should be peaceful, you are stuck in a bit of a quandary. The world has never known peace. If peace is what we should have, why has it never happened? Are you going to spend the rest of your human existence in a futile battle against what is? You think that we should not have war when the earth has always had war. You think that governments should tell the truth and serve their citizens when they have always lied and served themselves. You believe that brute force should never be used by the strong over the weak, but it occurs daily. So, what planet are you living on? If you think you can change “reality”, you are holding on to an enormous illusion. The world is exactly as it is. For any step forward for mankind there will be a step backward. It is not, never has been, nor ever will be the purpose of the world to be perfect, to be heaven. It was created by you as a place to hide from heaven. Your job is to wake up to that and to find the kingdom within, not try to do the impossible. Wherever you try to take on the work of Spirit you have everything turned around. You are clueless about how to wake up, perhaps even unaware that you are asleep in a dream world, yet you think you know what other people should have in their lives?

Now you may find yourself in absolute confusion. You may be wondering if you shouldn’t at least be feeling sorry for the Ukrainian people. These “people” don’t exist outside of being your projections. It is for yourself that you are feeling sorry. It is you who is both the attacker and the victim. It is time for you to stop attacking yourself. It is time to stop blaming God and to start taking responsibility. It is time to stop waiting for a savior and realize that you are the only one who can do that for yourself. Spirit can help you, but only to the degree that you will allow. If you think the problems lie outside of you, Spirit can do nothing other than use your belief as a club to beat you into submission. It is you who have to call off the dogs. So, we return to the vital questions. What do you believe that is not true? Look at where you are in competition with God, thinking you know the best plan for others. Notice where you have refused to take responsibility for your part in the creation of the illusion, pretending you and others are victims to it. Look at how you take the world seriously as if it were real and the truth of you and others were actually these bodies. See how you think that material things actually matter.

The bottom line is that the war is within you, not out there in the world. If you desire to be responsible and caring, bring peace to the war you are waging. Give up all your attacks and blaming of others, which are acts of war. Stop holding others as helpless victims unless that is truly what you wish them to be. See Divine children of God. Hold yourself in that light. It’s a big job, but not so big a work as trying to create heaven on earth or stopping a physical war in the illusion. This challenge is one that you can actually succeed at. Since it is you who have started all war, you can also stop it. Nobody else can control what you do with your next thought but you. Nobody has power over you. What is going on in Ukraine does not matter. What is going on inside of you is everything. Spirit has brought you an enormous gift, right on the shirttails of Corona. You have an opportunity to choose love over fear, to awaken. It is not your last chance, but your life will remain driven by fear and helplessness until you decide to grab on to the horns and wrestle one of those monsters to the ground. Now is as good a time as any.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is freedom?

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If you are an American, you have been told since you were young that you live in the land of the free. Freedom is the watchword for America. But what does freedom mean? For some, perhaps, it means that you are able to do whatever you want to do. Within a society, that could become a problem. Perhaps exercising your “freedom” gets in the way of somebody else exercising theirs. Am I free to take your car? So, it seems we need to journey further to discover what true freedom is. There are certainly limits on what any person is free to do, or we are left with a lawless society where the strongest take what they want.

If you think that your freedom depends on controlling things outside of you – such as other people’s behavior or world events – you will always fail and feel frustrated. You will be unable to control those factors, setting yourself up for misery. There is also the fear, the confused belief that you have to protect your freedom; you have to fight for it. This is the idea that others will try to take your freedom away from you, so freedom comes only at the price of eternal vigilance. Where is the peace in that? What is actually transpiring here is projection. The only one who is coming after your freedom is you. Nobody else is capable of doing that to you. I am going to pick on America a little bit here with its ideology of being the land of the free. Why are children forced to go to school? Does that teach freedom?  How many people go to work each day out of freedom? How many of you look at your partner each day and see “the old ball and chain”? Where is the freedom? You are free to choose whatever you want each day, but you choose to wake up next to your jailer. Is this freedom? That’s a rhetorical question. This is living life from fear. This is thinking you have to sacrifice to hold on to the little bit that you have. Of course this is not freedom, and it is not just an issue for Americans.

When you say that you want to have something or to do something, is that actually your true desire? Perhaps in the mass consciousness of your society you have been taught that you should pick a goal and succeed at reaching it. Within the scope of that, the goals you have to choose from may be narrowly defined. Maybe you are told that you should find a job that provides you financial security. Perhaps the teaching includes having a nice home and providing for your retirement. So, based on this you choose your goals, but do you really select them out of free choice? Are you listening to what your deep inner self really wants or to what the mass consciousness tells you that you need to have? The first question to ask yourself when you insist on your freedom of choice is, “Is it really true that this is what I wish to choose?” Is this somebody else’s wish for you? Is it a wish that comes out of fear? Is it a wish that comes out of a desire for approval? If you were to say to a child, “I’ll bet you can’t wait to grow up so that you can get up and go off to work every day!”, you would likely not get a positive response. It is unlikely the child will exclaim, “Oh, I can’t wait to do that!” To the child such an action more likely would feel like a loss of freedom than something they would want to choose. Freedom for children is doing what they want to do each day; it is playing. By the time most children grow up they have been brainwashed into believing that doing what they want is not an option as an adult.

So, there appears to be a great confusion about what freedom is. My guess is that if you have not done a lot of internal inquiry here, then what you think you want is not what your inner child wants at all. You do have the “freedom” to choose as directed by the mass consciousness and to find out that it doesn’t bring you satisfaction. Maybe the mass consciousness belief is that if you have enough money you can choose to do what you want. The conundrum is that no matter how much money is accumulated, it will usually not seem to be enough. When is it safe to stop? Never.  Money does not buy freedom. The accumulation of money is based on fear. If the fear is not confronted, no amount of money is enough; the fear persists.

Let’s go in a different direction. Many of you are familiar with the song lyric that says “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”  This is sung in a sad, plaintive manner from one who appears to be at the bottom and not so happy about being there. On the other hand, those of you who have hit that bottom may have found a freedom there. As long as there is a desire, a hope, a goal, a relationship, money, the possibility of success or of a better world, or anything else you could have attachment to – and the thought that such achievement is still within reach – you are not free. Without realizing the object of your attachment, you will not be happy; you will not be fulfilled. Nothing left to lose can mean “no attachment”. There is nothing else that can be lost. Is that freedom? If it isn’t, we might be getting warm.

In the awakened state there is no attachment. There are no goals. That doesn’t mean that you live without anything in your life, it simply does not matter what is there. It doesn’t follow that the life is void of meaning or activity. Whatever appears or happens is perfect. We are getting closer to a sense of what freedom is. One cannot be asleep and free. True freedom requires being in the awakened state. If that is true and you wish to be free, then you will choose to wake up. This choosing, however, becomes a goal and so there appears to be a vicious cycle. You cannot wake up without intention, but the very fact of choosing this goal keeps you in attachment and asleep. This is what we call a conundrum. The part of you that is trying to figure out how to wake up is absolutely incapable of succeeding. Only the ego can have goals. Spirit has no goals. The ego can only succeed in self-sabotage.

How can you possibly navigate this duality? One solution is to give your freedom of choice to Spirit. Spirit both has and knows the plan. When we talk about giving it to Spirit, letting Spirit guide you, many have the fearful reaction that surrendering to the voice of Spirit means that you have to give up your own free will. Isn’t that a loss of freedom? You would have to sacrifice your desire for the dictates of Spirit. That’s an interesting point of view. To have freedom, you must give it up. You surrender to Spirit, letting It direct you, trusting that whatever is presented into your life is the perfect thing, and accepting it rather than fighting, resisting, and wanting to change things. This is what will bring you freedom. You give your ego’s free choice to the One who can choose for you. This process will certainly be accompanied by terror. The ego, which has chosen to wake up, doesn’t really want to. It does not want to relinquish the sense of separation, whereas freedom absolutely demands that you do so. Ego will throw tantrums as well as all possible obstacles in your path in an attempt to derail this surrender. The irony of ironies is that if and when you totally surrender your freedom to follow Spirit’s will, you will discover that what Spirit wants you to do is totally aligned with what you want to do. What will have changed is that you will have total joy in the doing and not a thought for the outcome.

Freedom is having zero attachment to results. In the duality you cannot always succeed in reaching a desired outcome, so any attachment you have will bring about a sense of loss, unhappiness, and you will find yourself on a rollercoaster. The outcome is not in the moment, so any focus on results brings you out of the eternal now and into the slumber of the ego. When you are awake nothing matters, with the exception of the moment, and it is joyous. Think of the freedom of a child at play. The joy of the sand castle is in the making. Tomorrow it will likely be gone and the child will be making something else. There is no freedom outside of the eternal now. If your behavior is being controlled by anything from the past, you are not free. If your thoughts are in the future, trying to bring about some particular outcome, you are not free.

Freedom means you are free of responsibility. When you hold the thought that you or others are responsible, you are chained by that thought. What is the truth here? It is absolute insanity to think you are responsible for someone else. How can you determine what they will or will not do? How can you decide what will happen to them? That is all Spirit’s job. It’s none of your business. What an enormous freedom you will feel when you take the step of giving up the thought that you have responsibility for others. Feel that. Now you are responsible only for your business. Is that the truth? Are you truly responsible for all that you do? Probably not since most of your actions are conditioned responses you have not freely chosen. It is your thoughts that matter, not your actions. More importantly, Spirit has a plan for you that is better than any you could ever come up with. What you have been calling responsibility is actually irresponsible. You are trying to take over the work of a master, and failing completely at the task. You don’t need to be responsible and are absolutely incapable of doing the job. Feel the lightness that comes with relinquishing that work.

Wherever you look out on your life and see a place where you don’t feel free, that is where you have chosen to give your power to something outside of you. Freedom happens when you take your power back, bringing it inside and giving it to Spirit. In truth, Spirit already has it. You simply stop working at cross purposes. Most people think of freedom as trying to hold on to something they desire, but it actually is letting it go. If you wish to choose freedom, letting go of all attachments and following Spirit – how do you go about doing that? The first step is having the awareness that if you are feeling distress of any kind, whether it is fear, physical pain, disease, or emotional discomfort; it is a sign that you have given your freedom away. You have an attachment to and have made yourself a prisoner of some belief that is not true. Pay attention and notice what situations are triggering that for you. You have a belief that you need to control something outside yourself to be happy. You have given someone or something power over you.  Ask Spirit for support in letting that go. Your behavior won’t likely immediately change, but as you watch yourself taking these self-destructive acts, as you sit there with Spirit and observe the craziness of your patterns, as you remind yourself that you have nothing to gain by them, the activities will naturally begin to lessen.

Whatever you think you need to have in your life situation to make you free leaves you a prisoner. Real freedom comes when you release your attachment to absolutely everything. Am I saying that you should all quit your jobs and leave your spouses so that you can be free? Changing the outside will not give you freedom; it is how you look at it from the inside that sets you free. What would you choose today if you were really free? If you have been acting from fear you probably don’t have the slightest idea what you would choose. It is a gradual process you will go through when you give the wheel back to Spirit. It requires you to investigate each belief that is driving your behavior and look for the untruths. It is in feeling what it is like to no longer be a victim of anything, to no longer need anything or anyone to change. Perhaps in a future “now” you will be guided to make a big jump. This will neither be a jump away nor a jump toward. It will simply be your truth in that moment, your guidance from Spirit. There will be no second guessing. There will be no guilt. You will not be chained to your choice. Each moment will bring another. Each one will be guided. Each will be an exercise in freedom.

Good Now

Sanhia

Is there a difference between awakening and ascension?

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This question has come up recently. We have been using the term awakening quite a bit lately. People are wondering if that word means the same thing as ascension. Are the terms interchangeable? I can understand the confusion, and it is time to clear things up. Not only will we clarify the information, but we will give you some valuable insights that I have not previously presented. Now it is time for you to receive them. We dealt with this question some years ago using still different terminology and I highly recommend that you click here to read that message as it provides good information on this subject without specifically focusing on most of what I have to say now. So, with no further ado, let’s speak of awakening and ascension. In that previous message we used the term enlightenment.  We’ll deal with that word right now so that our focus can be limited to the two terms in the title. Enlightenment and awakening are synonyms. They have the same general meaning as I use them. You are welcome to substitute the word enlightenment any time I say awakening, but I will only use the latter term for the rest of this message.

Now, let’s go back to the beginning. In this process of dealing with the subject of pure non-duality – the realization that any time we are dealing with opposites we are dealing with illusion, with things that are not real in that they do not pass the test of foreverness – we are dealing with questions of truth or untruth. In truth there is Oneness. Of course it goes without saying – though I am saying it anyway and have said it before – we are using words here and words never express the truth. They are by nature dualistic because your reasoning mind can only work in the realm of separation. When we speak of Spirit and ego, we are speaking dualistically as if these are two different things that truly exist, when in truth only Spirit exists. Spirit is connected to the Divine and ego is not. This process that we are talking about in using the terms awakening and ascension has two steps. This is the new information for you, or at least for most of you. The first step is what we have often been dealing with in these messages. That is the letting go of the ego. This process is what we have been calling awakening. When you are awakened you are in an ego-free state. This means that you have no attachments; you no longer hold people or things as special; you have no personal goals; you have no horse in the race – whatever happens is perfect. What you do is to simply listen to your inner guidance, to Spirit, and follow it in absolute trust and love without a need for understanding. When the ego is dropped there is no judgment, no competition, and no right and wrong; there is only love.

Let’s go deeper into what this ego-free state is like. I won’t cover all of the many questions you might have about it, so feel free to send any that linger with you to Michael and we will visit them in future messages. When you are in this awakened state there is nothing that limits you. This physical illusion is now your playground instead of your classroom. You know that whatever happens is perfect, so the thought of anything possibly being upsetting to you is insanity. It does not compute. It will not happen. You know that everything that does happen is on purpose and as it should be. Your part is to play your role, following your guidance, doing something that will be a joy for you. You know what to do because you feel guided. You are being told what to do, but there is no separation between you and the guiding Spirit. Your wills are one. That is non-dualistic. There is no limit to the possibilities of what different services you may be asked to perform. You might be teaching others through your words, written or spoken. You might be led to artistic expressions. You might be building things or growing things. Again, there are no limits to what you may be inspired to, other than you will be filled with love and joy in the doing. Results will not matter; only the doing itself has value for you.

You may be wondering how long this ego-free state goes on for. The answer to that is up to the Divine. We will say that as you are performing the services that Spirit is asking of you, which you are doing with love and joy, you are still aware of yourself. You notice the world. You have consciousness, even though the ego has disappeared. There is the observer and the observed. You are in an in-between state. Perhaps we could say that you are not ruled by dualism, yet you do not have the full experience of Oneness. It is not possible to have a self and to be One at the same time, so your non-dualism cannot be pure. You are still experiencing separation from God. The longer you are in this state of egoless self, the more you will feel the separation blurring. As you do all of these Spirit inspired things you will gradually realize there is less that you are motivated to do in the illusion. Ultimately, you come to the second step which is the letting go of the self. When this occurs you no longer have an identity; you no longer have consciousness. There is no you remaining that can observe. You are One with all, One with God.  There is no longer a physical experience, a body.

There is an important understanding that accompanies the two step ascension process of first dropping the ego, and second dropping the self. Some of you have been afraid to drop the ego because you thought that ascension was in one step. You feared that dropping the ego meant you would immediately – poof! – leave your body, the world, everything! But that is not the case. When you awaken, everything is still there, except the ego. You are now experiencing the illusion without an ego. That’s it! Then you will have a long run – or a short run, depending on what Spirit has in mind for you – of playing with the illusion from an egoless perspective until you are complete with that. You cannot be forced into letting go of the self, nor can you force it to happen. You will stay and play in the illusion until you have had your fill. What we call ascension is the point where you willingly and through the grace of God let go of the self. Then the illusion absolutely disappears. There is no separate consciousness, and you are One with God. Of course the truth is that you are already One with God, even as you are experiencing the illusion of a separate self and an ego, but that hasn’t been a part of your conscious awareness.

In the awakened level of letting go of the ego, you know that it is all an illusion so you are able to play in it without attachment to anything. In the second level, or ascension, there is no more you. You have let go of the self, of consciousness of any separate awareness. Both of these ascension steps happen with the grace of God. Your ego will not choose to let itself go, so you ask Spirit to do that for you. You, therefore, cannot control the timing, though you can maintain a clear focus and continually face the untruths you are holding. Your awakened self also cannot decide to let go of itself because that would be an act of consciousness. Only Divine energy can dissolve that illusion of separation to allow the self to be submerged into the Oneness. It is analogous to falling asleep. You cannot will yourself into sleep. The more you try to sleep, the more you will remain awake.  Sleep comes when you let go, which allows it to happen. When you have left the ego, your awakened self may still have a lot to do. Let it run its course. Your ascension occurs when the self has nothing left to do and can let go, simultaneously free of any need to stay or to leave. When this happens, we call it “by the grace of God”. This was demonstrated by Jesus. This was not demonstrated by the Buddha, though he did demonstrate awakening.

We have today, and in all of the messages talked about the egoless experience, how to achieve it and what it is like. To talk about the self-less experience is not possible. There is nothing I could say that would give you the remotest feeling for what the Divine experience is, not even a sniff. I have given the following analogy before. It has been said that the human mind only uses five per cent of its potential. What would the experience of using the full potential be? The awakened egoless self has a similar relationship with the experience of the Divine. Notice we’re not even bringing the ego consciousness level into this equation. And in saying that the awakened self experiences only 5 percent of the ecstasy of Divinity, we are being very generous. When the self has a “divine” experience, this a projection of the self, not a true experience of the Divine. The most glorious earthly experience with perfect weather, fantastic nature, smells, sights, sounds, loving people, and the feeling of a divine connection with God would, from the Divine perspective, be a descent into hell. The highest dualistic heaven would be experienced as hell by the Divine. So much for your ego attempts to create heaven on earth.

For most of you reading this, the information about leaving the self is academic. Your work is in leaving the ego. If there is anyone in the audience who is egoless, your job is to enjoy creating in that place as long as you are so inspired.  Leaving the self is not a focus of any importance. Back to the rest of you, there will likely be a gradual transition where you are less and less influenced by your ego and more and more listening to the guidance of Spirit. If you still can get upset, there is work remaining. Again the final letting go of ego is through grace, not your efforts. It is not earned, but there is clear intention. For all there is never a rush. Everything happens in Divine time and order. Go set your alarms for awakening, but without selecting a time.

Good Now

Sanhia

Why not now?

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Usually with these messages I’m answering a question that someone has asked, or I’m dealing with something that came up in a discussion or conversation with an individual or a group. But, this time I take full credit for the question. It is my question to you. Why not now? Do you look at your awakening process, your ascension, or your spiritual path and think that someday you hope to wake up? Do you assume that, sooner or later, you will drop your ego? If those are your thoughts I guarantee you that you are right. Someday it will happen, but it will not be today. And guess what kids, today is the only day you have. No matter how much you might wish it to be tomorrow, or even yesterday, it is always today. To say “someday” is to say “never”. It will never be someday. It will only be the eternal now. Why not now? The choice is now or never (fortunately in the eternal now you can always re-choose). Those are the choices you have. There is no tomorrow. There is no next year or next lifetime. There is only the eternal now. Everything else belongs to the ego. If you wish to release the ego, the only thing you can do is to be 100% in this moment.

There is a wonderful English term called procrastination, which means “putting things off”. This is not considered to be an admirable quality by the mass consciousness. The popular saying is, “never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”. My suggestion to people has always been the reverse, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”. Today is for what is really important. If there isn’t a significant reason for action, such as inner guidance or a strong desire, why give it time in your present? Put it on the back burner until it is time for action, if ever. Is waking up really important? If it isn’t important enough to give your full focus to it today, admit that and stop playing games with yourself. Acknowledge if it is not so important to you to ascend, even though it might be a fun game to play around with. Be honest with yourself and say that you are not choosing to awaken at this time. On the other hand, you may realize that you really do want to drop your ego, but you don’t know how to do it, so you wonder how it could be today. If the latter represents your thinking, you are at the right place at the right time. The purpose of this message is to explain to you what the eternal now means and how to always be here.

The eternal now means “this very moment”. Nothing else matters. If you can successfully stay in the eternal now, you will awaken. So, you commit yourself to waking up, to remaining in the eternal now. Nothing is of greater importance. With everything else you can procrastinate, except this – if you want to awaken. There is no “should” about this. It cannot come from guilt; it must come from a deep desire or even from total desperation. This is not a comfortable process to go through. It is easy for the ego to find a way for you to skip out on it. If, however, you are aware of the pain and suffering that the ego always brings and you wish to drop it forever; if you want to let go of the specialness, the victimhood, the neediness, the emotional swings, the grief, and of feeling unloved and unlovable, and you realize there is no other way, then go for it. You do that by being vigilant with every thought and feeling you experience. If you sense or recognize that the thought or feeling is ego driven, ask the hard questions. Is this really true? If it isn’t really true, what changes does that bring to what you do and feel?

Being committed to the eternal now and to awakening means that you embrace and welcome absolutely everything that comes into your life. You don’t reject anything; you don’t push anything away. You don’t say to yourself that this isn’t what you want. You don’t judge anything that happens as wrong or bad. You stop pretending that you are in control and that you know how your life should be. You realize that if you knew how to awaken, you would be awake. How silly would it be to know and yet to stay asleep. Obviously, you don’t have a clue what is good for you. Admit it. You have expressed to Spirit your wish to awaken, your wish to understand and live the truth, your wish to leave your ego. Therefore Spirit brings to you that opportunity in every moment. Are you embracing these gifts? If not, why not? Those are the questions to ask yourself. Is this the place where you think you know better than God, that you realize what would wake you up?

To awaken is to be enormously humble, the humility that comes from realizing that you don’t know anything. You don’t even comprehend what is good for you. In that humility, a place of trust is allowed. Everything that happens is for your greater good, no exceptions. Is it required that you understand the meaning of your gift? If it is for your good, would understanding really matter? It is acceptance, not understanding, that you seek. If it is for your greater good to understand, then explanations will be provided. It is that simple. If acceptance is hard, you have directions for your task for today. You believe something to be true that is not true. What is it? This moment is the time to do this work, not tomorrow, next week, or….. The alternative is to face the fact that you don’t really want to wake up that much; you only want a fun game. You will be able to enjoy the ego illusion more if you don’t pretend that you want to leave it behind. In that case, you will have a constant, lingering sense of failure, of not being good enough. You will have another reason to beat yourself up. That is the ego’s game. If you are honest about it being a game, you can possibly have fun, win or lose (but of course you will lose). In Spirit’s game, Spirit takes your hand and asks: “Why not now?” Tell me one good, true reason why you cannot awaken right now, one excuse for why you have to stay attached to the ego illusion and to take it seriously. Give me one proof why things have to be a certain way in order for you to be okay. Why not now?

An important awareness to have is whether or not you are presently in the eternal now. If you are thinking about something that happened in the past, no matter how recent or far back, you are not in the eternal now. Your job is to notice that your mind is traveling in the past and be aware of how that affects you at this moment. Are you angry? Do you feel victimized? Are you guilty, blaming yourself for past choices or actions? There is no way to be living in the past and also to be in the eternal now, awake, and free of the ego. One choice is to ask Spirit to help you let go of the past and to bring your focus back to the present. Maybe there is something you are holding on to that you believe about the past that it is time to release, to change that belief. For example, you might think that because your father treated you in a certain way you are left emotionally vulnerable. Is your father there in the room with you in this moment? Probably not. Maybe he is not even in a body anymore. Yet, are you inviting him into your present to control your life? Why do you choose to do that? In truth, what power can a memory of another person have on you in the present moment? The answer is none. You are doing this to yourself. How crazy is that? An idea has been planted in your mind about yourself that is not true and you are still repeating it to yourself. Look at this thought, this untruth. Whatever it is, it isn’t true. Look at it until you understand that and then choose your thoughts. If you are in the eternal now, nothing matters except what is in this moment. Your job is to do whatever it takes to release the past. Change your mind. When you realize, accept, and trust that everything that happens to you is perfect, that includes the past. It was absolutely perfect that you had the father you had. Spirit could not have done better. It was precisely what you needed for your spiritual growth. Your job is to feel gratitude for that, to feel love for all that your father did for you. Your vision widens when you see through Spirit’s eyes. Ego looks at the past and sees self as a victim. Spirit points out where your eyes were closed and helps you to open them to see the truth of what really happened. It doesn’t matter whether you opened them then or you do it today. Time isn’t real. The eternal now is real. What you see in this moment is true for all time. You can choose to carry your pain with you through all time or release it. The past is an enormous venue of not being here now. You can’t be two places at once.

Then, of course, there is the future. What if this happens? Am I prepared for that? All the fear that you feel over what you should be doing to create your best possible future takes you out of the eternal now. And what about all of the things you believe you have no control over: accidents, disease, death, world events? This is all ego insanity. There is no future; there is just the eternal now. If you are taking care of the present, you are taking care of the only place you will ever be. All happens in the eternal now. Anything that comes into your experience is perfect. Remind yourself that you have no conscious awareness of what that perfect is. All you can do is receive what comes with humility and gratitude. When you notice you have a fear about the future, your only job is to look at the truth of that belief. It is never your job to change the world. Your only task is to change your mind, to release untruths. If you are fully in the eternal now you will have no time for tomorrow. This moment will keep your hands and mind full. One of these days you will notice that all of those old fears about the future are gone. That day will be the one where you finally find yourself firmly rooted in the eternal now.

It is an enormous habit to be in the past or the future, rather than to be in the eternal now. It requires willingness, an intention, and finally a discipline to be here. Ask Spirit for support. Ask to be gently reminded when you are drifting. There may be work for you to do concerning your beliefs about the past and the future. The work you do with them is in this moment. If you are in the past or the future, you can be sure that you are not dealing with truth. Leave your little confused ego mind and go sit with us above the battlefield. Look down at your silly little you with loving acceptance. Enjoy the humor of your running around with your head cut off. Each moment you are a little more in the eternal now. You are willing to be shown the next step. That step is being shown to you at this very moment. In the scope of time, this challenge seems enormous. In the eternal now it is just one step. To return to the beginning, your only job is to be present. If you are not there, do whatever it takes to release time. Thoughts of hopelessness or helplessness are not in the eternal now. Neither of them is true. If the thought comes that someday, probably, everybody, including yourself, will wake up, my question is “Why not now?” Why do you want to put it off? You feel incapable of doing it right now. Why? Why stop yourself with an ego lie? Don’t give up on yourself. Why not now?

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I let go of grief?

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To begin with, you can never let go of anything by pretending that it’s not there. You don’t get over grief by acting as if you’re not feeling it. It is a very human thing to experience grief, whether it is over the death of a loved one or the loss of something that feels important to you in your life. I encourage you to fully face the grief, to go into the heart of it and feel it totally. Doing the five-step process could be helpful here. Only by going into the fear behind the grief can you discover that it doesn’t have any true reality. There is a great deal of confusion around emotion, and grief is certainly a strong emotion. There are those who would say that your emotions are what are important, not your mind and what you are thinking. Along these lines, the highest value is in expressing these feelings. There is nothing either good or bad about expressing, but emotional release will never lead to awakening. Emotion is not divine; it is not real; it is ego based. The emotion that you feel is connected to something that happens outside of you in the world – a person or a pet appears to die, you lose your job, you lose your favorite earring. What the grief is saying is that you believe that what was lost was real. Emotion comes out of belief, or more correctly, out of false belief. There is no other kind of belief, but that is an idea for another message. Emotion is not some pure thing that comes from Spirit though the heart, but a self-sabotage coming from the misuse of your mind. You believe that what happens in the world starts in the world, that you are a victim to it, that it reaches out and affects you. This is not the truth; it is a belief. Belief has no effect upon truth. It cannot change it in any way. When you act as if your beliefs are true you experience emotional responses.

If we come back to this question of how to let go of grief, you can never let go of it if you believe it is real. If you believe that person died and therefore you have a hole in your life that can never be filled, that the loss is irreplaceable, then you will have grief. And though it might subside somewhat over time, it will never fully go away. So what do you do with your grief? Let us go off in another direction. The question you want to ask yourself about your grief or about anything else that seems to be out there in the world, impinging upon you, is this: “Is this really true?” I am going to start at a basic level with the question: “What can you absolutely know is true or real?” You find yourself to be in this body and in this world. Do you absolutely know that either is real? As you are looking at this question, you can think about watching a movie. You are aware that what is happening on the screen is not actually real, but emotionally it may feel very real. You may react as if it were actually happening. How do you know that what your thoughts or your senses are telling you, what you perceive going on in the world, is actually happening? Beyond that, how can you know that something your mind tells you happened in the past actually occurred? How can you absolutely know that? Can you fully experience something that you perceive outside of yourself? You can know that you are having the perception, but how can you be sure that your perception is real and true?

While you are thinking about this – and if you seriously take on this line of thought, you will be busy for some time – here is another curveball for you. Who is experiencing this so-called reality? You know that you exist. You know that you are. You know this because there is never a time when you aren’t conscious. You are always aware. Can you remember not having awareness? There is a consistent flow through the illusion of time, no matter what happens or where you are, that you are aware of your beingness. There is absolutely no doubt that you are conscious. Can you have the same certainty that the person next to you exists? Can you experience their consciousness? If we were to call your state of consciousness “I Am”, can you know they are having an “I Am” experience? Can you even be sure they are actually there? Can you be absolutely certain that anything outside of your mind exists? You may be thinking that I am asking absolutely crazy, off the wall questions. In the insanity of the dualistic world those are the only kinds of questions I can ask. I challenge you to question everything that you think exists. Ask yourself how you know that something in the world is actually there. As you look at what I am suggesting, and you continue to look at it and to look at it, perhaps your certainty in the illusion will begin to crack. This won’t come easily. You have a great deal invested in the illusion being real, in the importance of things existing outside of your beingness. It is a painful and scary thing to let go of. I can guarantee you it is equally as scary to hold on to it. The difference is that the fear never leaves you as long as you grasp on to the world as real, while the other side of letting go leads to a fearless state. Let’s look at grief. If you believe in the truth of another’s body, then you will experience grief when the body dies. If you only know for certain that you are, what difference does it make what is on your screen? No matter what might appear to happen, you are.

Ask yourself that question. Look at everything that you think is true and ask if you really know that it is true. The ego mind will put up a great fight here. You may think, “But wait, I can see it, so it exists”. What actually happens with vision? Within the illusion there is light. Something comes into the eye. The image is upside down and your brain makes a correction. You now have a picture, a moving picture. Is your picture the same as another’s picture? How could you know? How, for example, could you know that your idea of a color is the same as someone else’s? Is the green that you perceive the same as what another claims to see?  How could you possibly be sure? Yet you think it is real. And what about a blind person, if they cannot see something is it not there? Virtual reality shows you that you can experience things through your senses that don’t exist. There is always at least one step which separates you from an actual experience of the physical. Your mind does not touch, smell, taste, hear, or see anything.

Let’s look at this from another perspective. One person looks at another and claims that person is the greatest human alive, while another says the individual is evil incarnate. What is the truth? It is all about perception, not about truth. All your grief, all your emotions emanate from this place of believing that what you perceive is actually true. You have no way of knowing that anything you believe is true. Yet you allow these misperceptions to rule your experience of life. A good rule of thumb is that anything you believe is true is false.

This is what waking up is. This is what enlightenment or ascension is all about. It is becoming fully aware that the only thing you can truly know is that you are. Nothing else can be known to be real or true. The ego voice then comes in to ask if all that is true, then why does the illusion appear to be here. That is a really good question. It probably requires another whole message to deal with adequately, but briefly the answer is that you don’t know and probably never will. But, what does it matter? If you are, which means that you always have been and always will be, and nothing can change that, it can make absolutely no difference what you do or what happens within this illusion. You will still be. Instead of trying to figure out the right thing to do, let yourself flow and play with the game that is here. Just enjoy it. We could say that there is a larger intelligence here, a Divine intelligence if you prefer, that is running the show. Your only job is to trust in the perfection of the show and to flow with it. Nothing could be more perfect than what is presented in each moment. Let’s say that someone is removed from your physical perception through the illusion of death. That is perfect! Absolutely perfect! Play with it. Let us hypothesize that some, perhaps all,  of the other entities that are out there, that you call human, have the same “I am” consciousness that you have. Then they too always are. Their existence has nothing to do with their bodies. If you perceive them going through a bodily death, they haven’t disappeared out of existence. They simply are, no matter what is happening in the physical illusion, just as you always are. The body is not real. Nothing has been lost with this “death”. Nothing real or true could ever be lost. So they are fine? How are you doing? Your thought is that you miss them. Is that really true? How can you miss something that was never really there? You can only miss it if you go into the illusion, which seems to have a past and a future.

In this illusion of time there is an imaginary past where you have memories of this person and an imaginary future where this person will play no part. Meanwhile the only thing that your “I am” consciousness can be aware of is the now, which doesn’t include this person. The past is only in your thoughts. All you can experience is the now. We are beginning to get a picture of what insanity is. You are looking at what is in front of you and making yourself sad over something that isn’t in the picture. You could spend all of eternity concerned with all the things that could be present, but don’t appear to be and allowing these perceptions to make you sad or worse. Or…..you can see what is here now and accept it as perfect, with no grief for what is missing or hope for what could be there. It is not a question of what seems to be present being any more real than what doesn’t seem to be here, but it is simply what is here for you to play with. If the higher intelligence wanted you to be playing with the one who is “dead”, they would still be here in a body. But they are not here. There is something better for you. You are always presented with perfection. Part of this process is to give up this idea of thinking that you know better than the Divine intelligence what you should have in your perception or what is good for you. Is it really true that you know best? How is your track record with that?  Have you always been successful in making the choice that has brought you peace, happiness and love? Of course you haven’t; you don’t have a clue. Everything you believe to be true is false.

Your job is to give up trusting in your perceptions and your beliefs and accept your experience as perfection. Then there can be no experience of grief. Nothing is lost or could be lost. There is only the eternal now. As long as you believe that something real could stop existing, you will have grief.  That is absolutely an ego choice. You are welcome to let it go. Be free in the now. Accept the blessing that is here instead of mourning for what is not here. Give up everything else. That is just a weight to lug around as you experience emotional suffering. Easy to say, but your work is cut out for you. It’s the only game in town.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is the difference between judgment and discernment?

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I have been asked the question of what the difference is between judgment and discernment. What a question! I’m kind of looking forward to hearing the answer to this one. I think you are all pretty clear about judgment, although you may still continue to practice it. Judgment no longer gets many positive reviews in the spiritual press. Jesus said, “Judge not lest ye be judged” and “First take the beam out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye”. Judgment, in truth, is merely projection. You judge in others what you judge in yourself, but don’t want to face. Sometimes you do go directly to the source and judge yourself. All judgment comes from guilt and fear. It comes from the insane belief buried deep in your mind – which you don’t want to look at or acknowledge – where you believe that you separated from God, deciding that you could do a better job than God. You then created this universe and these bodies to disappear into, to hide from God – to then live with your judgment, self-judgment, and fear of retribution. These are not new subjects; we have talked about this before. It is crucially important to notice where you are holding judgment, whether of another or yourself, and to bring that to Spirit, asking to be able to let it go. It is always helpful to remember that whatever we judge is not real and never happened. This is a dream. You did not separate from God. God loves you unconditionally. You and everyone else are totally innocent. Ask Spirit to remind you of this and to help lift the load off of you.

But we didn’t come here today only to talk about judgment. We have another key term here, and that is discernment. Let us see if we can discern the difference between the two words. One who was arguing in favor of the importance of discernment might say that it is valuable to be able to look at a situation without judgment, simply noticing what is going on. Perhaps what is noticed is that somebody is doing something that is likely to bring them pain and suffering. Your discerning perception shows that they are choosing this rather than the joy and peace of God. You don’t say that the person is bad or wrong for doing as they are doing, for that would be judgment. You simply notice. What might be the value of that? You could support them to make a different choice, helping them to avoid pain and suffering, perhaps, instead finding the forgiveness of God. Well, that sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Let’s think about this a little bit. If you are discerning that another is not making the best choice in a situation, it would imply that you know what the best choice would be. Hmmm….. That kind of makes you like God, doesn’t it? As the man used to say, “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” Isn’t trying to replace God what got you into this mess to begin with? If you know everything about what’s good for everyone else, does that mean you have absolutely no inner suffering or fear of your own, that you are absolutely at peace and at one with God at every moment? Hmmmm….. If you are still in a body, probably not.

It’s a slippery slope. It’s one of the ego’s favorite games. “I’m not judging you; I’m just noticing what you are doing. I’m very sensitive, you know. I just pick things up.” One of the first lessons in A Course in Miracles says there is no order of difficulty in miracles. Nothing is harder than anything else. There is no order of difference in judgments. No matter how the ego tries to sugarcoat it, each and every discernment is a mild judgment. To think that another is not acting or speaking in the manner that best supports them is a judgment. It’s hidden in what feels like love and caring and concern, but it is no less a judgment, still a projection, in truth an act of hate and fear. It is not your job to save anyone else. Your job is to save yourself and even that you cannot do alone. You must humble yourself before Spirit and ask that your guilt be removed and that you see through the all-loving eyes of God. The Will of God may be for you to say something to another person. This comes from your surrender to following your inner guidance, to your commitment to hear and follow the voice of Spirit. It has nothing to do with your discernment.  It is a matter of obedience, not of wisdom. If you feel doubt about whether the voice you hear is Spirit or ego, then hold back. That is called discretion. The first and loudest voice is usually ego. Listen deeply. Breathe. See what is there. Err on the side of discretion. When it becomes clear, when there is no question, when you feel the peace of God – go ahead and act. If you are truly speaking from Spirit you will have no attachment to how your words are received, or to what the listener might think of you. If one of those qualifiers is missing, it is probably still time for discretion. Discernment is the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Let’s take this a step further. You all have opinions. You have ideas about how things should be in the world. Perhaps you have political opinions. You think certain types of laws or leaders are better for people and for the world. You have ideas about how people should treat each other. You have thoughts about what is the best food or diet, what music is better, how one should dance. You have thousands of opinions about how things should be, about what is good and beautiful. Those are all judgments, each and every one of them. If you truly want to wake up, you will give away all of your opinions which are expressed in terms of what is good or what is right. In truth those are insane ideas. It is not of value toward your awakening to evaluate what you see (project) in the world. The important question is whether you are viewing what you see through ego’s eyes or Spirit’s eyes. Any attempt to try to make the world a better place through your opinions and actions serves to demonstrate your belief in the reality of the world and temporarily cements your place here. This, again, is your ego inspired try to replace God through this attempt to create heaven on earth. And, as my favorite question goes, how’s that working for you so far? Every opinion you have is a burden. It weighs you down and keeps you from being free.  You have no need for opinions, discernments, or judgments. They don’t serve you in any way. Let them go.

I am not suggesting that you never make a decision. I am not saying that you should not have a preference for one food over another when you are hungry. When you are hungry, eat. If you want to hear a certain kind of music, listen to it. This is not a suggestion to not follow your desires while you are in a body. Just don’t get hung up in the rightness or wrongness of your desire. And certainly, don’t think that because something feels good for you that it should be good for everybody. There is no right diet, right way to breathe, or right sleep cycle. Eating, sleeping, and breathing are neither good nor bad. They are simply necessary while you are in a body, so just do it and get on with what you are here for, which is forgiveness and waking up. I don’t want to be accused of beating a dead horse, but right/wrong is duality which is of the ego and the world. The Oneness of God is loving acceptance. The ego’s opinions can feel so good in the moment, but beneath that is the need for defense, for separation, for making yourself seem righteous in God’s eyes – wanting to throw others to the wolves so that you can be saved. “God take the meat-eaters. Spare me. I don’t even eat eggs.” Opinions are about separation. They are from the ego. They are what keep you from realizing your Divine innocence, perfection, and Oneness with God. Be a happy idiot.  When you think you know something, it is time to give that thought to Spirit. Let go of believing that you know and allow Spirit to show you the way home. You have tried to do this on your own for countless lifetimes. You have had seemingly endless opportunities in this incarnation. It is never too late. Now is the time. Let go and let Spirit guide you.

One last thought, and this may go without saying but I will say it nonetheless. Judgments, discernments, and opinions take you out of the now. There can be no judgment without duality. There have to be things to choose between; there have to be past experiences; there needs to be future opportunities. Without duality and time there can be no judgment. There are no two ways about it. When you are in the Divine now, in the holy moment, there can be no discernment, no choice. You look at your brother and see the Son of God. You see your mirror there with absolute love and acceptance. You see only Divinity. If any judgment is there you are not in the now, you are off somewhere else, somewhere unreal. Instead you are comparing, analyzing, and thinking. Your Divine mind does not think, it knows. In knowing there are no alternatives; there is simply truth; there is isness. If you can think about something, it is an indication that you don’t know. Thinking will never bring you to knowingness. You’ll never figure it out. In the holy moment at One with Spirit the truth lies. It is revealed: there is no effort on your part. This is a zone without judgment, without guilt. You are simply an innocent, free, and unconditionally loved Child of God with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I deal with my feelings of hopelessness?

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Everyone while on their spiritual path experiences moments of hopelessness. It can feel like a terrible thing, something that can never be overcome. It’s just too big, too much; it’s not possible to ever deal with it. “What do you mean that this world isn’t real? It feels so real to me. I don’t know how I can ever not take it seriously.” We have talked about bringing it to Spirit, and, of course, we always encourage you to do that. But I want to give a little different perspective on hopelessness today. By the time I finish, perhaps you will be viewing hopelessness as a wonderful thing rather than as a curse. Hopelessness is such a gift from Spirit! Thank you Spirit for making me so hopeless!

Let’s start by looking at what hope is. Hope is a dream, a wish, an expectation, a desire that somehow the future will be better than the present. We could say that hope is directly connected to the idea of heaven on earth. “Oh! I hope I pass this test. Oh! I hope the weather will be good for our picnic. Oh! I hope I find my perfect partner. Oh! I hope that someday I will wake up.” Hope is never about the now. It implies separation by its very nature. It is going into the future which is not real. How can you let go of the illusion if you attach yourself to the future? As long as you have hope, you have one foot firmly planted in the future, which is part of the illusion that is not real, that keeps you separated from the experience of your Divinity. As long as you have hope you will find it impossible to let go of the illusion – which ironically leaves you feeling hopeless. As long as you have hope, you want a change in the illusion so that it works better for you. You are taking the world seriously. Even hoping to wake up someday is a separation. The only way to awaken is to be absolutely in the now, but the hope to awaken takes you somewhere else. You are not here, now. If you can only awaken in the future and there is no future, how can you ever wake up? That is hope. Hope is an anchor that keeps you rooted in the physical illusion, rooted in duality, rooted in the ups and downs and uncertainties of an ever changing movie that may sometimes feel somewhat heavenly and other times certainly feels hellish. Those are the fruits of hope.

Part of letting go of the ego, part of letting go of the illusion, is to let go of hope. By the way, who do you think is whispering these hopeful thoughts into your ear? Of course! This is the voice of ego which wants to keep you here in the illusion and not in the truth of your mind that knows you are a Divine, innocent Child of God. Ego can even safely have you hope to wake up, because it knows that that hope will keep you asleep. What a wonderful win/win for ego! It gets to pretend it is Spirit while, at the same time, protect its turf. Now you may be starting to see that hopelessness is not something to despair of, but rather something to welcome, to be grateful for. To be hopeless is to let go of any possibility of the illusion ever satisfying you. You can never make the physical be what you want it to be. It’s hopeless. “Yeah, can I get an Amen?” whispers Spirit. How wonderful to realize that. So what do you have left when you give up all hope? All that remains is the truth. You are left with just Spirit, with unconditional love, with complete innocence. You are in the eternal now.

If you are walking outside on a beautiful sunny day, the sun’s rays shining down on you, feeling warm and comforted and loved – you don’t have the thought of hoping the sun will shine today. That would be crazy. The sun is shining. It is equally crazy to say that you hope that God forgives you or you hope that you are innocent. Why would you hope for something that already is? Everything that is true is, not because you hope it will be true, but simply because it is true. Hoping can never change the truth. God loves you. You are innocent. You are One with each other. There is nothing to hope for. Everything is already yours that is worth having. This process of waking up is one of giving up hope and accepting what is already here now. Hope is that carrot that is strung out ahead of the donkey. The donkey keeps going for the carrot, but can never reach it. When you give up hope you have nothing left to lose. Instead of hoping for something else, your focus is on fully accepting what Spirit has brought to you in this moment. See the world that Spirit is showing you rather than looking through the eyes of the ego.

As you communicate to Spirit your strong desire to listen to Its voice and to close your ears to the ego’s temptations, Spirit will support you in becoming hopeless. The part of you that thinks it still has something to lose, that there is some salvation in the world, will suffer fear, terror, and hopelessness. You must go through this. There is no other way. You only get to determine the speed. Hold on to your hope and the pain will be dragged out and your hands will be bloody. Let go and the suffering is minimized. Be absolutely honest with yourself and look at every aspect of the illusion and ask what you are still afraid to give up or to lose. What is it? Whatever it is, you face that fear and give it to Spirit. The state through which you realize your Divinity is the state where you have nothing to lose. You will try to hold on to any dreams or images, no matter how meager, that you still have any attachment to. It is not unlike staying with an abusive partner – at least things are familiar and maybe someday they will improve. Hope is an abusive partner. The world is an abusive partner. If you are still afraid to lose the little that you have left, you will hold on to it and continue to suffer in the illusion. You will keep yourself separate from true peace, love, and joy…..and God and Spirit. Are you ready to be hopeless? Welcome your hopelessness. Take this as your challenge for this month. Be willing to lose everything in order to realize Everything.

Good Now

Sanhia