The reason you are here. Realizing your divinity, your oneness with God.

I am hearing differing things from you. What is reality?

You know it is both difficult and easy to speak out of both sides of my mouth. It is difficult because I have neither a mouth nor sides, but it is easy because I just place the words in Michael’s mouth, and he has agreed to share them without question. Any words that I use do not tell the truth so it can be helpful to state things in differing and even contrasting ways to approximate truth, to triangulate what actually is. I have been talking differently about reality in some of the more recent messages than I did in messages back several years ago. If you want to check that out for yourself click here and then click on reality for a list all the messages where the term is mentioned. Anyway, this is a good question, so let’s look more deeply into it.

Recently We have talked about reality as being what is in the now. For example, if it is raining now, that is the reality. We talk in terms of simple acceptance of what is in the now. If you have resistance to reality, if you want to change it – good luck with that. But it’s not just the weather, it’s everything. What is is. It cannot be changed. You might want to change it in the future, even the near future. That’s another matter we will deal with shortly, but reality is what is here right this moment. When one ignores it or doesn’t accept it, is upset and in opposition to it, or wants to change it there will be frustration, pain, suffering, and a sense of failure because the now cannot be altered. The reality cannot be changed. When there is resistance to the now, it makes it nearly impossible to hear your inner guidance, Spirit, or your Divine Self, because the ego mind is just too loud. This is the reality we have been referring to. It has been suggested that the more one is willing to notice what is present right now – without judging it or wishing to change it – the more one accepts the feelings triggered in this now, the more one learns to hear that quiet inner voice. We have encouraged you to do that, to take what is in the now as the perfect thing, to receive what Spirit is presenting to you to help you realize your Divine nature.

Let’s start moving out to a wider sense of reality. One step out is to say that your only function for being, for having this experience in the physical with a body is to wake up to the truth of your Divine Nature. Nothing else matters. That’s a big step from accepting the now. Nothing else matters but being awake. In this process of awakening there are different levels. The ground level is having the desire, the intention to awaken. That can only come from the ego mind. As you have likely noticed by now, the ego mind is very clever and anything but self destructive. The urge to awaken is most unlikely to make an appearance when things are going as one wishes they would. The ego only grudgingly allows a peek at this when you have become quite frustrated with the lack of delivery on ego promises. But a full awakening would mark the death of the ego. So, what proceeds to manifest in this world of duality is opposites. On one side the intention to awaken is a prerequisite. On the other hand, as long as you hold on to the intention to awaken, you cannot notice you already are awake. Awakeness is in the now; goals put your mind into the non-existent future. How do you make the shift from wanting to awaken to realizing awakeness?  At some point the synapse is crossed, you realize you are and always have been awake. You’ve just been pretending to be asleep. We could call the ego mind that pretender. However, you can have the idea that you really are awake, but that is still the ego mind running things, not a true experience. So, what happens somewhere along the line (remembering that time doesn’t really exist), through what I like to call “the grace of God”, after countless letting goes of the ego mind, is it happens. This occurrence is after intention has been released.  You know in that instant that none of this really matters, that the physical is just an illusion. If that is followed by the thought that you are awake now, say hello again to your ego mind. It doesn’t matter. It will likely happen. The truth is in your divinity. It cannot be hidden forever. More often you will find yourself noticing the now with no attachment, with no agenda, with no resistance, with welcomeness and gratitude.

As we are talking about this, because all we can do is use words and point, we could describe this as the first step of awakeness. None of this really matters. You still notice the world around you, the phenomenal world.  You are still aware of the body, the vehicle you use for this exploration and interaction with this physical illusion. There is another level of reality. It could be stated thusly, “Reality is that which never changes.” Ego mind will get hold of this and state that the now constantly changes; nothing stays the same. It will remind you that I have said, “As you are noticing the emotions, accept them, feel them, let them move about, let them be free, welcome them, and let them lead you. They will constantly change.” Ego may add that if change equates to not real, how could I say that what is in the now, including feelings are real? Now I seem to be saying the now isn’t real? And what about everything in the phenomenal world? The weather changes, plants and animals grow and then die, your physical body has and will go through enormous change from conception through birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturity, old age and death. So now am I saying that everything that is a part of the now is not real. You are understanding me completely. Anything that does or can change is not real. This becomes quite a challenge for the mind. Is there anything in the universe that does not change? If you think the earth or the sun will always be here, check out what the science says. Even if the Bible is taken literally, the universe has both beginning and end. Absolutely nothing of the physical realm is real because everything changes. What about this entity that I have referred to as “you” or you refer to as “I”, this awareness that experiences the changes in the phenomenal universe? Is it real? Whew!

The questions seem to be getting harder. Are you real? Let’s toss another one out there for you. If nothing in the physical world is real and you are the observer of these illusions – if there is nothing to observe, is there still an observer? If the world is not real, are you real? If there is nothing to observe, can you observe nothing? The closest that we can come with words in defining that which never changes might be to call it Divinity, or maybe God if you can suffer that term, or perhaps the Oneness. If you are a creation of that Whatever, made in Its own image, that too sounds like a change. Divinity simply is…always. If out of this never changing, timeless, infinite Isness you are created, then, by definition, you aren’t real either. Using the metaphor of the ocean, which is undifferentiated water; it is all ocean. A wave can emerge on its surface, but has no identity separate from the ocean. Without the ocean the wave does not exist. It may seem to have its own identity and direction, but eventually it crashes on a beach and returns to the oneness, having no further identity as a wave. Even the water that is considered to be part of the wave does not move with it; there is just this motion on the surface. Without the ocean there is no wave.

So, the ultimate reality is undifferentiated Divinity. There is no you. This reality is beyond anything the mind can comprehend. It is beyond anything the senses can be aware of. For the ego mind, such a picture triggers absolute terror. It represents not only the dissolution of the ego mind, but the dissolution of any aspect of a separated self, absolute non-existence. Oneness. No separation. Such ideas are impossible to comprehend or sense. So, after you reach the step of awareness that you are a Divine Entity, created by God in Its own image and that there is no reality in the physical realm, your awakening is not over. It has just begun. As long as there is an observer watching the illusion of physicality there remains a separation from the Oneness. The ultimate awakening, for which We have used the term ascension, is where there is no longer a sense of you observing the physical illusion. Now ascension implies a rising up, but there is no direction involved; there is nothing. There is no longer a separate observer. There is only the ocean of Oneness.

Even though there is no forward or backward, We will appear to take a step back into looking at this now. For some of you there is a great challenge in doing things like accepting the “perfection of the now.”  I will encourage you to let go of perfection as a term. Instead, keeping in mind this larger vision of reality, flow with whatever is – reminding yourself that it doesn’t matter. Perfect or imperfect, it makes no difference. Either way it’s not real. It doesn’t matter. If you are only here to realize you are already awake, whatever is happening is helping you to do that. If you are pretending to be asleep, no matter what happens you will experience pain and suffering. Whether you are trying to find perfection or imperfection you are going to suffer. In duality there cannot be one without the other. This is true of every thought you might have. It has an opposite. There is no reality in trying to explain or understand. There is only more confusion. That is why we encourage you – as you are in the process of realizing that you already are awake – to let the mind go. It’s not about learning, it’s about unlearning everything you think you know. Whatever you think, you are wrong. If you are pretending to be separate from what you observe, you are going to suffer. Beyond that, this whole unreal movie you are pretending to be a part of is already scripted. You have no choice in changing it. Your only choice is whether or not you accept it as real. You are powerless as an observer. The outcome is already known. What is occurring in the minutia of the moment doesn’t matter. We can guess that in the scope of the illusion of time as the script runs, you stop playing in the game of time. You start playing with awareness in the game of Divinity, of infinity, in the game of God. You realize that you are One with what you observe; that there is no separation. You know that nothing matters. Even if you are still playing in the game, using the vehicle you have to interact with the now, you know that it doesn’t matter. You just enjoy the ride. Or don’t enjoy the ride. Or enjoy not enjoying the ride. It doesn’t matter.

If you have the thought in the moment – and maybe it has been a long-time prayer or mantra, maybe, God forbid, you learned it from Me – “Spirit help me accept the perfection of the now” you may be enabling the ego mind to try to find something good about what is happening. This triggers the good/bad duality. In that interplay the mind usually wants to go for the positive. It doesn’t ask Spirit for help in accepting the imperfection of the now. So, the negative is denied and pushed away. Try letting go of perfection and accepting what is as what is. That is reality. Eventually it is what isn’t. That, too, is reality. You begin by accepting the reality of what is. but eventually realize there is no isness. Nothing including the observer is real. But how can you realize that if you think what is happening in your movie is real? As long as that is the case, then the separate you is real too. If you are thoroughly confused at this point, then my work is done.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How do I deal with distraction?

We had a request from a reader to talk about the subject of distraction. What is meant by distraction? We could say that distraction is something that pulls you away from your focus on awakening. You have your intention or your awareness placed on one thing and something draws your attention in a different direction; you are distracted. To begin with, as with everything else, you are not a victim of distraction. In fact, it might be more truthful to say that you welcome distraction because it brings you back into safer territory. There is a fear that surfaces when you look deeply within yourself, a terror of releasing the lies and illusions you have lived with as well as seeing the things inside of you that you don’t want to admit are there. So, the distraction may be a very welcomed event. This is all part of the awakening process.

One type of distraction consists of things that happen in the outer world, and these events are constant. There is information coming to you from your cell phone, from television, from people that you meet, from world events, from governments and politics, as well as from wars, pollution and pandemics; all these things grab your attention and instill fear or other emotions. Am I saying that you should not pay attention to any of these things from the world? No, in fact I would say, “Good luck with that.” To try not to pay attention to them creates a conflict. You will bounce back and forth between the two in an unending dualistic fashion. Peace cannot come to you through conflict. We are coming from a basic assumption that you wish to experience your awakened state and that you don’t want to be torn by the craziness of the world. We have to admit that it is a pretty insane place. You could spend all of your time and energy noticing the craziness, mulling it over in your mind as you search for solutions. All of these efforts to fight it and to make changes are nothing but a fool’s quest. You will not succeed. The world is as it is. However, you can make use of the world’s distractions.

First of all, you can choose to pay less attention to them. Short of going to sit on a mountaintop, you won’t be able to escape the world totally. You can choose to not let your mind dwell on these distractions, to notice when you are, and to let it go and let the next thought come in. Secondly, as these thoughts do come into your mind, notice where your judgments arise, whether toward the world as a whole, a group, or an individual. As you find yourself upset and in judgment over what you perceive, I want to remind you that this is all projection. You cannot possibly judge others for something that you do not hold within yourself. You judge yourself for this, though you may be in denial, necessitating the projection. The ego mind wants to argue and say that you are not like that. As long as you hold on to denial, you will go on through your life, projecting, being incapable of doing anything about your projections, and experiencing sorrow, pain, and suffering. You will feel hopeless, until you finally just give up.

For instance, you see an example of violence in the world. You may feel sadness for those you see as victims of the violence and anger toward those you see as perpetrators. You might also feel anger directed toward those who differ in opinion from you about who is at fault. All of this you see as external to yourself in your thinking. You are righteous in your feelings. This is denial. Its opposite is acceptance, which might look like acknowledging that you are violent. This is the critical point. The ego mind does not want to take responsibility for its projections. This keeps you stuck. This is how distraction works. You are distracted from the truth of your own violence by the actions of others. Because you have little or no hope of changing anyone else or the world, you are helplessly stuck in a violent world. But, you do have full power to accept the violence within yourself. You can accept it without judgment, without labeling it as right or wrong. This is not about changing anything, including you. It is just noticing, just acknowledging. If you can’t get past your denial, you might look at where you have a secret wish for harm to come to those you are judging. Maybe you wish they were dead. That is violence. When you wish anything negative to happen to another, you are exhibiting violence. Are you absolutely certain there are no violent tendencies within you? Why do you avoid acknowledging the violence within you? Do you fear a punishing God? No such God exists; you are loved unconditionally. You are projecting your own belief in a need for punishment upon God. Are you afraid that you will not be rewarded with heaven, God’s forgiveness, ascension, enlightenment, or awakening if you admit to being a violent person? The only one standing between you and these “rewards” is you. Holding on to untruths keeps you separate from realizing the truth of God. Accept that you are violent. If you notice fear or judgment accompanying that, accept that also. Perhaps you also notice embarrassment or shame. Acknowledge that. The distraction is in believing it is somebody else when it is always you.

Connected with the outer distractions are those that come from your thoughts. Nearly every thought that you hold expresses a belief that is not true. Let’s say the thought expresses a judgment about your partner such as they hold you prisoner and don’t allow you to fully be who you are. There were events in the past that you projected onto your partner. Now you hold a belief that is “proven” by this imagined past. Today when you meet your partner, instead of being in the now – in this moment, you are living in the past with the lies you projected. You recreate something you never wanted to begin with. This is not your partner doing this; this is you. Your job is to not let yourself get distracted with untrue thoughts. Notice each thought that emerges in your mind. Ask yourself if that thought is really true. Is there projection involved? Is it my partner who doesn’t let me be who I am or do I do that to myself? Am I afraid to be who I am? Notice these things.

You are distracted by your beliefs that come from the past. Believing these thoughts keeps you from being present. This is not to say that the past and your thoughts hold no value for you. Technological information is valuable. You want to remember what you have learned about driving a car or using a computer. This value ends when your thoughts are about yourself, others, and what to do. Here the past can only confuse things. You know things about how to work with the physical world, but you know nothing about the truth of yourself and others, about divinity. You know something about how to survive in the world, but you didn’t come here to survive. You came to wake up. Thoughts cannot help you there. Finding the truth is a process of elimination. As these distracting thoughts enter your mind you recognize, one after another, that they are not true and you cast them off. When you have discarded what is false, all that can remain is truth. It is likely that every thought you have is not true, is a distraction from being present, from being awake. So, look at each one and then release it. If you give energy to a concept, you sustain an untruth and you remain in confusion. To paraphrase Socrates, “The only difference between me and those I meet is that, even though neither of us really understands anything, I know that I don’t know anything while they believe they are wise.” As long as you think you know, you cannot find the truth. You can reset your default reaction to each thought that enters your mind to be one of disbelief. Fears and hopes about what might happen in the future also distract you. These thoughts, too, keep you from acting in the present.

As you learn to ignore the past and the future you are left with the now. You ignore the distractions of your thoughts and notice what is truly present. As an example, say that someone stomps on your toe with their boot heel. You feel immediate pain. That is real. It is in the now. If you blame or judge the other for that action, that is not real. It is not a present reaction, but a thought about the recent past; it is likely a projection. As you release that thought and come back to the present you will likely find the pain quickly dissipates. What is real is the nature around you, the sun shining or the rain falling, the birds chirping or the dog barking. To wish that it wasn’t raining is to deny the reality of what it is and substitute your thought from the past about how the weather should be. You will never win that fight. It is insane to try. Accept what is. Release your thoughts. Analysis and interpretation are always misleading. Thinking you should or shouldn’t do something isn’t sane; these are just more thoughts from the past. You have been taught ideas by your society, your parents, your teachers, and your peers. You made a decision in the past and you believe it applies to the present. In the now, you never have to make a choice. Choices come from your mind and from the past. The now lets you know what to do. It is certain. You don’t have to decide what to do if a dog attacks or a car swerves toward you. You simply act. Knowing exactly what to do is sometimes called intuition. It is knowingness without understanding why you know. It is certainty that defies explanation. Sometimes this can feel perfectly natural. You eat when you are hungry; sleep when you are tired. You may want to sing or play an instrument, to draw or paint, to run or to swim. You do these things as expressions that move from within you, not because you think you should. If it is the latter, you will eventually meet resistance. The mind always tries to complicate things. It wants to dictate what and when you should eat, the proper position for sleep and the right time and purpose for creative activities. All of the craziness of distractions enters, keeping you from being present. This fills your time and saps your energy.

Finally, and we could have just as easily begun here, let’s look at distraction as simply not paying attention. This is a form of resistance. You have made the decision that you wish to wake up, to ascend. Most days you don’t focus on that intention. You go on living life as you always have, distracted by each little thing you encounter each day. You take your thoughts seriously without further investigation. Periodically you become aware of what you are doing and feel guilt, perhaps hopelessness. What is there to do? You can at least acknowledge how you are dealing with life. Intention for you does not seem to be enough. There needs to be a fire lit within. The whole world and all of your education and experience seem to oppose your awakening. There must be a passion to face all of this and to keep facing it. Without this passion the distractions will continue to control. Maybe you can generate such a focus. Perhaps things need to get worse for you before they can get better. Your situation might have to become unbearable. Spirit is always doing whatever it can to shake you awake. Your thoughts may judge this as good or bad. In the now it is always perfect. The process of getting there may be frightful and painful, but so is the illusion of the world. In the now there are no distractions. There is only the real-time perfection of what is happening and your inner guided response. Eventually the passion will come. It is your call, and your calling.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How am I to deal with disease?

The message this month is perhaps going to be a little different. We are going to speak about sickness with a special focus upon Michael and Ulla. As we speak, Michael has experienced being sick for the past two weeks. We imagine that most of you have some kind of idea of what that might be like. For Michael it has been a long time since he has had such extended sickness, perhaps not since childhood. Ulla has known him for ten years and has never seen him sick for more than a few days. Part of Michael’s good health was fear based. As a young man he wanted to live as long as possible, a hundred – even two hundred years. He wanted to always stay in the best possible health. It was not just diet and physical practices, but most importantly mind over matter. Perhaps he believed he might need that much time to figure out how to ascend. Perhaps it was ego trying to show that it was stronger than the outer world. When others became sick he had judgment. It was their minds that created the sickness. They believed in seasonal health problems. They believed they could catch things from others. Several years ago I let Michael come down with a short sickness to help humble him. He was able to begin to release the health judgments he had been holding toward himself and others.

Now we find something quite different. For two weeks he has found himself to be of very low energy, though that is slowly increasing. There is some physical discomfort, though that is slowly decreasing. There is almost no appetite, though that is also slowly increasing. But still after two weeks, there is not a lot of energy or appetite. Ulla expresses that she believes there must be some purpose or reason for this sickness, and wonders what it is. She also expressed how it touches her fear of losing Michael. She is a little pushy with Michael, asking him what Sanhia has to say about it. Before giving Michael’s response, I want to talk a little about how our relationship has changed since his days of desired physical immortality, culminating in ascension. Michael has come to accept the illusion of the physical. He realized the insanity of wanting an illusion to stay alive. Michael surrendered his physical death totally to Me. He let go of any need to control the timing of any of it, trusting me to take care of everything in the perfect manner. Truth is, I had been doing that all along. So, Michael’s response to Ulla was that Sanhia says to just be here now, to accept the perfection of this moment without wanting it to be any different. I would be less than honest if I were to say that Ulla was pleased with this answer. There were two reasons for this, first it did not leave her any opening for suggestions, “You could take this supplement or follow this action.” My directions specifically said to accept what was. Secondly, this left her deepest fear exposed, death. What if Michael is in the process of dying? This was quite a trigger! I joked to Michael how honorable it was for him to sacrifice his body so that Ulla could face her fear of death. Just kidding, of course.

I will say that Michael did a fairly good job of doing just what I asked him to do, to be present with this. His attitude about death is very clear; this body will die. It’s not up to him when it happens. It is only for him to accept and live whatever is gifted in each moment. So he has passed these days fearlessly, if not always comfortably. His challenges have been to look at where he is feeling discomfort, accepting what is felt rather than wishing to change it.

Now, as they say, life goes on. During the two weeks there were two, two-hour online spiritual alchemy groups scheduled. There was also a four-and-a-half hour in person spiritual alchemy group. Michael had no energy for any of these events. For the longer group, he was pretty much strapped to a chair with a blanket hung over him. None of this had any effect upon the channeling. I communicated clearly to Michael that it is part of his purpose and agreement that he let me come through. Even though he was without energy, all he had to do was to stand back out of the way. Fortunately, that required no energy. I was able to come through powerfully, saying what people needed to hear. I was filled with energy; I was my normal witty self. People did not even need to know what their questions were, because I was already there. Now that has been the nature of my relationship with Michael. However this further clarified things for him, as to the difference in our parts. If he had fantasized that his part had anything to do with the wit, the humor, and the precise comments, he was quickly disabused of that. Had it been up to his energy, there would have been no groups. It was so clear what the channeled energy was.

Michael is aware that there are only two things for him to do, the first being to follow whatever My wishes might be – mostly as channel and as scribe, but also playing and performing music on the side. Otherwise, his only job is to take nothing seriously and accept the perfection of whatever is presenting itself now. It is in that light that we have encouraged him to hold this sickness. It is a bit of a wild card he has drawn here. As it is now, what is there energy for? Mostly that would be sitting on the veranda in the sun reading, listening to birds, and enjoying the greenness and life. It doesn’t get much harder than that. Are things backing up on his computer, things that he has taken some responsibility for? Little by little I reel out a little energy here and there so that different tasks can be accomplished. The focus is that it is under my direction, that I, not he, am responsible. The first week I did not allow him to do anything outside of “our” work. This second week I allowed time and energy for several things. Everything took him at least twice as long as the “healthy” him would have taken. I reminded him that time did not exist and that if I chose to kill his body, none of this would be accomplished. Is he moving into a world where he takes on much less? Again, I am not going to tip my hat.

There is always a reason and perfection for everything that happens. Sometimes it is valuable for the individual to have an awareness of that reason. In this case with Michael we have nothing to say. Perhaps at some point We will say more, but we are not promising anything. What is there for him is to simply accept and trust the perfection of the now. The thought enters his mind, “What if this is still going on two years from now?” He looks at that and responds, “That is an interesting thought: Now, what’s here now?” Tomorrow does not exist.

Up until this moment we have been commenting only on Michael’s two-week sickness, not about anybody else. I would not tell anyone who is experiencing a physical disorder of some kind not to seek out relief or support. Follow your guidance. There is nothing wrong with amelioration of pain. Also it may be quite obvious why you are experiencing a certain ailment. Perhaps your guidance is telling you that you have been ignoring yourself to take care of others, and the sickness is a wakeup call to notice what your body wants. Sometimes sickness comes to tell you that you are too stressed and busy, that it is time to relax. There can be many wonderful messages that can come to you through a sickness. Please don’t let anything I have said discourage you from looking at what that might be. Again, I encourage each of you to do what you are guided to do. It is important that if it is someone else’s pain or discomfort you are concerned with, the guidance is still for you. You don’t receive another’s guidance. Even if this is your child, the fears are yours. The death confusion is yours. One of the misunderstandings around sickness is that the only satisfactory end is in a healing. Someone is diagnosed with cancer and they choose whatever treatment modalities they are guided to, whether from fear or from Spirit. For some it is considered a failure if the cancer does not go into remission. This is not acceptance of the perfection of the now. Part of the process of every sickness is full acceptance of what happens. Death fears may need to rise to the surface. Sooner or later you will all experience a physical death. If you surrender your fear around that now, you can live peacefully in the now with whatever presents itself. Without fear you are fully aware that there is no physical death; it is just illusion. If you are invested in a personal history, a past, a body, a future, and a continuing story, you will not want to lose that identity. You will fear that death and live in pain and suffering. Who you are simply is, with no attachment to any stories. When you realize that the game is not to be taken seriously, though it is to be played fully, you play whatever hand is dealt you.

Michael is aware that it is not his job to feel a certain way all of the time. However he feels, that is the gift for today – not wishing it were different, nor that he had more energy. Not even wishing that he felt up to cooking. Ultimately it all comes down to trusting your inner guidance. If you give your power away, whether to the medical establishment or to alternative healers, that is not following your guidance. They all have their agendas. It is unlikely that their thoughts encompass encouraging you to listen to your own inner voice. The doctor’s goal is to fight the disease and win. There is no place in that for accepting the perfection of the now. Again, there are no right or wrong answers. Your guidance may say to follow the medical model. Listen carefully to see if your choice is fear based, the hope that the expert will save you. You cannot be saved. You already are saved.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Is the illusion a mistake?

This time there is no easy quick answer to this question that wouldn’t require a lot of explanation. We need to take a good look at where this question comes from. We have talked a long time over many messages about how what is in the physical world, in the sensed universe, is an illusion. It is not real; nothing is truly happening. As long as you consider the physical to be real, you invest it with a power and feel yourself to be controlled and victim to this universe, but that has things reversed. The physical universe as it appears to exist is created from your inside, though you may not be in conscious awareness or control of this. Your ignorance does not change the fact, any more than the truth is not altered by your belief or disbelief in it.

Let’s take a step back also for those of you who have been students of A Course in Miracles, which is a wonderful teaching, chock full of valuable thoughts. Like all teachings in the physical world, it is not the truth; it simply points. When people read ACIM, it can easily be used to justify their own confusion and project that into the Course and say, “But the Course says this…” One of the things that many people do in looking at the Course, including some of its teachers, is to hold onto a belief something like the following: “We allowed a single mad belief to enter our minds that we could create something separate from God and so we dreamed up the universe. It is not real; it just exists in our minds. God knows nothing about this imagined separation. It was a mistake.” Let’s start by looking at those two thoughts. If the universe was created by a mad crazy idea, this might suggest that it was all a mistake. My question is, “Really?” This proposes that God, Who is all loving, all knowing, all powerful, could somehow have something going on behind his back that he is oblivious of. Is that a little bit crazy? Does that sound like Oneness? God is everything and all is God except for…well, this universe. He is then unaware that His Divine Son is living in self-created hell? This sounds like a limited God. God can do anything except create a physical universe. There is a little confusion going on here. This leads to the thought that God has nothing to do with this universe, that it is your job to recognize your mistake and to leave this evil place and return to God. How alone, how separate that feels.

We also have the voice that asks why, if there is a God, He allows such evil to exist on the earth. This other “Course” voice responds that God doesn’t permit evil; he knows nothing about it. Now it appears we are stuck having either a malevolent God or an incompetent God. Let’s continue. This is getting more confusing all of the time. If God is aware of all that transpires in the illusion, how can a loving God allow all the atrocities that appear to transpire here in the universe? Why is there dishonesty, hatefulness, jealousy, anger, cruelty, violence, disease, and death? Why hangnails, God? Why? Why? If the universe is just a mistake then everything in it would also logically be a mistake. Did God make an enormous mistake here, whether it was a sin of commission or a sin of omission? Let us, for the moment, take the point of view that by definition God is Oneness, excluding nothing, therefore including the illusion. Remember that we are just playing with words here. We are not trying to prove anything because nothing can be proved. The truth simply is. We are just playing with these different thoughts that might be going through the mind. We play with the thought that our definition of God would make it impossible for Him to be unaware of the world. If God is intentional with the world and God is infallible, then God could not have created the world as a mistake. If it is all One how can anything be wrong? Everything simply is. There is, therefore, an absolute purpose in you being in physicality.

The question then becomes that if it is a given that God created the world and it is also a given that God cannot make a mistake, why did God create this thing? This is a place where I am not going to pretend to give an answer. Go inside and see what your guidance tells you. Nonetheless, I will say some things. For some reason, humans find themselves believing that they are in this illusion and that it is real and their bodies are real. As long as those beliefs are held they will experience pain and suffering. Whatever goals they set, whatever they try to achieve in order to break out of this – they fail at. The peace and happiness they desire is elusive, it is not realized. Nothing in the physical world can fulfill that hope. Only awakening can lead toward such a fulfillment. Nothing but the realization that everything is an  illusion can bring about peace.

As demonstrated by Jesus, and recently celebrated in the Christian churches, all will eventually ascend, will return to the Oneness. However, that doesn’t answer the question of why you are experiencing being here. Why are you going through all of this? I’m going to go back a little on my word, because I get to do that since they never communicate the truth. I’m not going to explain why God allowed this to happen, but I’m going to give some possibilities to play with, while not promising that they have any truth to them. In the Oneness of God, of Divinity, there is simply the Oneness. There is no place to express the Oneness, no place to express the Love. In order for the Love to be expressed, there must be a game played where duality appears to happen. There must be an other to love and feel loved by. So, you exist within that dream of duality as what feels like a separated being. Now the potential exists for God to express love to God and God to receive love from God. Without time, without physicalness there is no experience. Nothing happens. So, God wakes up one day, and of course there is no day because there is no time and there is no waking up because there is no sleeping, and says I want to experience myself today.

Perhaps as you are reading this it is, as Michael and Ulla are now experiencing, a beautiful warm, sunny spring day, perhaps with a cat sitting nearby looking out at all of it. The new growth smells of spring are present along with the explosion of colors from the newly risen flowers, and a greening that seems to appear everywhere. In the Oneness none of this exists. For God to experience these sensations as well as to have feelings, there must be the illusion of separation. There must be an observer as well as an observed. Duality serves this purpose admirably. Now God can have good sex. I’m just joking with you…a little bit. We are just having fun with this now. We can say with absolute certainty, this illusion is no mistake. There is clear purpose in everything, even though you might leave this body and never have an inkling of what it might be. However, as you surrender your ego to Spirit and you hear the Divine guidance within you, it will direct you as to how to spend the physical time. To the degree that you can give up your thoughts that you know better than Spirit or God about what will bring you happiness, about how to spend your time and energy, you will find yourself doing exactly as you want; you will find that your desires are absolutely aligned with God.

Let’s play this game in another way. What is more beautiful to the ear, the sound of a wonderful singing voice or that same voice with another in harmony with it? And maybe there is a third in harmony to them and a fourth in counterpoint coming in against the flow? Feel all the energy moving around that. How can there be harmony created without separation, without the physicality of sound waves and ears? What if God simply wanted to have television and you are the programming? God is just sitting there with his clicker enjoying the show. How about a comedy now? How about a drama? Click. Click. With your imagination you can create endless possibilities, knowing you are likely nowhere near the truth of it. But it can be fun, and doesn’t God like to have fun?

Did God put everyone to sleep in order that they could wake up? Is it like a game, like hide-and-go-seek? Everyone go hide and one by one We will find all of you. How much fun that was for you as a child! Is God playing that game? Again, I don’t know. God requires no justification or explanation. We know that whatever might appear to be imperfect in the illusion is indeed perfect. Whatever looks like a mistake is precisely how it should be. Whatever thoughts you have that things are not right keep you trapped in hell. When you are able to accept the perfection of everything happening in this illusion, you can experience heaven on earth. It is heaven because you are One with God, not because you have remade the earth according to your separated belief of how it should be. Again, we lovingly remind you that you haven’t got a clue. What would the purpose be in there being no value in something you are experiencing with your physical senses? Why would God co-create something with you that served no purpose? Believing this is possible can lead one into places of helplessness and despair. The value may not be the value you would attach to it. I can point out to you that some of the things that you have felt to have been the worst happenings that could befall you have turned out to be among the most valuable gifts you have ever received. They have helped you release untruth, fear, and confusion. Those events that don’t feel that way to you are simply gifts you have received that remain unopened. To complete that awakening journey (which requires you to go nowhere) nothing can remain in your thoughts as being a mistake. Instead you trust absolutely; you listen to that inner voice, whether you call it Spirit, God, the Divine Presence, Allah, Jehovah, Jesus, or Sanhia; you surrender absolutely to it and trust that it always has the perfect guidance for you. When you ask for support, it is brought to you in the most powerful and direct way possible.

In conclusion, there is a short answer. The answer is no. The illusion is not a mistake. There are no mistakes. It is all perfection. It is as it is preordained to be. You can choose to live in the loving trust of that perfection, or not. Even if you listen to your ego instead of to Spirit, it is not a mistake. You will realize the perfection at some point, no matter what you choose. You can choose it now. Finally, we offer this prayer: “Spirit, help me accept the perfection of the now”.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Is it good to have a support group?

Always! The primary value of a support group is to remind you of the truth. Most of the world is absolutely insane. Everything you experience day in and day out is crazy. There is very little truth expressed from your outer world. If you are able to find a group to meet with on a somewhat regular basis that is dedicated to the truth, such a meeting can remind you of what duality is. These people can help you remember to ask yourself the question “Is that really true?” about whatever you may be thinking. You can be supported in letting go of ideas of victimhood and separation. Such a support group is a wonderful thing to have. Again, most of your world will not reinforce your desire to awaken. Working by yourself makes it all the harder and will likely take a much longer time.

In a similar fashion it can be a wonderful support for you to read regularly – or watch videos, listen to recordings, whatever format works the best for you – things that reinforce non-dualistic thinking. That helps to train your mind to go there instead of into the ego knee jerk of bowing down to the mass consciousness and dualistic thinking.

So…Yes! Yes! Yes! Support groups and supportive reading material.

Now I have an enormous BUT. Notice that BUT is with only one “T“. I actually have no butt, no body, nobody. The BUT is this: The groups and the reading are supportive, but they won’t get you home. They won’t shake you awake. All they can do is point for you. Today we want to look at where they are pointing. If your group or instructional material is not pointing in the direction we are going to indicate, you might consider changing trains. For example if your support group’s leader says, “Follow me and I will lead you home”, it might be time to ask for a train schedule. If you are reading a book and it tells you, “These are the steps and processes that will wake you up”, there are plenty of other books out there. The pointers that come from your support systems should be leading you to go within yourself. They should point to that voice inside of you, your own inner guidance. Your inner wisdom recognizes the truth. That inner voice may recognize what you need to hear through these outer voices. You have asked Spirit for awakening. It might lead you to the truth through your mirrors. This is not to say that everything you hear in your group or your reading is for you. When you feel a resonance, you can trust that those are the words your inner guidance wants you to hold for the present. This truth is always inside of you and not outside. That is how you recognize it when you see or hear it. If you are not recognizing truth from your supports, it may be time to jump ship. The route home is in an inward direction. No groups, no source will do the job for you. You can’t read A Course in Miracles and expect to wake up; it’s a pointer, not the point. No person, group, or group of ideas can do that for you. They are all pointers and not the truth. The truth cannot be expressed in words. It is not a group of ideas. So take advantage of groups and other supports, but be eternally vigilant to see if you are letting them point you inwardly or outwardly.

Let’s take this a step farther. Wherever you think that something in the world is going to help you or save you, you are mistaken. If you think you will find fulfillment through seeking more money, a better job or relationship, or a more consistent spiritual practice, you are chasing your own tail. You are welcome to try it out, to prove me wrong. Most of you have been down that road, probably down many roads. You know what I’m talking about. Immediately you might get a lift, a high from these different sources, from these varying evasions from truly looking within yourself. Ultimately they are never enough. Nothing and nobody on the outside will ever be totally fulfilling. The truth of you, the Divinity, the home, the awakened state, the ascended state that you wish to be experiencing is within you. There isn’t anything to do except to recognize it. Wherever your attention is drawn outwardly, you cannot see it. It’s simply not there. Nothing there is really there.

Does that mean not to go to a group because it’s not really there? Good point. It’s not there, but that doesn’t mean don’t go to it. As long as you are in a body, you are going to go places and do things. Why not go someplace that will remind you that it is not real, that what is true is always inside of you? Most places encourage you to see the world as a place of victimization, of blame, of right and wrong, and to be angry. The trap is only in confusing the pointer with salvation. It’s your job not to do that. If the pointer encourages you to depend on it, get out that old train schedule. The group is there to remind you to look inside, not to provide you with all of the answers. You can also make a support group out of a close relationship with someone who you see daily, or often. You can act as pointers for each other, reminders to look inside to find the truth, prompters to not take the world seriously or to play the victim/blame game.

Recognizing that though the answer is not out there somewhere in the world does not mean abandoning the world. You deal with physical reality however you deal with it, but you are absolutely aware of when you are placing redemption in that outer world. You act in the world without attachment to results. You choose and participate from a place of guidance rather than from knowing. This can become the terrifying aspect of waking up. There are people you believe you need in your life. Not true. All you need is Spirit, your inner connection to Divinity. As long as you grasp onto your need for others you will fail to fully embrace Spirit. Let’s go another step. We want to remind you that nobody out there is real. Your relationships are all fantasies you are having with projections of yourself. You may have been going along with the idea that the world is an illusion, having read ACIM or other texts or heard different speakers. That is just an idea. In order to convert that from an idea to the truth will require you to act. You need to take the steps you would be taking if you knew all of this was true. You are no longer getting a free pass to let fear dictate your choices. This calls on you to be aware in every moment of what you are thinking and doing, and to see if it is based on the truth or illusion. If you are giving ultimate value to anything other than your relationship with Spirit it is time to stop playing spiritually immature games. The only reality is that One relationship. If you wish to end suffering, your priorities need to be straight. Nothing in the world matters. Nothing. You are the one who knows when you are not being honest with yourself. No teacher or book can do that work for you in the now. They can inspire you and redirect you, but the work is absolutely yours.

I encourage you to hold onto that focus. I encourage you to come back and read this again, to remind yourself that your only refuge is within you, never in others or in things or in events. Your only truth is within you. The only time is now. Bon Voyage!

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How can I be sure I am on the right path?

All of these questions are enjoyable, but this one is really fun. When you think about it, and I do know that some you of spend some time thinking, there are lots of paths out there. There are a multitude of choices with all of the major religions, minor religions, cults, disciplines, teachers, retreats, centers, ashrams, temples, and monasteries. On top of that is the plethora of books. You would be hard pressed to keep up with reading all of the spiritual texts dealing with the various paths to awakening, enlightenment, or ascension that have been published and continue to appear at an ever increasing rate. As we mentioned in the previous message, some of the authors/teachers claim to be enlightened and are willing to show you the way. If you study more than one of these paths, you will find there isn’t a clear overlay. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who can you trust? What’s a poor seeker on the path supposed to do? It’s too hard to sift through all of this. What if you spend years following a certain path and then find out you’re on the wrong one? Now do you have to go back and start all over? Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Fortunately, I can make this very simple for you, unless you would rather make it difficult for yourself. To begin with, you can’t know anything. No matter how much you study or learn, no matter how hard you work at trying to figure it out, you will never have certainty about being on the right path. You will never have full confidence that all you need to do is to continue down the path you are following, persevere with your practice, pedal a little longer and maybe a little harder, take a few more trips around the sun, and then – BINGO! You are home; you are awake.

The good or bad news is that there is no right or wrong path, or that if such a thing exists you will never know whether or not you are on it. Now comes the answer that you may have been eagerly awaiting, salivating over. When you hear about someone else’s path and have a reasonable expectation that what you’ve been told or what you are reading is a fairly accurate depiction of how they woke up, you can be sure that this is not your path. Does that mean you should study every possible path you can find and then see what is left? You could try that. Let Us know how it works. But, We can make it even easier. Your path is unique to you. Nobody shares this path with you. Nobody else will awaken in precisely the same manner. No one ever has and no one ever will. It is just yours. How, you may be wondering, can you figure out what this path consists of? You discover it inside of you.

You don’t find it by seeking out a teacher to tell you what the path is. You won’t find it in any book. You will only find it within yourself. The only thing holding you separate from realizing the truth of yourself, from fully experiencing your Divinity, your I am-ness, from the awareness that everything else is an enormous practical joke, that you are not this body, that you are not this anything which you could attempt to define, that you simply are – is within you. There is nobody outside of you in the world, in your house, in the neighborhood, in the metropolitan area, in the time zone, or in the universe that is holding a gun to your head telling you that you must stay asleep. This is absolutely an internal choice. The only way you can possibly experience your awakeness is by choosing differently. Everybody has their own unique set of untrue beliefs. If everyone shared the same beliefs there would be no wars or conflicts. All would be in agreement. But there are all these differing views about how everything should be. They are all false. They all cause personal suffering. They are all voluntarily held. All that concerns you are the ones you believe to be true. Nobody else knows just what you are holding in your hand. They can’t see your cards, so this process has to be your own.

When you ask the question or have the fear about whether you are on the right path, the answer is so joyfully simple. There is no right or wrong path. You are simply on your path. It is what it is. Does this mean you should never read another book, follow another teacher, or pay attention to the examples of those who apparently have awakened?  Should you shut out all religious teachings? There are no shoulds here. Any should you hear is not coming from the true you, it is a voice from the outside. If your inner guidance draws you to read something, read it. Notice what aspects appeal to you or what games you want to try out. You may also find something from the same book, teacher, or source that pushes you away. Pick and choose. The truth of you will speak to you through others. Trust what is pointed out to you. If you miss something that might support you, you can be sure it will keep coming back around until it gets your attention. Maybe the pointer you follow today is the last piece of the puzzle and you realize the folly of all you have previously held as true, that you have taken so seriously. Maybe the latest piece of guidance seems to lead to an absolute dead end. However, following it may have been the best way to have that realization. We have placed a small bet that that is the case. The most important thing is to listen to your inner guidance and to follow it.

How can you know that you are on the right path? Are you listening to your inner guidance and following it? You can’t do better than that. Remember that your inner guidance is for the present. Nothing is forever except the true you. This now may last a short or long time. It is important to stay connected to that inner voice and see what is there for today.  One thing that makes your path unique is that it is custom designed for you by Spirit, by Divinity. Whatever comes to you today is always the perfect thing to nudge you into awakeness. One of my favorite things about duality is that it provides a home for irony. It is so humorous that as long as you want to be special you will stay asleep – because that desire is based on separation, but at the same time your path to awakening is specially unique, different from all others. Your path is special, but so is everyone’s. You are One in your specialness.

If God wanted to create in his likeness a form that is capable of having sensual experiences, three dimensional encounters in this illusion – why didn’t he just make one form? Why not make one human instead of multitudes? We are not trying to speak for God here – that is certainly a fool’s task – but it is fun to play. One could guess that there are so many because each one plays out a unique aspect of the wholeness of God. No one aspect can reflect all of God, but taken all together they make up that Oneness. This is analogous to an orchestra, which depends on each instrument making its unique contribution. But, look at the magnitude of this ensemble! One instrument failing to contribute the sound it has been given keeps the whole from expressing its unity. So, we have a world in seeming chaos, but your only job is to play your note and allow others to find their own.

This brings us to the second, exciting part of this message. If you have the thought that it is all about awakening and that once you are awake nothing else matters, keep reading. Most likely the awakened you will look around and notice that the body is still here. The realization will be present that this body is not you, but it remains to be noticed and “lived” in. The world is still there, too. It is an illusion and is not to be taken seriously, but you are still observing it, sensing it. In that awakened state where you have learned to listen to, trust, and follow your inner guidance, you will continue to do just that. What now is the purpose? That information is also outside of my job description. It is not for me to tell you what your purpose will be in your awakened state. You will have no need for that. You will be guided. I will set the stage though. Is your brother awake? Is your sister awake? Will you look about and notice those that are unconscious of their awakeness? You will be aware of the sleepwalkers and your guidance will suggest what to do about that. I have been telling you that other people’s illusions are none of your business. Your only job is you. Now that you have disappeared, you no longer have a job; you are unemployed. Since there is no you, there are no goals, nothing to be pleased or satisfied. In this uniqueness that is related to the “specialness” that formed your unique path of awakening, you will now have a particular path of expression. You will play your part in this cosmic symphony, and many have been waiting to hear your song. It is all connected. It is all planned. You will touch those other beings that the Oneness, that the Guidance, that the Wholeness, that Spirit, that God, that the Divinity – whatever you wish to call it – wishes you to reach.

That now is your function. That is between you and your creator and is none of my business. My only job is to point the way toward your realization. I am not your guidance. Your guidance might lead you to my voice. It might lead you elsewhere. It doesn’t matter. All roads lead to Rome. It doesn’t matter if you ignore information that could have shortened your trip. Time doesn’t exist. The destination is certain. Your decisions are preordained anyway. No matter how hard you try to be the captain of your ship, you will eventually surrender. Whatever you choose is perfect. Spirit will give you as much line as you need. When you make the decision to surrender to your inner guidance, you will hear it more and more clearly. It will direct your path until you realize that there is no path; there is nowhere to go. There is just the eternal now. No other place to be, no other place existing, and you are there and always have been.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Is there a difference between awakening and ascension?

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?

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

Should we still be doing the forgiveness process?

I know how some of you react when you hear fingernails being drawn along a blackboard. The sensation is immediate and leaves you shuddering. If I were capable of having such a reaction, which of course I’m not, it would be triggered every time somebody said the word should. The answer to any question that begins with should is no. There is nothing that anybody should be doing. We would want to rephrase today’s question into something that allows me some scope of answers. You could say, “Sanhia, you haven’t talked about forgiveness for a while. You’ve been speaking of I Am, that we don’t know anything, and searching for untruth. We were just kind of wondering if it is still a valuable thing to be focusing on forgiveness as a healing technique.” That is phrased in such a better way, that is, if I believed in better or worse, that would definitely be better. Underneath it all with this question – and I am not singling out the person asking the question, it is simply a human ego thing – is the desire to check to see if you are doing it right. This is looking outside of yourself for validation. I want you to know that if your intention is to awaken, there is no wrong way to go about it. If your intention is not to awaken, it matters not what spiritual path you follow, you will not get there. The road that you will be traveling is already tough enough. Without intention, you will stop somewhere along the way and call it a day (or a life). Now, coming back to the question, the short answer is “of course”. Forgiveness is always a good idea. Forgiveness is based on the truth that you are not a victim of anyone, including yourself. Since nothing has happened to you from the outside, who do you have to forgive? The only true forgiveness comes from the realization that there is absolutely nothing to forgive. If you think there is something to forgive, it doesn’t matter how hard you work at it, you’ll never reach forgiveness. The thought deep down inside is that they are guilty, guilty, guilty, and in need of punishment. That is your deepest thought about yourself. You are guilty and need to be punished. Yes, forgiveness is always an excellent choice, and would you like fries with that?

Having said this, forgiveness is a very hard thing to do because most of you, no matter how hard you try to convince yourselves otherwise, don’t buy the truth of non-victimhood.  A little inner voice whispers “bullshit” every time you claim you are not a victim. There are few satisfactions within the prison of the illusion that can equal that of seeing the “guilty” punished. It is so nice to see it happen to somebody else instead of to you. That’s a lot to give up. It takes a lot of courage to accept that you can only be doing these things to yourself and that it is all about your imagined separation from Divinity. So again, the shorter answer is of course, keep on keeping on. But there is a longer answer. There might be an easier way to be successful than working directly with forgiveness. I am not saying to forget forgiveness and seek vengeance for all of your “enemies”. I’m not suggesting you start your own little inquisition. It’s not time to reinstitute the rack and the thumbscrews. When you find yourself judging, being a victim, or lacking forgiveness, it is always a good idea to notice that and to choose differently. What I am saying is that if you think that truly forgiving is a hard thing to do, I am here to say that it is even harder than you think it is. Absolute forgiveness is a very advanced thought. You can repeat over and over to yourself that everyone is innocent, but that won’t make you believe it or quiet the little inner “bullshit” voice.

It might be an easier and a more direct route for you to take the happy idiot approach. By that I mean that you acknowledge that you don’t know anything. If your mind is going in a direction of judgment, the questions become: “Is my judgment really true? Am I really a victim of that person? Does that person really have power over me? Where did they get that power? How did that happen? Can I take it back? Did I give it to them? Were they just born holding power over me? Is all of this really true? Is that person as selfish as my mind is saying? What does selfish mean? If I give up everything in the world to pursue truth, is that selfish?” If you follow your lines of thinking, as I am modeling here, when you are in the judgmental process – rather than jumping to the end of the line and pretending that you know there is nothing to judge – you have a chance of changing your mind. Right now you haven’t earned that. You still believe in guilt and punishment, right and wrong.

Rather than sticking your head in the sand and pretending you are judgment free, look hard and deep at your thoughts. Is there anything wrong with affirming innocence and freedom from guilt? Of course there isn’t. But is it really true for you? Spoiler alert: if you are even having these thoughts it is not true for you. Are they absolutely innocent? Are you not a victim? Don’t look away. Keep investigating the truth in these thoughts. How enormous is it to give up victimhood? You will have looked at all the places where you feel yourself to be a victim, whether of another person, of nature, of your own body, of disease, of governments, or of the economy. You will have to follow many of these threads before you can unravel the untruth of victimhood. And this is just one aspect of judgment. Perhaps you are judging yourself and others for one of the “seven deadly sins“. This is an enormous work and it is one you must do if you wish to wake up. Hearing me say it or reading it in A Course in Miracles isn’t enough. You have to do the heavy lifting. You have to analyze every last thought that comes into your mind for its veracity. Let your mind follow these thoughts wherever they might take you. Wherever your mind finally rests, is it resting on the truth or do you need to go deeper? You may be wondering if your mind will ever get to rest. When you reach the truth you will be able to rest in the truth forever. At a certain point of following your thoughts, the remainder may just tumble of their own weight to join the debris of untruth you have realized. As we mentioned in the last message, you arrive at truth by eliminating all of the untruths until only truth remains.

It might not be easy for you to follow your mind, to stay with it, when you have been acting as if and believing that an untruth was true. What you will find if you stay with the process is that you know less and less every day. Getting smarter means unlearning untruths. Knowing more requires knowing less. Piling up more untruths cannot lead to wisdom. It is said that you shouldn’t believe half of what you read or hear. The wise person knows which half is which. The wisest person knows that the true half is infinitely smaller than the untruth portion. When you reach the point of absolutely knowing that a thought of judgment or victimhood is not true, how could you possibly still hold on to that thinking? So maybe the quickest and most direct way to release judgments is to go directly into the untrue beliefs you are holding. Then the judgment will fall away of its own weight. Without untruths there is nothing left to support judgment. The lack of forgiveness has been propped up by false beliefs.

A “should” question will never lead you to truth. Chase it down and find what isn’t true about it. As you are following the strands you may realize that you don’t do some things because you should, but because you want to. There is no “should” about breathing, you desperately want that next breath. Check out your “shoulds” and see if they are actually desires. Forgiveness is a wonderful concept and to whatever degree you are able to embrace it this is a great guide for you. However, if you desire to be fully successful at forgiving, look at the untruths you are holding. This includes any beliefs you have that you do things because you should do them rather than because you want to do them. Untruth realization is the easy way to forgiveness. You have enough of a challenge without making it any harder on yourself.  You have your work cut out for you. If you haven’t arrived at the place where you realize the untruth of any belief or thought, you have another think coming. Have fun with that!

Good Now

Sanhia

Do I have to surrender my personal identity in order to ascend?

In the past few messages we have talked a little about the subject of one’s personal identity, the sense of self. The questions come flying in, “Sanhia, do you mean that I have to give up my identity, my individuality, my self if I want to wake up and to ascend?” First, take a deep breath…..relax….. We will start by taking the “have to” out of the equation. There is no force here, no coercion. You are free to hold on to anything you wish to hold on to. This is not to say that there are not consequences with your choices. Remember that this is an illusion. This world and the identity that you hold are absolutely your creation. Within your dream you are free to create any way that you want. For each and every one of you the day will come when you choose freely to let go of your personal identity, as each of you will wake up to the truth of your innocence and divinity. Because time is a part of this illusion, how long this will take is just a part of the dream. Time doesn’t exist. In awakening, all of this disappears. None of it ever happened. It isn’t happening now. This is but a dream and the truth of you is home with God.

Let’s return to the beginning, to the crazy, mad idea that you entertained for a moment, but forgot to laugh at. You played with the idea that you could have an identity separate from God, that you could be the creator of yourself. You thought you could choose whatever you wanted, creating your own separate existence. That was the idea, the plan. It was a mad idea, not mad as in angry, but mad as in absolute loony bin crazy. It is simply not possible for you to create yourself. All is created by God in the image of God. There could be nothing existing outside of God. That would be inconceivable, impossible. The only way that you could create this self, this individuality – which eventually became a physical universe and bodies – was in your mind, in your dreams. It could exist only as a thought, not as a reality. That is how it stands right now. Your body and this world are just a dream in your mind. You want to project, to pretend that something outside of you has created your self and this universe. Then you want to blame God for everything. Why did you create this horrible universe with all of its pain and suffering, and this body which just gets sick and dies? Why, why, why did you do that God? God didn’t do that. You did that. Of course, since nothing here is real, you didn’t do anything. Perhaps you don’t want to face up to blaming God. In that case you merely project all of the problems onto whatever scapegoats you can find: parents, exes, bosses, politicians, the wealthy, the poor, and so on. As long as you live in the world of projection, victimhood, and denial, you will suffer, experiencing pain and discomfort. Finally your physical body dies. You find yourself with another body and another body and….seem to be trapped endlessly in the illusion of time. The only way to wake up from this cycle is to take responsibility, to realize that you are the cause. You are the god of your nightmare. The good news is that it is nothing more than that. It is just a bad dream and you will wake up. And that nightmare will just be gone.

You will each slowly grow tired of the pain and suffering of being human, of having a personal identity. You will grow tired of it. You will ask to be shown something else. You know there must be another way. That opens the door to Spirit to guide you home. Spirit will remind you that you are not a victim to anything, that it is all your creation and you can stop this miscreation anytime you choose to. But, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t say that you want to let go of the illusion, but still hold on to being you. You can’t let go of the illusion and experience your Oneness with God and at the same time hold on to your personal identity which keeps you feeling separate from God. If you hold on to your individuality you have to keep the whole shooting match along with it. Letting go of the illusion will require relinquishing your individual self, because it is part of the illusion. It is not you. It is not the truth of who you are. Part of the good news is that the truth of you is so far above and beyond the limits and poverty inherent in your personal identity, that you would have to be crazy to hold on to your individual self when you could be experiencing your Divine nature. That statement is redundant, because holding on to your separated self is an act of craziness. It is that mad idea that you could create separately from God that made possible your illusion of an individual self.

Let’s come back to this idea that you have guilt because you believe that you “killed” God and now He is seeking revenge as we discussed in the previous message. That is the deepest, though usually unconscious, fear that you have, one that perhaps you have done some work with during the last month. If not, eventually you will face this fear and guilt. Almost as deep and all encompassing, but more conscious for most of you, is the fear that without your personal identity you would not exist. You would simply disappear. You are like the river becoming one with the ocean or the drop of water becoming one with the stream. Does that drop of water cease to exist? It has become part of the oneness of the ocean, no longer having a separate existence. The fear that you hold as an individual is that you don’t exist separate from your identity. It is connected to the belief that you are your body, so that when your body dies, that’s it. You are gone. But, it is even bigger than that. You might have a trust and faith that when this body dies, you will come back in another body. Perhaps you are able to move into altered states and remember some of these different dreams in different bodies. Your ego may have pride in some of them and there might be speculations about those still to come. All of these thoughts about reincarnation still hold on to the idea of a continuity of the individual self. The idea of absolutely surrendering your separate identity is terrifying. That’s why it is never forced on anyone. It is not Spirit’s job to terrify people. You have enough fear on your plate already. We don’t need to add to it. It’s fine. Hold on to your personal self as long you wish to. Squeeze as much joy and pleasure as you can out of it, midst the tears and fears. It will be fully your choice when the price is no longer worth it for the pleasure that can be obtained. Sooner or later you will make that choice, but it will be your choice.

For those of you who are ready to begin moving in that direction – and I say “begin” because you can’t make that jump all at once; it is like leaping over the Grand Canyon; it’s too big, too enormous – you will do it step by step. Each time you notice yourself with judgment, anger, victimhood, or guilt – bring that to Spirit. Ask for help recognizing that what you are experiencing is an illusion, that there is nothing to fear, that you are not a victim of anything, that you are the innocent Divine Child of God. Ask for help in remembering all of that and each time you do that you chisel off a little piece of your separate identity. The more you chisel off, the less identity remains, the easier it is to let go of still more, the easier it is to recognize the ego’s separation choice and the pain it brings. The more you become aware of the pain of separation as you experience it and the unnecessariness of having that pain – that you are not being forced to suffer, that it always comes from your guilt, from your choice – the easier and easier it becomes to bring each of those moments to Spirit and to release them. That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to figure out how to let go of your identity. All that is needed is for you to bring each illusion to Spirit as you are aware of it. Spirit will take care of the rest.

One thing that helps hold you in your personal identity is having a sense of importance, believing that you have a significant role to play. It may seem that you are here to help to create heaven on earth in some way – to make the world a better place – or that you are here as a savior to help others; perhaps it is that you have a special gift to share. This is a way your ego tricks you into valuing your personal identity. If you, in separation from God, think that you can help others, you are absolutely hearing the voice of your ego. In separation from God all you can help others to do is to maintain their belief in their own separation from God. You are helping them to hold on to their pain and suffering. If you think you are doing God’s work here, the kindest thing I can think to say is that you don’t have a clue. God does not need you; you need God. Save yourself. That is all you can do. If you want to help others, then do whatever you can do to extricate yourself from this hellhole of a nightmare. Wake up! If you are staying here to help others, what you are teaching is martyrdom. If there is any part for you to play in the awakening of your fellow dreamers, it will not happen out of you consciously knowing and choosing the right thing to do or to say to another. It will come through your absolute surrender to Spirit. That means that you give up your personal will, recognizing that your will and God’s will are one. You allow God’s will to work through you, hearing His guidance. That can be tricky. Your ego can easily convince you that it is God speaking, that you are God’s favorite, the chosen one who is to act for him. If you have a plan, it is yours: it is of the ego. Spirit will speak through you in the moment. Spirit’s use of you will feel spontaneous. You won’t think about what you are going to say. It will simply come through. If it is truly of Spirit and not from your separate self, you will have no attachment to how it will be received or to what the larger plan is. Your job will be simply to deliver the mail, not to decide on the importance of the contents or how the receiver should act upon opening (or not opening) it. You are just the middle man, a delivery vehicle where you set aside your separate self and allow the Oneness of God to speak through you. If you are in doubt about the purity of your transmission, then the ego is likely involved, either in the transmission itself or in casting doubt about your ability to surrender and trust. Let it go and bring your doubt and fear to Spirit and receive whatever comes from that.

I will guarantee you one thing. Letting go of your personal identity and taking on your true identity as the innocent, unconditionally loved Son of God is such a trade up in experience that the difference is immeasurable. It is in the scope of the infinite. Those of you who are in the process of letting go of your ego and of victimhood, of letting go of pain and suffering and guilt are beginning to feel what I am talking about. But you are getting just a taste, just enough that you could never choose to reverse course and go back to just listening to your ego. There are always those days when you feel that you have moved absolutely in retrograde, rather than inching slowly forward. That’s okay. When you have clutched onto your personal identity for so long and valued it so highly, it will usually only leave accompanied by much screaming and kicking. This transformation will not take just a few days or even, probably, just a few years. That’s okay. It is not your job to be perfect. Remember that nothing that happens here will be remembered. It is not that important. Your only job is to take the next little step. Spirit will take care of the rest.

Good Now

Sanhia