Is a long life something to be valued?

We had a question from a reader in Taiwan who wrote (and I am paraphrasing):

Life in its natural state is pure energy, so why do we call “life” a gift? Why is there an obsession with the longevity of life? Does Sanhia wish to return to the “solid body” and low vibratory life conditions again with all the uncertainty and challenges? I am aware that the Asian cultures – the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, at least – have a need to jump on the bandwagon of living long and being healthy, as Spock and the Vulcans said, “Live long and prosper”. Of course, one should take care of health, but as to how long one can live, who knows? Long life can be like longer sentences on “Death Row”. Sooner or later, it is all over; the body deteriorates; and we become a burden for others and ourselves.

It seems that the reader has a fairly good handle on the question, but we will go a little deeper. Since time does not exist, how can it have a value?  Living long has no meaning if time is not real. What those of you who are reading this are doing now is living. Otherwise, you would have difficulty opening this message. You are in the now, and that’s all there is. There is no future. If you believe it exists, I will ask the questions, “Where is that future? Can you get there from here? How do you do that?” If somebody has an answer to these questions, please write back and we’ll have a conversation. The same questions arise with the past. All that is here is the present and in these few moments that you have been reading, how many presents have there been? As soon as you try to describe what is happening, you are referring to the past. The present is constantly moving and morphing. Any attempt to explain or understand it pulls you out of the now and into the past. You are no longer fully experiencing the present. If you accept that time is real and has a value, it might make sense to think that more time is a good thing. However, as the reader pointed out, if your experience of life in your body is hellish, then perhaps a longer life is not to be desired, and time instead holds a negative value; a shorter life might feel more desirable, less time in hell. Those who choose suicide might hold this negative view on time and earthly experience.

The reader asks if I would wish to return to a “solid body”? This is another crazy question, one that implies that choice exists. I simply AM. I do not act out of choice but flow with the Oneness. If you believe in choice, you are constantly pulled out of the now into your mind to search the archives for information to guide that choice. This is in lieu of letting yourself be present and going with the flow. It is a recipe for hell on earth. Less time or more time doesn’t matter. All that matters is now. Your reasons for leaving or staying all come from thoughts from your past, which, as you may recall, doesn’t exist.

Some cultures, in fact most modern cultures, place a value on a long life. They believe it is a tragedy when someone dies at a young age, the younger the person the greater the catastrophe. Even with somebody older, perhaps quite along in years, the death is still often held as a tragic event. All kinds of medicines, surgeries, and treatments are invested in, sometimes at great cost, to sustain the physical life. It is as if more days of life has a positive quality in and of itself. Rather than accepting that all will die, there is an attempt to fight what is, which eventually will be the person’s physical death. Why would one want to live longer? That idea can only come from a mind that is not in the present. In the now you are alive. You cannot live in the past or the future. If you are thinking about living longer, you are no longer in the now; you have stopped living. That is to say that the only place you can experience life is in the now. You can’t experience it in the future or the past. You are then pretending to be someplace else. You are in a dream within the dream. Whatever reasons there are for being in this dream exist only in the now. Having a focus to live long, means not living now. This connects with the words expressed in the last message about goals. I know that none of you are like this. but you might know of someone who denies themselves certain pleasures in the present out of the belief that this will help them live longer and have greater health in the future. Sacrifice today for tomorrow. Well, that’s a good plan. Perhaps if you deny yourself everything that might make the present more enjoyable you could live forever. Just kidding, well just a little bit. Seriously, if joy can only be in the future and you only can live in the now, your self-denial will be forever, and your joy will be for-never. .

There is only one reason why you are here and that is to awaken to the truth of yourself. The only place that you can do that is in the present. It doesn’t matter how much time you give yourself in order to wake up, that awakening will always remain in the future. But guess where you are. You are stuck in the now. How do you get to this future where you will be awake? Again, please write to Us if you can explain that one so that we can discuss it. If you know how to do that you are sitting on a gold mine.

We have another little matter here. Let’s just say that you could convince Us that having a long life would be a good thing, how would you go about creating that? We are assuming that you find life to be bearable enough that the thought of longevity doesn’t scare the hell out of you, or at least it scares you less than the thought of death. You must now have the belief that you can affect the timing of your earthly departure. Perhaps you are jogging every day, working out at the gym three times a week, eating a vegan macrobiotic diet, abstaining from alcohol, tobacco and drugs, fasting and purifying your body, doing yoga, meditating, and more. Are you certain that will lead you to living a longer healthier life? Are you sure that an object won’t fall out of the sky and land on your head? Are you sure that your electric car battery won’t explode?  Do you know for certain that a terrorist won’t step into the store where you are shopping and blow himself and you up with his strapped-on bomb? Obviously, we’re just having some fun here, but wouldn’t it be ironic to come to such an end after giving your present over to guaranteeing a long and healthy life. The question again is, are you certain that no such present could happen for you?

The larger question is are you certain that you can control the future, that future that doesn’t exist? Are you sure you have that kind of control? How’s your track record? Has everything in your life come exactly as you have had it planned so far? Be honest here. This is your present you are thinking of sacrificing. If things always happen according to your hopes, go for it. When you celebrate your two-hundredth birthday, send me a postcard. I know, all communication will at least be electronic by then, but you catch my drift. The rest of you recognize that things don’t happen just the way you want them to. I will point out though, that if you are in the now, absolutely, and notice what is happening, you will know that all is occurring perfectly, and you would choose to change nothing. Your thinking, planning mind doesn’t have a clue what is in your best interest. What is in your now is absolutely in your best interest. It is necessary to see it, to not resist it but rather to welcome it in, opening to the wonder of it. You might as well. It is here and isn’t going anywhere. The last place to be is in the illusory future or wondering how long this now is going to last.

Let’s get on to the real biggie. Wanting to live longer is about the fear of death. If you are living in the now, totally present, there is no time. You are fully living. In truth, you are always fully living, but when you are not present you can become oblivious to that. Can you remember a time when you weren’t conscious, when you didn’t feel alive? If you can, please add that to your list of messages you can send to me. Tell me what that experience was like. Oh wait, how could you do that unless you had some consciousness in that moment. Not wanting to die is the fear of no consciousness. This is the terror that many do not want to face. The belief is that you are your body and when your body goes, so do you – down a black hole, into oblivion, never to exist again. The only way to deal with fear is to be totally in the present with it. Go right into that fear, that chasm, that void. See what is there. Feel where you carry it in your body. Use the five-step process with your fear of death.  A famous songwriter once penned the lines, “He who is not busy living is busy dying”. Living is done in the present. If you are somewhere else, you are busy dying. Not only that, but you likely think that death is real. Believing in reincarnation is no different than affirming the existence of heaven and hell. It is avoiding the now, trying to mask the fear of death with a happy, or terrifying, picture of what will happen after your body dies. Everything you could possibly wish or hope for – all your dreams are right here in this moment. It has nothing to do with your body. The body is merely the form in which you are experiencing the now. The future and past have nothing to inform you of. In the now is the absolute knowing of the truth of you, of your isness that cannot be destroyed.

The script has already been written. Where, how, and when the death of your body will occur has been determined. You are only fooling yourself if you think you can have any control over that. When I say that you all share the purpose of awakening, that is not to say it will be experienced in the present incarnation. Those of you who are reading these messages or are actively focused on living in the present have a higher likelihood of such realization, but nothing is guaranteed by your efforts. You are all aware of people who think a spiritual focus such as we write about here is insane. They accept the world as real and want to either make it better, get their share of the pie, or are hopelessly despondent. Perhaps they believe there is no God or Oneness or whatever It might be called, or that it is just a random universe, and we are all victims of whatever might be coming down. Without any thought or intention toward waking up, it is less likely for them to experience that in this now. That is fine. It is written when that stirring will begin. It is none of your business. If their thoughts and actions disturb you, it is just mirroring the part of you that shares the same fears and beliefs. Thanks for the reflection. What is certain is your awakening. The timing is known, just not to you. It makes no difference in the illusion of time if it happens now, in ten years, or in ten lifetimes. It makes no difference. When you wake up, time stops. Past and future dissolve; there is just now. When that is your truth, it will not matter how long it took to get there, because there is no awareness of a past. Meanwhile, the more you can succeed in remaining in the now and not letting your thoughts lead you, the more possibility there is for peace and joy now.

I want to return to the very beginning of this month’s question. There seems to be a concern in the reader’s mind as to whether life is really a gift. Everything is a gift! Everything happening in each instant is a gift. It is only the mind rejecting what is given and thinking something else to be better that keeps this gift from being received and enjoyed. Only an unquestioning mind unled by past thoughts can achieve this. The questioner goes on to suggest that a long life isn’t something to wish for or wish onto another because it will just make your prison term longer. Yes, if you are not in the now, longevity may mean more time in hell. However, an early death is no reprieve; it simply postpones the awakening to another bodily experience. Nothing wrong with that, but equating being in a body with suffering comes from not living in the now. Seeing life as a struggle, as a negative thing, comes from not living in the now. Being in the present has nothing to do with how long you will live. It has nothing to do with time. The gifts are simply here now waiting for you to embrace them. Those things that are real do not deteriorate and break down. Death is a gift for the one who can go no farther towards awakening in this body. Your life is forever. The death of this body, like its birth, is just a story, just a movie, just an illusion. The truth is here in the now.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Why should my goal be to not set any goals?

A question has arrived from a member of a recent online group. I had lightly mentioned during the session that it could be your goal not to have any goals. A later discussion with the person’s family brought up many doubts about the advisability of such a course. Talking with family and friends is always an excellent way to have your doubts and confusion expressed for you. We’ll start with the word “should”, which I didn’t use. I suggest replacing that word with “could”, or “would”. “Should” implies a right or wrong, suggests that if you are “good” you will do it in this fashion. The statement that was made was not that it is wrong to have goals and good to not have goals. And, if you are following along at this point, how crazy is it to have the “goal” not to have “goals”.  The statement was made in jest, but also in all seriousness. Duality requires that something be said, but not worshiped as absolute truth. What we wish to do is to investigate what is involved in the whole goal setting process.

One of the ideas put forth by the pro-goal faction is that there can be no progress without goals; for individuals or the world to improve, goals must be set and reached. Is that really true? Let’s take a closer look. To begin with, goals are set by the mind. The mind knows only what it has learned in the past. Therefore, goals can only seek to achieve what already exists. The mind runs on old stories. These goals can only reinforce old ideas about how things should be.  People who are truly innovative, who help bring about remarkable change in the physical reality do so by ignoring their minds and what they have been taught. Instead, they observe what is and follow their inner guidance leading them to ideas that have not surfaced before. We could go back into history and witness those like Copernicus and Galileo who ignored what was taught to them about the earth being the center of the universe with everything rotating around it and observed what was to be seen through telescopes. They went inside to find explanations for what they observed. Or look at Einstein whose ideas went counter to everything that was taught in math and physics. He ignored all of that, in fact he was reported to not be a good student at all, being too busy seeing what he saw and going to his own intuitive guidance to find explanations that were not available in the world. New ideas do not spring out of old knowledge.

We could take a sidestep here and demonstrate the difference between being present, seeing what is there, and following inner guidance – all of which is not goal oriented. How can you have a goal about something that you know nothing about? Einstein developed theories that absolutely changed how we look at time, space, and matter. Later physicists have expanded upon these insights through their own observations and inner guidance. Parallel to this were goal-oriented scientists who chose to take these concepts learned from Einstein to develop a weapon that could be used to kill countless thousands of individuals. The old idea of war and destruction was a part of the justification for such goals. Even though centuries had shown that war never leads to peace, they took these old ideas and set a goal that allowed them to destroy two entire cities. It is very difficult to have a goal that doesn’t incorporate old ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, or should and shouldn’t. While humans continue to set goals as they have, nothing is learned. Past mistakes are repeated. War and poverty continue. Environmental degradation increases. There are fears that the ultimate result of human goals will be the annihilation of the planet. It could be. Goals are based on past learning and past learning is wrong and has never worked. Notice we didn’t say partially wrong. Past learning is all wrong – we are not talking of learning that allows one to function in the world, such as operating machinery and computers, cooking and finding one’s way around, but learning what life is about, what is important, and what is true. Something in the past may have been true for that moment in time, but it is not for today, not for now. Those answers lie in the present, not in the past. The past is not creative. It is repetitive. Repeating the same failing ideas will never make them work. A world that is not working cannot be made to work with the same old beliefs and ideas.

Why do you set goals? This is a place where being completely honest with yourself is important. Perhaps you believe that the realization of that goal will bring you happiness, peace, security, or love. I suggest that you look at your personal history at those times you have realized personal goals. Have they brought you any of that, other than the momentary high when the goal is first reached? Is that happiness, peace, security, or love sustained? Does that continue to be felt in your day-to-day life or do you compulsively set new goals to try to get that feeling back? Perhaps one sets the goal of being wealthy. Does that person ever have enough money? Is there a constant desire to accumulate more, perhaps more than could even be reasonably spent? So, the question remains of why the goal is being set. Again, honesty is important. If you are lying to yourself as to the true reason, how can you ever be satisfied? Is it because you want to feel that you have been successful in life? What is success? Who decides that? Whose approval is being sought? I suggest that you look long and hard for the true motivation for the goals you set. If you seek to feel at peace, then be at peace now. There is nothing that needs to be done. Peace is not earned. It is here right now, right in front of you. If you desire to feel loved, then love yourself now. Love everyone you meet today. Love what is happening now. Notice when you are not expressing love. Don’t decide that you need to be different in the future. Let go of unloving thoughts right now. Don’t feed them. One reason why goals fail is they are dishonest. You do not truly seek the realization of the goal; you seek something beyond that. What do you really seek? Where is it? Do you know exactly how to get there? My guess is that if you knew how to get there you would be there now. Why would you procrastinate for a minute? Instead, you have this belief that achieving a goal will bring you where you want to be. But it doesn’t do it. You don’t really have a clue. You are following somebody else’s formula for how your life should be. That formula is not working for them either, but it is what they learned.

Let’s take another sidetrack here. One of the greatest misunderstandings that most minds accept is that you have free will. You believe that you have a choice and your choices matter. You have no choice. It doesn’t matter what you do. Everything is predetermined. It is all planned. It is known exactly what you will do in each scripted moment. You will realize your Divinity, but you will have no idea where or how this awareness will come. Everything is in motion constantly moving you to that realization. You can go kicking and screaming, thinking that you know better than God, rejecting the Divine plan and trying to replace it with your goals. You can fail and suffer. Or. You can open your eyes and see what is before you. You can watch that plan unfold. You have no need to understand why things are set up as they are or why you are here. You are here. Nothing you could try to do will change that. The plan is far grander than anything you could imagine. You can welcome it and enjoy playing in it. Everything is offered right now, not in some nonexistent future. The past doesn’t exist either. Try to find your way to either place. Where are they? There is just the glorious now, all yours without even having to ask. There is nothing you can change no matter how much you might wish to. There is nothing you would wish to change if you truly let your thoughts go and accept what is here.

If there is something that is your special thing to bring to the world, it won’t come from the past and no teacher or teaching or idea can tell you what it is. If the past knew what it was, it would already have been done. It must come from the now. If it is yours to do, it cannot be anybody else’s. How can someone else tell you something that only you can know by being in the present, seeing what is there, and listening to your inner direction? How can anything you have been taught about who you are, or should be, and what kinds of goals you should or shouldn’t have be true for you? Is everyone supposed to do the same thing? Why are there so many different people then? That seems rather wasteful and inefficient. On the contrary there is something unique about you. You don’t discover that by being directed by your mind and all it has been taught from the past. That’s where you find how to be like others, rather than finding your own uniqueness. You learn how to be another crazy person in an insane world. So let that mind go. That’s what true creators do. They see what is in front of them in this very moment. They learn to hear and trust their inner voice, their inner guidance. This is about what to do right in this moment; it is not about goals for a nonexistent future. If there is a goal for you, you don’t know what it is. If there is a goal for you, it is for you and not for anybody else. You have a unique role to play in this awakening process. You find it, not by going where your thinking says you should go – as your thinking is faulty – but by listening and letting go of your mind to see what you are drawn to, what is drawn into your life. Everything is being provided; it is not your work to figure out what to do but rather to follow the trail that is being presented.

Everyone is here in a body with a common purpose. That purpose is to awaken to the truth of their Divine nature, to the truth of who they truly are. You are to be a loyal follower of your purpose. Your purpose is set. As long as you agree to let your life be led by your mind and old thoughts, you will remain asleep. Whatever goals you set are built on sand, not solid ground, and the whole structure will eventually collapse. You will be frustrated in your attempts to realize what you have dreamed of. Don’t take my word for this. Go ahead and set your goals. Give them everything you have. If that works for you…wonderful! If someday you realize this is not bringing you what you hoped for, come back and we’ll talk some more.

As you are awakening to the truth of you, which can only be experienced in the now with a silent mind; as you are now ignoring or no longer following the untruths that you have learned; as you see what is truly in front of you and you work with it rather than resisting it and attempting to create something different; as the Divine voice within you becomes increasingly clear – then you support others in doing the same. If you wish to end poverty on the planet, you let go of all beliefs you hold about scarcity. When you notice those thoughts arising, you do not act on them. You simply notice the thoughts and let them go. When you believe you do not have enough, you manifest poverty in the world. Goals emerge from a sense of not enough. That lack becomes your gift to the world. What is right in front of you is all you could ever need. Goals emerge from a belief that the world is not as it should be, and that it is your responsibility to change it. How has that succeeded? How many people have been trying to change the world and for how long? Every improvement that comes from human attempts is two edged. Every plus brings with it a negative. That is the nature of duality. Technological advances are used in war. Medical advances are used to keep people sick. It’s a big business. Money, rather than being used as a tool to help share what is there, is used for competition with winners and losers. Love is used to control others, to keep them where they are wanted. Again, be honest with yourself as to why you have your goals. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble. If you want to trust that you have enough wealth, do that right now.  What do you truly need that is not before you now? Let go of the dreams of accumulation and the future. You don’t live there. Accept the wealth that is offered right now, the beauty of nature, air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and people to be with and to love. Go directly for what you want. Find it in the now rather than shuffling everything off to an imagined future that never comes. If you want to be happy, then be happy! It is right here in front of you. Look. Accept what you see. Welcome it. There is nothing to change. All that is required is to be present with it, to flow with the ever-changing moment. Notice the insanity of your thoughts.

We will go back to the original question, the humorously offered suggestion to have the goal of having no goals. That suggestion might be softened by saying to have the intention to have no goals. You notice when you have a goal and instead of trying to reach that goal you simply recognize its existence in your thoughts. Interesting. Is the goal something that can be realized now? No, it is off somewhere in the future. The goal is never fulfilled in the now. So where is happiness? Where are peace and love and fulfillment? They are all out there in the future. Where do you live? You can only live in the now. When does the future arrive? Never. Why sacrifice your now, the only place you will ever be, for, the future, where you will never be? But this is what you choose to do when you have goals. The insanity is in having goals. Sanity is living in and loving the only place you will ever be. Seems to be a no brainer, which is a fortunate state of affairs because you just might stop using yours.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Why do you tell stories?

Now it is my turn to ask the question. Why do you tell stories? As you cannot hear the tone in my voice, please understand that this is not asked in a judgmental tone. The question isn’t one of should or shouldn’t you tell stories or are stories good or bad. This is an investigation that we can conduct together into what the story is behind your stories. There are some tales that you might just tell one time. Say for example that an interesting thing happens to you while you are out shopping. You come home and share it with your partner. You laugh or cry or scratch your heads about it together and it never comes up again. You have lots of stories like that. Something makes an impact upon you and you choose to share it with someone else. These are not the types of narrations that we are going to zero in on, though the same thought processes could be used with any tale. What we are concerned with today are the stories that you carry around with you like gems in a sack; you take one out and polish it and share it over and over with different people or perhaps just mull it over for your own entertainment. Some of them you have shared dozens of times and maybe more than once with a given individual. It may be difficult to remember who you have shared it with or how times the tale has been told. Some of these stories are about successes you have had, something you achieved, or somebody you helped. Sharing such tales may make you feel better for a while. Some of your sagas might be about victimhood, what someone did to you or some unfortunate occurrence. Perhaps they relate what a tough year you have had or even about something that you have never been able to recover from.

The first thing I would like to investigate with you is to look at the reasons why you share these stories. The purpose in this line of inquiry is to support you in being in the now, to encourage the awareness of your awakened self. So we come back to your sagas and view them from that standpoint. What is your motivation, your reason for telling your tale? I wish to begin by suggesting that you become aware of the thoughts you have around any story, as I have encouraged you to do with each thought that enters your mind – a story being just a drawn out thought. It’s a picture you have from the past that you are sharing in the now. First of all, the narration has nothing to do with the now other than the fact that you are presently thinking about it or relating it. I think we can agree that the tale is about the past, not about what is now happening. As we know, there is no such thing as the past. You cannot find a place called the past. There is only the present moment. So the story is something your mind brings forth in the present that relates to an imagined past. I say imagined, because it isn’t really there. What you are describing is not going on. When you are telling the saga about this imagined happening, you can’t even have certainty that your story matches what supposedly happened if, indeed, anything did really occur. You have your perception of this past occurrence, peppered with your projections. If another who was involved in this story was to be the teller, the “facts” would likely be quite different. This would certainly be true if the other was the so-called victimizer in your story. So, we are not talking about “truth” when we refer to these narrations. If you say to your children that you are going to tell them a story, they won’t be expecting the evening news. They expect the tale to be made up. Are any of your stories really any different from that?

Let’s say that you want to tell a story about something you think happened to you that you wish had not occurred. We’ll say that it was painful, whether physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially, or some combination. You still feel that you suffer some from what happened. What now is the motivation for sharing this tale? This is what I want to encourage you to look at. I can’t tell you what your motivation might be for sharing any particular story, but if you are unconscious of your purpose, you are unaware of what you are actually doing and what effects it may have on your present moment. As we mentioned in the last message, your actions are very important. Through the action of retelling this story you are expressing your belief in its verity. Do you want your listener to think “Oh, poor you” and give you at least a spiritual hug to ease your pain? If that is the case, you are asking for validation of your painful saga, for support for your victimhood. You are asking them for agreement that this event should not have happened. Not only are you carrying around an old story that keeps you from noticing what is in the now, but your old story is based on not accepting what happened. Instead of experiencing what is present in the now, are you choosing to fill your life with sadness and anger from a thought memory in your head?

You may not choose to have a memory come to mind, but you do choose to hold onto it and to feed it through retelling. Is there a benefit from this choice? Does the sharing of your narrative allow you to release it forever? Likely there is a tradeoff where you receive a short term relief from the listener in exchange for a longer term continuance of the pain and suffering. If you continue to tell the story it is like another drink for the alcoholic. The attention helps for a while, but the benefit wears off and you feel compelled to tell the tale again. Of course you are not limited to one story; you likely have a collection of them in your arsenal. Look at the different elements in your narration and ask yourself if you are sure that each one is true. Be honest with yourself. You have nothing to gain from trying to pull your own leg. What happens if you accept the absolute perfection of that event having occurred? If this presents a big challenge you can ask Spirit to help you accept the perfection of the now. This story is coming into your now, but why? Is this tale to be told, or is it to be released so that it no longer blocks you from being present? It is not being suggested that you pretend as if this event never happened to you, to go into denial, but what happens when you choose not to be weighed down by something that is nowhere in sight in the present moment?

Perhaps an old story that you tell repeatedly is one that was highly traumatic for you, such as experiencing violence, molestation or rape, or the death of a loved one. Part of the belief that your mind carries and society reinforces is that you not only are saddled with this event for the rest of your life, but that it is your duty to never forget. A judgment, a condemnation of the act must be expressed. Such actions are not acceptable. It is your job to ensure that the deed is never forgotten, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The perpetrator deserves condemnation and punishment. This is what mass consciousness teaches. Now, accepting the perfection of the now isn’t a justification for an action. It is not saying that it is okay to intentionally harm another. But the truth is that it happened. Right or wrong it happened.  The truth is that whatever is in the now is happening. There is nothing you can do to change any of that. Asking Spirit to help you accept the perfection of what is happening or has happened does not mean you want to be shown that it was okay for somebody to do what they did. This is about you. It is about realizing that anything that is in your now has already been accepted into existence. Not accepting it is a denial that it has already happened. It is not changeable. Any attempt to accomplish that is a fool’s task, one at which you cannot succeed. Notice your pain; notice your emotions; return to the present and see what is there now. Pain and suffering are not constants. Everything moves and changes. Let it; watch it. The past is unchangeable. The future does not exist. There is just now. Do your best to focus here. This requires enormous will, but no understanding. It asks only that you persist in staying present, while noticing when you aren’t able to. Your job is not to understand. That is a gift that may or may not be brought into your now, but it is never the goal. There is no goal, only focus. Free will is not a matter of being able to choose what will happen; it is the ability to choose your reaction. Fighting what is or what has happened will lead to a life of pain and suffering, to war within you and with the world.

I want to remind you that every person out there, no matter how hurtful their actions might appear to be, is a Child of God, trying the best they can to find love, to find their way home, to find God. Like you they may not always be making the best choices in order to accomplish that, but they will always have the option to learn from the choices they make. Nobody will ever find the love that is the truth within them if their mind is consumed with victimhood.

The idea may be formulating now in your mind that telling stories might not be a wise course to choose to follow. However, it is always a good idea to look at why a story wants to be told. Perhaps you are listening to another tell their sad or angry story. That brings to your memory a similar type of story that you might have once told, but now you accept the perfection of what occurred and may feel a deep sense of gratitude for what happened. You are aware of how that event helped you to let go of a whole layer of victimhood and you feel freed by that acceptance. You might feel guided to share your story and what you have done with it. Rather than suggesting to them what they could do with their story or lecturing them on how it hurts them – usually not the best choice in any situation – you just talk about you. Maybe you tell your story in such a humorous manner that people laugh at it and that brings you enjoyment, because you have not elicited pity but have brought lightness to the whole situation. You may need to be able to laugh at yourself. Laughter helps to center people in the now. Stories can provide an absolutely  beautiful, divine service. Jesus conducted much of his teaching through stories or parables. They can bypass the ego defense structures people have in place to fend off challenging ideas. Sometimes I “out” Michael by sharing some of his personal stories when I am talking with groups. He is hesitant to do this himself, not wishing to appear arrogant or superior. He gets to observe – whether it is a story about a time he fell flat on his face but learned much, or a situation when he acted in the way I was suggesting he go, despite great fear – that others can benefit and gain courage and inspiration from hearing them. Stories can help move people off the pedestal where you may have placed them. Such tales remind you of what you hold in common with them. They can show possibility.

Again, ask yourself why you want to tell a story. It might prove helpful to go on a story diet, severely limiting the number you share. Instead, spend that energy investigating the stories, checking to see if holding on to them is keeping you out of experiencing the now, looking to see what untruths may be promulgated through them. Always look at the motive behind your wish to share a tale. As a story comes to mind, remember to notice if you have told it before. Be brutally honest with yourself about why the story bears repeat telling. The ego can be very convincing in encouraging you to share a story because it would be “good” for someone else to hear it, when the actual purpose is to get stroked for how evolved you are. There is nothing wrong with wanting a little attention, but it is helpful if you are upfront with yourself about your motives. When in doubt, you might wait until the story seems to be dragged out of you. Do you find yourself being in a competitive situation with others, wanting to get your story in? Try being a good listener, perhaps asking them questions. Is there something there for you in another’s story? Do you find yourself in judgment of what you are hearing? What are you projecting onto the other person? Realizing that will likely benefit you more than having your fifteen seconds of glory from telling your own tale. If you truly listen and find common ground with another, there may open up a space for you to offer true support. Be compassionate with others with their stories as you are hopefully gentle with yourself and your old sagas. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Why should how I act make any difference if nothing matters?

Whoa! That was a somewhat long question, so I may give you a somewhat long answer. We’ll see how it comes out. I’m just in the now. I am here at the beginning of this message and so are you. So, let’s walk together through it. The supposition in this question that nothing matters is absolutely correct. Because this world is an illusion and is not real, what you do here, what anyone does here does not matter. Within this illusion, in a hundred years none of you will be here. Nobody will remember most or perhaps all that you have and will have done in your life. It will be nearly impossible to measure any effect, positive or negative, you have had upon the planet. Add another thousand years and you totally disappear. Any descendants are too far removed to have heard of you. Perhaps you left some work of art or book that can be traced to you, but those chances are slim. All vestiges of you being here physically will fade away. Nobody will know or care. It will be as if you never existed. You didn’t. Whatever you choose to do or choose to not do will make the world neither more real nor less real.

There is only one reason, as far as you are concerned, for your presence here – seeming to occupy a body – and that is to wake up to the truth. This body is not you. This planet is not real. It is a place where the truth of you is playing. It feels very real; it seems authentic. But your job is to wake to the truth of yourself, to find yourself in the eternal now, freed from the fantasies of past and future. When you think about what you should do and how it might make a difference, you are talking about past and future. You are talking of a past that has filled you with ideas about what one should do, or perhaps more specifically what the one called you should do, informed by parents, teachers, friends, religion, morals, and mass media. Often the question arises as to what a “good” person would do. You often act in a way that you believe can affect the future, to change it in a way that you deem to be better for others, for yourself, or perhaps for both.

Again we say that your action makes no difference for the world or for reaching your goals. When you follow your thoughts, which come from a past that doesn’t exist, to try to change a future which doesn’t exist – you are really spinning your wheels. The only certainty is that you will not fully realize the goals you have set and that you will likely not be content with whatever gains you may feel you have made. There will be a lingering sensation of failure and the thought that there is more out there for you to achieve. You might even feel that you are a total failure, and sink into hopelessness.

It may sound like I’m coming down heavily on the side of agreeing that it doesn’t make any difference what you do, but I’m not saying that at all. You are the one who is experiencing the pain and suffering that result from following the dictates of your thoughts. What you do does make a difference for you. When you fail to achieve a goal, you experience pain. If you choose not to have goals, so that failure is impossible, you likely feel guilty for wasting your life. A possible decision in either case is to hide in one or more addictions. So it appears that I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth. First I say that it does not matter what you do, but now I seem to be suggesting that your actions might cause you pain. It seems that no matter what you do you may suffer. Your choices and your goals will not make a difference in the world. That is because you are choosing from ideas and thoughts that come from the past, that are grounded in ignorance, brain washing, guilt, and fear, wishing to change something that you have no hope of changing. This is a textbook example of insanity. You are trying to change what cannot be changed, and then you will likely find a target to blame for your failure, but, remembering about projection, it will come down to blaming yourself.

We have been over this the past few messages. Your job is not to change the future; it is to accept the now. For most of you, your now is filled with fears. How many of you worry about financial support? Do you go off to a job each day that you wouldn’t leave home for if the carrot of a paycheck were not dangled in front of you? Some of you may wake up and go to that job because there is no greater joy in the world for you today? Perhaps some of you do have that satisfaction, so, let’s plow ahead and spread the net a little wider. How many of you experience the fear that you will not have enough money, that someday you might be homeless, unable to feed yourself or your family, or at least not be able to afford the things you would like to have? If you have those fears and allow yourself to dwell upon them, then you live your life with some foreboding about the future and allow those possibilities to have an entrance. I have suggested to you that should such fears emerge you do one of two things. Most importantly, don’t invest time and energy on the thoughts. Let them go and let the next one come. If the worries seem to be repeat visitors, or being felt so intensely, are hard to let go of, then look directly at the beliefs or thoughts and ask yourself if you are sure they are true. These actions support you in being in the now and in hearing your inner guidance. .

Dwelling on thoughts of lack and scarcity keeps you imprisoned in fear. If you look at the examples of Jesus talking about money that made it into the New Testament, you will notice that he never suggested one should worry about it. There were no recommendations to plan for your future. He said that you would be provided for; you would be taken care of. He said to leave everything and to follow him. This is the voice of Spirit. Leave your thoughts and fears and follow that inner voice. That quiet, Divine voice will always lead you to the perfect place. Everything is happening as it should. Your efforts to resist or change what is can only muck up your experience of the now.

Let’s bring this back around to action, to what you do. Perhaps you are ignoring the thoughts of lack and scarcity and are letting them go as has been suggested, but finding yourself confronted with a choice of actions, you may realize that your fears of lack are continuing to run the show. You don’t feel like going to work today, but your fears about money, supporting your family, and losing your job send you off on your way. Your actions speak louder than your words. This is where how you act becomes important. This doesn’t matter to the universe, to God, to Spirit, or to Me. It matters to you. How you act expresses what you believe to be true. Notice when you are acting out of fear and scarcity. This is driven by false beliefs that you hold as true.

If you want to accelerate this process of awakening, to shorten the time of experiencing the illusion of your separation from your Divinity, then it is time to fully face your fear. It is time for you to act in accordance with your joy and your inspiration, rather than from terror. Your finances are being taken care of. You need to let that happen or those fears of lack will be your constant companions. I hear some heavy breathing out there. Some of you are considering forwarding to the next email and ignoring this one. That’s fine. Your fears will be with you until you realize they no longer serve you. My only job is to shake you. It is your job to allow yourself to be shaken out of your false beliefs. You don’t have to wait to do this, but you are certainly welcome to hit the snooze button as many times as you wish. Either way, you are taken care of, but only one of those choices allows you to experience that safety. You can look into every area, every thought that comes into your mind where you notice you react out of fear. The fear may be that you are not responsible, not loveable, or not a good person. Perhaps you withhold your truth from others out of fear of their reaction, of being attacked, of not being loved, or of being abandoned.  I’m not suggesting that you charge ahead saying every thought that comes to mind, as you quit your job and leave your partner. I’m not saying not to do these things either. The “counting to ten” rule might be helpful, that is waiting ten seconds before saying something to see if you are still guided to say it. Look to see why you want to say something. Do you feel hurt and wish to strike back? The end result of your speaking then will be that you are still in pain; you are yet driven by fear. Face this in yourself rather than projecting it on another. However, if you feel guided by your inner voice, go ahead and speak. Know that the other may not be ready to hear what you are offering. That doesn’t matter. Let your words go without expectation of any certain response.  Perhaps it will take some time for your words to be heard. Maybe the ideas will have to come another time from another source. That is not your concern. Act fearlessly in the now and remain fearlessly in the now after acting. When you withhold your words out of fear, you are not trusting. Your inaction maintains a state of fear in your life. When you believe and prejudge that a certain type of behavior is necessary for you to exhibit in order to be a good person, you are living in the prison of the past. It makes it impossible to be present.

There are no good or bad people. There are just people. Some of those people suffer greatly and some don’t. Those who live from the untruths of their thoughts suffer greatly. The more certain they are in the dictates of their minds, the more they suffer. There is no way out for them.  When cracks of doubt begin to emerge in the beliefs a person has been taught, then suffering can begin to lessen; then there may be a way out. Those who begin to suspect that everything they thought they knew may be untrue have a great potential for finding the inner voice, for living in the now. These possibilities expand exponentially when you “put your money where your mouth is”, when you act despite fear and uncertainty. You have been acting from things you thought were true; now you are acting in accordance with the release of those untruths. It requires courage and determination to follow such a path. The world will continue to spin around as the same insane asylum no matter how you act. All that will change will be your perceived place in it. Such action can bring you into awareness of the now that has always existed. The past can fall away and the future does not exist. What is present is love and peace, no matter what the outer experience might be. In the now there is no scarcity of money, food, shelter, clothing, love, friendship, or meaningfulness. You will simply notice the glories that surround you while listening to your Divine guidance, absolutely disconnected from the illusions of a past or concerns about a non-existent future. You will just be in this very moment, playing the game to its fullest, unconcerned by results. The absolute awareness of and perfection of action in the now only becomes manifest when the mind has no thoughts from the past. You flow with, rather than resisting everything that comes your way. Your words and actions are directed only by that quiet but sure inner voice.

Now we return to the original question. We could say that, yes, action is everything. You can lie and deceive yourself with words, but not with actions. You can be terrified by scarcity – that you won’t be taken care of – and that if you follow your inner voice your future will be endangered. You can have that fear but if you act as if you have faith you will find that you survive. You can realize that it is not only possible to live from the joy of your inner inspirations, but that you will thrive there. On the other hand, if you allow your terror to run your life, to limit your choices, it will always be there. Fear will rule your now in such a way that you will find it nearly impossible to truly feel life, to feel the now. If you act as if you trust God and Spirit, even though you aren’t sure that you do, and you persevere with such actions, no matter how many rocky moments you go through, you will reach a point of certainty that everything is being taken care of. You will realize that your little self does not have anything to worry about. That moment will never arrive as long as you try to take care of yourself, of course failing to do that adequately. For some of you it has taken, or will take, so much of being bumped around so hard and so many times by your failed attempts at control, that you are willing to let go of the reins and turn them over to Spirit.

Let’s tie this up now into a tidy little package that you will hopefully not turn into an idea, rules,  and beliefs you feel you should follow if you want to wake up. Notice when fear comes into your mind, warning that certain actions are required in order to insure your safety. Be absolutely willing to look at that. As you look at these programmed beliefs that pop up, ask yourself if you wish to live for eternity in a world where this is the truth. If the answer is no, then you can trust that the thought is not from Spirit. Spirit’s thought is always to let it go, that We will take care of you. Do you wish to live in a world where you are free of responsibility, a world where you can just let go and know that everything is handled? If that’s not the case for you, I apologize. You have somehow stepped into the wrong room. The classroom you seek is down the hall. Look at your actions. Are they honest, or are you acting in a way that you would prefer not to?  Notice where your fear is running you. Be willing to look directly at the fear. Dive into it. Do the five-step process. Act as if you are fearless. I will give this guarantee. Because you are not yet actually fearless, you will run into some bumps down the road. That’s okay. Letting go of thousands of years of conditioning is not an easy matter. As I mentioned, it takes courage and persistence. When the horse throws you, get back on. Act as if you are fearless, and trust until it is no act. Act as if there is nothing to worry about, because Spirit has it all handled in a better way than you have ever been able to achieve. This is the truth, but you will never experience that simply by hearing these words. It is required that you walk the walk. Welcome to Act I, the only one you can ever be in.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How should I deal with my strong feelings?

There is a significant difference between noticing a feeling that comes up in your now and defining yourself by that feeling and accepting it as the truth about you. In the moment you may feel grief. To describe yourself by saying that you are grieving expresses a thought from the past which will carry on indefinitely. This becomes your belief of who you are. The former simply means that you are aware that a feeling is present. You can then pay attention to the next thing that comes to you. Rather than holding on to the feeling, which then becomes an idea and identification, you simply allow yourself to notice and release each feeling or thought as it emerges into your awareness. You can tell when someone has defined themself by an emotion, because they hold on to that same feeling/thought for many years. Holding on to old feelings and judgments keeps you out of the present. You become a prisoner of those emotions, caught in a web of suffering. We would be the last to say to ignore the feelings. Acknowledge them! Then let them go and let the next feeling or thought enter. Be aware of where there might be roles you think you should play to accompany the feelings that come. Are you supposed to act sad, angry, or as a victim? Recognize when you are playing a role and then move on. It is also not for you to analyze, justify, or rationalize what appears. What stories have you been telling yourself? Are you certain they are true?

I want to suggest that whoever in your life, past or present, you feel you really know…you are fooling yourself about that. You have no idea who they are. You see your projection upon them, not them themselves. In a similar manner you are aware that nobody around you fully and completely sees you. Part of that comes from your hiding in the belief that invisibility provides you with safety; that if people really knew who you were it would be all over. They would reject you, wouldn’t love you, would see you for the idiot you are afraid you are, and would ostracize you – throw you into the wilderness to the wolves. If people knew you “warts and all” they would not want to be around you. Instead you want to present the image that you believe is loveable. This is not honest. It is not the truth of who you are in the now, and you become hostage to upholding that disguise. These false fronts might include that you are a good mother, considerate, spiritual, honest, intelligent, successful, and on and on. These are ideas, images. What is a spiritual person like? They never lose their temper, judge others, feel guilt, or suffer pain? If inappropriate feelings or thoughts arise, you then want to deny them. If they are too strong, you may succumb to them, go into despair and self-blame, and define yourself as an unspiritual failure. Meanwhile, you are free to be who you are in this moment, which might be angry, grieving, sad, happy, jealous, or guilty. Feel that fully without defense or thinking you should be different. Experience the full spectrum of emotions, and then let them go to feel the next item on your palette.

If it is not okay to feel those things, you either cover them up or succumb to them and they will run your life. None of these feelings or ideas about yourself has anything to do with the truth of who you are. They are experiences to be had and then released. If you try to understand or explain the truth, you will fail. These beliefs become a place to hide, but provide no real peace. As we said before, you can never truly know another or yourself or be known because there are no such separate identities. All those defining thoughts about self and others are just that, thoughts. They come from the past and have nothing to do with the now, the only place you will ever be. In the now you will have many experiences, but none of them have anything to say about who you are, only about what is happening. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. The only thing you can be sure of is that the now always changes. If you hold on to it you leave little room for the new that is constantly appearing. Pain can dissipate quite quickly, but suffering happens when you hold on to your pain. Notice your emotion; take a breath; let it go; see what comes next. Receive each moment fully, without resistance. Let the perfection of the now wash over you. Hold on to none of it, whether it feels good or bad.

Why are we saying these things to you? We are not telling what the truth is or what your spiritual practice should be like. Such things cannot be done. Whatever is suggested here can be considered as “pointers”, pointing toward the truth but never defining it. That work is yours. Reading these words is of little value if they are just taken as ideas, and is of no value if they are taken as the truth. If you are at peace with all that is present in your life, continue as you are. If you are not at peace but fear rocking the boat, look at that and let it go. The longtime habit is to be run by the past and fearful of the future. The only “truth” I would attempt to offer is that anything you think is true is not and that holding on to any belief will only bring you more pain and suffering. Truth is being brought to you each moment for that moment. Receive it and let it go. See where that leads you.  It is one thing to experience a feeling of guilt. It is a whole different matter to hold on to the thought that you are guilty. I suspect that if all you focus on is the now you will eventually experience unconditional love. However, if you deny any present feeling that doesn’t look like it is unconditional loving, you will hold on to pain and suffering. The universe presents you with a feeling of guilt. Do you hold on to that guilt as the truth of you? Do you deny that you are guilty? Admit you have the feeling and let it go without analysis. If it sticks around you could ask yourself if you are absolutely certain of its truth. Do you have a thought or a belief that seems to justify the emotion? Do you feel guilty because you think you have done something wrong? There is an enormous gulf between emotion and thought. The thought likely triggers the emotion. Is that thought actually true? Do your words and actions determine what happens to everyone else on the planet? Are you that powerful? Are others helpless in the face of your will? Perhaps you believe that your thoughts, words, and actions affect only a few and not all. In that case, who is running the switchboard? Who determines which people are affected by you and how? Are these other people helpless in the face of your power? So, you are feeling guilty but can you say for sure that you actually are guilty? Do you see the difference between a feeling in the now and truth?

Question every thought that enters your mind. You don’t ignore the feelings, but you don’t give them a special value either. Notice them. Be aware of the thoughts. It is all just what is there right now in this moment. It is not right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable. What is the gift behind it? If your feeling of guilt actually stimulates you to investigate the truth behind your emotion, what a service it has provided for you. If you were to deny your feelings, those investigations would not take place. They also would not happen if you wallow in the guilt, holding on to it in your certainty that you are at fault. The negative emotion is a signal to you that you believe something that isn’t true but is running your life. With physical pain it is much easier to see what is to be done. If you touch a hot stove, you quickly pull your hand away. With psychological pain the lines aren’t as clear. You may actually believe that the thought that is triggering the pain is a good thought; one you should hold onto. Old thoughts are useless in dealing with psychological pain. When you listen to them, your mind is too busy to let true wisdom come in. If the past truly helped you to decide what to do now, we should have ended war long ago. Culturally, we would take nothing personally. We would not be in competition with others, fighting over the scraps that we believe are never enough. The old ways have never worked. Your spiritual practice and beliefs have also failed you. They don’t help you when you most feel the need of being saved. Thoughts can only come from the past, but you live in the now. When the point comes where you are only accepting what comes to you in the quiet space of the now, not listening to old thoughts from the past, then you will act with the same certainty and decisiveness that you employ instantly when confronted with physical danger or pain. Awareness of what appears to you in the now is similar to what happens when you do the five-step process. It might support you to check that process out.

We call it the perfection of the now and a gift because you have asked Spirit to support you in awakening. Therefore, everything that comes into your now is there to support waking up. If you are listening to your old thoughts, you cannot open the gift. There needs to be a quiet that comes from letting go of the old thoughts and the accompanying feelings. In that calm space you can hear the guidance for the moment. Nothing is your responsibility. You are carrying a weight you don’t need to bear. Let go of past thoughts. Give up worries about the future. Everything is happening in perfection. All you need to do is to let it happen. Your feelings are there to let you know when you aren’t doing that. Pay attention and then let go and notice the next thing that comes. It is recommended that you reread this message several times. Your ego mind wants to accept the validity of your feelings and to hold on to them. It wants to convert them into ideas of yourself that you can believe in and use to justify your pain and suffering.

Enjoy it all…or don’t. It doesn’t matter.

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

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

How will I be able to tell that I am awake?

It is fun to be back to a question this month. The short answer to this query is that you won’t be able to. You won’t be able to tell if you are awake. Now, perhaps you have at least figuratively thrown your arms in the air and are screaming, “What now? If I can never know…..what meaning is left?” To further muddy the water We will add a corollary. If someone comes up to you, or you are reading what they have written, and they tell you they are awake, or enlightened, or ascended – walk, don’t run, quietly but quickly in the opposite direction. Why do We say this? To say that “I am awake” is a statement of separation. Who is this I? If one were awake, there would be no more identity for them as “I”. Though they might use the name they have been known by, it would mean nothing to them.

One who is awake would see that awakeness or Divinity in everyone, regardless of whether the “others” could see it themselves. In that sense to say “I am awake” is perhaps to really express “I am awake and you’re not. Nanny, nanny, boo-boo.” It is creating a separation, which is not the expression of awakeness. This smells just a little bit like having an ego attachment, superiority. Perhaps they want to keep you as a student so they can hold an identity as a teacher. If somebody claims to be a teacher who can teach you and bring you to enlightenment, turn around and quietly, but quickly, walk in the opposite direction. This is not your teacher. This is not to say that you cannot have a teacher. I speak to you not as a teacher; I speak directly to the awakened you who knows who you are. That true you recognizes truth. It is not by following me or anyone else who is providing information or pointers that you experience your awakening. That you will experience yourself in your own way. You will experience through focusing inwardly, not on outer examples, however helpful these might be. If in this process you think that you are now awake, keep going. You are not there yet. If you are still experiencing an I, a you, and a them, there is still separation.

You might think that I am now saying that there is more work for you to do. You don’t work your way to awakening. It might be more accurate to say that you unwork your way. Awakening is noticed after you have let go of every false belief you have. As long as you hold on to having to work at that, you are holding on to a belief. If this sounds like a Catch-22, that’s because it is. Remember that the truth that can be explained is not the whole truth. So you work at not working. You believe in letting go of beliefs. You stop searching for what you most want to find. You will know that you are there when you realize there is no you there. If you are thinking in terms of having an “I”, notice that and go on to your next thought. You are still holding on to a separate identity. When you try to do something, you are reinforcing a you who is trying to change your experience in the illusion. Every thought in duality has its opposite. “I am awake” is opposed by “I am still asleep”.

There is no place to start other than with intention. Eventually the intention gets lost. I cannot tell you how this process will work for you. You will find direction as you seek different guidance, different pointers from different places, and play with them. If your life is consumed with this process of letting go of process, then perhaps you will get lucky one day. I can offer a few pointers. There have been a number of them in the last few messages. Notice what is coming in to your mind. While being aware of your thoughts, notice that you have very little control here. Most of your thoughts appear, unchosen. Suddenly they are there. Where did that thought come from? The illusion is that you are the creator of your thoughts, which would make your thoughts a product of separation. But if you are the generator of your thoughts, you should have absolute power over determining the next one. Play with that and find out how helpless you are to control your next thought. As your body is being breathed, your mind is being thought. You don’t know where they are emanating from. You think you are thinking thoughts, but the thoughts are thinking you. Life is living you. Rather than taking ownership of these thoughts and taking on the fool’s task of trying to herd them, just notice them fly by. Notice the thought that is now in your mind and then say, “Next, please”. Let it come. Look at it and say, “Next, please”. And so on. Give the thoughts no particular value; don’t judge or evaluate them; just watch them pass by like clouds on a windy day. The true you is the noticer of the thoughts, not the thinker of the thoughts.

The you that believes it has a separate identity – that exists, that has a name and a body separate from other bodies – is living in an illusion, in a fairyland. That you thinks it has to do something, go somewhere, or know something to become awakened. It believes it is separate from its awakened self. And of course you will be right, because that will be your experience. That’s why following any particular practice, discipline, or teaching will help you to stay asleep. Your awakened self is not somewhere else. Your awakened experience is not something else. It is right here, right now. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing to believe. No one to show you the way. It all comes back to the noticer and the noticing. See what is here. Accept whatever thoughts come. Nothing to change. Nothing to improve on. Nothing to figure out.

Meanwhile, here is a game you can play. It is not the game. It is not the path to awakening. It is not a must or a should. It can simply help you to notice the separate self you think you are, that is…..to separate you from your separate self. The irony of words is just too much. You can play this game for any period of time. You can try it for a minute, for five minutes, for a day, for a week, for ever. It doesn’t matter. Just have fun with it, or struggle. It doesn’t matter. Here is the game. You eliminate in your thinking and conversation all first person pronouns. There is to be no I, me, my, mine, myself, Instead refer to self in the third person. Use he/she, her/him, his/hers, or herself/himself. You can also identify self with a name. Instead of saying “I am happy”, say “Emma (supply your first name) is happy”. Little kids often do that: “Johnny thirsty”. Practice being in the third person. This helps to take away the direct identity and ownership of this personality. It helps one to be the observer rather than the observed. It is as if you are talking about someone else, a place where you already have separation. Now you can begin to feel a separation from your ego identity. It can help you to loosen those chains. No guarantees here. It’s just a game. If it does cause you to awaken, write and let us know. Of course we’ll know you are not telling the truth. If you wonder how we will know that, please return to the first few sentences above. The game might best be played when you are alone with your thoughts, but if you have others who are willing to play along – go for it. Embark on a third person diet, abstaining from the first person.

There is no randomness to the thoughts that come to you, no randomness to anything that appears to you in the illusion. Everything is scripted and planned out. Everything is in perfection. Everything is there to support the awakening process, or more precisely, the awareness of the awakened state. Where do the thoughts come from? They come from Spirit, from Divinity, from the Awakened Self. Whatever you choose to do with the thoughts is also scripted. Sometimes you have to go down a road and beat your head against the wall for a while before you can realize that is not the way. You are guided to take these steps, though your separated mind likely believes the guidance had a different purpose and may be disappointed by the destination you find yourself arriving at. Your goals are not realized. The Divine purpose is realized. There is always method in the madness. What you might hold as a failure is actually a success at eliminating another untruth from your mind. The experience was necessary to the letting go process. As you become more aware of the workings of Divinity, you will find it easier to accept the perfection of what is here and to give up the false beliefs – remember, all beliefs are false.

We have been filling Michael’s head with thoughts since he was young. Some he resisted, some he pondered over, and some he acted on. None of those choices is the correct one. Whatever you do is the perfect response. It was what We knew you would do. Most of these thoughts are not designed to trigger an immediate awakening to the total knowing that it is all an illusion and the separate you doesn’t exist, though one of them will do that. The thought you are having now will probably just lead you to the next step. The number of steps is finite. So, pay attention to your thought, and then say, “Next, please”. At some point it may be obvious that there is nobody there thinking those thoughts. You will be awake, but there will be nobody there to notice. There is just life living life – the eternal joy of the moment, no matter what it is filled with. There might be pain or a flash of anger. Like everything, this will be present and then leave. That is the nature of the illusion. Nothing lasts, unless you make up a story about it and hold on to that. The awakened you won’t do that. There is nobody there to hold on. There is just the observer, experiencing what is there. Immediately that is replaced by something else. Zero attention span. “Next, please”.

So, We have a bonus for you this time with two games you can play. First is the third person diet and second is the “Next, please” game. Enjoy! Then let go. Perhaps in mid-game you notice nobody there playing the game and just laugh. Nothing left to do. Nowhere to go. No responsibility. No weight on no shoulders. No job. No purpose. As the man sang…there is “nothing to do but today”.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

What if there is no question?

If there was an order of difficulty in the illusion, which of course there isn’t, this would be a slam dunk set-up.  This absolutely is the easiest question to answer. If there is no question, there is no answer. So, we will have an answerless message. All questions come from the ego mind, from separation. They come from the mind that is trying to figure out what to do in order to awaken. It wonders what practice it should be following. It wonders how to handle certain situations. It wonders what stands in the way of being fully awake. Questions are the realm of the seeker. A self-identified seeker will always be a seeker. To say that you are seeking is to say that you are not awake. That can never change as long as you remain identified as such. In the awakened state there are no questions, except perhaps, “What’s for lunch?” Obviously, therefore, there are no answers.

Sanhia, you might be thinking, are you saying that we should stop asking questions? No, I won’t ever tell you what to do or what not to do. Try to stop asking questions. See what success you can have there. My guess is that you will find it difficult to accomplish. You might sustain a question-less state for a short period of time. But after, say, thirty seconds – a little humor here – you will likely find questions popping back into your mind. The mind that can ask these questions, wonder about them, and then search for answers is the mind that believes in the reality of the separation. It thinks that it has to figure out how to cross this chasm that separates it from its awakened self. How does one get back home? The answer is that you can’t get back home because you never left. Just click your heels together three times, Dorothy. [1]

You notice yourself having questions. The mind wants to believe there is information that will free it. Information only imprisons the mind. The less you know the closer to truth you are. If you reach the point of knowing nothing, you may be in touch with absolute truth, though you would be at an absolute loss as to how you might explain it. Meanwhile, you are probably not going to stop having questions. Notice that you are entertaining a question, but don’t make a conscious choice to look for an answer. Just notice that the questions are there and then ignore them. Were you ever told when you were a child that if you just ignore the kids who are teasing you, they will stop?  Try that with the questions. They may eventually disappear.

So, you may be thinking – if you are already home, though it doesn’t feel like you are and if asking questions or accumulating knowledge will never get you to the point of that awareness – what the hell are you supposed to do? Far be it from me to state the obvious, but you just asked a question. Any answer I might give you to this question could not be the truth. There can be “pointers”, thoughts that can point toward the truth, but nothing that explains to you what you want to hear. Give no energy to your questions. Give no energy to possible answers that might come to you, other than a quick listen and then letting go – a catch and release routine with your insights. Instead, notice what is here now.

You wake up in the morning – some of you that is, certainly not you rock stars – and everything around you is new; it has never happened before. Everything! This is the only day like this that you will ever experience. Notice with your senses all that surrounds you. Experience it. Enjoy it. Don’t think about it. That last one is a toughie. Don’t think about a monkey sitting in a red upholstered chair eating a banana split with a cherry on top. It’s hard not to think about an idea that has come into your head, particularly when it is dangled in front of you. Every thought that you have about everything you experience around you, as you are waking up in the morning, is not about what’s there; it’s about a memory you have around your experience. Notice that; let it go; and be in the now with what is present. What you are now sensing, you have never sensed before. The memory may bear similarities, but it stands in the way of noticing the uniqueness of now. Even these recollections are not really from the past; they are happening now. You are not traveling back in time; you are having a present time thought. Whatever memories or sensations that you experience are not right or wrong; they are not good or bad. They simply are, and they are happening now. If you start thinking about them, you are no longer aware of what is happening now. You will be missing the brand-newness of this moment. Everything is unique. Nothing repeats. I will repeat that. Nothing repeats. Words are so much fun to play with, especially when you are aware that they truly don’t mean anything. When you laugh, an invaluable and absolutely unexplainable event is taking place. We are putting this message into written words, which you are reading now. If you come back to this message tomorrow, you will not have the same experience of it. You will encounter different thoughts, feelings, and reactions. It may seem like it is the first time you have read it. If you give yourself additional time, a month or more, it seems that you have never read this message before. You may find sentences you don’t remember seeing and have difficulty finding the one that most stood out to you. What is really true?

If you want a game to play while “waiting for Godot” – waiting to realize that you have always been awake – pay attention to everything around you. If you notice your mind bringing in past or future concerns, notice that is part of your now and refocus on what is here now. Your job is not to change how you are doing today; it’s to notice how you are doing it.

Now, let’s approach things from another direction. As you are observing everything, notice how miraculous it all is! There is this whole apparent world surrounding you, just as you were engulfed in another world in your dreams last night. The mind wants to say that that was a dream and this is real. Are you sure about that? Real or not it is a miracle. There is a bird chirping outside your window! What a miracle! Did you make that bird? It’s just there. It’s a gift from life for you. Do you need to understand what kind of bird it is or how it evolved, how it came into being in order to enjoy its presence? And how about you? This thing you think is you. We have often talked about how the body is not the truth of you, but without it how can you experience this illusion? Did you make this body? Do you know for certain how it came into existence?  You may have an idea, but are you sure that is the truth? Yet here are all these systems in operation. The heart keeps beating. Are you responsible for maintaining that? It just operates on its own. What a miracle! What a gift from life! Your breaths just keep happening without any need for you thinking of it. Imagine if forgetting to breathe would lead to death. What a pressure that would put on you! But, no, life takes care of all of that. It goes on and on. The body tells you when to eat. The earth provides food. The body transforms it into fuel and distributes that energy throughout the system. All you have to do is to avoid foods that might kill the body and garner satisfaction from those that are tasty. Life maintains the life-force so that you can be a player in the drama without any knowledge on your part of how all this is done. These miracles continue through every moment. No matter how learned a scientist you might be, you don’t have a clue how these miracles came to be, nor why. Where did this spark of life come from? Who is running the show here? Does it matter? Do you have to understand? Would that increase your ability to experience life in any way? Would it help you to be here now?

Instead of enjoying this absolute miracle of being here, your mind wants to be somewhere else, so that you can wake up (or be a rock star, etc.). It’s a little humorous. As life presents life, it also presents experience. Your mind thinks it has to figure out how to handle life, how to organize and direct it. The thought is that if you don’t stay on top of things, life is going to run you over like a truck crushing a squirrel in the road. Just as you haven’t a clue as to how to direct the body, you haven’t the slightest idea of how to direct the outer world. As it has with the body, life has it all taken care of. Life presents you with whatever is perfect for this moment. There is no need to figure anything out. All that is called for is paying attention. Notice what is happening right before your eyes. Be aware of what life is bringing to you. Notice it; play with it. If a response or a decision seems to be called for, look inside and see what life suggests to you. It’s not rocket science. There are no traps or trick questions. There are no wrong choices. Questioning is looking outside of yourself for the answers. There is no need. Everything that the situation could possibly require is provided. Life is an IKEA project with all the parts included, just lacking written instructions. They are hard-wired within you.

The awakened person is an idiot with no idea of how to take care of the self. This one has no idea what is supposed to be done or who the self is. In the natural conscious awakened state, that self just lets life do what it is going to do. Life knows. Life does it whether you choose to flow with it or put up a fight. You are just along for the ride. Sit back and enjoy the show that life has prepared for you. Forget about the questions. Forget about where you are headed or about where you have been. Those thoughts have no importance for you. Everything necessary for your adventure is right here, right now. Notice what life is presenting. Do more than notice; play with it. Enjoy it. Be a child.

If you find yourself having no questions, embrace that empty space. How wonderful! It might mean that you are here now. If you do have a question, We have an answer for you. The answer is, “It doesn’t matter.” It’s a wonderful answer because it fits every question. One size fits all. That’s all folks. That’s the end and the beginning and the totality of the story. You are here. It’s a miracle. Enjoy your miracle.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

[1] For those who are unfamiliar with it, that reference comes from the film The Wizard of Oz.