Forgiveness – Channels Without Borders

Can you explain to us about co-dependency?

April 1, 2024/in Commitment, Divine Nature, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Guilt, Illusion, Love, Projection, Relationships, Responsibility, Sanhia Message, Separation, Specialness

This question surfaced in a group several months ago, but now the time has come to respond to it. We will begin by talking about what is referred to as the special relationship in A Course in Miracles. The special relationship is a co-dependent relationship. Since most human relationships are special, they are in most cases co-dependent. If your mind wants to limit the term co-dependency to extreme or diagnosable relationships, it is aiming a bit high. But first, let Us step back and define the special relationship. It has been some time since we have mentioned this, and likely before many of you began reading the messages. In the special relationship one person wants the other to act in a specific way, to play a certain role. For example, you meet someone and they make you feel special; they make you feel loveable. Whatever it is that they do that makes you feel good or special, you want them to continue. This is co-dependency. You have a need for them to keep on doing those things that make you feel so wonderful. Normally in the special relationship this neediness goes both ways, but let’s just stay with you for now. There is a flip side to the co-dependent relationship. This is where the words or actions of someone you spend a bit of time with seem to cause you upset, pain, or negative emotions. You blame them for your negative reactions. You point the finger; You think you are going through what you are feeling because of them. This is a co-dependent relationship. Special relationships usually have a mix of both the positive and the negative triggers. As we have talked about recently, these liaisons involve projection. We have focused more on the negative aspect there, where you don’t wish to see yourself as having a certain quality so you can then convince yourself that it is the other and not you who is that way. This is co-dependency.

The projecting goes both ways, though. If you are unable to see yourself as loveable, you let another do that for you. The biggest problem here is that, as with all projections, deep inside you believe it isn’t true. You don’t love yourself or believe that you are deserving of love. Sooner or later your denial surfaces and you prove your partner to be wrong. You will not be able to continue performing for them and they will not be able to always act as you wish them to. It feels so good to have someone tell you that you are loveable, but you don’t really trust that. You begin to resent having to perform for them. You become upset if they change in any way or show you anything but unconditional acceptance. The honeymoon is over. The flame of your relationship was based on the other causing you to feel in a certain way, but now that has blown out. The things that used to turn you on begin to turn you off. This is the normal trajectory of the co-dependent relationship. If you doggedly hold on to the need for them to complete you, the battle will rage on and on. The negative aspects of projection may grow to exceed the positive ones. At this point you may decide to pull the plug. Since the problem is with the other, you have obviously picked wrongly. You seek another relationship. Until you give up co-dependency, reclaim your projections, and take responsibility for everything in your life as your creation, the new relationship will go through the same cycle. In despair somewhere along the way, you may decide to stay with the relationship you have, withdrawing from your partner and settling for feeling separate and unloved, deciding on some level that is all you are worth. Even then, there is still the possibility that you can stop looking to your partner for the love you want. The only solution, whether choosing fight or flight, is to come to the point of recognition that this isn’t working and it is time to try something else.

Sometimes in this special relationship you feel that you must take responsibility for the other. This often happens for parents, but it can just as well be a part of a committed relationship. Now you are doubly trapped because the bond is not only unfulfilling, but you have too much guilt to be able to leave. The other person needs you, or so you believe.

So, what is there beyond co-dependency? The relationship that is not marked by specialness can be called a holy relationship. In this association you have no desire for the other to be or do anything different from what they are now expressing. You accept them as they are. You love them without conditions. It is not possible to express unconditional love for another unless you are already doing that for yourself. When you are fully accepting yourself, you notice where you have guilt, where you are judging, where you are unkind to yourself, where you are experiencing strong emotions, and you commit to loving, accepting, and forgiving all of that. You take full responsibility for what you are thinking and feeling about yourself. You own your projections mirrored in those who trigger you. You do not allow these projections to go unchallenged. Remind yourself that this is you. This is what you are not wanting to face in yourself. Notice what you are holding to be true about yourself from both your own thoughts and from your projections and ask if those thoughts are really true. Work with all of that. Own it all. Take responsibility and sort through it. Look nowhere but within for the love you seek. Where you find this challenging, give it to Spirit, give it to God.

Let go of those thoughts. Don’t hold on to them or follow them. Don’t act from them. Notice them and move on. If the thoughts return, be willing to stare them in the face. Look deeply to see if there is indeed truth there. I know they are not true, but you must stay with them until you too know it. You are the Divine Child of God, made in the image of your Creator, an entity of love. That’s all you can be. Anything else you are holding on to is not the truth. It stems from the belief that you have separated from God. That is not possible. That is an illusion. That is the illusion. The holy relationship is your relationship with the Divine; it is only about unconditional love. The only function of the special relationship is to show you where you are co-dependent and not giving everything to God. It is an opportunity to recognize where you hold untruths about yourself so that you can realize your Oneness with God. Your relationships with others don’t exist in order for you to get something from them, but as places for you to give love. You have no need to be completed. You are whole. It is never about changing another or yourself. It is all about accepting the Divinity which is the truth of all.

I want to remind you that co-dependency is not limited to the perceived negative aspects, to the places where you judge or feel yourself to be victim to another. It is just as significant with the things you perceive coming from others that you consider to be positive. When you know that you are love, created in the image of God, how can you have any need to hear that from another. The latter expression can only feel good to you, feel special, if you have doubts as to its veracity. Whether the reinforcement from others feels to be negative or positive, it is just a pointer to where you are holding yourself separate from God. Give silent thanks for the reminder, take it to heart, and go to work.

Over time you will find yourself unable to hold on to the praise of others. You will perhaps begin to doubt their sincerity. You decide they are just being nice or that they have ulterior motives, they want something from you. They’re buttering you up, “kissing your ass”. The bottom line is that you cannot receive from them something you don’t know to be true. If you know its truth, the praise is redundant. Otherwise, it may feel good for a moment but, like with any drug, the effect begins to wear off and you desire another hit. You start to do things to win other’s approval. Perhaps you do things to prove they are wrong in their praise. The bottom line is that you cannot receive from them something you don’t know to be true.

If you know you are love, you will have nothing but love for others, no matter what they might say or do. As you are practicing loving yourself unconditionally, letting go of all guilt, judgment, self-hatred – think about loving others unconditionally. Have the intention to give love to everyone you meet, rather than looking for what you can get. See their Divinity. Look through their pretence at being human and unlovable. Observe the truth of them. Know they are doing the best they can and offer whatever you can to lighten their load. Have a holy relationship with everybody. Above all, have that with yourself, particularly when you are aware of its absence. Be kind, loving, and gentle to yourself and ask for Spirit to come help you release your personal will and surrender to the Will of God, Who only loves you.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How am I to deal with disease?

July 1, 2023/in Acceptance, Ascension, Fear, Forgiveness, Gift, Health, Illusion, Judgment, Mass Consciousness, Perfection, Physical Body, Right and Wrong, Sanhia Message, Story, Trust and Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Can I learn how to channel?

July 1, 2022/in Awakening, Divine Nature, Ego, Fear, Forgiveness, Illusion, Individual self, Innocence, Sanhia Message, Separation, Story

The short answer to this question is yes, anyone can learn to channel. The first extension to that response comes in the form of another question. Why do you wish to channel? Let’s talk about what this channeling is. I would describe it as directly hearing Spirit’s Voice. It is your job as a human desiring to awaken to learn how to hear Spirit speak within you. That is everyone’s job, a task that you will all eventually master. It may or may not be your job to share that with others. That is none of your business. That is up to Spirit’s plan; it is My business. If you have a desire to be a channel for others, if that is a goal, know that that comes from the ego. That wish sprouts from the ego need to prove that your separate individual self has some special value. This stems from your imagined separation from God, your fear of God, and your hope that some specialness on your part might invite His forgiveness and that you could now be welcomed home. As we have mentioned many times before, all of this is absolutely crazy and unnecessary. The only separation that exists between you and God, between you and Divinity, between you and Heaven is in your imagination. Your return home is a consequence of your self-forgiveness, not any choice of God’s. If your intention is to channel – even if you were to have some success – the focus of the channeling would be to maintain the separation. Your ego mind is not capable of truly choosing to return home; it will always hold the illusion of separation. However, you can still set the intention to return home and ask Me to intervene. And if I wish to come through you as a channel as a part of your return, I will do just that.

Let’s take a little detour. Some people have approached Michael about their desire to channel as he does, perhaps channeling Me. They ask for guidance in doing this, or in some cases believe they can just step in and begin. I would like to tell you some of the story about the channeling I do through Michael. To begin with, this was an agreement made before Michael began the illusion of this incarnation, though he did not consciously remember this promise. However, I often whispered in his ear and he was open to the spiritual direction in which I was guiding him, though he was often quite confused and had no idea where it would lead. I exposed him to the idea of channeling through books about channels and books that were channeled. He became aware that some of the best information available was channeled, though certainly that was no guarantee of quality. I put him in the physical presence of people who were channeling. Nowhere through any of this did Michael have a conscious intention to channel nor did he have any belief that he was a person who could channel. Quite the opposite was the case; he did not consider himself to be intuitive or to be in possession of “psychic” abilities. What happened was that I continued to speak into his ear and he heard me without any idea where the voice was coming from and followed the guidance as it came. He took steps that the mass consciousness of the world considered as absolutely insane. He accepted, though not without resistance, what I brought to him. I don’t tell this story to in any way suggest that Michael is special. He was simply keeping his word with me, holding to – despite fears and uncertainties – the pact that he was barely conscious of, following a course that he was constantly surprised by.

I told Michael as much as he could receive at any given point. Though it sometimes felt to him that it was a little bit too much, I only stretched but never broke him. I know exactly what is necessary at each stage. The stretching is required for there to be opening, for the awakening process to progress. When it was time to stretch him into an awareness that he was actually channeling – something that had felt to him to be just a conversation in his mind – I asked him if was willing to let me come through. He asked “Who?” I replied, “I think you know.” He responded, “Sanhia?” I never answered the question, but simply repeated, “Will you let me through?” Though he wasn’t absolutely certain I had answered his question, he assumed that I had and that allowed him to say, “Yes, but I don’t know how to do that”. And it went from there. At that time it was an enormous stretch for him to accept that he was channeling the ascended master Sanhia with the accompanying stories of the Apache lifetime where Sanhia ascended and his previous incarnation as the disciple Thomas in the Jesus lifetime. These stories were not actually true because none of the stories in the illusion are true, but they have their value. If I had said to Michael as we began our conscious channeling activity that this is Spirit speaking to you and through you, this is the Divine Voice, it would have been more than he could have handled. He had his hands full trusting that he was channeling Sanhia. In the beginning My message was diluted because Michael was not ready for the full power of God to come through. That time has passed. It is time to come fully out of the closet. This is and always has been the Voice of Spirit. You may continue to refer to me as Sanhia. It makes no difference. This is the voice of Spirit coming to you. As I speak, Michael doesn’t exist. There is only this Divine Voice guiding you home, a beacon, a lighthouse. I am speaking in this manner through Michael because he agreed to it and has now fully surrendered to allowing My expression. That is his job. He is happy to do it. He performs this task, now, fearlessly. He has no other function and is aware of that.

This is something that is there for each one of you. I am constantly speaking to each of you. You have the choice to listen or not (as you have done for lifetimes). There is no problem if you can’t hear me within yourself. Ultimately you will. If you are hearing/listening to what I am saying, you have the choice to follow or not. Channeling ultimately entails the willingness to listen and the courage to follow, nothing more, nothing less. This does not mean that you will operate in the way that Michael does. You will be led to your unique expression. I will use you to touch others, as you are being touched now. How that will be is none of your business. That is My job. Your job is only to surrender, to allow yourself to be led. Any fear you have of surrendering and to giving up the idea that you know what to do comes from the ego. This is not a battle between Me and your ego. There can be no conflict between truth and illusion. As you listen to and accept truth, illusion simply disappears. As you develop your ability to channel me and to follow my guidance, the voice of ego will grow dimmer and dimmer.

The form that the communication with me will take will vary for each of you. For some of you it may be more visual or using other senses than the verbal. What will be consistent for all is that the message you receive will pass the test of truth. If anything that you are receiving is fear provoking or causes pain or a feeling of separation, it is not fully Me you are channeling. This is not to say that you won’t ever have fear about following the guidance. At any rate offer the fear or confusion up to Me and ask for help in seeing the truth. That truth is always centered in the absolute and unconditional love of God, in the Divine. It is always about your total innocence, that you have done nothing wrong and could not do anything wrong. There is never anything to forgive. You are the Divine Child of God. When My Voice reaches you, it will reinforce all of that. Anything outside of that is not My Voice. Ask Me to lift you up so that We can look down at the illusion together and see the truth. My guidance will always lead you to your next step.

None of this matters. None of the experiences you are having have any value, except as support in your awakening process. If you think anything does matter, ask for support in seeing that it doesn’t, and in seeing what does. You all will become channels of love and truth through Me. It can be no other way. Let go of any thought that it should appear in a certain way or at a particular time. Release any thought that you should be a “channel” for others and simply channel the messages that are for you. I will take care of everything else.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Can you give us some inspiration?

June 1, 2022/in Awakening, Commitment, Forgiveness, Guilt, Illusion, Innocence, Judgment, Projection, Responsibility, Sanhia Message, Story, Victimhood

It is always fun to take different approaches, to look at things in different ways. Sometime during the past year we looked at the question of whether forgiveness is still important and we have also spent some time in the past talking about old stories. I want to revisit those themes today, but I wish to throw into the mix a couple of examples of individuals who have given absolute and full commitment to their awakening processes through addressing these two techniques.

Let’s start by taking a look again at stories. Everyone has their stories. It might be one about your upbringing and how it has affected you. It could be a tale of your unfair treatment at the hands of a friend or an employer. Maybe it is a story about who you think you are (or are not), about your strengths, or weaknesses. Your saga likely contains descriptors concerning your gender, nationality, race, age, religion, or political party or beliefs. These all might be a part of your story or, better stated, your stories. The only thing you can be absolutely certain about with your history is that it is not true. It does not represent either the truth of you or the truth of the world. These memories are all fantasies, illusions. It is not my purpose today to go into more detail about why these are illusions. If you would like to explore more about stories and dealing with them you might want to read this message.

Stories are absolutely connected with forgiveness. In your story, particularly if it is not an absolutely happy one, there are some “bad guys” and a “victim”; the latter is likely you. If you believe the story to be true, forgiveness becomes nearly impossible. You are trying to forgive something that never happened, to undo a wrong that was never committed. The forgiveness process is then primarily a task of recognizing that you are holding an untruth and letting it go. Whatever it is you incorrectly perceived as happening to you was a projection of your own guilt. The “other” has nothing to do with it. The forgiveness process has only to do with yourself, and you are innocent; there is nothing to forgive. As long as you hold on to the untruth that you did something that requires forgiveness, or had something done to you, that requires forgiveness, you will never get there. You have simply judged yourself for no reason, thinking a story was true.

What I want to do now is to provide you with a little inspiration in the form of two very different models coming from different paths who likely awakened through the process of releasing stories and through forgiveness. The first one may be familiar to some of you. His name is, or was, Bill Thetford. In his story, he was a highly educated and successful clinical psychologist and the head administrator of the hospital connected with Columbia University in New York. The reason you might be familiar with him is that he, along with his employee Helen Shucman, was responsible for the scribing of A Course in Miracles. For seven years they worked in secret with this project. The information came as an absolute surprise to them though they had asked for another way to live with the chaos of their professional world. Though the pair was fully committed to completing the transmission of the material, they were otherwise usually at each other’s throats. Bill and Helen completed the process and then drew to them those who would help edit and then release the book to the world. At this point Bill chose to retire, to leave the intellectual confines of New York where he had lived for 25 years, and to move to a more relaxed scene in California.

Bill had chosen to become a full time student of the Course, perhaps its first. At the same time, Helen said that she could not do that. Bill moved alone to Tiburon, north of San Francisco, finding himself mostly surrounded by Course students. He began to work with the forgiveness process. Bill had a lot of work to do. His life had never been spiritually focused and he had innumerable stories to clean up. After five years of fairly intensive focus, he chose to move to an even more relaxed and supportive community near San Diego. Now, nothing else mattered but letting go of all judgments, all blame. He focused on everybody from his former life. Bill was relentless in clearing the slate with all, with taking full responsibility, with forgiving himself. He made contact with some people from his past stories and apologized for his former behavior. Those who knew him during this period reported that he became more playful, happy, fun-loving and egoless. Bill completed that process and then in one moment on one day he left his body. The world perceived a physical death, but the doctors reported it as being painless and instantaneous. Bill spent ten years with this process. He pretty much started from scratch. Though he had spent ten years helping to bring the Course to the world, his work did not really start until he retired.

The second example is quite different, though he did share with Bill similar professional work being a doctor of psychiatry. Hew Len was a Hawaiian and a practitioner of an ancient island spiritual tradition called Ho’oponopono which teaches, among other things, taking personal responsibility for everything in one’s environment. Dr. Len began a job as the psychiatrist in a hospital for the criminally insane. Most of the inmates were locked up all day because of their violent tendencies. These were men who were not deemed to be sane enough to stand trial for their crimes. The staff he inherited had low morale, with many sick days being taken. On his first day Dr. Len greeted his staff, entered his office, closed his door, and did not emerge until the end of the day. He repeated this behavior daily while the staff grumbled about their lazy and incompetent new boss. But here is what went on behind closed doors. Hew’s office had a filing cabinet containing records on all the inmates. He began by pulling out the first file and reading everything concerning the man’s biography, diagnosis, and offenses. When he had a reaction to any information in a file, he took responsibility for it, realizing he could only see things that were his projection. Hew’s job was to work with his own personal forgiveness on the issue until no judgment remained for the inmate. He would proceed in this manner until he finished the file. Then he would go on to the next file and the one after that, eventually going through the entire filing cabinet. He did no one-to-one counseling. The staff meanwhile was going nuts, but here is what began to slowly transpire in the hospital. One-by-one, patients began to become less violent. Not as much medication was required. The inmates were able to spend more time out of their cells, being allowed into the common rooms. Staff morale began to rise. Workers reported greater job satisfaction. The patients began to be released, deemed to no longer be insane nor threats to society. After a couple of years the hospital was closed; there were not enough patients remaining to justify its continuance.

You may be sitting there saying to yourself, “Sure. How could that possibly happen?” This is the power of absolute forgiveness. This could come about only because in his heart of hearts, Dr. Len knew that only agape love is real and all else is illusion. He refused to entertain the falseness of his projections, choosing instead to be fully responsible for them, shedding the untruths for the underlying Divine love. His unconditional self love spread to all those in the institution, patients and staff alike. They did not even need to be in direct contact with Hew to feel his energy. It was not his job to heal his patients, but to heal himself. The most selfless thing you can do is to take care of your own process. In doing so you cannot help but to touch everyone around you.

So these are two stories. As you are choosing whether or not to make this kind of forgiveness the centerpiece of your life, I want to remind you that no story is in the now. They are all from the past, and the past isn’t real. When you hold on to a story, however that might manifest – non-forgiveness, blame, victimhood – you are living an illusion. You are not experiencing the now. Whatever happened in that story is not happening now, unless you bring it into your now. What these two individuals did was to notice when they were tracking mud on their carpet, to be aware when they were bringing in old stories and acting as if these were actually part of their now. Your job in the forgiveness process is to be absolutely present. In the now there is nothing to forgive. Even if somebody were to walk up to you and hit you in the eye – though you might have an immediate response of pain, anger, judgment, or desire for revenge – it is now, now. That event took place in the past. It has become a story. Actually it always was a story. It is all your creation. As you are able to release the story, everything surrounding it dissipates: the pain, the anger, the judgment, and the desire for revenge. It will be as if it never happened. And it never did. Don’t take my word for this. Try it out for yourself. How valuable would one punch in the eye be if it led to your awakening, if it supported you in always being in the now, in living fearlessly? What if it taught you to always take responsibility and to know that everything that happens is perfect?

All that you need to do is to start with one person and one story. Stay with that story until you have fully assumed responsibility and forgiven yourself. Stay with that person until no stories are left, until you have released them from all blame and judgment, until all projection has ended, until you accept the untruth of the story and have only gratitude for its part in your awakening. You will probably be ready to move on to another person to continue the process. Enjoy!

Good Now

Sanhia

Should we still be doing the forgiveness process?

October 1, 2021/in Ascension, Awakening, Ego, Forgiveness, Guilt, Illusion, Innocence, Intention, Judgment, Right and Wrong, Sanhia Message, Separation, Victimhood

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

Can you explain more about others being my mirror?

May 1, 2021/in Awakening, Creation, Fear, Forgiveness, Guilt, Illusion, Innocence, Intention, Judgment, Mirror, Movie, Projection, Reality, Sanhia Message, Separation, Victimhood

We will start at the beginning here, well not all of the way at the beginning, but at the beginning of the story about mirrors. The idea of mirrors is a very simple one which the psychologist Freud discovered over 100 years ago. It is the idea that when people doesn’t wish to look at something in themselves because they have so much judgment about their guilt, they will project it upon others in hopes of making the others guilty and deserving of punishment. This is called scapegoating. It is now the other who is the problem rather than the self. You are off the hook…..except for one thing. The self judgment is still there, though buried into the subconscious. It doesn’t go away. Therefore, nothing is really resolved or healed. Let’s look at this process. The way that you can identify if someone is acting as a mirror for you, that you are projecting on to them what you don’t want to see in yourself, is that you will have some judgment about them. “Whoa!” you exclaim. “I can sometimes see that this projection thing is true, but I am certainly not a mass murderer. Are you saying that I am a mass murderer, but am projecting that on to someone else?” And I reply, “Yes”. But this idea of mirror sometimes requires looking a little deeper. First of all, this scapegoating is an attack on others, wanting God to kill them instead of you. That sounds at least like mass attempted murder. More importantly, the guilt that all humans carry and the real belief underlying it all is this idea that you have killed God. There is no truth to this; in fact it is totally insane to think that God could be killed. But you think you destroyed God in order to create an individual self so that you could be the creator of your world. This could give you a separate identity. Of course you didn’t kill God. You are off the hook there. You didn’t do that, couldn’t have done that. Nor did you create a separate identity, couldn’t do that either.

A part of you, however, believes that you did all of that. You do not want to look at that part of you. Nothing could be more terrifying. So you project that murdering part of you onto others and you feel like you are off the hook. You are not a murderer like they are. You would never kill someone. You hide from yourself the guilt you have for believing that you killed God. What would the consequence be for Deocide? That would have to be swift and severe. In addition to that denial there is a part of you that knows that it is crazy and insane to believe that God could be killed. But, if you wanted to do the deed and failed, that means God is still out there. He knows what was in your heart and He is out to get you. This is another insane idea – that God who is only love could want to hurt his only Son, created in His own image. But, nobody ever accused the ego of being sane, except for the insane.

It is so absolutely believable that there are evil people out there, because in this illusion that the world is real, you are its creator. You don’t want to look at your fear, so you create a world of diversion with plenty of targets to play the scapegoat. You have written this entire script and hired actors to play these villainous roles so that you can be innocent and maybe even a savior. In truth, nothing is happening. It is exactly like a movie. There are actors, a script, a director, special effects, and it is being filmed. What is actually happening? Nothing, it is not real. That is the truth of the physical universe. It is simply not real. You may think that I am exaggerating or trying to make some kind of metaphorical point with this. Not at all. I am totally serious, and that is not often true with me. As long as you believe that the world is real you will continue to hide out here and to pretend that you are not responsible for any of it. You will go on finding scapegoats and projecting your guilt and fears upon them. You can do that, as you have been doing, and there is no judgment about it, nothing is actually happening. It is all your drama, having nothing to do with anybody else. It’s all in your head. You can do that and suffer the consequences of guilt, fear, and feeling separate from God and from all others until you stop playing that game. The pain is self inflicted and ceases as soon as you stop administering it. Sooner or later you will stop the game. It doesn’t matter if it is sooner or later, because time is part of the game; it is not real. When you wake up you will find yourself in timelessness with nothing real around you. You won’t take anything in the world seriously. It’s a fun place to be.

One of the quickest ways to wake up is to stop projecting, to realize that whenever you judge another in any way whatsoever, it is yourself you are judging. If you don’t understand how that can be the case, it is your job to go inside and find the truth. Find your own guilt and self condemnation so that you can forgive yourself and release the lie of your guilt. You can’t forgive something you believe is real. You cannot forgive another whom you judge because you really have convinced yourself of the reality and wrongness of what you see them doing. You believe in your righteousness in judging them. End of story as long as you are stuck in that cycle. The first step is to accept that it is yourself you believe is wrong, guilty, and cannot be forgiven. Short of that there is no way out. You can have all of these “wrong” people executed and erased from your illusion, but the guilty one will still walk free. So, more perpetrators must be created in order to maintain your disguise. It is like the zombie movies. You can’t kill them; they keep coming back. As you are beginning to have the mental awareness that another is your mirror, even though you may have your doubts or not understand why, you can take that inside of yourself. Ask yourself what it is that is triggering you; what are you judging? Whatever you discover is what you are judging yourself for, what you don’t want to look at. Ask Spirit to help you look at that. Look right at it, through your fear. There is a terror here, a dread of being punished for doing this horrible thing. In truth you are innocent and you ask Spirit for support in that vision. It is only when you see the purported guilt as being your own that you are able to let it go, to reclaim your innocence. As you practice doing this, what will begin to awaken in you – likely drop by drop, perhaps in one grand explosion of awareness – is the realization that there is no “other” there. There is no other person doing these things you have been projecting. It’s all you; it’s all your creation. By doing this internal work you truly see that the world does not exist, it is just something emanating from your mind. You are creating something that you don’t want out of something that you don’t want to look at, and projecting it into the physical world. At the same time the ego convinces you that you are going to create heaven on earth somehow from your fear-based denial. How crazy is that!

When you take responsibility for your projections and forgive yourself for these judgments, you will stop creating places to blame in the illusion. Finally, all you create in the illusion is forgiveness, love, peace, and support for following Spirit’s plan, everything to gain and nothing to lose. The only way to experience a sense of heaven on earth is to create it within you. Absolute self love, forgiveness, and inner peace will lead to a projection of the same. No amount of affirmation, meditation, or wishful thinking will change your mirrors in the world. The only real change you can affect is in changing your mind. That is where your world is created. If you don’t face your beliefs and your fears, they will continue to manifest in the world. You are never a victim of the world; you are master of it. It is your creation. Look at your world and see what you are creating. See what you don’t want to face in yourself. Face it or continue to run up against it. Stop pretending it is someone else’s fault. That is good news. How can you possibly control and change them? You have probably tried. It is so much easier to realize that you have all the power. All you need to do is look within and claim it. Otherwise you will have to kill everyone else, and then there will be more at the door. It’s like the five-headed hydra; chop one head off and two more appear. It is so much easier, not to speak of effective, to face your inner demons. You can’t change the action on the movie screen; you have to go into the projection room. The projection room is your mind. What happens on the screen/in the world is not real.

This transformation from victim to master has to begin with the intention to do just that. However that intention, in and of itself, is not enough. If you decide to wake up by educating everyone around you as to how an enlightened person should act, you will not wake up. It is not others that need to change; it is you. This does not require one single other person to change their mind. No matter what your intention may be, if you do not face your own fears you will either be in fantasy, hiding from the world, or in frustration. As I have said before, eventually you will wake up, regardless of your intention. If you desire to wake up, but don’t find things too horribly bad right now, facing your fears may seem like a less than inviting idea. You won’t do it now and that is fine. Those who are willing to take full responsibility and go inside to face their fears, admit their projections, work with forgiveness, give everything to Spirit, and trust Spirit to guide them and to bring the perfect lessons are probably willing to do so because they don’t feel they have any other choice. They are experiencing too much pain to keep trying to hold up the illusion. Perhaps they have tried to change the world and have given up in utter frustration. It may take a feeling of having nothing left to lose before you are ready to confront your own mind. Why would you attempt this enormous work if you thought there was any alternative? Facing your fears and confronting the unreality of the universe is a frightful task. It can be done and it eventually will be done, but I won’t try to kid you into believing it will be easy. It requires you to face the guilt you have for having created this hell of a world. There is the dark night of the soul to be experienced. There are the forty days in the desert. For many that feels like more than they wish to take on right now. For those who have said “Enough!” there is support as you go through your transformation of awakening. Spirit is always there with you. You are never alone, though you may feel that way. Other humans will likely be of little use for you and will probably act out your projection that you must be nuts. There is no wrong decision here, but if your intention is to face and accept your mirrors and you are willing to stay with it, We are willing to be with you every step of the way.

Good Now

Sanhia

If the world is an illusion, why does it feel so real?

March 1, 2021/in Awakening, Creation, Divine Nature, Ego, Forgiveness, Grace, Guilt, Illusion, Love, Physical Body, Reality, Sanhia Message, Separation, Victimhood

The ego is many things, but one thing that it is not is dumb. Your ego is very clever and incredibly fast. It has convinced you that it is something separate from you, as it has convinced you that you are separate from God. It seems as if what the ego shows you and tells you is not coming from within yourself but is simply obvious truth that the outer world is presenting. The ego convinces you of your victimhood, pain, and suffering, while hiding the truth that everything springs from your own mind. We are not going to go back over the creation story now, though you can click here if you wish to revisit it. The bottom line of this creation story is that somewhere along the line the ego voice wanted to create a place for you to hide. It had to be a place that was so well hidden that you could not only hide from God, but also from the truth of yourself. Your ego needed to create such a compelling, convincing scene that you could totally believe in it. I am saying that the ego created this, but of course the ego is a part of you. The human mind assumes that only God could have created such an enormous and complicated universe, but it was you, the Divine Son of God, created in God’s image, who accomplished this. So through your ego you created this world with its laws that appear to have a consistency about them – although physicists for years have realized that this “consistency” does not hold up when they look at macro and, particularly micro structures. Neither time nor matter are what they appear to be. So ego-you created, or miscreated, this physical earth and placed your Divinity into a fragile, limited body, convincing you that this is the real you. Seemingly unable to hear the still, quiet voice of Spirit within, you live as if this is the truth. And when one suggests to you that the world and your body are not real you pound the tabletop and yell, “That sure feels real! The cold air feels real, and so does water and my thirst, and what about the animals and plants? These rocks and erosion, and our history and evolution, and the love/hate I feel for others – all of this feels so real. How can it not be real?” I can remind you that the last dream you had might have seemed very real as you slept. Now that you are awake do you for a moment seriously believe that your dream actually happened? Perhaps some of you do, but most probably do not. You will have a similar experience as you awaken from this dream of your body in the physical universe.

Let’s come back to story of everything seeming so real. The ego did a brilliant job. There is enough beauty here that you can say, “Oh, this is God’s creation:” It also has enough destructive qualities, pain, and confusion that you might say, “If this is God’s creation, He certainly doesn’t seem to like us very much does he?” This generates a great discussion. Is there a God or not? If there is a God, why would he create or allow such pain and suffering? Why would he create war or children starving to death? There must not be a God. Or, perhaps God does exist and He created those things because we are bad and have to learn how to be better. Whether you decide on no God or angry God, you are led into a place of helplessness and hopelessness. Either we are guilty and deserve to be punished or there is no God, no meaning to anything. We live, we die – end of story.

The second part to this is that your ego created your physical body, making it seem so real. You can feel the heart beat and panic when you can’t breathe. It seems as if this body is who you are. You are surrounded by other physical bodies and they are they and you are you, and you can’t be one with them. It can’t happen no matter how much you might try to merge with another. You can have communication and relationship, but you remain separate, unable to bridge the physical chasm between you. Fortunately, you have evolved in your civilization to a point where you have the technology to create scenes on video that also seem so real. When you watch these shows you really believe that these things are happening before your eyes. Even your thinking mind knows that nothing is really happening – that it is all a play; it’s all staged. Much of what you see was actually put in to the background by technicians after the scene was shot. It’s all fantasy. Yet you still react as if it is actually happening. Your bodies and this world were created in the same way, to appear to be very real. What are you to do with that? Having the awareness that the world is not real, you can bring your experiences to Spirit. You can ask for help in seeing the world through Spirit’s eyes rather than the ego’s eyes. Gradually this will happen.

In the meantime, the larger part of you believes in the illusion, is convinced of the reality of your body and the physical world. This is the classroom you are to learn in. If you pretend that the illusion is not there, while actually believing the world is real, you are going to have some problems. If you cross the street telling yourself that the cars are just illusions so you don’t have to look both ways… there may be a BAM moment! You are not there yet. There is no expectation that you should be there yet. So, you can do several things. First, you accept whatever lesson is being presented to you in this so real-feeling illusion. Remind yourself that it was chosen by Spirit to help you wake up. Your classroom, which might feel more like a battlefield, is there to help you move past the idea of the illusion to the full realization of it being illusion. We do not encourage you to pretend that you understand, that you do have an experience of the unreality of your body and the physical before that actually occurs. If there is pain in your suffering, you are being asked to look at something that is uncomfortable. Don’t pretend it isn’t there. Look at it. Ask Spirit to look at it with you. This discomfort is your belief in your separation from God. It is your guilt. Bring this to Spirit and ask to be able to see the situation through Its divine eyes. Then let it go.

Constantly have the awareness that what you are seeing or experiencing may not be real. Give up your attachment to how things are working in the world; stop pretending you know how things should or shouldn’t be. It is the ego voice that thinks you know. Your ego has an investment in keeping you tied into the illusion. So you are both in the world and not in the world at the same time. You face and fully accept the lessons that are presented to you. You then turn and give whatever pain, guilt, and confusion there is to Spirit, asking for help in seeing it for what it really is. You ask to be able to forgive, which is only possible with the acceptance that there is nothing to forgive. Bit by bit you become aware of the illusion. There is no rush. It is not your job to see through the illusion, to have the realization that the world does not truly exist. Spirit will do that work for you. Your only job is to be aware that any pain or discomfort you feel is always sensed through your ego’s eyes. With that awareness, you then bring it to Spirit. Looking through Spirit’s eyes, nothing in the world could cause you any distress. You would be filled with love and peace.

As you feel love and peace in your day…..wonderful! If other feelings arise, it is not your job to pretend that all is perfect, that you are more advanced in your process than you are. Notice that you are being presented with a challenge in your classroom. Your guilt is manifesting in form, but you have an opportunity to notice and give it to Spirit rather than crumbling into self-flagellation or finger pointing. This challenge is a great gift of Spirit to assist in your eventual awakening. You are taking seriously something that is actually kind of funny….Divinity pretending to be hapless. Your only job is to notice and then to ask Spirit to help you with seeing the truth, with forgiveness. Either Spirit or ego is active. Which one is it? Notice. If there is anything other than love and peace, it is not your responsibility to see it differently, only to ask for help. Spirit in its own way and in its own timing will bring the awakening to you. Gradually, you will find the pain, the fear, and the discomfort melting away, no matter what transpires in the world about you. It is never your job to change what is happening in your classroom. This is not about behaving in a different manner. It is only about noticing and being willing to have Spirit work through you. Everything is happening exactly as it should. No change is needed except the changing of your mind. Change your mind.

Good Now

Sanhia

Are love and hate opposites?

February 1, 2021/in Awakening, Creation, Divine Nature, Duality, Ego, Fear, Forgiveness, Guilt, Illusion, Judgment, Love, Mirror, Responsibility, Sanhia Message, Separation, Victimhood

One common question when looking at this world of duality, this illusion of opposites, is to ask if hate is the opposite of love. That’s a very good question. The answer is that love has no opposite, because it is not a part of the illusion. Love is absolute; it is truth; it is Divine. Love is the true nature of God and the true nature of you. So, you may be wondering, what about this love and hate that people are always talking about? They certainly seem like opposites. Yes, you are right about that because when humans talk about love they are usually not talking about Divine love, which we could call “holy love”. Holy love is unconditional. It is not something that can be earned, nor can it be lost. There is nothing you could do to change the unconditional love of God. Nor is there anything you could do to earn that love because you already have it. But in human terms love has many conditions. We will identify this conditional love as “special love”. It does have an opposite, which we can call “special hate”. Hate is absolutely a part of the illusion. There is no concept of hate in Divinity; it doesn’t exist. You could say that special love and special hate are opposite sides of the same coin, heads and tails, good guy and bad guy. They are part of the world of judgment and separation.

Let’s explain it like this: In this belief you have that you are separate from God and that God has disowned you, has cast you out, is angry with you and wants to punish you – in this absolute untruth which is nothing more than a projection upon God of your own guilt and self-judgment – no one wants to face that guilt and to feel that badly about themselves. Even those of you who are depressed and self-deprecating are not that depressed and that self-deprecating. There is no pain that could equal that of fully feeling the imagined separation from God. You don’t want to go through that and therefore do not want to take responsibility for having caused that separation. What you do then is to project that pain. When you project it upon another, they are now at fault for your pain and discomfort. That is called special hate. It might be an individual who you see as your enemy. Maybe you blame your mother or your father for your pain and troubles. Perhaps it is your ex who ruined your life. What happens is that through projection you make somebody the bad guy. Sometimes this projection is not so personal; it could be a politician, or a race, or a country, or a religion – but you create multiple evil ones. The, perhaps, unspoken direction you are giving is: “God! Get them. It is their fault, not mine. Look how I suffer at their hands. Punish them. Condemn them to hell. Bring me home with you. I am the innocent victim here.”

This creation of enemies and special hate is an ego game. It permits you to not take responsibility and look at your own creation of the illusion with all its pain and suffering. It allows you to hide from your guilt that you separated from God – which you never did – and to pretend that the guilt isn’t even there. That all may sound confusing, and it is! There is a double bind. You have guilt over something you never did, but you can’t get rid of this guilt because you refuse to even look at it or admit that it exists. How can you forgive yourself for something you never did if you refuse to face the fact that you believe you did it? Your ego convinces you that the way out is to find others to blame. This ruse is destined to fail because they are not at fault either. There is nobody to blame because nothing ever really happened. This is why forgiveness is so crucial. You cannot forgive yourself and blame others at the same time. Forgive them and yourself. Nobody is at fault. There never was a separation from God. God loves everyone unconditionally.

On the other hand, because you don’t want to go through life just hating everybody, you create special love. You create those who agree with you. They sympathize with your victimhood – “poor you” – and agree with all of your judgments. These friendships are built upon common enemies. But it can go much further. When you don’t believe that you are a good person or loveable, you create these people to come in and tell you how wonderful you are. This especially emerges in special romantic love. Here two people agree to hold each other up on a pedestal. In the end special love cannot work because it is created from fear. No matter how much your partner might tell you that you are loveable, deep down inside you are sure that you are not. You cannot fully trust their love because you don’t believe that you deserve it. This means that you don’t fully trust your partner either. And that is just the beginning. Special love is always conditional. You love the other because of how they make you feel, so you want them to always continue to make you feel this way. Change is a dangerous thing. Strings are always there. “If you loved me you would…..” Each person wants something from the other. At first it is so wonderful to feel wanted, then it slowly dawns on you – at least on a subconscious level – that you are codependent. Without them loving you as you wish to be loved you are not happy. That dependency slowly turns into resentment. What you used to love about your partner now drives you crazy. What used to be cute is now irritating. You rebel against the codependency. Having to be a certain way to keep the other’s love makes you a prisoner. You cannot be who you are in the moment, in the NOW. That is special love, which can gradually turn into special hate. They are opposite sides of the same coin. It is possible for two people to hold on to the special love through holding common judgments and enemies and friends, but this is at the cost of denying their Divine selves, being unable to look at their own or their partner’s guilt.

When one holds guilt, there can only be special relationships. The purpose of relationships is to project the guilt away either through special love or special hate. Ultimately all special relationships keep you stuck in the circle. The exit from this vicious circle always lies in forgiveness. You can begin by forgiving those for whom you feel special hate. You can only do this by accepting that this is all an illusion, that they have done nothing, that there is nothing to forgive. This illusion is all your creation. They are merely acting out your orders. For those whom you feel special love, set them free. Look at your expectations. What do you want from them? What is their part of the agreement that allows you to continue loving them? Notice also the places where they don’t seem to be holding up their end, places where you are already beginning to withhold your special love. Again focus on forgiveness. Bring all of this to Spirit. If you want to wake up, if you want to follow Spirit’s guidance which leads you to experience the truth of your Divinity and of the holy love that is you, it is absolutely necessary to give up these special relationships, the special hate and the special love.

It is a given that as a human you will have both special love and special hate relationships. That is part of your classroom, part of the battleground. If you did not have those relationships you would not be in a body. If you always saw every human through the unconditionally loving eyes of God – asking nothing of them, not judging them, seeing their divinity – you would also be holding yourself as Divine. If you were holding yourself in that way, you wouldn’t be here – at least not for long. Remember not to judge yourself for having special relationships. They are necessary to your awakening. Notice them and bring them to Spirit. Your intention is always to replace the special relationship with the holy relationship. The holy relationship is one where you have fully forgiven the other for what they have done – or more precisely for what they have not done. It is a knowing that everything in the world is illusion and that the truth of them is Divine. The holy relationship demands nothing on the part of the other. It doesn’t even matter if they have intended to cause you pain. They might be filled with judgment about you. Your job is to see them as Divine, though perhaps asleep. You take responsibility for any pain, knowing that only you could create any suffering, out of your own guilt. The other has done you the Divine favor of pointing out that you have guilt so that you can bring it Spirit for release. Through Divine eyes each relationship becomes a holy one. Reciprocation is not required. It is absolutely irrelevant whether the other has any commitment to realizing holy love. What is there is your mirror. If they seem to be denying you unconditional love, that is your creation. That is what you are denying to yourself. This is never about them. It is about you. Go to Spirit. Ask for support in releasing your guilt and accepting your innocence and the full love of God. When you only feel love coming to you from all others, you are realizing holy love. Only you can block holy love and only you can ask for it to fill you.

This does not mean that you need to throw yourself to the wolves by surrounding yourself with those who most challenge your ability to feel holy love. Spirit will bring you the lessons you need to learn. You can even learn these lessons alone by allowing your memories to come in to your mind, looking for where special love or special hate remains. It makes no difference if the specialness feels minor; love is either special or holy. That would be like saying to God, “I don’t hate you, but you’re not my favorite god.” There is no in between. There is the absolute unconditional love of God and there is specialness. This may seem to be an enormous gap and you are likely wondering how to cross it. It will probably not be in one big jump. This is just like we have discussed before when we have talked about choosing to stop listening to ego’s voice and instead listening to the quiet gentle voice of Spirit. You begin by noticing when a relationship is expressing either special love or special hate. This is the most important step. Your ego has convinced you forever that there are good people and bad people. It is a big deal just to notice that you are playing that game. You are halfway home. Great job! Congratulate yourself for noticing and bring it to Spirit. Remember the forgiveness work is Spirit’s and not yours. Your job is to notice your illusion, bring it to Spirit, and listen for any guidance. You do this over and over. There are no special people, neither especially good nor especially bad. There are only Divine children of God, asleep and in the process of waking up. Again, your job is simple. Notice when you think somebody is special, whether you experience it as special love or special hate. Bring it to Spirit and ask for help in converting the specialness to holiness. There can be no greater trade off for you then exchanging special love for holy love and experiencing the full love of God.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is the difference between judgment and discernment?

November 1, 2020/in Acceptance, Ascension, Creation, Dream, Duality, Ego, Fear, Forgiveness, Guilt, Innocence, Judgment, Love, Projection, Reality, Right and Wrong, Separation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I deal with my feelings of hopelessness?

October 1, 2020/in Acceptance, Ascension, Awakening, Divine Nature, Ego, Forgiveness, Gift, Illusion, Innocence, Movie, Reality, Sanhia Message, Separation

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

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