Is compassion an important tool for awakening?

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Many people would say that on their list of the qualities of a spiritual person, compassion would be near the top. If I were making the list, there would be no top….or bottom. Actually, there would be no list. To describe a spiritual person would be to describe somebody who does not exist, so the only item on my imaginary list of the qualities of a spiritual person would be non-existence, an awareness that they don’t exist as a separate person. But, let us go ahead and look at this term compassion. A common usage of this word is that one feels another’s pain, that there is a loving concern for and/or action in support of those who are suffering. This is usually considered to be an admirable thing. I want to remind you that in duality every action engenders its opposite. Compassionate acts are balanced by “inhumane” acts. This is not mentioned to discourage compassion, only as a reminder that the real changes happen on the inside, not in the world.

There is a great confusion around compassion. If you were to say to another that you are sorry for what they have experienced, that it must be painful and difficult for them – the result can be a reinforcing of the “reality” of the pain and suffering for both of you. Instead of focusing on the mind, driven by fear and guilt, as the true creator of the physical illusion, the resulting manifestation in the world is perceived as the cause of the pain. Everything is reversed. The inmates are running the asylum. If compassion is defined as doing the highest thing to support others in being free of pain, we would be helping them to wake up and realize their Divine nature. We would be supporting them in letting go of the illusion, the ego, and the world. The last thing we would want to do would be to agree that they are poor victims and to make the world real for them. The question then becomes one of wondering what the highest action is that you could take in that moment. The first answer to this, if you are human, is you don’t have a clue. You observe only with your senses. You see with eyes that tell you that objects are really there. Your other four senses also reinforce the “reality” of the physical. The only way to come to any knowing is to admit that you don’t know anything. You give it to Spirit. Let Spirit guide you.

To begin with, if you are seeing somebody as a victim….stop! That is never compassionate; it is an attack. They are saying they deserve punishment and you are in agreement. The last thing you want is for them to hold on to their victimhood, pain and suffering. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you point out how self-destructive they are being. That often won’t help them wake up, but may help drive them deeper into helplessness and stimulate them to take a poke at you. No, your first job is to not see them as a victim. If you are perceiving them as such, bring that to Spirit for forgiveness (remember nothing has really happened here, so there is nothing to forgive). Notice that this is the classroom they have been presented with. This is part of their wake up call. Nobody wakes up without facing their fears, without going through painful experiences. If you try to diffuse their painful experience and deny them an opportunity to face their false fear and wake up, how compassionate is that? Not only are you willing for them to stay in hell, but you are offering to accompany them. It is not a choice between reinforcing their suffering or educating them that there is nothing to worry about. The realization for you to have, as a human, is that none of it is your business. It is not for you to figure out how to be compassionate; it is only about how you can wake up. Whose eyes are you looking at all of this through? This is not about their situation; this is all about you. This is your projection. What ego part of you is seeing your projection as real? Are you feeling sorry for the other, and therefore for yourself? Or are you looking through the eyes of Spirit and seeing that none of this is real; it is not really happening. Nothing needs to be changed or fixed or healed. The only job is to stay there with Spirit looking at everything from above the battleground. What you end up doing is of little importance. How you hold what you do is paramount. Let Spirit guide you. Have no attachment to results. Remember, it is none of your business. You are at best an ignorant messenger.

As long as you think it is about them and not about you, you will not hear Spirit. Ego will be your guide. If you think you are doing the compassionate thing, that is just ego telling you how you are special – which keeps you separate from the unconditional love of God which knows no specialness, makes no judgments, sees no differences or separations. An alternative definition of compassion might be to feel Oneness with another. This can only be achieved by eliminating all separation. If you feel that they have a problem but you don’t, that is separation, not Oneness. Oneness would recognize that what you perceive in another is what is truly in you. If you see another being in pain, it is you who are truly in pain. That is Oneness. If you can take it to the next level and realize that we are all One with God, then none of this pain or separation is real. You can recognize the Oneness you share of being Divine beings who are asleep and believing in the illusion, that you are both in the process of awakening. The true use of compassion would be that realization, the knowing that their pain and your pain are not real, despite the “reality” your physical senses report. So let go of trying to be compassionate and instead try to see the truth. Try to see through Spirit’s eyes.

The most important point for you in this discussion is the encouragement to give up the ideal of compassionate behavior, of either being or having a savior. You cannot wake anybody else up. Only Spirit can awaken you. It is hard work letting go of the ego. Nobody can do it for you, nor can you do it for anybody else. Heroics are an ego game. You have but one job and that is to wake up. As an awakened being you fully know that none of this is real, that there is nothing anybody needs to be saved from. Short of that awareness it is a case of the blind leading the blind. Don’t be looking for a compassionate savior. You don’t need saving. You need to face the truth. If somebody rubs your face in that need, try to be grateful. It was a conscious or, more likely, unconscious act of compassion. It is your classroom.

If you were fully awakened, you would not likely be in a body, nor would you be reading this. Most likely you are looking through ego’s eyes. Not to worry. You have noticed what you are doing. Bring it to Spirit to help you forgive and let it go. Let Spirit guide your next step. Maybe Spirit guides you to an act or to words that don’t feel compassionate to you. Not feeling compassionate is of the ego. Worrying about how others may perceive and judge you is of the ego. Let it go. The most compassionate action in any moment is the one that most encourages awakening. Remember, you don’t have a clue what that action might be. The ego is not to be trusted, but it is the first voice you will likely hear. So, bring it to Spirit. Ask for help in releasing your judgments and in forgiving. Deal within yourself with all of these thoughts of victimhood and victimizers, pain and suffering. That is all yours. It is a heavy load to carry. Spirit will take it off your shoulders. If you succeed in giving it all to Spirit you will look at another and see only a Divine Child of God in the process of awakening. You would see yourself without judgment or guilt. You would surrender to that Oneness and allow yourself to be used without thought of what that should look like. No attachment to the action/inaction, the reception of the action/inaction, or the end result would register. If that isn’t happening just bring everything back to Spirit – over and over. You are already home with God. Your full realization of that is inevitable.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is the nature of power?

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One of the greatest concerns or questions of humans is about the nature of power. Most of you, probably all of you, have some issues with power. As you look out at the world it seems that power is being used inappropriately, selfishly, and destructively and that there are victims and victimizers. Such a story! I want to talk about power and about how to be absolutely powerful. You can begin by letting go of every belief you have about what power is in the world. If you define power as the ability to affect your will upon your experience of the world, you may have an above average chance of succeeding at bringing some of your dreams into fruition. At the same time, it is unlikely that these achievements will bring you any lasting sense of peace or joy. If realizing those creations is your intention, you may as well stop reading now and find another source that will support you in being successful – there are many of them out there. You may have to go out and prove this for yourself, but I will tell you why succeeding won’t bring you peace. Quite simply, reaching your goals will not bring you peace because you haven’t a clue what will bring you peace. You are shooting in the dark. If you did know, you would manifest peace right now, because you are that powerful. If you think that finding the right partner, following the right career, reaching financial success, developing your art or talent, making the world a better place, or being in service to others will bring you peace, I encourage you to go for it. If you find you are still not at peace, come back and we’ll pick up the conversation right here.

The reason that none of these endeavors will work for you is simply that if you knew how to find absolute and lasting peace, you would have already done it. You wouldn’t be here in a body. The truth is that you don’t have a clue as to what to do to bring yourself a permanent sense of love, joy, and peace. If you want to act powerfully upon the world in such a way that it will bring you, and perhaps others, permanent love, peace, and joy – you don’t know what changes to make. The ones you have tried so far have been less than effective. You cannot change the world because the world is the effect and not the cause. The cause comes from your mind. You cannot change the world except through changing your mind. Your mind is real; the world is not. If you want to be absolutely powerful in the world, the first step is to give up your power, absolutely surrender it. Give it to Spirit. When you are trying to change the world you are also giving away your power, but in that case you are surrendering it to the ego. The ego promises that if you achieve a certain something you will be happy. Ego is a good salesman, but not so good at leaving the customer satisfied. Whatever is delivered is not enough. It cannot be because the ego is not capable of delivering pure love; it is rooted in fear. Now, you may wonder how you can possibly feel powerful if you give up all of your power, especially if you stop trying to make the world a better place. This may just sound like everything is hopeless and you are helpless and have to accept whatever shit comes your way. It sounds like you have to give up your free will. Actually, you don’t because you never had free will to begin with. You have nothing, so you have nothing to lose.

Now I am going to reverse myself. You do have free will to choose which voice you are going to listen to. Any attempt to change the world comes from listening to the voice of the ego. You can choose to listen to the voice of Spirit. Spirit has a plan. Spirit knows exactly what you should do. Each moment of each day Spirit brings to you absolutely the perfect opportunity for you to realize love, joy, and peace. That is all Spirit does, constantly – 24/7. At the same time ego says that this isn’t what you want; that isn’t what you had planned; that doesn’t seem to be the dream – 24/7. Only waking up from the dream will bring you love, peace, and joy. Ego cannot tell you how to do that. When you stop giving power to the world, the ego begins to die. It is so simple. Your only job is to say yes to whatever Spirit brings you in each moment. Yes, thank you! If you have any other reaction, bring that to Spirit for support. If nothing looks like what you thought it would, ask to have your doubt released. Request help in healing your judgment and guilt. Spirit is bringing the perfect event to support you in those healings. It is not the world or your body or your emotions that you want to heal, it is your mind – your mind that still wants to choose ego over Spirit, wants to hear the voice of fear instead of the voice of love. The only thing that stands in your way is your free will to choose the ego. The only thing that can help you is your free will to choose to give it all to Spirit. This is what free will truly is, your ability to accept or reject what comes to you.

You are not here to accomplish things in the physical world. Your only reason for being here is to wake up. Everything that happens in the world occurs to support you in that quest. Nothing has any other meaning. What happens has no other importance in the context of the world to you or to anybody else. It is all a dream. Again, the only thing is waking up. When you say yes to Spirit in response to everything, even if you don’t understand how it serves you, when you ask for acceptance, ego slowly loses its grip over you. Allow yourself to be reminded of your innocence and of how you are loved unconditionally. Forgive yourself and everyone else for these things that have never really happened. This is the true nature of power. It is unconditional love; it is forgiveness. Power is oneness with Spirit, with God. When you say yes to Spirit, when you accept whatever is happening, you align yourself with Power. When you resist what is happening and want things to change, not only do you feel the pain of fear and resistance, but you choose to go to battle with the Power of the universe. If there were such a possibility as victory in this imaginary battle, on which side would you place your bet? How can you possibly believe that you can confront the Oneness, the Power of God and come out on the other side with love, peace, and joy? How can you find love by flying in the face of the Isness that accepts you unconditionally? How can you feel joy by choosing the voice that says that you and the world are not enough, that demands that you prove your worth? Choosing the ego is insanity, but it was listening to a single mad idea from the ego that brought about this dream.

True power is acceptance without exception. As you move through your resistance, your projection, and your disassociation and bring true acceptance to everything or, at least, bring it to Spirit for support, peace begins. Out the window go the prayers to change what is happening or might happen in the future. This is the end of “I don’t like this, fix this, make me healthy, settle my financial problems, or bring me my soul mate”. Instead you have but one response to life: “Everything is perfect. This is exactly what will support me in waking up. Thank you. Help me to accept.” This is absolute power. This is absolute simplicity. This is a no-brainer. You don’t have to figure anything out. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to be talented. You don’t have to be beautiful or handsome. All you have to do is to accept. Just say yes. This is an absolute leveling of the playing field. Everyone has the ability to choose Spirit over ego, to accept rather than resist, to trust in Divine guidance rather than thinking you know better than God.

You may be thinking that this seems like an enormous mountain to climb. How can you develop this trust? How can you be certain that this is true? And even if it is true, it seems so hard to be able to actually accept everything. How can you possibly succeed at that? I don’t expect you to trust that whatever I say is true. On the level of words and thoughts, nothing is true. They cannot express eternal truth. You can only trust your inner guidance. If it wants you to go out in the world and make this better, for yourself and/or for others, to help those in pain, to save the environment, to find your own peace and purpose on the planet, then by all means do that. You cannot serve two masters. Follow the voice you most trust. If you have tried to create heaven on earth, have failed over and over, and feel a bit like Sisyphus, then push until the weariness and the hopelessness and the helplessness overwhelm you. Maybe then you will realize that you have no choice but to give it to Spirit, and will find inner strength to do just that. Let Spirit push that rock. Once you have made the decision for Spirit it is merely a question of execution. You pay attention throughout the day and notice where you are having an ego knee-jerk reaction of resistance to something, forgive yourself and give it over to Spirit. The more often you remember to do that, the more automatic it becomes. If you notice that you are still holding resistance, give it over again…and again…and again…as often as necessary. Not only will it get easier but you will feel this gradual sense of love, peace, and joy descending into your experience of the world. There is a tremendous freedom in the realization that the things you thought mattered so much don’t matter at all. Peace will replace fear regardless of what is going on about you.

You may still be guided in the moment to react to what is going on around you, to offer support and love. What will be missing is the attachment to the outcome of your actions. Spirit is always leading you down the quickest route home. Follow Spirit’s guidance and accept whatever outcome is presented. Always remember that if you are not experiencing peace you are resisting rather than accepting. Give it to Spirit. Claim your birthright, your peace and joy. Spirit holds the keys for you. Listen, trust, surrender. Experience the full Power of God.

Good Now

Sanhia

Is the ego part of me or is it separate?

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We talk about the ego a lot. People are sometimes a little confused about what the ego actually is. Is it a real entity? Is it like the Christian devil? Is it something outside of us or inside of us? These are all very good questions. We will start by saying that the ego is neither inside you nor outside you because, in truth, it does not exist. Neither do you, not the part you think of as an individual and separate from others. The ego has existence only in the sense that the world has existence, and your physical body exists. It is part of the dream. We could say that the birth of the ego was that single crazy, mad thought that came into the mind of the Son of God that said “Maybe we could create something separate from God”. For an instant that idea flashed through and the mind of the Son of God entertained it. The thought was absolutely insane, impossible. Nothing can exist outside of God. Part of the Son’s mind found the idea to be fun and wanted to run with it. A second part of the mind of the Son recognized the insanity and dismissed the thought immediately. Since the idea was not possible, it could only manifest as a dream. What instigated the idea for that dream? We call that insane voice the ego. Still, there was yet a third part of the mind of the Son of God that found itself in the middle. It realized that the idea was crazy and couldn’t happen, but felt a need to rescue the first part of the mind. This validated the dream for both of these parts of the Son. Meanwhile, the second part simply held that the dream didn’t exist. This part warned the third part not to go after something that wasn’t real. You, the reader, are this third part of the mind of the Son. You came in to rescue, when there is nothing that needs rescuing. So it appeared that there was a split in the Son of God, in the Oneness, but nothing really happened.

You came attacking an enemy that doesn’t exist. You came to protect God who needs no protection. You came to take God’s place. This enemy is what we call the ego. The ego is the voice that tells you there is some meaning to this dream. It is the part of you that believes you can be separate from God. The ego is the voice of insanity. It only has the reality you have given it. If you were to ignore that voice and listen only to those who never entertained the illusion – which we call the voice of Spirit – it would disappear because it is not real. In truth, neither the ego nor Spirit is real. They exist only in the dream. In truth there is only Oneness. It doesn’t matter whether you consider the ego or Spirit to be a part of you or outside of you. None of the players here are real. What part of your dream last night was you and what part was separate from you? That seems like a crazy question. It was just a dream. Today it doesn’t exist. What difference does it make if that was part of you or not? It wasn’t real. Welcome to your life, to your dream. It is no more real. We could say that it is all part of you, because you are creating the dream, but that doesn’t make it any more real. No part of what you consider to be your separate self has any true existence.

Meanwhile, as you are experiencing yourself being in this dream, in this world – which I like to call hell, for lack of a better term – there seems to be both an ego and Spirit along for the ride. The important question is not whether an imaginary ego is inside or outside of an imaginary you, but whether you are listening to its imaginary voice or the imaginary voice of Spirit. Even though neither exists, ego keeps you in hell and Spirit guides you home, that is, toward the place of peace, love, and joy. This is a choice that I call a no-brainer. You may think that it is not that easy. Yes, that is the voice of the ego. The ego says that you are stuck with the world. It is real. The best you can do is to make it better. Is that voice within you or coming from the outside? If you are crazy, is that craziness from within you or from the outside? If the answer to a question you are asking yourself seems impossible to determine, you may be asking the wrong question. The right question is easy to answer. For example would you choose love or fear? Do you choose peace and joy or pain and suffering? If you tell me that you want love and peace, but choose to listen to a voice that can only lead you to more pain and suffering – isn’t that crazy? We call that dissociation. The important question is not this “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” query about where the ego is located, but whether the decider part of you, the part that is your mind, is going to listen to that ego – or not. As a human you have this illusion that you are separated from God and from each other, but that is not true. The truth of you is One. How can you be two places at once when you are not anywhere at all? There is no inside and outside. This question is an ego question. The truth of you is not even separate from the ego. The ego simply does not exist. The only question is “Are you going to listen to this insane voice?”

You all will wake up. You all will come home. It is a matter of time and time is also not real. It is only the way in which you measure your pain. It is certain that you will go home, because you never left. You are there now, if there was such a designation as “there”. This is only a dream from which you will awaken. Spirit and the ego are there with you in your dream. One softly invites you to awaken; the other encourages you to dream better. Where you are, even in the dream, is in the now. If your now encompasses listening to the ego, now feels like forever, is painful, and is hell. How painful does it have to be before you choose Spirit? Is it hot enough for you yet? Should we turn the heat up a little more? This is not a question of good or bad – Spirit good, ego bad. Ego is not the enemy. The world is not evil. It is just a question of truth. Spirit speaks truth, knows only truth. Ego lies, know only untruth. Your mind recognizes truth and will eventually choose it, resulting in the disappearance of the lie.

Let’s look at the elephant in the room. Your fear of God is so enormous concerning your alleged separation from Him, the ensuing guilt, and your hiding from his imagined retribution. Not only does this feel bigger than you can handle but also as something you can’t deal with by yourself. It amounts to a gigantic feeling of stuckness, magnified by the fact that you have a difficult time even facing the fullness of your guilt. Ego, like a good politician, promises all kinds of ways to avoid the wrath of God. Its promises are equally empty, providing at best a temporary reprieve from your guilt, pain, and suffering. Spirit makes no promises. Spirit only asks you to listen and to trust. Spirit holds your hand while you face your fear, rather than distracting you from it. Spirit faces your fear with you, whispering the truth of your innocence in your ear as you stand together. Spirit doesn’t ask you to confront more of your fear than you are able to handle. Will it be scary? Yes. Will you get through it? Yes. Eventually, all of it disappears: the ego, Spirit, fear, a separate you, and the world. Only your Divine Self is left. The truth of you remains as it has always been: One with God, One with the Son, in Eternal Love. The trip begins as you commit to listening to Spirit rather than the ego. Bon voyage!

Good Now

Sanhia

How long will the Coronavirus last?

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Interestingly, in the past five years there were two messages that drew the greatest attention. First was the perspective on the election of Donald Trump and in a close runner up position (and the polls are still open) was the previous message on the Coronavirus.  It seems that what draws our attention is the biggest fear, which is not in the least surprising. Fear is mother’s milk for the awakening process. I now hear the question voiced as to how long the Coronavirus will continue to be appearing to run the show on the planet. Is it ever going to fully go away? Will it fade away only to return? Is it just the first in a wave of epidemics still to come? Is this to become a permanent part of life on earth now, like airport security and terrorism? I love these questions. First of all, it is not my job to make predictions about the future. I only predict certainties such as that you, the reader, will wake up. When that will happen is a prediction and that is none of my business. My only job is to tell what there is for you to hear in this moment about the truth of yourself and the events going on around you. The choices that you make with that information are your business and not mine. I know that you are coming home, the timing is not important – unless you are experiencing severe pain or fear. Then it may be time to take a bigger step. Thank you, Coronavirus.

We have recently talked about the psychological subjects of projection and dissociation. Projection, again, is where you pretend that what is actually going on with you is being expressed by another. Dissociation is where you have spiritual intention but conveniently live your life as if it weren’t there. You have awareness of the truth, but continue to make the old, comfortable choices that fly in the face of what you want to achieve. Everyone does both of these things; it is human nature. Fortunately, you are not human, but Divine, and are thus fully capable of overcoming both of these habits. There is an aphorism which states that there are no atheists in a foxhole. A foxhole is a trench a soldier digs to hide in and shoot out from at the enemy. We don’t wish to argue for the veracity of that statement, but rather to notice its suggestion that when the bullets are flying and death feels near, people tend to look at the subject of God and prayer in a different light, often making profound changes in their lives. So let’s replace foxhole with pandemic. The greatest gift that is coming now is that this virus is forcing each and every one of you to face your fears. Ultimately behind all fear is the fear of God, but that is not necessarily the one you are directly confronting. More likely you may be facing the fear of death, but it also might be felt as fears about financial support, scarcity of food, bad health, or separation from loved ones and on. The greatest gift that you can ever receive is the one that triggers the most fear. Maybe you don’t want to hear that. The part of you that dissociates wants to believe that this world is real and that it can be made livable if not heavenly. You want to believe that what happens here really does matter. The Coronavirus and the election of four years ago are here to remind you that things here don’t matter. If they did, it would all be too hopeless. So, maybe if the scariest thing happens and all of your buttons are pushed, you will wake up and realize that none of this matters, except as stimuli for awakening.

If you are asking the question, “How long is this virus going to last?” you are asking the wrong question. What then is the question? Perhaps the question is, “Why do I fear it lasting?” This is the gift. This is why Corona went viral! Come on, laugh with me here. What most scares you? You can choose to disassociate and listen to the ego. You can try to fight and hide and resist the fear or to pray that God/Spirit will come in and rescue you. Or, you can look at your fear with Spirit, asking for help in staring right at it. Ask Spirit to help you welcome the fear in. Look at all the extra time you are being given to do this. Thank you, thank you Coronavirus for all this time. You just never stop giving gifts. All the things that you thought had to happen every day turn out to not be essential, whether it is your work, entertainment, sports, or whatever else has been disrupted. Yet here you are – alive and still breathing – dealing with your fear. And the illusion of the world goes on. And you go on. Eventually the world will no longer go on, but you will always go on. Even that is a little misleading because going on suggests the passage of time, so it is more accurate to say that you always are. You will always be. Your fear will disappear, but it will persist as long as you resist. It will not leave by pretending it is not there. Face your fear. Go right into the heart of it. Do the five-step process. Embrace your fear. It will dissolve. There is nothing there; there is only love. You won’t know that until you are courageous, until you stand up to it and look it right in the eye. The Coronavirus is here to encourage you to do just that.

Though you share many of the Corona gifts with others, some are special for just some of you. Perhaps you have been working too hard at your job. You have been too busy, too stressed. You haven’t allowed yourself to have the space to be alone, to be silent, and to listen to your heart. There has been no peace and little time to be at home. Now you have this gift. Perhaps this space is terrifying. If so, face it. This is an enormous gift for you. On the other side of the fear are countless treasures. Nobody will go back to business as usual if and when the virus winds down. All has changed. Those of you who have reveled in this free extra time will not relinquish it easily. You may choose to hold on to the more relaxed and free pace, to the peace. Some of you have found value in places where you did not hold it before. All of you have experienced some changes in your values. You may have found that you can live without and even thrive without things you thought were necessary. Spirit is here to remind you that there isn’t anything you can’t live without. You are dependent on nothing. I encourage you to take some moments today to think about the gifts the Coronavirus has brought to you, and to feel and express gratitude for those things. Take some time also to acknowledge the fears that remain. Give thanks for being made aware of those fears – they have nothing to do with the virus, you have simply projected your own fears there – and face them. What an invaluable gift the Coronavirus will have been if you wake up on the other side fearless; if you wake up trusting Spirit and willing to listen and follow. What a gift if it helps you give up your addiction to the ego.

Countries have had varied responses to the pandemic. You may have found yourself upset with the way that your country has responded. Perhaps you have judgment with the hoarders, whether it is of toilet paper or other products, or with those who are trying to cash in on the virus. I encourage you to let go of that victim thinking. See the perfection of what Spirit is bringing. These actions you judge are expressions of fear. Your judgment makes them real. Have compassion. On one hand trust Spirit to provide you with what you need when you need it. More importantly, remember those whom you judge are your mirrors, your projections. You have taken the last bit for yourself in the past, even if it was just the last piece of pie. You have done something that went against your heart to make money. That is you. Do you want to keep yourself in hell? Ask Spirit to help you forgive yourself, to realize your innocence, and to feel the absolute love in which God holds you. The love is real; the toilet paper is not. Which do you want more? Is it really more important to win a tug of war over toilet paper than to release your guilt, pain, and separation? Wake up. Forgive. Bring everything to Spirit. Give thanks to the virus for encouraging all of this movement.

Some of you are feeling bored with being home, feeling confined and restless like a prisoner. Remember that there are no accidents and there is no such thing as punishment. You can look at this experience from the perspective of Spirit. What does Spirit want to communicate to you? Deep down inside, what do you want to be doing? Now you have the space to find this and to act upon it. What is it that you have denied yourself that wants to emerge? For some this awareness is clouded over by the guilt over not being productive as the ego dictates that you should be. But now you have this gift of time and space. Nothing is expected of you. You are free. You don’t have to prove your worth. You don’t have to earn your way. Be a child again. Before you can unwrap this gift of time you may first need to face this fear, this guilt over being “inactive”.  This is also a wonderful place to use the five-step process. Let your fear and guilt dissolve so that you can hear Spirit’s loving, guiding voice. Imagine the joy in feeling free of the burden of guilt, of feeling your true innocence, of the ecstasy of following your inner voice. That is where you are headed. The Coronavirus is giving you this glorious opportunity to choose Spirit, love, joy, and freedom over the ego, fear, guilt, and imprisonment. The ego is not evil; it is not something to fight. It is simply something to not give energy to because it does not lead you to love, joy, and freedom. There is no better time to fully commit to this choice in each moment of your quarantine. Stay home forever in the heart of God.

Good Now

Sanhia

Why is it so difficult to let go of the illusion of the world?

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Most people have this experience – we could call it schizophrenia – where on the one hand they understand the spiritual truth of pure non-dualism on a mental level; they read these messages and have read and studied A Course in Miracles, perhaps multiple times. That side of them believes in the truth of oneness with Spirit and with God and correspondingly disbelieves in the ego and the reality of the physical world. Yet when it comes to the push and shove of daily life, they seem to live in another world.  There appears to be such a split. They ask, “Why, Sanhia, is it so hard for me to live the truth? Why do I know that it is all a dream, and yet take the dream so seriously and get upset and angry, am filled with judgment, pain hurt, fear, and feelings of victimhood. I know it’s not real, but I am still overwhelmed by all of these feelings! Why Sanhia? Why? Can you help me?” I can’t help you because there is no problem here. I hope you are laughing with me now. You are just being human and cannot be expected to be behaving any differently.

There is a term that psychologists use that goes back to Freud called dissociation. Freud also talked about projection, where people assign their own self judgments to others so that they can live with themselves (though probably not so happily). Jesus also told us all about this phenomenon. Dissociation can be described or explained in the following way: you want to change your life, to change your experience of things, to give up all of the pain and suffering and to implement a new plan; but a part of you disconnects from that new plan and does the same old thing. You sabotage your own strongly desired program. The old story simply continues to run your life with all of the old pain and suffering included. Even though you consciously say that you don’t want this, you keep doing it. That is dissociation; that is schizophrenia. In therapy, you have decided on a course of treatment, but you don’t seem to be able to carry it out. In spiritual healing, you decide to listen to Spirit instead of the ego, but the ego keeps running things.

Why would anybody do that? Why would they act against their own self interest? The short answer is, “because the ego made me do it”. A slightly longer version is that it is more comfortable to keep choosing the ego. It could be said that the known devil is preferable to the unknown devil. So far you have all survived while listening to the ego. It may have been painful, but it is familiar. It is comfortable like your old clothes. A big part of you doesn’t want to let go of that. And…what is this unknown? What would you be letting go of the ego for?

Before answering that question, let’s take a giant step backwards. As a child you often felt pretty helpless in a hostile world. Your protection was to build a wall and hide behind it. You didn’t let anybody penetrate that wall. In your private world you were an innocent victim of your parents, teachers, siblings, neighborhood bullies, and whoever else seemed to be more powerful than you. You blamed them for your troubles, and forgiveness was out of the question. The truth behind your wall and behind everybody’s walls was that you were terrified of God. This fear felt too dangerous to face, so you hid it, even from yourself. In this way you could pretend that God would take pity on you and punish those who were so harsh to you. The only problem was that none of that was true. You now have the spiritual awareness of why it wasn’t true and why it ultimately wouldn’t work for you then, or now. But, you also have this habit, and it seems to have kept you alive.

So, you are not just letting go of the ego; you have to tear down this entire wall that has seemed to protect you, though at an increasingly high cost.  And what are you getting in exchange?  You are willing to give up the pain, the fear, the suffering, the anger, the judgment, and the victimhood. You will also be giving up your personal identity, which is absolutely tied up in all of this. For you to fully release the illusion, you will have to fully release your attachment to your separate identity. This is fertile ground for the ego to grab hold of. Are you sure you are ready to do that? To become One with God and Spirit it is necessary to lose your uniqueness, to lose your sense of self, this sense of you. That is what letting go of the ego entails. What you do then, unconsciously of course, is to keep a foot in each camp. On the one hand you keep your spiritual disciple going through reading, studying, affirming, and asking Spirit for support. On the other hand you keep the other foot firmly planted in the ego’s camp, holding on to your specialness and that of others. So you have your support group of people you judge as specially good and the opposition group which is specially bad. You have special love and special hate. You hold that for yourself as well. You tell yourself all of the things that make you a special person: you are on a spiritual path, you recycle and care for the environment, you are against war, and you try to help the disadvantaged, and so on. You pat yourself on the back for being good. Then your special hate for yourself surfaces and you judge yourself for failing to be perfect with your spiritual practice, for not eating well enough, for losing your temper, for catching yourself judging, and so on. So you bounce back and forth between being so enlightened and being such an asshole who will never get it.

Boy does ego like all of this back and forth crap. If you choose Spirit you have to let go of it all, the special hate and the special love. This is enormous. It is bigger than your separated mind can even hold on to. That’s how big it is. The fear is gargantuan. There is no way that you can survive it. Sanhia! What are you saying?  I mean that you as a separated, individual self cannot survive. If you let go of the ego comfort zone and pull that foot out of the game you will leave your personal identity and fall back into the Oneness of God. Sooner or later you will have to do this, but right now you are driving with a heavy foot on the brakes. The only choice you have is for how long and how slowly you want to rip that bandage off. The fear is usually way too big to rip it all off at once. For one thing you have no idea how long the bandage is, nor how many hairs will have to be ripped out. Beyond that, you have no idea what replaces the bandage and the accompanying pain. You know what a separate self feels like, but Oneness can feel like it might be an endless void. You have no conception of what the experience of “no you” is like.

Spirit demands nothing. You will never be forced to come home. Spirit knows that of course you dissociate. Of course you try to maintain your separate self. That’s what humans do. No problem. There is nothing you have to do about it. You are not wrong to continue, nor are you right to stop. But since you do want to listen, Spirit whispers to you to notice that you dissociate. Then Spirit suggests that you have a willingness to look right at the areas where you have a special hate toward yourself or others. If you say to me that you don’t have any hate for anybody, I suggest you are dissociating. It is fear provoking to admit your hate and judgment. Everybody in a body carries hate. It goes with the territory. You hate yourself for separating from God or you project that hate onto God for abandoning you. The fear is that if the hate is exposed, God will punish you. That is an insane thought, expecting something God is not capable of. But, if you pretend it is not there, you can’t deal with it. It remains hidden behind your wall and you stay in the hell of separation. Part of dissociation is pretending you are healed when you are not, pretending that you don’t have a problem. The ego here might suggest to you that since the problem isn’t real, there is no reason to look at it. But, you believe it is real. So, look right at it.

You look at it, not because you have a work that you have to do to transform this fear, but simply in recognition that you have a judgment. Notice that you have this judgment, this anger, this hate; become aware that you feel you are a victim, that you blame this person, that you blame yourself, and on and on. Just be conscious that you are doing that. Bring that to me. Bring that to Spirit. We’ll look at it together. That’s all you have to do. When you look at what is not real side-by-side with what is real, only the truth will eventually remain. The fear will disappear, will evaporate, will be burned away. This is like the second step in the five-step process. Love and fear cannot long occupy the same space. Do this throughout the day. Whenever you notice yourself experiencing any of the aforementioned manifestations of fear and separation, don’t try to hide or ignore what you are feeling or believing. On the other hand, don’t accept it in helpless self hatred. Look right at it and invite me, invite Spirit in at that moment. Ask us to look at it with you. Let go of the judgment and just look with us. This can be called “looking down upon the battlefield”. We will see you acting from this dispassionate viewpoint. We will remind you of your innocence and that you are unconditionally loved. As we watch together, you will become aware that you are the only one judging, and will realize there is no benefit to you from continuing, but plenty to gain from loving yourself. The fear is too great to face alone. Fortunately, you are never alone. You are always welcome to come join with us. Welcome us in. Invite us to gently shake you and to point out when you are dissociating. Allow us to remind you that it is safe to bring those judgments out into the open with us.

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I be a better parent?

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In the last message we talked about the relationship you had with your parents, about taking responsibility for all that happened and forgiving them and yourself. If you have not taken these steps, you will likely find yourself repeating your childhood with your own children. For those of you who do not have children, this projection will take place with others for whom you act as an authority figure, though the impact is usually stronger and more focused with your own children.

Many people have very idealistic thoughts about their children and how they will raise them. You tell yourself you are not going to be like your mother or your father; you will bring them up in a different way. You may consider the best techniques to use with your offspring so that they don’t have to go through what you had to endure. The truth is that if you haven’t healed with your parents, you will find yourself becoming your parents as you are in the midst of bringing up your children. They will constantly frustrate you. It hardly seems fair – first your parents controlled and hindered you, and now your children are doing the same thing. What kind of world is this? The illusion, again, is that you have the responsibility as a parent to turn out the perfect child, when in actuality it doesn’t matter what you do as a parent. It truly doesn’t. This does not mean that I am encouraging you to beat or sexually abuse your children, but it doesn’t make a difference for them. It does make a difference for you. Whatever you send out to another is what you believe that you deserve, and will therefore receive. However, the truth of them is not harmed. If that is what they seem to receive from you, it is their creation. They will deal with it however they deal with it, as you did with your parents.

Your children came in with their egos fully formed and are creating what they need to have in their classroom to help them wake up to their Divinity. They chose you as their parent. Your basic job is to see that they survive childhood – to see that they are fed, clothed, housed, physically protected, and adequately educated. It is not your job to make sure they excel as students or have perfect behavior, whatever that might be. If they survive childhood, you have done a wonderful job. Even if they don’t, you have done the best you could. If you manage not to project your fears upon them, that is just gravy. Again, your children are the creators of their experience, not you. You are just a tool. If you want to do more than the basics and provide some of that gravy, the best way of doing that is to heal with your parents. Remember, if you still hold yourself as being a victim to your parents, you will create being a victim to your children. You will perceive your children as victims, too. You will worry about them, about what the world is doing to them. You will judge them for their weaknesses and fear for their future. In short, you will treat them as you treat yourself.

What you teach your children does not come from your words, but from your example. If you are coming from unconditional love, they will receive that no matter what your words or actions might be. They always have the choice to reject or misinterpret you, but loving them anyway gives them more space to choose love themselves. If through your living example your children are shown that you are never a victim to anything, you could not do more as a parent. Of course, this includes not being a victim to being a parent. If your children get the message of the parental role being one of martyrdom – that you have had to make so many sacrifices in order to be a good parent – you have put an enormous guilt load on your their shoulders. That’s okay; it was a lesson they apparently needed to deal with, but it leaves you feeling a failure, feeling defeated.

But this message is not about your children, it is about you. Where you have judgment about your children and want to change them – that is the place you are not accepting yourself. Thank your children for being your teachers. Herein lies the crux of this message. There is no true hierarchy among you and your children. You, they, and everyone else are just human. You are all Divinity pretending not to be Divine, trying to wake up. Just because your child is in a smaller, more physically vulnerable body – as you were once upon a time – does not mean they are not your peer. Yes, it is your role to help them survive to adulthood, not because you are more evolved, but simply because you are physically mature. So thank your children for being your teachers, and learn from them. Seek the place where you have no judgment.

One of the biggest confusions that a parent can act on is to demand some kind of love from their children. When you demand love from anybody else, silently or overtly, it comes from a place of not loving yourself. You have denied yourself God’s love, even though it is always there. You have separated yourself from it, pretending it is not there. You seek human love to replace Divine love, but that can never work. When you don’t believe that God loves you unconditionally, you create the world from that mindset. You are unlovable. It is not possible for anyone to fill that void, least of all your children. How can they love you when they are dependent on you? It is hard to truly love your boss or the policeman who just pulled you over?

Another thing that happens in the relationship between children and parents is brought about by your desire to create heaven on earth. The dream is that you will create this heavenly family where you can finally find love and feel needed.  In addition you will release these wonderful, perfect children into the world who will make such a difference, or at least have the level of success that you never reached. You are a wonderful parent and they are wonderful children. If you now have adult children or – god forbid – teenagers (just kidding), you know what has happened to that dream. How much fear do you have for your child or your adult child? What concerns do you have about their choices? Where do you see them as helpless victims of other people or the world? When you worry about your children, you aren’t seeing their Divinity. You are not seeing the perfection of the lessons they are drawing into their classroom as they attempt to awaken from the dream. This has nothing to do with your children. They are simply your projection of your inner fears and separation from God. Own all of that. It does not matter what you or your children accomplish on the earth plane. Heal yourself. Set your children free to find their own Divinity. Again, the best support you can provide them with is your own self-healing.

Your role as parent ends when your children leave home. It was probably over long before that, but now it is impossible to ignore. You succeeded. They survived childhood. If you ignored your own needs in order to be a parent, you can stop that now. Take care of yourself. This is much easier to do if you have also given up the role of being a child to your parents. If you haven’t, if they still run your life through the power you give them in your mind, it is never too late to reverse that. Free yourself from your parents as you set your children free. Your primary relationship is now with Spirit. Your children and your parents are all peers, siblings, as you heal the rift with your true parent, with God. Your job is to see all your family members through the eyes of Jesus, to see them as perfect, innocent, unconditionally loved Children of God. This is the true relationship between parent and child.

When the relationship with your parents is not healed and there is frustration with your children, you will probably experience your marriage as less than ideal, also. All these relationships are being created by the same unhealed mind. You might make the decision to stay together for the children, fearing that they would be badly damaged by a divorce. It is not my job to tell you whether you should stay or leave; you must trust your own guidance to make that call. However, if you blame your partner for the problems in the marriage and leave, you will likely go out and create the same problems in another relationship. Don’t confuse cause and effect. Your mind is the creator of all your experiences, so that is what needs changing. However, if you put on a front for the children and stay together for their sake, it will be another example of telling them one thing and then doing another. They will know, at least on an unconscious level. This will not give them support in navigating relationships on their own as adults. Yes, this will be their creation, but don’t fool yourself into believing that you help your children by living a lie. Be honest with your children that you are having difficulties in the marriage and that they have nothing to do with them. Tell them that you are doing your best to sort things out. In that awareness, you still may realize that you and your partner’s goals are so different that a change to a relationship with greater alignment is desired. If you are unable to solve the marital problems, let your children know, without putting them in the center of the situation, and separate. If you find that you are not able to create an amicable split with your partner, you are not a victim. Whatever you do, try not to ever put the children in the center of your marriage/divorce. Don’t try to get them on your side or set them against your partner. This is not appropriate. It can never serve the child. A child is not ready to be your adult friend. Your relationship with your spouse is about you, don’t project it anywhere else. Take responsibility.

As you can see, this subject of parents and children is enormous. Humans learn through relationships more than anywhere else because of the nature of projection and the fear and difficulty connected with looking at the self honestly.  No relationship is more fraught with confusing entanglements than that of parent and child. Therefore, no relationship provides more fertile soil for spiritual growth. Fortunately, as with all relationships, you don’t need their presence or their cooperation to heal. What is your creation can be totally balanced by you alone, of course with the support of Spirit. Don’t be shy about asking for that help. You are a Divine child and a Divine parent.

Good Now

Sanhia

How can we not see children as innocent victims?

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It’s a funny thing, but I have never talked to a human who didn’t have parents. Sometimes, one might not know who his birth mother was; there was an adoption and the mother’s identity is hidden. In this case there are two mothers that you have stories with, one that abandoned you and one that you can have the everyday issues with. Even if there are no identifiable mothers, you will have numerous tales with foster parents, relatives, or orphanages, along with the actual birth mother relationship. There is always a father, also, even if the mother doesn’t know who it is. Present or absent, which is of course its own drama, you have a history with him along with any other men who have played that role for you. Within the illusion, everyone has two parents, and many stories come with those relationships. An interesting thing about the parent-child relationship is that it is a lifelong one. Most relationships are for a short period – perhaps only a one time meeting, or for a length of time – but only a few traverse your whole life. The relationship with a parent is carried deep within you, particularly if you haven’t taken full responsibility for it. This is true even if there has been a separation, whether through death or from personal choice. The relationship is a constant presence. If there were an order of importance of relationships in the illusion, these might be the biggest ones. Many of you, if you are honest with yourselves, blame your parents for one thing or another. You believe you are the way you are because your father was so cruel or because your mother was so judgmental. So, you are a victim all of your life because of whom your parents were. This is not true. That is the ego’s story. It is another way of confusing cause and effect.

The mass consciousness presents the illusion that a pure, innocent, helpless baby is born. The child is a blank screen onto which the parents will begin to write. Such a responsibility! If they do things right, the child will thrive; if they do things wrong, the child will suffer. What a burden! Fortunately it is an illusion. Children hardly come in as blank slates; they arrive fully formed. Of course we are not speaking physically, but as we know the physical you is not the true you. Physically, infants are helpless, but mentally they carry with them all of the ego beliefs of guilt, fear, and victimhood they have burdened themselves with through countless incarnations since their imagined separation from God. What happens is that children create experiences in the world just as you do as an adult. From the first day onward, and even before that in their prenatal experiences, children create in accordance with these beliefs. Like you, they project their guilt onto others and receive punishments they believe they deserve, which will hopefully square them in God’s eye. Now they have others, particularly their parents, who they can blame and point a finger at. You all did this, and you are still doing it.

I want to talk about this from a few different perspectives – firstly from your specific relationship with your parents. As you were growing up it certainly seemed that you had no choice. You couldn’t pick up and leave or select different parents. You couldn’t avoid abusive situations at school, in your neighborhood, or with relatives. You felt yourself to be a victim. You simply had to endure these experiences. But then, as now, you always had the ability to say that the outer world did not affect you. In some places you made this choice and your parents’ words and deeds did not touch you. You knew they were not the truth. You created your own truth in these situations. If you are not an only child, you see how your siblings developed differently – none of you are alike. If you were blank slates written on by the same parents, you should have turned out the same. Yet, you and your siblings are quite different. Why? Because you each created your own experiences and made your own choices in dealing with them. It was not so much a question of what happened to you as how you dealt with it internally. Did you practice forgiveness and seeing the Divinity in your parent, or were those skills yet to be developed? The potential was there to access those truths. This is not to point a finger or to say that it was your fault that you were not more aware, but simply to shine light on the reality of the situation. You came to wake up and Spirit provided you from birth on with the opportunities to do just that. You came in believing in your victimhood and you proved yourself right.

At some point you left home. Now you are on your own. Your parents are no longer in your day-to-day life. Yet, in how many ways are they still running it? What judgments did they make about you that you took on as your own? What fears did they instill in you that follow you around even when your parents’ physical presence doesn’t? Unless you do a forgiveness process, your parents will continue forever to run your life, even though you have been an independent adult for years. If you tell yourself that you are over all of that, that you are an adult and your own person now –wonderful! But take a good look at each of your parents and notice where you have any judgment remaining about them, or about the way they raised you – or about things they are still doing today. Where you find judgments you are discovering the places where they still run your life. This is projection, a confusion of cause and effect. You are always the cause of everything that happens to you. The world is always the effect. This is true now; it was true when you were a child. Your judgments of your parents are a refusal to admit the truth. It is time to grow up. Stop being a helpless child. If you were not really a victim then, you are even less so now. Be an adult and take responsibility. It is yourself you are judging. Handle it. You know how to do that – kindly, gently, lovingly, but firmly. There is no kindness to your parents or to yourself in projection and blame. They are attacks. Blame is a statement that you are a helpless victim. You pretend that you didn’t choose these parents, but you did. You may scream that you didn’t ask to be born, but you did. You created the perfect parents for you, the best classroom for you to learn the lessons you came to master so that you could awaken – leaving the pain, the guilt, the suffering, and the belief in separation from God that are a part of the world of duality – and come home. You chose the perfect parents to support you in doing that. Their job ended years ago. It’s over, complete. Now the only work left to be done is yours.

Until you do this work, you will recreate your parents in all of the authority figures you meet in your life. It might be your boss and it certainly will be your partner. If you have not forgiven your opposite sex parent, you will find yourself married to that parent. It will make no difference what your spouse does; you will perceive them acting as your parent did. Remember that it is all you. There is no other. You are the creator of everyone in your life. You will create your mother and father everywhere you go. Make it simple for yourself. Rather than dealing with challenges with every person you meet every day of your life, just heal with your parents. Give gratitude to Spirit and to them for playing this game with you, for being your teachers. Look where you have judgment. Let Spirit lift that and help you to forgive. Ask for gratitude for having these perfect parents who came into your life to teach you exactly the lessons you came to learn. If you are not certain what the lessons were, request to understand what you came to learn from your parents.

In conclusion, you are all children. When you were a physical child it seemed that your parents were on another level. They certainly had the physical power. In truth, you were all children, asleep and hoping to awaken to your true selves. You and your parents are siblings, as is your brother Jesus. Your only job is to love them and to love yourself, to forgive them and to forgive yourself. To enter the kingdom of God you become like a child: innocent, pure, forgiven – the very idea that the mass consciousness holds of the newborn. Become the child you never got to be in this body. You are the Child of God.

Good Now

Sanhia

How do I give it to Spirit?

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We have been talking for years about giving it to Spirit. People have been asking me lately just what that means and how to actually go about giving something to Spirit. To begin with, I wish to remind you – and I can never say this too many times – whatever it is that you want to give to Spirit, doesn’t really exist. The problem isn’t really there. It is a figment of your imagination. That does not mean that it doesn’t feel absolutely real to you. It doesn’t mean that strong emotions are not triggered; appearing to cause you discomfort and pain. I am well aware of all of that. I have walked in your moccasins. I bring the illusion up as a starting point because you will find it easier to give something to Spirit if you can remind yourself beforehand that it is not a big deal, that it ultimately doesn’t really matter. If you believe that something is crucially important, it is harder to trust it to Spirit. When you give it to Spirit, you do let go of it. If you don’t fully let go, you haven’t given it to Spirit and you are left holding the bag. That is the acid test. If you find yourself still holding on, try again. Give it again, as many times as necessary, until you have fully let go.

I am going to share some ideas to ease your process of letting go. For some of you it may be hard to visualize what Spirit is. What is this entity you are trusting? It might be easier to substitute Jesus for Spirit. For others it might be easier to give it to Buddha, or to the Divine or the Divine Presence. You can give it to Sanhia. It makes no difference as long as you are giving it to an energy of pure non-dualism. I don’t recommend that you give it to a spiritual leader who is in a body, because they, like you, are still in dualism. No matter how learned and advanced a human teacher may be, he or she is still in the illusion of duality. They are a projection for you rather than Divinity or Spirit.

When you give whatever it is to Spirit, you absolutely release it. There are no strings attached. That is why you never ask Spirit to solve a problem for you. Have no attachment to what Spirit does with your request. You don’t ask Spirit to fix your financial problems. Don’t ask Spirit to bring you your perfect relationship. Don’t ask for a specific outcome or a solution. When you direct Spirit to a specific action you are making the illusion real. You are saying that if this problem can be solved, you can have a little bit of heaven on earth. This keeps you stuck in the cycle of duality. Asking for a solution is confusing cause and effect. You are not unhappy because of what is going on in your life. You are not a victim of that; you are the creator of that. In your mind you hold a belief that you are separate from God and deserve punishment. The challenge you are experiencing comes from that wrong-thinking mind. This is not an easy concept to wrap your head around when you are in a body. Your ego has done a very effective job of convincing you that the world is doing you in. Then, you want Spirit to come in and save you. I want to impress upon you that you don’t want us to do that because as long as you remain the victim you will stay in hell indefinitely. If we were to solve this problem, you would just create a new one, because your belief in victimhood and helplessness would continue unabated.

So, your request to Spirit is never one of asking for a solution to a problem. There is only one prayer for you to make to Spirit. Ask Spirit to wake you up, to help you realize that this is your creation. Ask for help in realizing that all of this comes from your belief in separation, from your fear of God, from your belief that you deserve punishment, from your belief that this world is real and that you are a victim of it. You want Spirit to take all of that from you and wake you up. You want to be reminded that you are, always have been, and always will be the unconditionally loved Son of God, that you are welcome to come home. That is the only thing to ask Spirit to do. When you call on Spirit, you give Him this burden, this tangled muddy mess of victimhood and confusion. You ask Spirit just to take it from you, that you no longer want to be immersed in fear and limitation. You ask not for solutions, only for freedom from the worry and the weight. You are free now, say, of your financial worries because they are not real so there is nothing to worry about, not because Spirit is going to pay your bills. Your belief that your problems were real is gone because you have given it to Spirit. Your beliefs will be cleansed by Spirit. Spirit is your cosmic laundry service. Your only job is to let go.

If you should notice that you are still holding the fear, it only means that you didn’t fully let go. Perhaps you let go of one level of your fear. No big deal. Give it to Spirit again. This is like the last step of the five-step process. It may come back. That is fine. When you successfully give it to Spirit and let go, you are living in the holy moment. This is that time where there is no time. You have let go of the past and your guilt. You have let go of the future and your fear. All of that has been given to Spirit. All that is left is the holy moment.

Another issue that may come up for some of you, perhaps for everyone, is the issue of trust. You wonder if you are just fooling yourself. Is there really a Spirit out there that you can give this too? Is it really true that you are the Divine Son of God, that this is just a dream that you can let go of? Is all of this really true and the entire world around you an illusion? Of course, I can assure you that Spirit is the only thing you can trust in, but that won’t necessarily alleviate your doubt. For most of you your choice really comes down to a combination of two things. First, you have tried it every other way and nothing has worked for you, so what do you have left to lose? You have tried and tried to create heaven on earth, to solve all of these problems and you have failed, so why not leave it to Spirit? The second thing is that you have been working with what I am talking about. This is not new. There have been times when you were able to let something go. You experienced a healing around a fear, even if it didn’t last. The more you practice giving it to Spirit, the more you will notice these kinds of results. This is not the outcome of seeing your problems solved, but the fruition of seeing your fear dissolve, of feeling at peace. Maybe your finances don’t look any different, but you don’t worry about them much now.

This is why you, not God but the Divine You, created Spirit being here. You wanted a constant and clear voice reminding you of the truth, because you also created the ego, a constant and clear voice reminding you of what is not true. Both of those voices are always there for you. You have been learning how to discern which voice you are hearing and to choose the voice of Spirit. As you continue to work in this way, your trust and faith will strengthen. It is a matter of persistence, of self-discipline. Your fear will decrease, but while you are in a body it never fully disappears. This is perfect. Whatever stands in your way from leaving the physical and returning home is there for you to see and to give to Spirit. It is so simple. You have only one job. Give everything to Spirit. There is nothing you have to decide or to solve. Everything is off of your shoulders. Spirit is your absolute guide in each moment. Returning for a moment to the five-step process, the second step is truly giving it to Spirit. You can choose to incorporate this into your internal directions to yourself. Surrender fully to the energy you are feeling in your body and at the same time hand it over to Spirit. You are already doing that when you stare into the face of your fear. It disappears because it is not real. When the discomfort of the fear transforms to that warm feeling of love, you have made your surrender to Spirit. As you look into the face of your fear, Spirit is there with you. The ego mind tells you to look away, warning you that it is not safe to face your fear. As you are facing the fear you can verbally add that you are giving this fear to Spirit. Again, you are not pushing the fear away, only offering it to Spirit. Perhaps in your practice of giving things to Spirit that we talked about earlier, failure comes about because you are pushing your fear away rather than simply surrendering it. So, if you are having trouble giving something to Spirit, we recommend doing the five-step process.

Finally, giving it to Spirit is a lightening of your load. It is not a foisting off onto Spirit to handle your problem. You give to Spirit in a spirit of love and gratitude, in the awareness that your fear is not real. It is a request for support in fully awakening. This request is always heard and always answered.

Good Now

Sanhia

Do I have to be perfect to ascend?

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We have been covering a lot of territory in the past few messages, talking about pure non-duality, confusing cause and effect, accepting everything that comes to you, and the impossibility of creating heaven on earth. Sometimes, and it is perfectly understandable, you might have the reaction that this is all too much. On a conceptual level you might believe in what I have shared; that you are creating it all, that none of it is real, to forgive yourself for everything that has happened and to not judge anyone, and, and, and…… You might be thinking “But Sanhia, it feels enormous. It feels so big. I don’t think I’m up to it. I don’t think I can do all of this. How could anyone accomplish such a feat? You would have to be perfect.” Wow! That was quite a rant. Is there anything more? Don’t hold back. Excuse me while I chuckle just a bit, not at you but with you. You are absolutely right. It is too much. It is too big. Fortunately, you are not expected to be perfect. In the illusion in duality, it is an absolute impossibility. You cannot go through your day and not have a negative emotional response, not get angry, not blame someone, or feel like a victim. It’s going to happen. It is the human condition. If it did not happen, you would not be here in a body; you would be finished with all of this.

Maybe, you notice that these reactions are not happening as often as they once did. Think about how it was before you begin working with non-dualistic thinking. Over time, this change in how you react to the world will increase in its occurrence. But, you will never realize a time where the ego’s thoughts don’t grab a hold of you. If you have it in your mind that your ascension can only come about through perfection, that day is never going to come. There will never be a time where your ego is absolutely unable to get a foot in the door, or even a toe. Hearing this may bring on a wave of sadness or hopelessness for you. You may feel that you can never make it. That is not the case; it is but an opening for the ego’s voice.  In fact, the opposite is true. You are going to make it; you have no choice. We are in charge of that, not you. You can slow the process down by digging in your heals and refusing to listen to Spirit, by insisting on being a victim and projecting your guilt on others. You can do that and slow things down, but you can’t stop it. So, if you can do your worst and are still guaranteed your place in heaven with God, where in fact you truly are right now though lacking the awareness of being there, how much more quickly are you going to realize your Oneness with God if you are trying to work with the process instead of against it?

The secret is not in being perfect in every moment. The secret is in becoming aware after you have let the ego run rampant, that you have done so. With this awareness there are two steps to take. First, give whatever it is to Spirit. Don’t tell Spirit what to do; this is not yours to handle. Just let it go and let Spirit handle it. The second step is equally important. Be kind to yourself. Let it be okay that you did what you did, or that you didn’t do what you didn’t do. Let that be okay. It is not the expectation that you will never stumble. There is no thought about that. There is no judgment. Remember that nothing here is real. Nothing you do is wrong. Nobody is hurt, not even yourself. It is all an illusion. That is the forgiveness process, so be kind to yourself and forgive yourself. It is perfectly okay that you listened to the ego. The important thing is that you noticed and have chosen to try not to do that next time. You might still do it again. No biggie. What is important is that you notice, even if it takes days to do so. It makes no difference how long it takes you to notice. Time doesn’t matter, except when you are in pain. Holding on to your blame and victimhood is always painful…well, after the initial rush that comes from feeling yourself to be a righteous martyr. As soon as you realize that you have projected, that you have confused the cause and the effect, the pain eases. This is an enormous accomplishment, the noticing that you have been listening to ego and now want to give it to Spirit. Nobody is counting how many times you trip, except yourself. So stop counting; be kind to yourself.

Let go of seeking perfection. You are already perfect. You are perfection pretending to not be perfect. As long as you are in a body, that dance will go on…..it will for all humanity. You cannot be perfect in duality, because in duality there are always opposites. You cannot help listening to ego in some moments, and you are not judged for that or for anything else. So give it to Spirit and be kind to yourself. I want to remind you that as you are looking for perfection, you can be looking in all the wrong places. Perfection is not found in the world, which will never mirror heaven, which will never replicate the infinite love of God. You created the world, thinking you could do better than God. That was a mad idea. The world is not the place to look for perfection. However, there is a perfect plan for you and the Sonship to awaken. When something occurs in your life and you react in such a way as to be a victim, this is a perfect part of Spirit’s plan. If you were to spend your life in the belief that you are doing everything perfectly, you would be in denial. Your head would be deeply buried in the sand as you repeat to yourself “Everything is fine”. You would ignore your pain until it kills you. Then you would come back and try it again. It is through feeling the pain that you experience when you listen to the ego that you realize you need to choose differently. Without this suffering you would not choose to listen to Spirit. Each time you go through the cycle of listening to ego, feeling pain, giving it to Spirit, forgiving, and being kind to yourself – you are one step closer to letting go of the illusion. This is only possible if all of the steps are followed. You cannot learn without first making a mistake. So, the more mistakes you make the faster you learn, as long as you realize your missteps. There is perfection in your errors. You each have your vulnerable spots – your hot buttons – the places where you are most likely to go into victimhood, projection, and blame. Those hotspots are a gift that Spirit will use to help you learn to let go of the ego. Choosing wrongly is the necessary first step.

If you are in a body, you believe that you are separate from God and you fear God and his wrath. That is painful. It is not your job to hide from the pain. Spirit makes that easy for you. Spirit presents choices that make it likely that you came into contact with your pain. Spirit does not cause the pain. It is your belief in your separation and your need for punishment that cause the pain. If you are not conscious that you carry this guilt energy with you, how can you let it go? There is perfection in everything that is presented to you. There is not perfection in your ability to choose Spirit in each moment. That you will never have. You will simply, eventually reach the point that you give your pain so quickly, so automatically to Spirit that Spirit will say, “Come with me now”, and it will be the end of your earthly experience. This happens not from your perfection of action, but from your surrender of your little self to the Oneness of God. You cannot choose this moment. You can only remember that choosing to listen to the ego for an instant does not further separate you from God. It is a window of opportunity that is there to lead you home. You may have many rungs to climb up out of the hell of physicality. You will not likely be taking the express elevator out, though the ego will whisper in your ear that if you were really so Divine you would take that express ride right out of here, so you must really be a fuck up. Smile, and give all of that to Spirit. Let go of the need for perfection. Each rung will bring a lightening of the load you carry. You don’t need to demonstrate perfection; you are perfection…no matter what the ego might be saying to you. You are innocent. You are perfection.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is meant by pure non-duality?

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We have been talking about the illusion. The last message dealt with acceptance and analysis while the preceding one considered cause and effect. All of this is connected to what we call pure non-duality. I am going to take a moment to define this term. Duality has to do with opposites. The physical experience is a creation of duality. Without it, there can be no physicality. Whether the split is male/female, hot/cold, light/dark, right/wrong, heaven/hell or ego/Spirit – everything in this world is based in duality. Non-duality implies oneness. Non-duality is God, is divinity, and is your true nature. When you think you are human and in a body in the physical world, you are in duality. Ascension requires the release of duality. If you want to get off the wheel, to stop experiencing heaven and hell, reincarnation, suffering, and pain – so that you can go home and experience only divinity with God – the route to follow is pure non-dualism, absolute and complete. Anything, any belief system or teaching that finds an ultimate value or purpose in the physical, such as those who wish to create heaven on earth, is not teaching pure non-duality. This is fine. It is not our job to criticize or to tell you what to believe, but we want to let you know that there are consequences to every choice that you make. The truth of you will never be hurt or damaged no matter how long you chase after illusions. One day you will wake up. It makes no difference how attached you are to the duality. Eventually you will choose to let it go. The focus here is not to try to talk you into non-dualism. If you have an attachment to the physical and want to stay, then this message will probably not have much attraction for you. For those of you who wish to go home now, who are ready to release the physical and let go of duality, you will wish to read on. That being said, it is one thing to intend to focus on pure non-dualism, but another to fully realize it. The mass consciousness does not support such thinking in any way whatsoever. Even religions that began out of the seed of pure non-dualism have been altered, so you are unlikely to find support in any church or temple. Even many of those who purport to teach from non-dualistic sources, such as A Course in Miracles, often misinterpret and dilute the message.

Here comes a primer in pure non-dualism. Everything in your physical experience is an illusion: nothing physical is real. It is not the truth. All that you perceive in the physical world comes from your mind. You are the creator of this physical “dream”, not God. It is in this dream of physicality that you think you can hide from God. As long as you “live” in this dream you experience duality. There is a balance in the physical where every “positive” is balanced by a “negative”. Duality is based upon judgment, upon what is thought to be good or bad. The ultimate judgment is that you are guilty, that you have sinned against God and He will punish you. So, you have to be good, or at least punish yourself first, to get back in God’s good graces. That is the insanity of duality. You are welcome to try and improve the duality; you have been attempting this for eons. Beat your head against the wall as long as you want, but the only way out of the quagmire is to give up duality and practice pure non-dualism. This recognizes that God does not and could not judge you, that you are innocent and loved unconditionally. You cannot earn God’s forgiveness because it is always freely granted. Pure non-dualism means letting go of your belief in your separation from God’s love and choosing to wake up from this dream and be home with God. When you make this choice, we are here at your service. The practice of pure non-dualism is not complicated; it is very simple. It does require a great deal of effort and trust because you will be asked to go against everything that the ego is screaming into your ear, ideas that seem to be logical. Ego’s voice will come from within your own mind, from others, from the mass media, and from other spiritual paths. You will find yourself surrounded by this cacophony. No matter how daunting the odds may seem, you have no choice but to eventually succeed. We are here to expedite your journey.

There are just three steps in moving from dualism to pure non-dualism. The first one is perhaps the most challenging. This step is for you to simply accept that there are two voices you can hear in any situation. You can hear the voice of the ego, which confuses you through duality, or you hear the voice of Spirit, which reinforces pure non-dualism. This step asks you to train yourself into an awareness at each moment of your life – with each thought, with each action, with each feeling, with everything that is transpiring – that you are being presented with a choice of listening to ego or to Spirit. This may sound like a small step, but how easy it is to unconsciously accept ego as the only voice, as, for the most part, you have always done. Examples of listening to the ego include entertaining thoughts of victimhood, of judgment of self and others, of comparing yourself favorably or not to another. You may contemplate why things are happening, may feel fear, may feel unloved. There are many levels and ways that the ego carries on this onslaught. Training yourself in each moment to be aware that you are listening to either ego or Spirit is an enormous accomplishment. We are not even yet talking about the discernment of which voice you are hearing – though it is likely that of the ego at this stage – only the awareness that you have a choice of two voices in this very moment, that nothing is set in stone. In step one it is just for you to be aware that you are listening to a voice. Until you become aware that you are listening to a voice, you will unconsciously be listening to ego and will stay rooted in duality. Remember that there is no judgment about this choice. God loves you no matter who you listen to. The only punishment will be self-imposed under the direction of the ego. The ego plays “good cop, bad cop”. Ego will tell you how wonderful you are in comparison to another, which may feel good. Then it will tell you how bad you are in comparison to another individual, which may not feel so good. Ego constantly plays these games with you. Be aware of that. Until you develop the awareness that you are listening to a voice, you can go no further. Ego will run your life. If you notice once a month that you are listening to a voice, you will experience slow progress. As the awareness becomes weekly, or daily, or multiple times a day – you will truly begin to move your consciousness. Ultimately, your awareness will be constant. That is the state of the master. As long as you are still in a body, ego will do its best to keep you listening, to keep you rooted in the physical. Your goal can be to have constant vigilance about noticing that you are listening to a voice.

The second step is a small but significant one. The question is, “What voice are you listening to?” Is this ego or Spirit? As you are starting down this road it won’t always be easy to discern. In general the voice of fear comes from ego and Spirit is the voice of love. But sometimes fear can feel like love – and vice versa. When ego whispers in your ear how you are better than others, it can feel like love, though it is truly separation. We want to give you some more tips on how to recognize the voice of Spirit. Spirit never compares or judges. As we pointed out last time, Spirit accepts, ego analyzes. Thinking about things opens the door to ego. Accepting whatever appears opens you to Spirit. Spirit always reminds you of your innocence, of your pureness, of your divinity. There is never blame or judgment of yourself or anybody else. You can know that it is ego if blame or judgment is heard. Spirit never compares, that also is the realm of ego. When Spirit speaks, it is always a win-win situation. There are no losers. With ego there is always some sort of competition. With Spirit there are no “shoulds”. This word implies a rightness or wrongness in a choice. It suggests that to be “good” you will make a certain choice. If you follow a voice out of the fear of what will happen if you don’t, you are following ego. If you don’t follow that voice there may be fear of repercussions. Attachment to a certain result is also from ego. Acceptance of any outcome is the voice of Spirit. Whatever happens is perfect. If there is any guilt involved, that is the voice of ego. Spirit always communicates unconditional love and acceptance. As you practice identifying the source of the voice you are hearing, you will get better. It doesn’t matter how many times you are fooled. Your only jobs are to be vigilant (step one) and to make a decision (step two). Your accuracy will improve. Just keep getting back on that horse. You are still in duality. Otherwise there would not be the illusion of having two voices to listen to. Only the truth of Spirit could be heard. Ego lies. It is trying to maintain its existence by deceiving you. Spirit is patient. Time is on its side. Ultimately the truth will out and will stand alone.

Step three is perhaps the easiest, or maybe the hardest. This step is for you to take action. It does little good to identify the speaker as Spirit if you don’t follow what He says to do. This is where you put your money where your mouth is. You act in alliance with the voice of Spirit that you have identified. There is integrity, because when you are true with Spirit you are true with yourself. Here are some suggestions to ease the creation of this alignment. Begin each day by talking with Spirit. Ask Spirit to be with you all day and to help you notice when you have a choice of voices, to identify His voice, and finally to follow it. Ask Spirit for His guidance for the day. If you wake up with something from your sleep or dreams, or from the previous day that cause you confusion, ask Spirit for direction and support. You can complete your day by having a similar communication with Spirit before going to sleep. Let go of everything that feels incomplete, unsuccessful, unfulfilling, or simply stressful. Give it all to Spirit to handle while you enjoy revitalizing sleep. Wake up freed of this heavy load and filled with love. That is the whole purpose of that third of your life; it is a time to plug into Spirit and recharge. Ask to be told what to do. There is a subtle but powerful difference here between this guidance and the voice of ego. Ego tells you what you should do; Spirit tells you what to do. There is no right or wrong about it. It is now time to trust, to fully let go of ego and only listen to Spirit. You do this in order to let go of the world and fully realize your divinity. You trust Spirit as the only voice to get you there. You realize that you have no separate voice of your own. That separate voice was always the ego. It kept you apart from God. Spirit is now telling you the most direct way home. Spirit is not the best voice to listen to, it is the only voice. It comes from within you and from nowhere else. Nobody else can tell you what you should do. Spirit speaks only to you and loves you beyond measure. This is the only way for you. That is a terrifying thought to the ego. It is probably screaming in your ear right now telling you not to give up your autonomy.  Of course the joke is that you have been doing just that for lifetimes – giving your autonomy to ego. Now, you are giving it to the divine truth within you. If you are tired of living in the duality, your job is to do your best in every moment to turn your life over to Spirit, to truly practice pure non-dualism. This is a tall order, but you will do it. You will all do this eventually. In reality it is already done and you are home with God in divine love. The play has already been written and acted out. Within the dream it feels like the illusion is still going on; it may feel like it is taking endless time. To reduce the time, follow step three in every moment possible. This, of course, requires first following step one and step two, but the goal is for those steps to become such habits that all of your focus can be on listening to and following Spirit.

Another support for step three is to be proactive by filling your mind through readings that support pure non-dualism. The world is filled with dualistic energy. You are bombarded by it daily from all sides. Taking some time to read and meditate on pure information can be a great support, not only in resisting the world but also in noticing where you still tend to make it real. Here is a short list of places to start:

  1. A Course in Miracles
  2. Gary Renard’s books (starting with The Disappearance of the Universe)
  3. The One With God series (by Marjorie Tyler, Jo Sjolander, Margaret Bollonoff)
  4. Anything by Ken Wapnick
  5. Channelings from Sanhia (either from the website or the book God Blesses You)

Start reading where you are guided. Find time wherever you can. Love yourself whether you read or not, but have the intention. You can also have the intention of finding allies, that is, others who have made the choice to experience pure non-dualism. Having even one friend with which to share mutual support can make your voyage faster. Perhaps there is a group out there for you. You do not need to be in a state of feeling alone with your path. As you progress, you will find yourself drawing like-minded energy. Give that to Spirit, asking to be supported in the highest way. If you find yourself alone though, know that that is the perfect way for you now.

While following these steps provides an enormous challenge, you also have an enormous resource to support you. The loving energy of Spirit (or Jesus, or Buddha, or Sanhia, or whatever expression of divine oneness you feel most connected with) is so far above and beyond the ego’s obstacle of fear that I hesitate to mention them in the same breath. As you choose and act from Spirit’s guidance, you fill yourself with more and more love. The accumulation of this love makes it increasingly easy to follow these three steps. This love builds on itself, spiraling higher and higher. It all starts with step one. Ask Spirit for support. Remember that all is perfect and is proceeding as it should. Accept Spirit’s gifts each day. Don’t fight, don’t resist. Trust. Listen. Then your load truly lightens. No matter what happens…….

God Blesses You

Sanhia