How do I deal with distraction?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Is it good to have a support group?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Do I create my reality or does Spirit?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

What stands between me and my awakening?

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All of these questions come from the ego. There is a certain irony involved in this in that the ego is asking questions about awakening when it does not want to wake up. The first place to look with this question in mind is at this fact that it is your ego which is leading the inquiry, so where is the duality that is always part of the ego? Your question assumes that there is something outside of you that is blocking the way. You can spend the rest of your lifetimes searching for what is outside you that needs to be moved without finding it. The obstacles are always within, not without. This is a trick question. Perhaps I could rephrase it. What are you placing in front of yourself to prevent your awakening? Now things become straight forward. I would turn this around by asking the following question, “What is more important to you than awakening?” If your answer is that nothing is more important to you, I will reply with, “Now tell me the truth.” If there was nothing that was more important to you than awakening we wouldn’t be having this conversation; you would be awake. The ego may be hiding from you what you value more highly than awakening, but more likely you are fully aware that other things are more important for you. It will be a while before your full focus is on awakening. Check back with me next week, or month, or year, or lifetime.

What is more important for you? Maybe it’s your relationship, or your children, or your career, or your home, or your dreams for heaven on earth, or your need for love or approval, or your need to be a part of the group, or your personal identity. Maybe it is your need to have a quest. If you awaken, there may be nothing left to search for. It is time to be honest with yourself. What is it that you value above awakening? Until you have satisfied that need, it will stand in your way. This is the block you have placed in front of you. I will say that whatever your ego mind is telling you about the importance of fulfilling this need is a lie. It is an excuse. It is fear based. This is never Spirit guided; it is always the voice of the ego. The ego will unfailingly come up with reasons, with excuses. It does its best work when it convinces you to be justified in following it, particularly if there is some sort of sacrifice involved. You believe that somebody else needs you. Your children or your family depend on you. Your workplace needs you.

Right now you are in one of three places. The first place you might find yourself in is one of recognizing that there are things you place more value on than awakening and don’t desire to switch your priorities at the present. A second place you might find yourself in is one of being really confused. You thought you wanted to wake up, but now you are not so sure. The third place is one of reaffirming that you really want to wake up, but realizing that you have some work in front of you to see what you have been placing in the way. If you are in the first position, I offer you congratulations on your honesty. Go after your dreams or continue carrying out your responsibilities and check back later if they leave you unfulfilled. If you are in either of the other two positions – it may be hard to distinguish between them – we will talk further.

I want to remind you of something we have mentioned before. There are just three simple steps to the awakening process. The first one is to have the awareness that at any moment you are listening to a voice, either that of the ego or that of Spirit. If you don’t realize you are listening to a voice, it can be assumed that you are hearing the voice of ego. That is the normal chatter inside your head and out in the world. Without being aware that you are always listening to one of two voices, you likely go on nonchalantly listening to that of the ego. When a voice enters saying that you want to awaken but ………….. (fill in the space with one or more of the various things we talked about in the second paragraph), that is ego’s voice. This first step is the hardest one. It is a constant training to be aware that at every moment each thought that enters your mind comes from either ego or Spirit. The default is to think that things are as they appear, that they are true and real, and that there is no other way to hold things. That is ground zero. You are to train yourself to take a step back and to examine each thought. Rather than simply accepting the thought as a true perception of the world, recognize that it comes from either ego or Spirit. At this step you are not even determining who you are listening to, just being aware that you are listening to a voice as opposed to observing “reality”. The heavy betting, however, is on your thoughts being dominated by ego.

Now comes step two, where you attempt to discern whose voice you are listening to. If you are serious about awakening, you are eternally vigilant; you are looking at each and every thought. It is most likely that the thought is from the ego, but ego has the ability to hide in Spirit’s clothes, to convince you that the right choice, the moral choice, the responsible choice is the one it is promoting. One of ego’s favorite games is to say that you have responsibilities to others that take precedence over your own desire to awaken, which perhaps is a little selfish. Spirit never asks for sacrifice. It knows that your own awakening is the greatest gift you could offer to anybody else. If ego cannot tempt you with earthly goals like special relationships, wealth, or reaching personal goals, self-sacrifice will often do the trick. However, your awakened self has so much more to offer your family, friends, and world than your puny ego-driven self that it would be a “crime” to deny it to others. Jesus said to teach others how to fish rather than just giving them a fish. You must learn how to fish before you can do that. The second step is the one where you discern which voice you are listening to. Be brutally honest with yourself. Are you absolutely sure you are hearing the voice of Spirit, or is it an ego game and trick?

If you want to awaken, and some thought or reason comes to you as to why you can’t do it now, you are listening to the voice of the ego. Spirit will never encourage you to maintain a false separation from yourself. What is it that your ego is manifesting in order to pull your attention away from waking up? Sometimes it might be health issue; other times it may be tasks that you feel compelled to undertake; friends or family may be tugging at your sleeve. This is not to say that awakening should come first; it is a reminder that if you are telling yourself that your ascension is the most important thing, the only important thing, in your life – nothing else will get in the way. If it does, you are not being honest with yourself. You are left in the dark; you are left in suffering and in a sense of failure. Since we have made it this far together, I must remind you that any choice other than to awaken is fear based, is grounded in untruth, and is a disservice to you. Again, the second step is only about noticing which voice you are listening to. You cannot go on to the third step without this awareness.

It is only with the third step that any action is suggested. Where you discern the voice of Spirit, you follow it. Where you ascertain it as the voice of ego, stop listening or ignore it. This takes practice. It requires discipline. The ego mind will go crazy and throw tantrums. It will litter your path with obstacles. Your ego mind thoughts stand in the way of your awakening. The obstacles will be specific to you. Though some will be shared, nobody else is presented with exactly the same obstructions. When you commit to Spirit you begin to relinquish these ways of the ego. Of course you won’t always succeed. Notice yourself following ego insanity. Release judgment; just watch. Come up here with Us and observe your crazy little ego self’s games. Nobody can just shut down the ego mind. Notice as quickly as you can the ways you have responded. Don’t feed the ego by beating yourself up. Whenever possible, join us in laughing at the folly. You will begin to sense the difference between the actor and the observer. The you that observes yourself acting in the world is not the you that acts. The awakening process is one of becoming aligned with the observer instead of the actor. You begin to realize that the actions do not matter, that what transpires in the world of illusion truly is of no importance. The observer is just watching. The unfed ego will slowly starve.

To return one last time to the original question – nothing stands in your way. There is no place you have to go. You, the observer, are home. All that there is to do is to notice what goes by in the world, you included. As you hear your true inner voice, the one we call Spirit, you will find it encouraging you to action in ways that you are totally aligned with. Your focus will just be in the acting. Results will not matter. The world doesn’t matter, but it is the only game to play while experiencing self in a body. Somewhere in the midst of this, with the grace of God, lies your full awakening. So stop pretending there are things standing in your way. Rise above it all and enjoy the show.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is freedom?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

Will you speak to us again about the Coronavirus?

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It is time to revisit our friend the Coronavirus. It has been nearly two years since I last devoted messages to this subject. I encourage you to go back and read these two: What is the meaning of the Coronavirus? and How long will the Coronavirus last? As we mentioned back then, this is a wonderful opportunity that Spirit has presented to all of you to notice whether you are choosing love or fear, to see if you are listening to the voice of Spirit within you or to the voice of ego. We’ll start by reminding you that the world is an illusion that is not real; nothing that happens there has any lasting importance. It is all part of a dream, or a nightmare – depending on your personal experience of the moment.

Having reminded you of that, I am going to diverge for a bit from where I normally go when I speak of the illusion (I also suggest you read the message If the world is an illusion, why does it matter what I do?) . While you are in a body as a human it feels very real; it is your classroom for waking up. When you are in that unawakened state you are in the realm of the ego – and if you have any issue whatsoever with what is going on with Corona or Covid-19, you can be certain that is the state you are in. There exists what can be labeled as truth and falseness within the illusion. These of course are the two sides of the coin of duality. Even though it ultimately makes no difference, while you are in the illusion there is a value in noticing the distinction between truth and untruth. For example, if you walk outside on a clear blue sunshiny summer day and somebody tells you to prepare for the blizzard that will be here any minute, will you say to yourself that you had better go back inside and put on your warm winter clothes to be ready for this avalanche of freezing weather? Now, that’s a little crazy isn’t it? What you would likely do would be to use all of your senses and some rational thinking, perhaps checking the weather on your phone, and come to the conclusion that that person was not telling you the truth. You don’t cancel your picnic, put your snow tires on the car, or swear at god for wrecking your plans. If you did act on the lie, you would experience some difficulty navigating through the day. There is a difference between truth and untruth in the illusion. How can you tell the difference? You use the same techniques of untruth realization we have mentioned to help you awaken from the dream. The process is one of accepting nothing as the truth that you hear or observe from the outside world. Instead you ask yourself if it is really true. You investigate, follow threads, and persevere until it is proved or disproved. Often the place where this investigation breaks down is in the presence of fear and terror. Here humans tend to become paralyzed, not trusting anything and looking outside of the self for protection.

This is exactly what we observe happening in this age of Corona. I am going to lay out before you a few of the untruths about Corona/Covid-19 and then we’ll go on to more “important” topics that relate to the awakening process. Many of you are accepting things as true that are absolutely false. Each of these things can be proven by you as false by doing a little research. You don’t have to take my word for it, in fact, please don’t. Do your own untruth realization. The things I will share are not wild theories from half-crazed conspiracy nuts, but carefully researched information from experts, including scientists, doctors, and economists. To begin with, there is no pandemic. That is an untruth. By any acceptable definition of a pandemic (before the WHO changed its definition last year) a pandemic is not happening. Is there a virus on the loose? Yes, of course, but a virus is not a pandemic. Flu viruses come through with great regularity. Some are worse than others, but they are not pandemics. Pandemics bring about a large number of excess deaths over the statistical norms. This has not happened over the past two years. Why are we being told that this horrible thing is happening that requires us to totally alter our lifestyles and to curtail freedom for people, both in mobility and healthcare choices? That is a good question. That is a question that I encourage you to explore at great depth for yourself. Our suggestion is that the ultimate reason for this “plandemic” stems from those who wish to have control over the planet. Now let’s take a step backwards. Why has there been no reasoned, calm discussion in society or in the media about this virus, about what it is, about how best to treat it? If you have not asked yourself those questions, why haven’t you? Why has there been only one voice, one opinion to be heard and to be taken seriously? Why was there not a debate to look at the reasons for and possible effectiveness of actions such as lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and treatment? Why has there been no public forum? Why is it that any voices that disagreed with the “party line” have not been allowed a place in the mass media and, in fact, have been ridiculed and their proponents labeled as lying, dangerous, and destructive conspiracy nuts? Why has this happened? As I am bringing up these various questions, I remind you that you can easily do your own research and see what you find. See how you react as you hear or read the words of these reasoned, educated voices who have quite different points of view about all the actions that have been ordered by fiat, without democratic participation.

The voice that has been declared as the only acceptable one has stated that everyone should be vaccinated two, three, maybe four, and probably eventually more times. There are three very good reasons why this is not a viable solution for handling this virus. The first is that the vaccine is neither safe nor effective. For a vaccine to be trusted to be safe or effective requires a minimum of three years of testing; some experts would say as many as ten years. This amount of time is necessary in order to trace the side effects and to check out long term effectiveness. Yet, in six to eight months these vaccines were produced. Where is the testing being done? It’s being done on those who are taking the vaccine. You are all guinea pigs. This, in and of itself, is illegal by international law. Some vaccine developers who are not in the employment of the companies selling you these products are in serious disagreement with their use. There are severe potential side effects, so it is better if the vaccine is used only by those who are most at risk. It is probably not a good idea for those who have little risk of Covid-19-related death to take the vaccine. Secondly, the Corona virus is not deadly. What about all the Covid-19 deaths that are being reported? These people are not dying from the virus; they are dying from preexisting conditions that are being aggravated by the virus. Why are these conditions not being treated, rather than fighting the virus? Some doctors are having great success in approaching the situation in that manner. The official line however, discourages any other approach than that all must be vaccinated. Treatment programs are not to be considered. Many are dying because their symptoms are not being treated in the best possible manner. The result is that more “Covid-19 deaths” are reported and the reason given is because some are resisting vaccination, even when the majority of new infections are among the already vaccinated. Thirdly, most of the weapons being recommended and used are wrong-minded and doomed to fail. You cannot hide from a virus through lockdowns or social distancing. The virus is in no hurry and will wait you out. Masks are of little help because viruses are too small to be contained by them. They do allow you to re-breathe the waste air your body wants to release and limit the amount of oxygen that can get to your cells; so there is a definite downside.

If following the ordained guidelines is not an advisable approach, then what? The first line of defense is to have a healthy immune system. That can take some time to build if you have not been conscious of taking good care of yourself. The next best line of defense is to get the virus and receive excellent care from day one. You will likely survive if you are not one of those highly at risk people. Once you have recovered you likely have lifetime immunity, not only from the strand you caught, but from all the variants that might mutate. Vaccines try to mimic the effects of this natural immunity with limited success. As they are providing you only partial immunity, they bring with them serious potential side effects, have limited effectiveness over time, are much less likely to have any effectiveness with the variant strands, and hamper your immune system from developing. There are reports that the vaccine may have even more sinister long term effects. I encourage you to do the research.

Lockdowns are an effective way to keep people from comparing notes, but they also have a negative effect on economics, similar to what happened with the banking crisis. People living on the edge lose their houses or are evicted. Jobs are lost. Small businesses go under. The corporations roll on (continuing to eat each other up), and pick up the remains of the dispossessed for pennies on the dollar. Lockdowns also are physically, emotionally, and psychologically destructive. The cumulative effect of lockdowns is to prolong the time life of the virus. Like all of the other “protections”, they primarily do the job of distracting your attention from the truth. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. Another major result is accomplished by the age-old technique of “divide and conquer”. People are being encouraged to blame each other. It is all the fault of those who refuse to vaccinate, or our rights and freedoms are being threatened by ___________ (fill in the blank).

The pharmaceutical companies were financed by governments to develop vaccines that were then rubber stamped as safe and effective. The companies have the perfect product. They were paid to develop it, get to keep all the profits (immense), are granted absolute freedom from liability, and have governments pressuring and even forcing people to use their goods. Not a bad deal. The “plandemic” benefactors are willing to share the profits with the drug companies, but they actually have bigger fish to fry. They want all citizens to need to have vaccine passports. Those who don’t will have their rights and freedoms severely curtailed. The requirements for holding on to your card will continue to escalate until every aspect of your life is controlled. Are you beginning to wish you had read the fine print? If you think that your passport is giving you freedom, it is time to think again. Freedom cannot be given. It is something that you must take for yourself. The first step is to start doing your own thinking. Today they come after the “anti-vaxxers”; tomorrow they may come after you. Many of you decry the absolute lack of freedom in China today. You might be looking at your future. Why is all of this not being discussed on every street corner, in every newspaper and magazine, on every news show? With many experts trying to explain what is going on, how do you come to be so ill-informed? Your first line of community protection and communication has been compromised. There is no more free press. All mass communication is controlled by a surprisingly small group of people. It doesn’t matter if it’s Fox News or CNBC or public television. It doesn’t matter if it is the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times. Nothing is allowed to be printed or said that doesn’t pass muster with those who have an interest in having a pandemic and you becoming vaccinated. Again, please feel free to trace down the ownership of all the major corporations in the world. Do the research yourself. Find out what is true and what isn’t. Before taking any action, however, I suggest you read the second half of the message.

Now that I have perhaps filled you with fear and anger (possibly directed at the bearer of the “bad news”), let’s take an enormous step back from all of this and look at the spiritual aspects. When you accept anything as the truth, whether from me, from the media, from the government, from the World Health Organization, or from any outside source you are listening to the voice of ego. You are giving your power away. You have become a victim. You are living in fear. Nobody can awaken by following the mass consciousness. If you want to remain asleep, sleep away. If you are choosing to awaken you act not from fear, but from love. You listen to the gentle voice of Spirit, not the threats and warnings of the ego. If you are deciding whether or not to get a vaccine, you don’t do that from fear but from clear guidance. Spirit has the perfect plan for you. That plan might include you getting Covid-19. That plan might include guidance for staying healthy. If you choose the vaccine out of fear, that fear will continue to rule your life. The vaccine will bring no true, lasting peace or sense of safety (witness those who have been vaccinated, but still fear the unvaccinated). Some of you claim to have no fear of the virus, but believe you have taken the shot for other people. Perhaps it was due to pressure from a fearful family member, or from not wanting to get sick and add to the overtaxed hospital situation, or simply not wanting to be responsible for passing the disease on to another, particularly the elderly. These are all voices of the ego. Spirit never asks you to sacrifice anything. Sacrifice comes from the assumption that you know better than God, that you know what is good for other people. As I have reminded you many times before, you are doing well if you can figure out what is best for you, let alone for another. How do you find out what is best for you? You listen to Spirit; you go to the place that is beyond fear, and you trust what is brought to you. Spirit will take care of others. What you are calling “doing for others” is always fear based. Look at the fear. Own it and don’t hide behind “sacrificing”.  The ego is very skilled at co-opting “spiritual” language. It will talk about “solidarity” and “selfishness” when trying to convince one to be vaccinated. The ego accuses you of endangering others by refusing the needle. It plays on your guilt. The big ego lie is that Jesus sacrificed himself for us. We were so bad that he had to give his life to save us. Rather than seeing the truth of the Spiritual gift of his awakening and ascension – of his modeling for us the potential for what we would all choose someday – the ego offers us a model of pain and sacrifice. Coming into the physical world against your wishes and living as a human would be a sacrifice. Going back home is a dream that we all share, whether we are aware of it or not. If you truly want to do for others, the only path for you is through waking up.

You may now be going into reaction thinking “Oh my God! What have I done? I never should have taken that vaccine!” Perhaps you are concerned about the ongoing negative health effects it will have for you. The fear is that this step is irreversible and you will be punished for your stupidity. However, the vaccine has no power. Neither do those who wish to control the world. The power is in you. There is no action that you could ever take that could not be changed. Everything going on in the world is a part of your classroom for awakening. When you have awakened, all previous choices and actions will make absolutely no difference. Bring your fears about your choices to Spirit. Look at each fear until you find the untruth in it. I want to mention here that you might be one who chose not to get the vaccine, but also did so out of fear. Perhaps there was fear of death or disability from the vaccine. You, too, have your work cut out for you. This Corona situation is an enormous gift for everyone. It is turning up the heat. It is pressing you to choose love or fear. There is hardly an in-between place to hide out in anymore. It is almost impossible to go on with “business as usual”. There may never again be a time of “business as usual” for you in this body. You may have only the choice to wake up or to become a part of the new world order, which will control every aspect of your life. Fortunately the choice is entirely up to you. In truth, there is no difference between the new world order and the old world order. If you have not chosen to wake up, your life has always been directed by fear. The only difference is that now it is much harder to avoid noticing how everything is run by fear. It is never too late to make the choice. When you choose to leave the ego behind and to dwell in the eternal now, time will stop being a factor. The choice is going to become quite clear now; be a part of the new world order or wake up, noticing that the emperor has no clothes.

You will no longer believe the mass consciousness and the mass media, but will find the truth inside of you, along with Spirit. That is the only place where freedom exists. It will require brutal honesty on your part to confront every untruth, but freedom is never bought by fear-based actions. That makes you a prisoner of your fear. There is a part of you that believes that freedom means being the decider of everything in your life in the illusion: where you will go, what you will do, and when you will do it. Now come all of these regulations affecting travel, shopping, workplaces, entertainment, meetings, and more. Terror comes in over how to maintain or regain your freedom. This is an ego fear-based response. Spirit is bringing you the perfect thing. If Spirit is restricting your travel, there is a reason to stay home, or at least nearby. As you become aware of the lies that you have been told by the health authorities and the human damage that is and will continue occurring because of vaccinations, passports, lockdowns, masks, and so on – your job is to not go into anger, blame, and attack against them. Remember that all of those who want to manipulate the system for their own benefit or agenda, as well as those who cooperate out of fear, are asleep humans, unaware of what they are doing and even that they are asleep. They are all operating out of fear and terror. Any attack upon them is projection on your part. Your job is to take responsibility for your reactions, to work with forgiveness, and to bring it all to Spirit. Remember, none of this is real! If Spirit has presented you with extra time by limiting your choices, use this time to wake up. You are a victim to nobody and to nothing. Your fear and anger are all truly aimed at yourself. Face them and see through them to the truth. Accept Spirit’s gifts to you and use them.

The “plandemic” is a mass call to awakening. There is no difference between accepting the mass consciousness belief in this being a pandemic with all the trimmings, and the mass consciousness sayings that you don’t deserve happiness or love or that there is evil in the world which must be fought. They are all the same. There is no difference between the belief that there is not enough to go around or the idea that you have to work hard to survive, and the acceptance of the doublespeak about the pandemic. It makes no difference if mass consciousness thoughts have been passed down through the ages or seem to be the creation of a modern day cabal. When you give your power away to what seems to be a truth outside of you, therefore placing yourself into a victim role, it is never the truth. Keep looking until you find the truth and that will set you free. This will never come about through taking actions in the world, because the world is not holding you prisoner. Getting the vaccine will not set you free from anything. If you are guided there by Spirit, by all means go. Go fearlessly without expectations or attachment, without the thought that the guidance is for anyone but you. Either way, Spirit has your best interests at heart. Death is not real.

Good Now

Sanhia

Is there a difference between awakening and ascension?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

Can you give a few more hints on how to go about finding the truth?

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In the last message we talked about what you can trust and about finding the truth. I gave you some hints as to how to go about finding the absolute truth. As I say this, I want to remind you that this is a work you must do yourself. I cannot hold your hand through your internal investigation, nor can anyone else. It is your job to do, or not. But, I have been asked if I can’t, please, give just a few more hints to help guide the way. I’m a nice guy, so I say, “Sure, I can do that.” I want to begin by suggesting that it is not so much a search for the truth as a dedication to realizing untruth. When you finish the job of untruth realization all that can remain, if you have done a good job, is truth. You find truth through the process of elimination, the releasing of untruths. The hints I will give to you are designed to help you do just that.

Probably the biggest thing that gets in the way of releasing untruths is they seem to be connected with things that you want to be present in your life. You have resistance to seeing the untruth because it might require letting go of something you would rather hold on to, something that provides some comfort in the midst of your pain. Your ego is never going to make it easy to wake up. Because you are giving importance to these things, the illusion becomes more important than the truth. The illusion is built upon untruths. Let’s look at what some of these things might be.

We could start by listing three categories of untruth encouragers found in the illusion. The first one we will simply call stuff. Think about how much of your time and energy goes into dealing with your stuff, your material possessions. The time you spend dealing with your stuff is time you are not spending with untruth realization. It’s a diversion. You think about stuff you have right now. You think about stuff you want to have. Maybe you think about stuff you used to have. There are numerous ways that you have to deal with your stuff. Stuff breaks down. Your stuff stops working. Spirit has brought in planned obsolescence so stuff breaks down faster and faster. Now you have to deal with fixing it or having somebody else do that for you. Maybe it’s time to buy newer stuff. In the meantime you have to figure out how to live your life without that particular stuff. Maybe, you decide one day that you need the latest model of your stuff, because yours is outdated and not good enough anymore. When you get new stuff you have to figure out how to operate it. All your stuff requires attention. It may need cleaning, maintenance, and protection against the elements and from theft. You worry about your stuff. You alter your behavior for your stuff. So much of your energy, your time, and your mind are devoted to handling your stuff. If you want to be dedicated to untruth realization, that will require plenty of space in your life. Having less stuff can free up this time. This can be part of your process. When you realize that a piece of your stuff is demanding a lot of time or is adding to the stress in your life, you can look at the truth of your need for the object. Follow that line of thinking all the way to the end. I am not suggesting you live your life as an ascetic monk with no stuff. I am not telling you not to do that either. If you really wish to wake up, to release the untruths that you believe in, you will not be able to avoid looking at the addictions you have to the stuff in your life. You will also find yourself dealing with the fear that you might lose any or all of your stuff.

The second category is people. Do I want you to let go of all the people in your life? I neither suggest adding or subtracting people from your life, but untruth realization will require you to examine the attachments you have to your relationships. Like your stuff, your relationships require maintenance and time. How do you alter your behavior because of the people around you? This is a profound question to pursue. You will find it nearly impossible to realize untruths while hoping to obtain approval or agreement from friends, family, and other cohorts.. How much of what you choose to do, how much of how you spend your time is determined by what the people around you seem to want from you (realizing that this is often your projection)? The implication may be that if you are really my friend or if you really loved me…..you would do what I ask of you. Do you fill your life with people so you don’t have to look at your mind? Is it a way of keeping busy? Is it your fear of being alone? This aloneness is exactly what is required of you to have the space for untruth realization. If you really wish to let go of untruths, it can only be accomplished by going deep within your own mind. Talking to or being with others will not help; that can only stand in your way. Part of your process will be dealing with the fear that you might lose any or all relationships.

If you truly focus on truth/untruth it will come ahead of the people, the friends, the family, the stuff, the money…..everything. This is some serious shit we’re talking about. Again, it’s fine if you admit to yourself that you are not ready for that kind of commitment. It’s okay to just play around with these ideas without jumping off the cliff. But, I am talking to those of you who do want to get that serious. Let’s talk about the third category…..goals. What goals do you have for your life? What do you hope to achieve? What do you want to have success with? What do you wish to accomplish? What do you want to be known for? What experiences do you wish to have? What do you hope to realize? All of these goals stand in the way of your untruth realization…..unless your goal is untruth realization. There is a saying attributed to Jesus that I’m almost embarrassed to repeat here because it is often used. However, it is used so often because it resounds of truth. Here we go, “You can only serve one master”. You can serve the illusion or you can serve the truth. The illusion is not true. Yes, you seem to be living with it and need to deal with and find your peace with it, but it is not true. If you want to know the truth, the focus cannot be on the illusion. You can only serve one of these. They are mutually exclusive. Pick one or the other. If you choose truth, then stuff, people, and goals go out the window, down the toilet, or wherever you get rid of things. Am I suggesting you have to get rid of absolutely everything? Take one thing at a time and look at it. Find the truth or untruth about it. You cannot be in a body without stuff, people, and goals. The question is one of function. Are they there to serve your awakening, or are they there to try to make the illusion more fun and to shield you from the harsh glow of truth?

What happens as you release the excess stuff, people, and goals from your life is you clear the decks so that you deal with what really matters, untruth realization. The process is very simple. Whatever thought or feeling comes to you, ask yourself if it is really true. Follow your thoughts about this down the rat hole and through the maze until you find its untruth.  If you haven’t found the untruth, you haven’t followed far enough. Perhaps it’s time to make a minor revision in the saying, “Find the truth and it will set you free” to “Find the untruth and it will set you free”. These thoughts and feelings that arise are likely to be connected to the stuff, people, and goals that you are in the process of relinquishing. Let’s say thoughts arise about your car. It is not the car that is the issue; it is the thoughts and feelings you have about the vehicle. What is the purpose of your car? Let’s play with this a little. Does your car make you feel better about yourself? Will others think better about you because of the car you have (or worse)? Is that really true? Does it really matter? Does the possession of an object change who you are? If you didn’t have that car, would you be someone else? Who are you? Is who you are affected by how others think about you? Do they have the power to affect the truth of you? Who would you be if you didn’t (or did) have a car? Would your experience of the illusion change with a change of vehicles? What is necessary in order for you to maintain your existence in the illusion, for example, getting food, doing the work you are here to do, meeting with the people that it is important to get together with? How would this affect all the different things you do while in a body? How important is each of them? What absolutely needs to be done? If a car is found to be necessary to continue your untruth realization, what kind of car will suit you? These answers are not outside; they are within you. Nobody can tell you what kind of car will satisfy your needs; at best they can project what they believe would suit them. We have just scratched the surface of all the possible roads this car question might lead you down. On the one hand you can look at the amount of your energy that is consumed by your mode of transportation while on the other hand ask why any of that matters. As you investigate fully you will come face to face with looking at the actual importance of everything you have held to be of value. If the bottom line is that only untruth realization is important, how will this piece of stuff help you get there? Where is it in the way and where does it support? You will only know these answers through relentless self examination.

This is only one of a multitude of possessions that you might have. This process of untruth realization will take you quite a while. If you seriously look for your answers, you won’t have so much time to spend with other people and you probably wouldn’t provide the best company. You won’t have time to be dealing with all of your stuff. You won’t be able to accomplish your goats while trying to figure out if they are worth reaching or even having. This is why Jesus is also quoted as saying that, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. You can only serve one master. If riches are important to you, you will hold to them rather than surrender them for the truth within you. You cannot pay attention to your stuff and to the people who look after your stuff and still have enough time to follow your thoughts all of the way to the end. That will be even less likely if you suspect that untruth realization will lead you to give up all attachments to your stuff. There is nothing evil in stuff; it is only the addiction to it that causes a problem. Does more stuff really give you power? Does it free you? Do your relationships support you in untruth realization or do they enable you to hold on to prejudice and victimhood? When you are afraid of the truth, you attract those equally committed to untruth to join together in protecting your right to ignorance, to spiritual childhood. No matter how many goals you reach, you will never feel you are fully a success. What success brings is an emptiness that can only be filled by striving for another goal. Accumulating money or stuff leaves you still wanting more. There is never enough of anything in the illusion to fully satisfy you. No matter how many friends you might feel you have, you know inside that they don’t love the real you. It’s all conditional and you have to maintain a façade just to hold onto what you don’t even really have. Stuff, people, and goals are drugs. They are addictions. A drug can be used in an appropriate way to support you in untruth realization, but addiction never does that. You can serve untruth realization or your addiction, but not both.

This is where the pedal hits the metal. The more dedication you have to untruth realization/truth realization, the more time and energy you will focus there and the less important the addictions will be in your day to day life. Everyone hopes to be able to have their cake and eat it too, but it doesn’t work that way. I’m here to rain on your parade. There isn’t room to hold on to the illusion and grasp for the truth simultaneously. There is a moment where you will have to let go of the illusion but will not have yet fully grasped the truth. The bottom falls out from beneath you. There is nothing left to hold on to. This has been called the dark night of the soul. I wish I could tell you differently, that your transition to truth will be a smooth ride. Everyone fears facing this abyss. Addiction feels like a safer, more comfortable place. This is part of the package. In the illusion you believe you need to fulfill the three categories to be happy, but they will never bring you there. They can’t because they are not built upon truth. Only untruth realization can bring you what you desire to experience. If you maintain your commitment, you will move through the dark night into real freedom. You will know when it is time for you to make the choice for untruth realization. Maybe it’s not meant for this trip. Eventually you will find yourself there. Bon voyage.

Good Now

Sanhia