What if there is no question?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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

How can I see the world through Spirit’s eyes?

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Often in the past, which of course does not exist, We have talked about the difference between how your ego perceives the world and how it is seen through the eyes of Spirit. You have been encouraged to learn how to do the latter. It is time to discuss this in a little different way. You are. You have no memory of not being nor can you conceive of a time in the future of not being. That is because you are. That is the truth of you. Anything you might add to that description is not the truth. You are not male/female, mother/father, worker/retiree, scholar/athlete, musician/artist, happy/sad, smart/stupid, brave/timid, or any other descriptor you might come up with. You simply are. Everything else is not the truth. When you look at the world and see yourself or others in specific roles, and evaluate, judge, set goals, or attempt to change what you perceive, that is all done through the eyes of your ego. Today let’s talk about looking through the eyes of Spirit.

The part of you that is notices what is there in front of you, whether that be the seeing of physical objects or people, or things perceived through the other senses of touch, smell, hearing, or taste. Using your senses, you notice everything around you. Nothing that crosses your awareness has any particular value of being better or worse than anything else, nor of having good or bad qualities. Whatever you perceive simply is a part of the world you are noticing. We will identify you as the noticer and whatever is perceived as the noticed. If you desire to see always through the eyes of Spirit, be the noticer. Simply notice what is in front of you. As soon as you label anything, whether it is through naming (for example calling something a chair), or qualifying (what a nice day), you have left behind noticing and are now evaluating, classifying, or separating. You are back to seeing through the eyes of your ego. You are now noticing the noticed instead of the noticer. Go back and notice the noticer. Be the noticer. Who is noticing?

That may feel like a very difficult thing to do because it is not your accustomed behavior. You haven’t been trained in this manner. Your education has always been to analyze and evaluate. When you begin those mental activities, you stop noticing. You make decisions as to the specific qualities the noticed appears to have. You decide that you know everything about that. Say you are sitting outside and watch a bird land on your lawn. Your ego mind wants to identify the species of bird, know what its habits are, be able to recognize its call, and find out about its diet, mating practices, and migration patterns. You may feel concerned that your cat will snare it or worry that it might have a hard time surviving winter, and think perhaps you should put out a feeder. The noticer, however, uses no names, does no thinking, and simply watches. This noticer has no thoughts that what is seen should be different in any way.

You may be thinking that this sounds like a pretty difficult thing to do. How can you possibly shut down this process that is always on, always busily at work judging, wanting to understand, and looking out for personal advantage?  Besides just being the noticer may sound boring. What kind of fun can you have just doing that, you might wonder, if you are not reacting to the world? Let me start with some motivation. If you think that you can ever truly understand anything, you are sadly confused. If you think you know something, you are wrong. If you think science has answers, science knows nothing. The individual you might consider to be the most brilliant person on the planet is an idiot. I am not picking on anybody here. Only the ego mind can “know”, and it is a mental cripple. Any truth that can be known by the noticer could never be explained in words. To know is to separate, divide, and label. As soon as you begin doing that you are seeing untruth, because the truth is all One, indivisible [under God for you Americans :)].

You say that you want to awaken. This can only be accomplished while looking through the eyes of the noticer. You notice through those eyes what is there. You can notice when you have stopped noticing the noticer and are now noticing the noticed. Notice that the ego has taken over again. The noticer has no horse in the race. It has no desire to change or reject any part of the illusion. It simply notices. Your ego thinks you have to accomplish something, go somewhere, or do something in order to awaken. You don’t awaken by doing something, but by stopping doing things. You stop paying attention to the noticed instead of the noticer. You stop placing attention and importance on the effect rather than the cause. Your job is to notice.  You are doing this all of the time. There is never a time when you are not noticing, but in the midst of your awareness you try to jump in and interact with and modify the noticed. You do this for whatever reason: to make it better, to protect yourself, to protect someone else, to deliver justice, to get revenge.  You stop noticing that you are noticing. Your job is now to notice what is transpiring, to notice that you are now identifying with the ego, with the noticed. Who is noticing that? Bring your focus back to the noticer. The ego mind wants to punish you for the transgression, to try to change and do better in the future. Notice that and go back to the noticer. You don’t need to change, Nothing is wrong. Just go back to noticing.

The noticer has no stories. They belong to the ego’s realm. The noticer is only aware of the now. You cannot see the past. Only the ego mind can hold stories from the past. In front of you is only the now. There is no future to be seen either. It is not in sight. Any projections of hopes or fears are only in the ego mind. The noticer is absolutely unaware of them. Neither past nor future can exist in the now.

How does one go about only noticing the noticer? The easiest way to explain this is to describe what is not part of the noticer; things that belong to the ego mind. The noticer does not have words: names, labels, thoughts or ideas. If you picture an infant looking at the world, lacking language, you can have some concept of what that might be like. You are simply observing what is there. There is no name for cat. There is no memory bank. There is no experience based expectation of how a “cat” might behave. You observe “black” but have no word for it. Those labels belong with the ego. The ego mind creates terms in order to separate. The ego may prefer black cats or, on the contrary, believe them to be bad luck. The noticer just sees what is there, thoughtlessly. Your ego mind will come in and attempt to interpret what is observed. No problem. Notice that. Notice that you are noticing the noticed instead of the noticer. If you judge yourself for analyzing, notice that that is also the ego. Notice that. If you are trying to understand, again the ego is taking over. Notice that. Think of a movie camera. All it does is record what is noticed. The download of what has been recorded includes no explanations, judgments, evaluations, or opinions. You only see and hear what the camera sees and hears. Your inner camera adds the other three senses, but smelling, tasting, and feeling also add no interpretive qualities. The sounds, sensations and tastes are not evaluated, simply noticed.

I encourage you to play with this. Take some time and notice the noticer noticing. Be very kind to yourself, recalling that the noticer never judges. Replace the self judgment with noticing. You will likely continue to notice your ego self analyzing, categorizing, comparing, classifying, dividing, or judging – that is fine. You noticed the activity. Now return to pure noticing. These things that you wish to achieve for yourself: spiritual awakening, peace, unconditional love, and being in the now – you may begin to experience when you are only noticing from the noticer and the ego is inactive.  There will be no past or future, just the glorious infinite now. There is nowhere to go to awaken; you notice that you are awake. There is no time. There is no illusion. You have always been and always will be awake. You have simply been pretending not to be. You have pretended to be your ego, separate from others, knowing something, having wisdom or knowledge, needing to defend and protect yourself, striving to fill your needs. This is what Jesus meant when he said that to realize the kingdom of heaven you must become as a little child; just observing, just noticing the now.

You may find some parallels with what I have been talking about and meditation, though in the latter you are often trained to close your eyes and shut out the world. You might have an intention in meditation: to calm yourself down, lower your blood pressure, find peace, become enlightened, draw things to you, or leave your body. Any of these things might occur as a result of observing, but only when that is not the intent. If there is intent, the ego is right there in the middle of it all. Again, the observer doesn’t have a horse in the race. There is no focus on changing anything. There is only noticing. Your ego mind screams out against this. It goes against everything you have been trained to do. It tells you that you should be active, doing, working, and focused. It asks what can be accomplished if all you do is just notice without any interaction whatsoever.

Obviously, it is not possible to stay in that absolute observing mode indefinitely and stay in a body. At some point you must eat, drink, move, and do something. There is also a reason why you appear to have a physical body. There is some action to be taken with that body. However, you don’t have a clue why you are here or what the purpose of your body is. You also don’t have the ability to figure that out. When you practice noticing the observer and let go of holding importance for the observed, you will be guided into action in the illusion. It may be in order to take care of your body. Your first job, however, is to notice the noticer, to let go of placing importance on the noticed, on your body, and the world around it. When you realize that, you are awake. There is nothing very special about it. It is the natural state. As you are focused on the observer you accept whatever is shown to you. There is no resistance. It simply is what is. You will feel a natural knowing as to what to do with each thing that comes into your awareness. You won’t know where it will lead or why you should do it, but life simply becomes an experience of playing with each gift that comes in that moment.

If your ego mind is telling you that you came here to make a difference, it knows neither what that difference is nor how to affect it. The observer flows gracefully with what is, doing exactly what is called for in that moment. We can say that in the endpoint of this dance, everyone realizes their observer. This Oneness cannot happen without you, nor can you stop it. Your part is to notice. In that noticing comes the end of suffering, not because you are noticing with that goal in mind – we have already pointed out the impossibility of doing that – but as the natural byproduct of being present. Notice that you are here.

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

Why is it so difficult to accept everything that happens in my world?

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I agree with you. It does feel hard. The ego way, the way you have all been taught in one form or another, is to be ruled by negative emotions. However, it does not serve you or the truth to point fingers at the outer world for your difficulties. You brought all of these challenges in with you. You manifested in your world what you believed to be true. Your ego tells you that it is good to have negative emotions. It serves you to get angry with those who do what you think is wrong. It benefits you to complain about what you don’t like. Your ego supports you in feeling yourself to be a victim; this is so much better than to be a victimizer. In this the ego helps you perceive things in such a way that you are always innocent and the other is always guilty. We could draw up a long list of ego supported negative emotions, each one being a subset of fear. As long as you allow these negative emotions to rule your life, of course, they will. You will remain asleep and out of touch with Spirit.

The world around you, your creation, will slap you on the back and tell you what a fine job you are doing, that you are all in this together dealing with an unfair and painful existence. Waking up is leaving the way of the world. Why is it so hard? Because it is so hard. If it were easy We wouldn’t be writing these messages and you would all be awake. It is hard because you still have a strong belief that your ego is right and most everyone around you seems to be in agreement. Mostly it is difficult because you can’t find anybody else to do this work for you. You have to take responsibility for choosing to awaken and then you have to do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile the world, to the degree that you show your hand, thinks you are totally nuts. You can’t blame anyone else for your failure to awaken. It is totally up to you. I understand the enormity of the challenge, but you have no other choice but to remain asleep. And that isn’t much of a choice because you have already begun to distrust your ego and there may be no going back. Rather than having a foot in each world, you will find no place to call home. You will awaken if you “keep your eye on the prize”, but it is going to take time. It will not happen all at once.

Let’s begin with negative emotions. If you were to decide to eliminate them from your life, it wouldn’t happen quickly . Even if you choose to jettison anger, you will keep getting angry. Your fears won’t quickly dissipate. You cannot effectively drop these negative emotions by making a mental decision, but everything starts when you have that intention. The next step is to pay attention to your behavior. Notice the negative emotions. Do your best not to judge yourself for having them, to not throw more fuel on the fire. Your job is not to judge, simply to notice. The goal is to be constantly aware, but, again, this won’t happen overnight. That is all there is to begin with, so let’s play with this a little, take it for a walk in the park. You go outside in the morning and find it to be either warmer or colder than you would like. You silently complain, or to another if you have a companion. “Why isn’t it warm the way summer is supposed to be?” or “It’s too damn hot!” This is not accepting what is. It is having a negative emotional response to the moment. You enter a store and run right into a person you don’t want to meet. “Why do I have to see him? Oh, no, he’s coming toward me! He’s going to want to talk. Why does this happen to me?”  Little things happen all day long. “Oh! I dropped my favorite cup in the sink and it broke! I got it from my grandmother! I am so upset”. Little things. It doesn’t need to be bombs dropping in Ukraine, viruses, or governmental actions. Any little things you react to each and every day are what you are to notice. Your job is to be aware of your negative responses to them. You can come up here and sit with Us and observe, “There I go”. Together we will look without judgment. You notice that it happened. Then you see if your perceiving was judgment free. The more often you are able to catch yourself, the more often you will be able to do so without judgment, or you will at least be aware of the negative emotion of judgment. Again, this is not about changing your negative emotional responses; it is just about awareness.

Let’s look at your negative emotions from another point of view. What possible benefit can you reap from having a negative reaction to a situation? Is your reaction to the weather going to change it? Is getting upset with running into that man in the store going to make him disappear? Will your upset over the broken cup put it back together? You may have been told that there is no use crying over spilt milk. That may be true. Your negative emotions do not help to eliminate undesired outcomes. They do succeed in helping you to feel bad. How would you feel if you didn’t have the negative emotional reactions? How would it be if you simply accepted what is? “This is what the weather is today.” “I guess Spirit wants me to meet this man today.” “It’s just a cup. I have others.” Why not let go. Why choose upset when peaceful acceptance is a viable and more productive choice? You can be joyfully in the now or you can be consumed with negative emotions. This is why I tell you that everything that happens is perfect. I have designed everything to support you in awakening. In your awakened state you will understand and welcome this perfection. Negative responses do not allow you to be present, to receive the gifts, to feel the Oneness. When you choose fear over love you cannot experience the Divine Now.

This lack of efficacy in your negative emotions may help motivate you to do this work. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose, except the fleeting pleasure that sharing your pain with another brings. If you think your negative emotions bring something of value to you, I encourage you to spend some time with that thought. Look deeply. Is it really true? Is this something that you want? See exactly what the benefits are to you. As long as you find plusses there, you will surely stay with them. Otherwise continue to pay attention. With the intention to leave behind your negative emotional responses, for now you merely observe. The transformation will happen in stages and only as quickly as it can. How can you be free of negative emotional reactions if you have one when you notice you are still having them? That may be a little convoluted, but think about it. Nothing more is asked of you than the awareness of when it happens. Noticing is what you do in the now. Negative emotions are never about the now. Someday you will be fully aware of how silly they are.

It is Our job to assist in the transformation. If you set the course of awakening and then begin paying attention, We will bring you everything you need in order to let go of these habits. We will take you step by step at the pace We know is right for your awakening. As we’re sitting up here together in the clouds, looking down on the battlefield, We will assist you in the noticing. Feel free to ask Us why We brought something and to ask for support in receiving the gift. Listen. You might hear a response. Sooner or later it will happen, and then it will happen more frequently. You may not be able to hear Us over the loud chatter of your ego, so it helps you to quiet yourself as you climb up next to Us. If you can’t silence your ego, then simply notice that and the accompanying feelings. Waking up does not require finding the holiest place on the planet, or going there and falling at the feet of the holiest person on the planet and saying, “Show me the way.” You do it right here, right now. You notice; you pay attention, and you listen for the inner voice. No special place, no special person, no special practice. One way you might recognize the diminishing of the hold your ego has over you occurs when you begin laughing at yourself as you notice your negative emotions being expressed.

In conclusion – and of course there is never a conclusion because there is no beginning or ending; there is no time – what makes it so hard is two things. First is when you believe in your ego and trust it is telling you the truth. It is when you justify the righteousness of your negative emotions. “Anyone would react this way to this horrible world!” This makes awakening nearly impossible. There must first be a willingness to stop surrendering to the negative response. Most of you are more likely involved with thing two. It feels so hard to change your ways. The answer again is that this is not your job. Changing behavior in the outer world is not what awakening asks of you. A little willingness is all that is needed. That, along with a commitment to paying attention more and more often, is all that is called for. It becomes a matter of persistence. Nothing sexy or “woo woo” about it, just showing up and noticing. Then, like Michael and Ulla’s cat when she catches a mouse, you bring it to Us and set it down at Our feet as an offering. We know what to do with it and are always grateful. We will do the heavy lifting and present you in turn with your next gift. If you have difficulty fully receiving what appears – no problem. You still have your intention; you are still trying to notice; and We have an endless supply of next gifts for you. Another time you will notice or you may have no negative reaction. Celebrate! Pop the cork! More will follow. Here is Our money back guarantee. If you express an intention to leave your negative emotions behind and pay attention to when you don’t, they will begin to fall away over time. As they do, you will find yourself increasingly recognizing the perfection that each moment brings to you.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Can I learn how to channel?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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 do we do with the war in Ukraine?

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I have been asked to address the war in Ukraine. The first thing to notice is who is whispering in your ear and triggering fear. The answer without exception is that it is the voice of the ego. If you have been listening to the voice of Spirit you would be filled with acceptance and peace. Looking at this war would be no different for you than watching the sun rising in the morning sky. The ego voice asks, “Sanhia, how can we be in peace in the face of war?” You have the question reversed. It could better be stated, “How can there be peace in the world when there is war within me?” That is where the war exists. The world is never the cause; it can only be the effect. The cause remains within you. If you support one side over the other, you are creating war. You are filled with judgment, separation, and the perception of differences. You are guided by anger and blame. You are seeing a world populated by victims and victimizers. This is all projection. It is your guilt, your helplessness in the world, your fear of God. It is your fear of having no control over what might happen to you, of your own victimhood. It is your fear of death. All of this is ego projection, every bit of it.

The big question is, “What is real?”  What is it that you fear happening? Is it your fear for what might happen to others, or is it really fear for what could happen to you? The ego voice wants to convince you that your concern is for others, for the victims of the bombings, for the refugees, for those who have lost family members or their own lives, for the loss of homes and the destruction from the bombing. There is no way to be gentle about this. The ego is whispering bullshit into your ear. This has absolutely nothing to do with anybody else. It has only to do with you. This is your fear of death, of loss, of victimhood. This is all your projection. Corona did not do a complete and thorough job of relieving you of your fear of death. Of course it couldn’t; that is your job. Spirit can supply you with the classroom and the lessons, but only you can take them to heart and search for the truth. Death as you know it, the death of a human body is not real. It is no more real than the body itself. The body and the death of it are your creations, not God’s. The fear of death is the fear of something unreal happening to something that doesn’t exist. The fear is your creation, so only you can release it. There is no change that can happen in the world to release you of your fear. The movement can only take place in your own mind. Now you have been presented with another opportunity to do that. For those of you who are in Sweden the pot is sweetened as the war is closer and the refugees are at your door. For you in the United States the pot is sweetened by having your old nemesis, Russia, the evil empire that vowed to bury you, once again rearing its “ugly” head. How much fun is this? The illusion of the pandemic has been replaced in one fell swoop by the illusion of war.

As long as you believe that who you are is your body, you will fear death. All around you will appear to be violence or the threat of violence. When you absolutely realize that you are not your body – that you are not a physical being but are Divine and eternal; that you simply are – the death of the body will have no meaning for you. In this awakened state it will not matter; you might even be looking forward to the leaving. There is no in-between place here; either you are a body or you are. If you hold on to the reality of your body, your fears will remain with you until you become so tired of it that you finally choose to focus on Spirit and the truth hard enough to break through the wall of untruth. How do you do that? Stop feeding the illusion. When you realize your fear is being projected, whether it is upon those who seem to be victims or those who appear to be the perpetrators, notice what you are doing. Take responsibility. Your only job is to release untruth until all that remains is the truth. Seek the truth and it shall set you free. The existence of fear indicates you have work to do. Bring that to Spirit. Come sit up here above the battlefield with us and observe your ego self operating in the world. Watch without judgment, simply observing the “human condition”. You are not asked to change how you act in the world, only how you hold those actions, whether they are your own or those of your mirrors.

Let’s look at this from another perspective. You believe that certain individuals or groups are controlling what is going on with this war. Whether you hold Putin, Russia, or hidden forces or conspiracies within other countries as being the responsible party for the hostilities, it is actually Spirit that is bringing everything about. There is only one reason for the existence of these events and that is to help each one of you to wake up. That is the only job for you to take on in the wake of this war. When you feel badly for what is happening to others and wish to change those outcomes, you are expressing an arrogance that is far from the humility that can lead to awakening. This “caring concern” is an expression that you can do Spirit’s work – God’s job – better than They can. You are acting as if you know what’s best for everyone. Yet, you haven’t even figured out what is best for you. Is it good for you to live in fear and guilt? If you were correct that the world should be peaceful, you are stuck in a bit of a quandary. The world has never known peace. If peace is what we should have, why has it never happened? Are you going to spend the rest of your human existence in a futile battle against what is? You think that we should not have war when the earth has always had war. You think that governments should tell the truth and serve their citizens when they have always lied and served themselves. You believe that brute force should never be used by the strong over the weak, but it occurs daily. So, what planet are you living on? If you think you can change “reality”, you are holding on to an enormous illusion. The world is exactly as it is. For any step forward for mankind there will be a step backward. It is not, never has been, nor ever will be the purpose of the world to be perfect, to be heaven. It was created by you as a place to hide from heaven. Your job is to wake up to that and to find the kingdom within, not try to do the impossible. Wherever you try to take on the work of Spirit you have everything turned around. You are clueless about how to wake up, perhaps even unaware that you are asleep in a dream world, yet you think you know what other people should have in their lives?

Now you may find yourself in absolute confusion. You may be wondering if you shouldn’t at least be feeling sorry for the Ukrainian people. These “people” don’t exist outside of being your projections. It is for yourself that you are feeling sorry. It is you who is both the attacker and the victim. It is time for you to stop attacking yourself. It is time to stop blaming God and to start taking responsibility. It is time to stop waiting for a savior and realize that you are the only one who can do that for yourself. Spirit can help you, but only to the degree that you will allow. If you think the problems lie outside of you, Spirit can do nothing other than use your belief as a club to beat you into submission. It is you who have to call off the dogs. So, we return to the vital questions. What do you believe that is not true? Look at where you are in competition with God, thinking you know the best plan for others. Notice where you have refused to take responsibility for your part in the creation of the illusion, pretending you and others are victims to it. Look at how you take the world seriously as if it were real and the truth of you and others were actually these bodies. See how you think that material things actually matter.

The bottom line is that the war is within you, not out there in the world. If you desire to be responsible and caring, bring peace to the war you are waging. Give up all your attacks and blaming of others, which are acts of war. Stop holding others as helpless victims unless that is truly what you wish them to be. See Divine children of God. Hold yourself in that light. It’s a big job, but not so big a work as trying to create heaven on earth or stopping a physical war in the illusion. This challenge is one that you can actually succeed at. Since it is you who have started all war, you can also stop it. Nobody else can control what you do with your next thought but you. Nobody has power over you. What is going on in Ukraine does not matter. What is going on inside of you is everything. Spirit has brought you an enormous gift, right on the shirttails of Corona. You have an opportunity to choose love over fear, to awaken. It is not your last chance, but your life will remain driven by fear and helplessness until you decide to grab on to the horns and wrestle one of those monsters to the ground. Now is as good a time as any.

Good Now

Sanhia

Are any beliefs sacred?

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Every spiritual path has beliefs built into it. Religions are filled with doctrines that are “written in stone”. Most of the less formal groups or teachers likely have certain practices and tenets that are to be followed. What can you trust? What can you believe? Wars are fought over differences in creed. Usually there is at least an intention that there be a connection between belief and truth. What you are asked to believe is to be accepted as the truth. The crucial question is, “How can you be sure that it is true?” If your response is that you simply believe that it is true, you may put up blinders to prevent yourself from seeing anything that might question your “truth”. You are certain you know what the truth is. If you really want to know the truth, instead of blindly grasping on to ideas, you must be willing to take the blinders off. Is there absolute truth? If your answer is no, my question is, “Are you absolutely sure there is no truth?”  If you agree that there is absolute truth, we have a situation. Some believe the truth is one thing and some another. Often these truths are mutually exclusive. Even if you are to let go of any attachment to being right about your beliefs, how can you figure out who is right, if anyone? How can you know absolutely that any belief is true?

A good place for us to begin as we wander into this minefield is by establishing that whatever the truth is, it makes no difference whether you believe it or not. It is what it is and is not affected by you belief or unbelief. The truth could care less. However, it would seem that it might be to your advantage to be aligned with whatever this truth is, rather than working counter to it. You might have difficulty navigating life if the manual you are following is a false one. That leaves us with the question of how to go about finding this truth. Your ego mind is not capable of succeeding at this task with certainty. Since the ego has been your teacher up to this point it might be a good starting place to assume that everything you have ever believed is wrong. Throw them all out, but we would suggest that you handle these beliefs one at a time. If there is something that is particularly hard for you to release, it is time to do some inner inquiry. Find out if there is absolute proof for the belief. Stay with it. Either way, if you are brutally honest with yourself, you are going to have a difficult time coming to a place of absolute certainty. If while doing this inquiry you are not able to distance yourself enough from your opinions, you might invite somebody else to play the questioning role for you. If the ego attachment to this belief is very strong, we offer another test. Does it upset you to have another person attack your belief? If that is disconcerting, ask yourself why. If your belief is the truth, what would it matter what another thinks?

Usually when a person goes deeply into questioning the veracity of a belief, they find it can’t be proven. As you investigate more “truths”, they will also likely fall by the wayside. That can be a scary place. Beliefs can be a comfortable place in which to hang out, but they don’t bring you knowingness; they help you maintain your slumber. Even if by some fluke of the universe, your belief is actually aligned with the truth, you would still be unable to prove it. Believing is not knowing. A belief is like a key that goes into your mind and locks it shut. Nothing else is allowed in or out. Knowing has no doubt and asks for no proof because it is directly experienced. Belief is a theory, a postulate. It is a thing that is assumed to be true so that other conclusions may be drawn. Let’s just play with this a little. Let’s say you have the belief that if you are good you will go to heaven and if you are bad you will go to hell. The first question is, “Do you have first-hand experience of that?” How, then, can you know it is true? If you live your whole life based on ideas that you don’t know the veracity of, what kind of existence is that? It is probably one filled with judgment, guilt, fear, and blame. We don’t want to pick on this one example; most any principle will lead you to act in ways that increase tension and unhappiness in your life. The only thing you can be sure of if your life is steered by doctrines, is that you are headed in the wrong direction – that is if the right direction is truth and awakening. It is not a question of changing beliefs, but one of investigating the ones you have. The new ones won’t hold any more water than the ones you have got. Find the untruth in your beliefs, or the places where you can’t be absolutely sure. This investigation won’t likely unveil the truth; it will simply eliminate one more possibility. Keep looking at all these ideas you have stored in your head, and one by one try to shoot them down. Your marksmanship will improve with practice. It can become a fun game.

This is all still an ego game. Knowingness is of Spirit and comes only with awakening. Untruth realization is merely clearing a path for Spirit to operate on. Upon having an awakened direct experience of truth, falseness will be humorously obvious to you everywhere you look. It doesn’t matter how much you study, read books, or follow different teachings; you won’t find the truth through a mental search. The best you can do is to blow up the ones you already have. Searching out new “truths” will just leave you with more detonation work down the line. Finding the untruth of your cherished ideals opens up a space where the grace of God or of Spirit can nudge or propel you into a direct awakening experience. Should that day come when your eyes are opened, you will want to share this truth you know with others. Mostly, they won’t believe you; more likely they’ll consider you to be crazy. That won’t bother you because the knowingness of truth cannot be threatened. The truth you will have discovered cannot be adequately communicated through words or even through modeling. Your students will have to do their own work and find their own path, just as you did. You can help point them in the right direction, kind of like steering a blindfolded kid toward the piñata*.

We would suggest that you have the following as your one and only belief. Here it is. If you set an intention to awaken and thereby know the truth, and maintain your energy and focus steadily upon that intention through untruth realization, you will be blessed with the experience of awakening. No part of the belief addresses the nature of the truth or the awakened state other than through negation. Without that kind of commitment, you will wander perhaps for many more lifetimes before finding your way home. Your steadfastness and dogged determination will invite the support of Spirit. You will not be alone. Let me conclude with one final thing. Please don’t take anything I have said here as the truth. Do your own inquiry into absolutely everything your mind encounters. The ball is in your hands. It is all up to you.

Good Now

Sanhia

 

* Piñata: A decorated figure of an animal containing toys and sweets that is suspended from a height and broken open by blindfolded children as part of a celebration.

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