What is the difference between judgment and discernment?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I deal with my feelings of hopelessness?

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

What part, if any, should prayer play in my spiritual path?

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Prayer is both more and less than what you think it is. That’s how it is in duality, folks. There are two sides to every question – and to every answer. The Rolling Stones were quite prophetic when they sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you nee…eed”. That is very connected to how prayer works. But, let’s start at the beginning. In the beginning you are One with God. At the end you are One with God. You are always One with God. Obviously, we need to find another place to begin. Going a little bit further down the imaginary timeline, we will say that in the beginning of this lifetime you were probably introduced to prayer in some way. Those of you who had any sort of Christian upbringing were likely taught prayers. You were to recite them regularly, especially if you were Catholic. You might say the “Our Father” or the “Hail Mary” or some other prayer you had memorized. Perhaps it was suggested that you pray to God or to Jesus and ask for what you wanted. Maybe you were told that all your prayers would be answered. If you did actually see results, congratulations are in order. If you did feel you had results, it was more likely from a personal request than from a rote prayer; that is, it was from a specific wish from you not from a form letter. These form prayers could not come from the heart; they were more of a duty, a ritual, which if performed correctly might win God’s approval, or at least cause him he to throw you a few crumbs. But, prayer does not operate that way.

Let me remind you that God doesn’t have a horse in this race. He isn’t even watching the race. God is unaware of this fiction you have created. It is not real; it is a dream. When you pray, you are praying to Spirit, who does have a relationship with your separated self and your dream.  God doesn’t hear your prayers; for Him you are together in heaven and this world is non-existent. Even if you send prayers to God, Spirit receives them. If you sent letters to Santa Claus at the North Pole, it was Spirit who opened your request. All entreaties go into the same letter box. Spirit hears every prayer and always responds. Always, nothing is ignored. However, as the Stones remind us you will get what you need. If your prayer asks Spirit to do something specific for you which affects the chess pieces on planet earth in order to make things happen the way you would like them to, you might feel that your prayer is not answered. It is not Spirit’s job to help you to create heaven on earth. There can be no heaven in duality, and attempts to make heaven happen in the physical help to keep you rooted in the illusion. Spirit’s task is to help you wake up from the hell you are in. Therefore, the most powerful and effective prayer is one where you ask Spirit for help in waking up. This might take the form of asking for assistance in transforming fear, releasing judgment, anger, blame, or guilt – asking Spirit to take those things from you. It becomes even more confusing if you ask Spirit to do something for somebody else. Spirit would not likely grant such a specific request for your own problems or dreams, but your friend’s “problem” is none of your damn business. One reason that you don’t always get what you want is because you don’t know what you really want. Most of what you think you want is what your ego desires, but your ego wants to keep you stuck forever in a body in hell. When you are asking to make your world a little more heavenly, you are asking Spirit to make the world real for you so that you can stay asleep. Why would you want Spirit to be an enabler for your ego addiction? Fortunately, Spirit is clear about Its job and will not reinforce your illusions without good cause. Spirit’s job may be more to shake you than to placate you. Maybe your problem or perceiving your friend’s problem is just what you need to help you to awaken.

When I say that your prayer is always answered, I mean that Spirit gives you exactly what you need, exactly the perfect thing in this moment to help you open your true sight. The clearer you are with your intention to awaken, the more likely Spirit will be in not giving you what you think you want. The truth of what you want is to reclaim your rightful Sonship of unconditional love and innocence. That is your true desire, not the shiny new bicycle (or Mercedes Benz, Janis). If you take this message to heart you will begin to realize that everything that happens in every moment is the answer to your prayers. Whatever is happening is the gift from Spirit that most supports you in this precise moment. This is how it has always been working, but how often have you said no to what comes, expressing your dissatisfaction or even contempt for what is happening? Your mind is constantly asking for more of this and less of that, as if you actually knew what would lead you to infinite bliss. While you are in fear and resistance, Spirit is offering you pure gold. All you have to do is say thank you and roll with it. How easy is that? The most effective prayer, again, is not the one where you direct Spirit in how to change your earthly physical world and experience, but the one where you ask Spirit to please take these blinders away from your eyes and help you to forgive, not take things so seriously, release your attachment to thinking things have to be in a certain way, and let go of fear and guilt. This is what you deeply long for, but don’t know how to achieve – so you pray for help from Spirit. If you have no fear, no guilt, no projection, no blame, and no anger – then what is left? Just the real you and your love, that’s what you truly desire. Your ego mind may be screaming “bullshit”, to not listen to this, that you don’t really want to surrender all the nice things in life or not heal your physical ailments. Empty promises, the ego never fully delivers because the illusion and separation can never bring you peace and satisfaction (yes, you can’t get no…).

In the duality, in the ego world where you feel like you have to figure out your salvation, this is such an enormous task, and one that you can never succeed at. You never will. There is just frustration. We are back to Sisyphus and the mountain and the huge rock. That’s the job. You never get there. You may feel closer one day and then the next you find yourself back at the foot of the mountain. Fortunately, there is no mountain; there is no stone; there is no job for you to do. There is nothing to decide. Receive the gift from Spirit. If there is anything that blocks you from doing that, ask Spirit to lift it away. You don’t have to do anything; just ask Spirit to do the heavy lifting. You don’t have to earn or deserve anything; you don’t have to figure it out. Ask and you shall receive, but ask for what you truly want; don’t sell yourself short. But even if you ask for what you don’t truly want, you’ll find out soon enough because you will likely get something else, or you will actually get just what you asked for and find it brings no lasting satisfaction. What you ask for is not as important as is receiving what you get. If you don’t know what to make of what you receive, again ask for support in accepting.

You don’t have to figure out what to do with today because you have already prayed for Spirit to bring you what is of value. All you have to do is open your eyes and go with whatever is presented into your moment. You don’t have to know why. It doesn’t matter. Understanding will come when the time is right. Not understanding makes it no less perfect. You have only one job today and that is to receive what Spirit brings. Your only prayer is that Spirit lifts any resistance from you. You may go through a period of insanity before the resistance lifts. Ego will not let go without a fight. You will only go through that “death” once. The only other choice is to go back to the struggle of living in hell on earth, returning to being Sisyphus in the attempt to reach the unreachable. It has been said many times to “let go and let God”. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “let go and let Spirit”. As long as duality exists for you there is truly no space for God, but the linking presence of Spirit is always there. A reason that we talk about the importance of prayer, even though Spirit is always bringing you the perfect thing, is that it can help you overcome your feelings of hopelessness and helplessness to feel that there is someone out there listening and responding to you. Yes, Spirit is supporting you whether you ask or not, but your active involvement nurtures a sense of Oneness and a release from the separation that all humans feel. Beginning to feel that a dialog with Spirit exists is enormously reinforcing. What develops is that you begin to move way beyond ego needs into playfulness with Spirit and the universe. As you welcome what is presented you find what it is that you are going to play with today and it will be fun. Enjoy!

Good Now

Sanhia

What is the nature of power?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

Is the ego part of me or is it separate?

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

How long will the Coronavirus last?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

What is the meaning of the Coronavirus?

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With the Coronavirus everybody is on the same page. You can search through your memory banks and be unable to find another time when the whole world was on the same page. Americans of a certain age remember the time when all of that country was on the same page following the Kennedy assassination or 9-11. Swedes had a similar unity around the assassination of Olof Palme. However, outside of your respective countries the effect was not so big and it became still smaller when extended to other continents. But here, now, everyone in the world is touched by the Coronavirus, no matter what continent, race, religion, or age. This is, indeed, a very interesting time. Look at what has been manifested here. Everyone has, seemingly, no choice but to focus on this phenomenon. It is affecting every aspect of your life.

As always, there are two voices that you can listen to, the voice of love or the voice of fear – the voice of Spirit or the voice of ego. You are surrounded by the voices of fear. There is no need for me to repeat the fear scenarios that are present. You can turn on the television, go online, or pick up a newspaper and be inundated with fearful stories and fingers pointed at those who can be blamed for causing, spreading, or failing to slow or halt the virus. My job today is to speak to you from Spirit, to remind you that there are no accidents and that everything is in perfection. You have a heightened opportunity now to choose love over fear. We have spoken often of the advice, and you have heard it many other places (thank you Ram Dass), to be here now, to be present, and to be in the Now. When you are absolutely present, you are with Spirit. When you are not present, you are with ego. All that truly exists is this moment. It exists forever. In this moment you are One with God; you are One with Spirit; you are One with me; you are One with each other. All there is is love.

The Coronavirus has been given to you by Spirit as an enormous gift to help you let go of the ego and be here now. Many of the normal distractions of your earthly experience are denied to you in this moment. You don’t feel the freedom to go where you want; you can’t watch the game on television or even read about it. You are likely at home most of the time, some of you not able to go to work. Your opportunities to socialize are minimized. What you do have is this enormous gift to help you let go. You can choose to be with ego, to be lamenting and sorrowful about what you are asked to give up, fearful or terrified about what the future might bring – or – you can receive this gift. You can revel in the stillness. You can take this as an opportunity to communicate with Spirit, to give all your fears, all of your judgments, all of your anger, everything that takes away from the peace that is your birthright – and give all of that to Spirit.

Now is the time to let death die. In the eternal now there is no death. Death is of the ego. It is not real. Yes of course, bodies die. You are not your body. You do not die. You cannot die. Jesus demonstrated that for us. This is a time given to you by Spirit to release and let go of all your fear of death. Give your death to Spirit. Know that if Spirit has use for you in your body to help all to awaken, you will stay in your body. If Spirit says that you have done what you came here to do and now it is time to come home into the Oneness, then you will let go of your body in love and joy, not in fear. That is not a death, but a full awakening. Invite Spirit into your heart today. Use your quarantine to be with Spirit. It is just the two of you; your challenge is to make it the One of you by surrendering your fearful, ego-based will. Ask, “What is it that you wish me to do with this space you have provided for me through the gift of the Coronavirus?” You now have this opportunity that you would not normally have. You would be so busy with your daily life and with what the ego says is important to do. Now this intervention precludes business as usual. Not only is there the space to listen to Spirit, but also the motivation to deal with those fears the Coronavirus has triggered in you. Besides the fear of death, you may be experiencing financial worries, loss of opportunities, fears about losing loved ones, uncertainties about the future, anger, or blame. This just might be the perfect storm that gives you the gentle shove that encourages you to let go of your attachment to the drama and finally surrender to Spirit. What an opportunity for healing! Now is the time to give all that fear, judgment, and projection to Spirit and listen to the message and guidance that are there for you.

While everything that has been said here goes to the core of what this event is truly about, we don’t suggest that you ignore the recommendations of health officials. Unless you are personally guided in a different direction, quarantine yourself, use proper cleaning techniques, pay attention to your own health signs, and strengthen your immune system. If you fear you may have may draw something your way, be conscious in protecting yourself. On the other hand, whatever happens is perfect and is in Spirit’s hand. Trust in God and tether your camel.

I want to encourage you to feel an enormous gratitude for this gift of the Coronavirus and for Spirit bringing this potentiality for awakening into your now. Take this opportunity to hold each of your mirrors, every other human, in a place of loving acceptance and kindness. Part of the magic of this gift is that you are all in it together. When you find yourself talking with another about this situation, ask Spirit why He has brought this person to you. Are you to receive something from them or is there something that you are asked to give. Allow whatever it is to happen. If you meet your neighbor and they are in pain or fear, remember he is your mirror. He is reflecting that part of you which may be hard for you to see. Give silent thanks for that gift and take your pain and fear to Spirit. Perhaps you have a gift to share with your neighbor about the perfection of what is unfolding, about his Divinity, about his safety – but first take your concerns to Spirit and see what you are guided to say to the other. It is not your job to heal them. That is Spirit’s work. If you are to be a tool for Spirit, He will let you know. It is your job to bring all the fears that are triggered by the Coronavirus and others’ responses to it to Spirit to be lifted to love. Always thank Spirit for this opportunity to awaken.

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I become One with God?

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A common statement or intention expressed through many spiritual disciplines is that of becoming one with God. People ask me,”What in the hell does that mean, Sanhia? And even if I think I have some idea of what it means, how could I possibly achieve that?” There are so many fun ways we could answer this question, so let’s see how many roads we can go down (How many roads can a man go down before they call him God?). “How do I become one with God?” is one of those nonsense questions. To be horribly trite, it is like asking a fish how to become one with water. You are now one with God. You have always been one with God. There is no time, no past, no present. You simply are one with God. You could not be anything else. That’s just how it is. Well, that was a short message! ….. Okay, we’ll go on to the next part. Being one with God without being aware of being one with God is not so desirable. When you have a fight with your partner it does not feel like you are one with God. When you are stuck in traffic it does not feel like being one with God. When you listen to or read the news it certainly doesn’t feel like you are one with God. So, I ‘m guessing you want to know a little more about the realizing side of this reality.

We have told this old story before, so I’m not going to go into great detail about it, but let me give you just the outline. The story goes like this: God created you in His own image…..which makes you an angry old man. Wait, that’s not the right story…..that is the one about you creating God in your own image. This means that you have no physicalness; the truth of you is absolutely one and in unity with God. At the same time you are not God, but are the Son. You did not create yourself. Like God you have no beginning or end, because there is no time. You simply are. In your infinite creativity you had a thought, a crazy, mad thought. “What if I could create something separate from God, something apart from God, something God didn’t know about?” That thought took off like a runaway train. Part of you disappeared into that idea. That part decided to create an identity, uniqueness, specialness. That all seemed like a great deal of fun; it seemed absolutely fantastic. The truth, however, was that no, you couldn’t do that. You are one with God, You are absolutely connected. There is no part of you that isn’t a part of God. God is everything; nothing could be created separate from that. So that mad idea couldn’t create anything real. It remained an idea. The universe it spawned was not real, only an idea. As you birthed this idea, you, the One Son, splintered into millions, billions of pieces – each one with an identity separate from the others. This allowed you to create this imaginary universe of specialness. Well, we all know how that worked out. It’s so funny; you have to join me in laughing at all of this. You created your specialness, your individuality, your separation from God and you discovered it was a terrifying place to be. Alone! In pain! Having to defend yourself constantly! That’s how it feels for the human believing he is separate from God. So the question is not one of how you become one with God, it is one of how to remember who you really are – that you are one with God. You cannot create what already is; you can only deny it. You have spent eons in that denial out of the fear of God’s anger. You project that He wants to get revenge for your abandonment of Him. Some of you take this denial into a place where you convince yourself there is no God, therefore nobody to punish you. This only frees you to stay here perpetually in the hell of your creation with no way out. This is the planet of free suffering. I hope you are still laughing with me here.

Now we come to the really meaty part of this message. You know about this work. You have an understanding about the importance of forgiveness, stopping the blind adherence to ego, listening to that soft, gentle, humorous, loving voice of Spirit, and letting that voice guide you home. To some degree or other, with whatever amount of dissociation (remember last month’s message) that is involved in your process, you are slowly waking up to the awareness of this truth of yourself as one with God. I want to tell you about the biggest crevice you have to leap over, the largest challenge you face. Some of you have felt this already. For some it is so scary I almost hate to tell you about it. You might not sleep well tonight. But, then you probably aren’t sleeping well anyway. If you look this fear straight in the face, you might begin to sleep better. Well, here it goes. You came into this illusion, into this dream or this nightmare, with your own personal identity. The only way out of this dream or nightmare is to leave your personal identity at the door as you exit. You can’t take it with you. Your personal identity is your separation from God, not to speak of the rest of the Son-ship. To realize your oneness with God you have to abandon this illusion of having a separate identity. Otherwise you keep cycling around in this place that feels so distant from heaven, so far away from home. You remain with the pain, the suffering, and the guilt that we have talked about so many times, that you are so familiar with. But! And here is the crux of the matter. Giving up your personal identity feels like a permanent death, not death as in death and rebirth, or reincarnation. This is the black hole death, the void. This is the nothingness, the terror that the ego feeds in you. Actually it is the ego that will die, because it exists only in separation. This fear tells you that you have no existence outside of your personal identity. The truth is just the opposite; you have no real existence in your personal identity. You want to feel nothing but love, but that is not possible here. You want to feel unconditional acceptance, to experience that you are absolutely guilt free. That cannot be accomplished without releasing the separation of your personal identity. Each one of you will do that eventually.

You have had other lifetimes where you had different names and different bodies, perhaps a different gender, race, or religion. None of those things are you. You are not this name that calls you to dinner. It has nothing to do with you. It is like you have come to a strange planet knowing nothing about it and you pick up a foreign object wondering what it is and you make up a name for it. Let’s say you call it glook. So, to you it is a glook, but it is not. That is simply a name you have given to something that doesn’t really exist. You are not your name.  You are not your body. You can keep trading these bodies in. There is only one thing you truly carry with you from lifetime to lifetime; that is your guilt. You can be certain that as long as you hold on to your identity, your guilt will be waiting for you in the next infant version of your separation that comes flying down the tube, or more likely is reluctantly pulled from the womb, from not your true mother into not your true home. The guilt and the fear will be right there with you. That’s all that you carry with you. This identity that you hold as so valuable is your pain and suffering.

Sooner or later the weight of that will be so strong, you will be so exhausted by it, that you will be ready to let it go. If that day is approaching for you, I can give you a few hints to make it easier. Whenever you see another and see them as different from you, remind yourself that they are not. Remind yourself that there are only two things that all humans ever express. They either say “I love you” or “Help me”. That’s all they do. That’s all you do. You are all exactly the same. If you meet somebody today and you do not feel “I love you” coming from them, they are crying out for help. If you have a hard time receiving that plea it is because they are your mirror. You are projecting your cry for help onto them. Thank them for being a fellow traveler in pain. It’s not your job to remove their pain; your job is to remove yours. Thank them for the reminder and stop the separation. Give up pointing at them, making them to be the one in pain. Don’t blame them. Don’t make them the asshole. Don’t make them the cause of their problems, or yours. Don’t feed the separation. Don’t allow yourself to feel superior…”well at least I’m not as bad off as they are”. Every time you choose separation, you choose to remain in hell. Every time! Pretty silly isn’t it. As we look at it together, isn’t that a really funny thing? You think it is somebody else when it is really yourself. You could choose to forgive and love, but you have chosen to project and blame. And then it hurts you! And all the time you pretend not to be doing it. You have to see the humor in that, so laugh with me and let it go. Forgive yourself and the other.

You are all in this together. That’s why we suggest that you be as kind as you can with each other. When you are kind to another you are kind to yourself. When you are kind to yourself you may actually reach the point of realizing your innocence, that you don’t deserve punishment. If you look out at one other, just one person, and think he is guilty and should be punished – you can look at the other six billion and see them all as innocent – that one is you. That is you that you want to send to hell. It just takes one, but let’s be honest – there is more than one such person for you. Each one of them you wish to see punished is you. So funny! Laugh again with me. So simple! The ego wants you to stay in separation, in guilt, in pain; Spirit wants to wake you up, bring you home to the love of God. It’s not a hard call to make. Come here with us. We will look at everything with you and help you to laugh. And always, as always……remember…..

God Blesses You

Sanhia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I be a better parent?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia