How do I deal with challenging people in my life?

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There is only one challenging person in your life. That, of course, is you. As long as you consider yourself to be a victim of the actions or behaviors of others, your life on planet Earth will be experienced as less than pleasant. Fortunately, victimhood is not the case. We have spoken before about the term projection. There are worse things that you could do than to print up a dozen cards with the word projection on them and post them throughout your home, car, and workplace…on every mirror, by the toilet…as a constant reminder that all you see in the world is your projection, no exceptions. The ego mind goes absolutely ballistic over this and will try incessantly to create exceptions. There are no exceptions. Cause and effect. You are the cause and the world is the effect. Never the reverse.

So, as they like to say in new age circles, there are no challenges or problems, there are only opportunities. These challenges with other people, which are your own creation, are opportunities for you to free yourself from judgment and separation. Or…you can go on pretending that it’s all about other people…and suffer. It’s your call. We don’t have a horse in this race. As a review, this is how projection works. Your ego mind, which thinks it knows everything or at least can figure everything out, knows nothing and can’t figure out anything. It believes you are this body, but you’re not. It thinks you are separate from God and Divinity, but you’re not. If we present this in the form of a story, keeping in mind that no story is true, it might go something like this. The ego believes that it chose to separate from God. This is the tiny confusion from which all of your “problems” stem. The ego is in error because it is not possible to separate from God. Anyway, on with the story. Ego mind creates this body and this universe as a way and a place to hide from God. Realizing it has made a bad choice, wanting to go back home, desiring God’s forgiveness, but feeling that this attempt to kill God is both unforgivable and deserving of severe punishment – ego is in a tough spot. Let’s list some other things that ego mind doesn’t understand. First, you never left home. There is no separation. The body and the Universe are what is not real. God does not and cannot judge. God is pure Love. God does not and cannot punish. Meanwhile in its imagined sinfulness, ego comes up with a plan. Put the blame on somebody else. Maybe God will notice that it is the other and not you who is guilty and deserving of judgment and punishment. “Burn them God! It’s their fault and not mine. I’m Innocent!”, you think. This is projection. Every time you judge another for anything, small or large, it is your guilt that you are projecting. It is all about you and not about them. In addition, you try to be a “good” person so that God will see that you are worthy to be brought back home. The only problem is that you cannot earn something that you already have and the only one accusing you of sin is you. No number of good acts or projections will cleanse you of your self-imposed guilt. You cannot buy your way into heaven. You never left. It is only this guilt that holds you in your earthly hell. So, forgive yourself. End of story.

Well, not quite. You go on through life projecting. Other people are wrong. Other countries are wrong. Other religions are wrong. You are right and you are good, but there is something inside you that doesn’t buy the whole story, that suspects that it is you who are truly guilty. Deep down is this fear, this dread of the inevitability of the coming retribution. Unconsciously you draw loss, pain, failure, illness, and emotional turmoil into your life, always trying to pay this unpayable debt. This is where the healing can begin. Let go of the projection upon God. Let go at the same time of the projection that you have toward yourself. You are innocent. Nothing happened. You did not leave God. God is not upset. It is all much ado about nothing. You cannot hurt God and God cannot hurt you. There is only Love here.

Now let’s return to the opportunity that you called a challenge. You have heard these words from me, perhaps read similar words in A Course in Miracles or heard them from some other teacher, but the bottom line is that you don’t feel them. You feel yourself to be victim to another’s energy. You’re sick and tired of everything but don’t know what to do with it all. This projection works in a very specific way. You don’t project everything on everyone. You project wonderful things onto some people, seeing them as loving and good. When you find yourself with a specific judgment toward another, that is what you believe about yourself but don’t want to face. You fear being punished, so you go into denial and project. Ego mind jumps in and yells, “I’m not like that!”. In truth you are not, but you believe that you are. Until you own this. Until you accept that the judgment is about self and has nothing to do with the other, nothing will change. You will live in projection and victimhood.

Your job, then, is to take ownership of the projections, to accept that the judgment is aimed toward the self. For example, if your projection is that another is not honest with you, ask how you are not honest with yourself. What untruths about self are you believing to be true? Anything short of recognizing your absolute innocence, your Divinity, is part of the lie. You are absolutely loved by God, but are you telling yourself that you are unlovable? You are always provided for, but are you telling yourself that you are undeserving and needy? Forgiveness is not a matter of recognizing where you have been bad and then asking to be forgiven. It is the realization that you have not and could not err, so there is nothing to forgive. There is only the Love of God.

Let’s look at a specific example so you might gain a clearer picture of how this whole process has worked and could work for you. A popular one for those of you who have children is being a victim to them. “They never clean. They don’t do their homework. They are not responsible. They don’t listen to me. They don’t follow my rules. They don’t respect me as the adult.” We could go on and on and you could each add to the list from your own experiences. Let’s just focus on one part of the litany, “My daughter never cleans up after herself. I am left with the choice of being in a constant fight or surrendering to grudgingly being my daughter’s maid.” The choice you make doesn’t matter. What effects you feel come from what you carry around inside yourself. There is a judgment of her irresponsibility causing you to make one of two equally undesirable choices. There is a good possibility that if you listen inside there is a parent saying a similar thing about you. You were taught to be a good person, to clean up after yourself. Did that result in you feeling like a good person? Probably not. Did you learn to feel guilt when you didn’t clean up? Probably. Did you resent being told what to do? Most likely. Now as an adult you act out of guilt and resentment when you must clean up. Instead of facing this inner anger and judgment, along comes this young whippersnapper on whom you can project all of this. The child may not be carrying the guilt or having a thought about what they should do unless you have been successful in drumming it into her. Maybe she is stronger than you and your parents’ games don’t work with her. Instead of passing your guilt on to her you could realize that each moment of each day you are carrying thoughts about what you should be doing to be a good person. What should you do? What does God want you to do? When you were small your parents represented God for you. They taught you right and wrong, good and bad – providing punishments and rewards. That was your first church.

You have the opportunity to notice that you have been forcing yourself to do what you don’t want to do. Ego mind screams out, “Yeah! But if I don’t do it the house will be a total mess!” Maybe. So what? Ego mind says there is probably a special circle in hell for bad housekeepers. Is that really true? Does God only take back home those with clean houses? What is actually going on here? What is really true? Recalling that God is unconditional love and acceptance, there are no rewards or punishments, no heaven or hell. You never left; it is only the ego mind that believes that what goes on here is of any consequence. So back to now. Do you clean or not clean? Perhaps you wait until you feel like doing it. Perhaps your standards of cleanliness go through a transition. Perhaps you start listening more to what the inner guidance and the body tell you instead of marching to the orders of the guilt driven ego mind. Without a sense of compulsion there may be a joy in the act of cleaning. Perhaps in the now there is exhaustion, so go relax. Above all, thank your daughter for putting you in touch with your guilt and denial. Always thank your mirrors…at least silently.

The root of all the fear, guilt, and blame is in the belief in separation. The truth is that there is Oneness. You are One with the Divine and with each other. What another is doing is what you are doing. It is all connected. In the perfection of what is happening right now in each moment, everything is unfolding exactly as it should. The script, as we said in the last message, has already been written. If you accept what is without resistance, it opens you up to the truth of your Divinity, to your Oneness with the Creator and the creation. Can you begin to see the enormous value of seeing the actions of another as your projection? You are being handed the keys to the kingdom. All is within you, never outside of you. What a perfect gift your child, or whomever appears to be a challenge, is offering you with their every action. All of this requires no volition on anybody’s part. Nobody needs to have any understanding of the part they are playing. They cannot help but to serve you. You only have choice on whether you wish to be served or bothered.

It doesn’t matter if the challenge in your life appears to be somebody who is irresponsible with money, has an addiction, is trying to control you, is abusive, ignores you, doesn’t accept you for who you are, or – we could go on and on and on. It doesn’t matter if this person plays a central part in your life or you only meet them once. You have the choice to be a victim (seemingly forever) or to grasp the opportunity to let go of your imagined separation and see the gift that is being offered. As long as you hold this as being about the other there is no way out. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But you are blessed and loved. This is your creation and you are doing a perfect job. Accept it and live in this now. You deserve to experience the Love and Peace that is the truth of You.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

I am hearing differing things from you. What is reality?

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You know it is both difficult and easy to speak out of both sides of my mouth. It is difficult because I have neither a mouth nor sides, but it is easy because I just place the words in Michael’s mouth, and he has agreed to share them without question. Any words that I use do not tell the truth so it can be helpful to state things in differing and even contrasting ways to approximate truth, to triangulate what actually is. I have been talking differently about reality in some of the more recent messages than I did in messages back several years ago. If you want to check that out for yourself click here and then click on reality for a list all the messages where the term is mentioned. Anyway, this is a good question, so let’s look more deeply into it.

Recently We have talked about reality as being what is in the now. For example, if it is raining now, that is the reality. We talk in terms of simple acceptance of what is in the now. If you have resistance to reality, if you want to change it – good luck with that. But it’s not just the weather, it’s everything. What is is. It cannot be changed. You might want to change it in the future, even the near future. That’s another matter we will deal with shortly, but reality is what is here right this moment. When one ignores it or doesn’t accept it, is upset and in opposition to it, or wants to change it there will be frustration, pain, suffering, and a sense of failure because the now cannot be altered. The reality cannot be changed. When there is resistance to the now, it makes it nearly impossible to hear your inner guidance, Spirit, or your Divine Self, because the ego mind is just too loud. This is the reality we have been referring to. It has been suggested that the more one is willing to notice what is present right now – without judging it or wishing to change it – the more one accepts the feelings triggered in this now, the more one learns to hear that quiet inner voice. We have encouraged you to do that, to take what is in the now as the perfect thing, to receive what Spirit is presenting to you to help you realize your Divine nature.

Let’s start moving out to a wider sense of reality. One step out is to say that your only function for being, for having this experience in the physical with a body is to wake up to the truth of your Divine Nature. Nothing else matters. That’s a big step from accepting the now. Nothing else matters but being awake. In this process of awakening there are different levels. The ground level is having the desire, the intention to awaken. That can only come from the ego mind. As you have likely noticed by now, the ego mind is very clever and anything but self destructive. The urge to awaken is most unlikely to make an appearance when things are going as one wishes they would. The ego only grudgingly allows a peek at this when you have become quite frustrated with the lack of delivery on ego promises. But a full awakening would mark the death of the ego. So, what proceeds to manifest in this world of duality is opposites. On one side the intention to awaken is a prerequisite. On the other hand, as long as you hold on to the intention to awaken, you cannot notice you already are awake. Awakeness is in the now; goals put your mind into the non-existent future. How do you make the shift from wanting to awaken to realizing awakeness?  At some point the synapse is crossed, you realize you are and always have been awake. You’ve just been pretending to be asleep. We could call the ego mind that pretender. However, you can have the idea that you really are awake, but that is still the ego mind running things, not a true experience. So, what happens somewhere along the line (remembering that time doesn’t really exist), through what I like to call “the grace of God”, after countless letting goes of the ego mind, is it happens. This occurrence is after intention has been released.  You know in that instant that none of this really matters, that the physical is just an illusion. If that is followed by the thought that you are awake now, say hello again to your ego mind. It doesn’t matter. It will likely happen. The truth is in your divinity. It cannot be hidden forever. More often you will find yourself noticing the now with no attachment, with no agenda, with no resistance, with welcomeness and gratitude.

As we are talking about this, because all we can do is use words and point, we could describe this as the first step of awakeness. None of this really matters. You still notice the world around you, the phenomenal world.  You are still aware of the body, the vehicle you use for this exploration and interaction with this physical illusion. There is another level of reality. It could be stated thusly, “Reality is that which never changes.” Ego mind will get hold of this and state that the now constantly changes; nothing stays the same. It will remind you that I have said, “As you are noticing the emotions, accept them, feel them, let them move about, let them be free, welcome them, and let them lead you. They will constantly change.” Ego may add that if change equates to not real, how could I say that what is in the now, including feelings are real? Now I seem to be saying the now isn’t real? And what about everything in the phenomenal world? The weather changes, plants and animals grow and then die, your physical body has and will go through enormous change from conception through birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturity, old age and death. So now am I saying that everything that is a part of the now is not real. You are understanding me completely. Anything that does or can change is not real. This becomes quite a challenge for the mind. Is there anything in the universe that does not change? If you think the earth or the sun will always be here, check out what the science says. Even if the Bible is taken literally, the universe has both beginning and end. Absolutely nothing of the physical realm is real because everything changes. What about this entity that I have referred to as “you” or you refer to as “I”, this awareness that experiences the changes in the phenomenal universe? Is it real? Whew!

The questions seem to be getting harder. Are you real? Let’s toss another one out there for you. If nothing in the physical world is real and you are the observer of these illusions – if there is nothing to observe, is there still an observer? If the world is not real, are you real? If there is nothing to observe, can you observe nothing? The closest that we can come with words in defining that which never changes might be to call it Divinity, or maybe God if you can suffer that term, or perhaps the Oneness. If you are a creation of that Whatever, made in Its own image, that too sounds like a change. Divinity simply is…always. If out of this never changing, timeless, infinite Isness you are created, then, by definition, you aren’t real either. Using the metaphor of the ocean, which is undifferentiated water; it is all ocean. A wave can emerge on its surface, but has no identity separate from the ocean. Without the ocean the wave does not exist. It may seem to have its own identity and direction, but eventually it crashes on a beach and returns to the oneness, having no further identity as a wave. Even the water that is considered to be part of the wave does not move with it; there is just this motion on the surface. Without the ocean there is no wave.

So, the ultimate reality is undifferentiated Divinity. There is no you. This reality is beyond anything the mind can comprehend. It is beyond anything the senses can be aware of. For the ego mind, such a picture triggers absolute terror. It represents not only the dissolution of the ego mind, but the dissolution of any aspect of a separated self, absolute non-existence. Oneness. No separation. Such ideas are impossible to comprehend or sense. So, after you reach the step of awareness that you are a Divine Entity, created by God in Its own image and that there is no reality in the physical realm, your awakening is not over. It has just begun. As long as there is an observer watching the illusion of physicality there remains a separation from the Oneness. The ultimate awakening, for which We have used the term ascension, is where there is no longer a sense of you observing the physical illusion. Now ascension implies a rising up, but there is no direction involved; there is nothing. There is no longer a separate observer. There is only the ocean of Oneness.

Even though there is no forward or backward, We will appear to take a step back into looking at this now. For some of you there is a great challenge in doing things like accepting the “perfection of the now.”  I will encourage you to let go of perfection as a term. Instead, keeping in mind this larger vision of reality, flow with whatever is – reminding yourself that it doesn’t matter. Perfect or imperfect, it makes no difference. Either way it’s not real. It doesn’t matter. If you are only here to realize you are already awake, whatever is happening is helping you to do that. If you are pretending to be asleep, no matter what happens you will experience pain and suffering. Whether you are trying to find perfection or imperfection you are going to suffer. In duality there cannot be one without the other. This is true of every thought you might have. It has an opposite. There is no reality in trying to explain or understand. There is only more confusion. That is why we encourage you – as you are in the process of realizing that you already are awake – to let the mind go. It’s not about learning, it’s about unlearning everything you think you know. Whatever you think, you are wrong. If you are pretending to be separate from what you observe, you are going to suffer. Beyond that, this whole unreal movie you are pretending to be a part of is already scripted. You have no choice in changing it. Your only choice is whether or not you accept it as real. You are powerless as an observer. The outcome is already known. What is occurring in the minutia of the moment doesn’t matter. We can guess that in the scope of the illusion of time as the script runs, you stop playing in the game of time. You start playing with awareness in the game of Divinity, of infinity, in the game of God. You realize that you are One with what you observe; that there is no separation. You know that nothing matters. Even if you are still playing in the game, using the vehicle you have to interact with the now, you know that it doesn’t matter. You just enjoy the ride. Or don’t enjoy the ride. Or enjoy not enjoying the ride. It doesn’t matter.

If you have the thought in the moment – and maybe it has been a long-time prayer or mantra, maybe, God forbid, you learned it from Me – “Spirit help me accept the perfection of the now” you may be enabling the ego mind to try to find something good about what is happening. This triggers the good/bad duality. In that interplay the mind usually wants to go for the positive. It doesn’t ask Spirit for help in accepting the imperfection of the now. So, the negative is denied and pushed away. Try letting go of perfection and accepting what is as what is. That is reality. Eventually it is what isn’t. That, too, is reality. You begin by accepting the reality of what is. but eventually realize there is no isness. Nothing including the observer is real. But how can you realize that if you think what is happening in your movie is real? As long as that is the case, then the separate you is real too. If you are thoroughly confused at this point, then my work is done.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How do I deal with addictions?

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We’ve received several questions from individuals who find that dealing with addictions is a major component in their lives. Often this takes the form of having a partner and/or a parent who is an alcoholic. These people relate feelings of helplessness, being compelled to try to aid but experiencing a hopelessness that things will ever change. The first place to look, always, when it seems that another is causing you problems or you feel yourself to be the victim of their behavior, is at projection. Whatever you are seeing or judging in another is yours. It shows what you believe and judge in yourself. The ego mind will scream out, “No! It’s them, it’s not me!” Listening to the ego thoughts just continues the cycle, ensuring there will be no resolution and no change. The hopeless endlessness and futility of any attempts at solutions will persist. The cause of the challenge is never outside of you; it is always within.

Confusing cause and effect is the hallmark of the ego mind. When you accept that the addiction is yours, it becomes a whole new game. You can now ask yourself what you are addicted to. You will not likely face that if you remain attached to the belief that it is the other who is addicted. In the case of perceived alcoholism, some people are addicted to living with an alcoholic. Addiction is a patterned response when one doesn’t accept what is here now in their life. Of course, this is easily seen with alcoholics. They find life to be not acceptable. Depression or other undesirable emotions can be escaped through the consumption of alcohol. Addiction is simply avoidance; it is using some technique to not be in the now. It is an expression of wanting life to be other than it is. An awareness of the habit of rejecting what is in yourself makes it much easier to see your own addiction. You may be telling yourself that you don’t drink like your partner does, so you are not an addict. But do you reject your partner as they are, wishing them to display different behavior? That may be one of your addictions. You do not accept what is. Your mind might be asking, is it okay just to accept the drinking with no attempt to stop it? Has your disapproval, your judgment had any effect so far? Do you actually have the power to change the situation? For some of you this has gone on for decades. All your efforts have failed. What remains is the addiction to try to make a difference, to not accepting what is.

Let’s take this away from the stereotypical examples of addiction such as alcohol and drugs. Anything that you do to avoid being in and accepting the now is addictive behavior. Let’s say you are having an uncomfortable feeling. You may choose to meditate, because in your experience, meditating allows you to rise above uncomfortable emotions and go to another more peaceful place. This is addictive behavior. Though this action does not carry along with it the same health concerns that accompany drinking or drugs, it is like them in that it does not “solve” the problem. It simply avoids it for the moment. The feelings will return. The habit of choosing to escape uncomfortable feelings will continue. The relief is only temporary. You each have your addictions of choice for avoiding what you don’t want to see. Some go for walks, train or run, or eat (ice cream seems to be the recipient of much of the blame here).

What would it look like to actually face the demons in your life? To begin with it might mean to empty the mind of thoughts about the situation. Thoughts are an addiction. The need to understand is an addiction. Let go of that mental activity. You can’t stop a thought from coming into your mind, nor can you choose the next one. You can choose to not dwell on what arrives. You can stop following or acting on those thoughts. You can starve them through inattention. Where does the focus go if not to mental activity? Your awareness goes to the feeling you are wanting to escape. You probably have a label or a name for this feeling. It might be anger, envy, hopelessness, frustration, or anxiety. Let go of the definition; don’t give it a name. Don’t treat it like a thing and put it in a box. Instead ask how this emotion now expresses itself in your body. What are you feeling? Notice where in the body these sensations are felt. What are they like? Do not try to get rid of them or to have them change in a way that might be more comfortable. Even let go of any thoughts that your willingness to face the feelings will allow you to feel better.

All the preceding warnings are to help you avoid addictive behavior. The ego mind wants to choose anything rather than be with what is, so your job is simply to accept or face what is there and to experience it fully without any other agenda. As you fully experience the sensations, as you pay complete attention to them, you will notice that they change. Nothing remains constant in the now except your presence and awareness. The change that occurs is not due to your attention. Change is the natural course. Your attention simply allows you to be aware of the movement. If you try to use your mind to explain and understand or change the feeling, you lose touch with what is being felt in the now and, instead, will hold on rigidly to the previous feeling. This does not mean that the change will provide a lessening of the sensation. It might increase; it might move to other parts of your body. Again, your only task is to stay with the bodily sensation and ignore whatever your mind might try to tell you. So, you sit and listen to whatever is present in those feelings just as you might sit and listen to the birds chirping or the leaves rustling in the breeze or the scream of a siren in the distance. Those sounds are there. You can’t make them go away. You can cover your ears, but the sounds are still there. You can choose addictive behavior, but the feelings are still there. You can opt to experience the fullness of the feelings in your body without taking recourse to the addictive patterns of thinking about the discomfort. Let go of definitions and words. Find out what is truly there and allow it to exist. Let it remain as long as it wants to be there. Let it morph into whatever it will become, not because you wish it would become something else, but because that is its nature, and you are curious to see where it will lead.

Let’s return to something we touched on earlier. I can hear the silent screams coming from some of you, upset that We might call your meditation an addiction. The function of meditation is to experience and hear what is present, totally, including the guidance that is heard from your inner wisdom, from your Divine self. It is not to be used to shut out the world or to go to a euphoric place. That, again, is addictive behavior, avoidance. I am by no means discouraging you from indulging in meditation if you find it to be relaxing and enjoyable. But I ask you to be absolutely honest with yourself. What is your motivation here? Do you use it for escape? We would suggest that true meditation is letting the mind and thoughts go and being fully aware of what is transpiring in the present. There is an absolute purpose for the emotion you are feeling. The mind wants to figure out what the feeling is about. The mind is not capable of doing this. We could say that the mind’s thoughts and beliefs are responsible for triggering the feeling. How can the mind be cause and solution at the same time? It can’t. It can only continue to muddy the water. The mind cannot defeat the mind. You simply learn how to not pay attention to it. Your emotional response is likely the reaction to something the mind is holding as true. Changing thoughts is like electing new leaders. Nothing is solved. Your meditative process is to accept every feeling, all that is around you, without censure or judgment. It is not to shut out the feelings, but to amp up the reception. True meditation is not active or directive, but passive and receptive. As we talked about in previous messages, it is tuning into Divine Will, not personal will. You don’t have to change your mind; you just stop thinking. You don’t have to change your feelings. In fact you can’t, rather you pay attention to what is there. As the mind begins to stop creating poisonous lies, the body will stop reacting. In the meantime, it is good to know. There is an enormous benefit to listening to what your feeling has to say. You don’t blame the smoke alarm for the fire. Disabling it will certainly not leave you safer. Have gratefulness for your alarm system going off. Your feeling is showing that your mind is on a bender. It is not your task to figure all this out. You only listen to the feelings and allow them to lead you, rather than attempting to lead them. Follow them. They are not the problem. It would be closer to the truth to call them the solution, but the deepest truth is that there is no problem. This is a balancing energy to the confusion of the mind. Listen to these sensations and allow them to take you where they will. That ultimate place is deep within you. This is true meditation.

As you are releasing your addiction to the mind, your habit of escaping the feelings by attempting to change, ignore, or get rid of them, your mind is not simply going to wave a white flag and surrender. It might play some of the following games. It could go the route of justification through proclaiming your feelings to be good and right because anybody in your situation would be reacting as you are. If you listen to this, you have let the mind back in and withdrawn focus from the feeling sensations. Another mind game is to try and understand your feelings. Your mind will also try to defend the feelings, a close partnership with justification. You may try to make yourself feel righteous, while whoever has triggered the emotion is in the wrong. Feelings are not good and bad. They just are. Joy and ecstasy are not good feelings. Trying to hold onto “good” feelings while jettisoning “bad” feelings is another example of mind games. You will not be successful in holding those you want anymore than you are able to get rid of those you don’t like. Full awareness of your feelings speaks nothing about action or expression of the feeling sensations. Any need to express your feelings is an idea. Spontaneously something may burst forth, but that is just what is. Notice the expression and let it be a part of your now (though it will quickly recede from that stage). You may be guided to action, but no decision is involved there. You simply know and do, always then returning awareness to the present. These feelings are yours. Others have no need to know of their existence. In a similar manner to how you would not be likely to do your meditation on a busy city street with sounds of traffic and loud voices of pedestrians around you, facing your feelings is best done in a quieter setting and does not involve other people.

Let’s go full circle now and return to the initial question which dealt with the addictions of others, rather than personal addictions. When you stop projecting upon your partner or whoever the other person might be and own the addiction yourself, dealing with it as we have discussed in this message, interesting things will happen. Interesting things are always happening in the now. I want to remind you that your job is not to seek results, but to be with whatever is happening. The goal is not to end your partner’s alcoholism. All that is required is that you be present with what is happening and with whatever feelings are elicited from you. As you are staying present with these emotions, maybe you notice changes in your partner and maybe you don’t. That is not important. What is of significance is what is going on within you. Stay away from your thoughts so you can notice what is present. Whatever that might be, it is not static. The present is constantly moving. Stay with it. As you take full responsibility for yourself, you will gradually become aware that you are not responsible for your partner. As you stop judging yourself, so will you stop judging the other. As everything fully comes home to you and you accept your part in the game, noticing where your addictions lie and taking responsibility for where you do have power, one of two things will likely occur. One may be that you accept your partner as they are, whether they have stopped drinking or not, and are no longer negatively impacted and are guided to stay in the relationship. On the other hand, you may feel guided to leave the relationship, made aware that that mirror is no longer necessary. These are not right and wrong decisions, in fact they are not truly decisions but rather “knowing” that become obvious. Beyond that, no action or guidance is forever; it is for right now. Your job is always with yourself. When you listen to and take care of yourself, you are taking care of the world. When you don’t take care of yourself, you are serving no one. Be with your feelings in the now. Stop fighting what is happening and really listen to and welcome everything, rather than trying to change or improve anything. Let that awareness guide you and your relationship. That’s it!

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How can I see ego as perfect?

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In duality there is Spirit and there is ego. Most spiritual seekers label Spirit as good and ego as bad. In oneness there is no judgment; there is no comparison; there is no separation. We have spoken many times about accepting the perfection of the now. If your ego is speaking in the now and you wish to shut it up, to be rid of it, to be beyond it – are you accepting the now? Everything comes from the Divine. Notice that “everything” is in bold, italicized, and underlined. Everything comes from the Divine. Ego comes from the Divine. Spirit comes from the Divine. Everything is in perfection. Everything happens exactly as it should.  Everything is already written out, has already happened. You, the reader, believe that it is happening now and that any possible outcome could result from this present moment that is being experienced. You believe that what you choose to do or not do will make a difference in that outcome. You think that the moment is not perfect enough so you have to roll up your sleeves and get to work to make it more perfect. The mind says that ego is not part of the perfection and needs to go, that ego tells untruths and fills you with fear. Since everything comes from God, He apparently made a mistake here and it is your job to correct it. As I love to say, “Good luck with that”. Only ego could suggest that you can do God’s job better. Only ego can suggest that you should try to get rid of ego. What you resist persists. The ego may be many things, but it is no dummy; it is not self-destructive.

So, let’s turn it around and accept the perfection of ego’s presence in the now, that its pronouncements are exactly what you should be hearing. I could just leave things at that; leave you to meditate on it, and call it a day. The last few messages have been rather long and we each deserve a break. But….I’m going to play with this a little longer. The only reason that you are able to hear the voice of ego is that part of you believes it is speaking the truth. You suspect there are some things you need to fear and that you have to protect yourself, defend yourself, attack, blame. Again, ego can only speak these things in your ear if a part of you believes they are true. One of the great ironies – and I love irony, which is perhaps all there is in duality where opposites exist at the same time – is that in duality you can’t have Spirit without ego. Spirit indicates where home is and ego reminds you of why you are both terrified of and ill-equipped for going there. If you listen carefully to Spirit you will hear that there is nowhere to go; you are home now. Ego screams out, “The hell with that! This doesn’t feel like home.” It then proceeds to reel off a litany of all the characteristics that your true home should have; it should be a heavenly place where there are none of the negatives, only the positives. The ego promises that one day if you work hard enough, you will get there. Other days in despair it cries out that you will never make it; it’s hopeless.

Your mind might ask why God would create such a thing as ego which fills you with such confusion, untruth, and suffering. Why does God want you to experience doubt and fear? One of the ironies is that at the same time that God has arranged everything and it is all fixed in the illusion of time, you are the God that has done this. It reminds me of the old questions, “If God is all powerful can He create a rock so heavy that even He can’t pick it up?” So here you sit, the Child of God, not knowing who you are. You are here for no other purpose than remembering that you are the Child of God, but you have absolutely forgotten it. If someone were to suggest that truth to you, you would not believe them and would probably shove them away, at least figuratively. You believe that you are something small and inferior and sinful and deserving of punishment. Sometimes you try to convince yourself that you are more than that. This whole argument is ego arguing with ego. But this is the thing…without the ego you will never find your way home. Ego is there as a nearly constant reminder of what separates you from the truth. Ego isn’t responsible for that; you are doing it. The truth of you is pretending to be the untruth of you. Ego has this wonderful job of reminding you of what you are doing to yourself, so that you can see it and feel it. Of course most of what ego says is false, what it tells you to fear is actually powerless. Yet, a small or big part of you buys the ego story and is convinced that it is up to you to take the bull by the horns and change yourself and/or the world so that the worst doesn’t happen. It’s just like in the movies; you can’t have an exciting show without a good bad guy or bad girl or both. You can’t have a hero without a villain. Jesus had to have the devil tempting him.

You can’t wake up without ego. Your job is not to make an enemy of ego, to try to blame or get rid of it in order to live in an egoless state. Welcome it. Listen to what ego has to say. These are the untruths you believe that are standing in your way. To banish the voice of ego is to shoot the messenger. It doesn’t change the message. Instead of asking for Spirit’s support in offing the messenger, listen to what ego is telling you. If what it tells you fills you with fear or other strong emotions, go right into them. Face them. If you suspect there might be truth in what it is saying, then look at it. Investigate the thoughts. Are they really true? I can tell you until I am blue in the face, though I have neither a face nor a color, that everything ego tells you is a lie and everything you are afraid of isn’t real. However that will do you no good at all. It is not for you to put your trust in me, but to do the work yourself. Ego has brought you your assignments, now it is time for you to get down to work. As you are facing fears and looking to see what is really true, ego is going to do everything possible to stay in the picture. When you have found that there is nothing to fear and you are certain that ego thoughts are untrue, there is little space for ego to come in. Even then you can welcome in whatever openings ego finds because they represent places that distract you from being fully present.

Love the ego. Welcome it into your life and allow it to do its special job. This does not mean that you allow your mind to go crazy following the path ego has laid out for you. Hear what ego is saying without following, without choosing to act as it would have you do. A politician was once quoted as saying, “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” Of course ego is not your enemy, it is your teacher. We are now complete with this message. If the ego is in your now, welcome that perfection and listen. See what you fear may be true so that you can let go of those false truths. If you aren’t aware of their presence, you cannot let them go. This is the invaluable service of ego. We may know how this will all play out, but you don’t and cannot. It is much more fun to be in the movie when you don’t know, and are simply experiencing the excitement of life in the now.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Why do you tell stories?

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Now it is my turn to ask the question. Why do you tell stories? As you cannot hear the tone in my voice, please understand that this is not asked in a judgmental tone. The question isn’t one of should or shouldn’t you tell stories or are stories good or bad. This is an investigation that we can conduct together into what the story is behind your stories. There are some tales that you might just tell one time. Say for example that an interesting thing happens to you while you are out shopping. You come home and share it with your partner. You laugh or cry or scratch your heads about it together and it never comes up again. You have lots of stories like that. Something makes an impact upon you and you choose to share it with someone else. These are not the types of narrations that we are going to zero in on, though the same thought processes could be used with any tale. What we are concerned with today are the stories that you carry around with you like gems in a sack; you take one out and polish it and share it over and over with different people or perhaps just mull it over for your own entertainment. Some of them you have shared dozens of times and maybe more than once with a given individual. It may be difficult to remember who you have shared it with or how times the tale has been told. Some of these stories are about successes you have had, something you achieved, or somebody you helped. Sharing such tales may make you feel better for a while. Some of your sagas might be about victimhood, what someone did to you or some unfortunate occurrence. Perhaps they relate what a tough year you have had or even about something that you have never been able to recover from.

The first thing I would like to investigate with you is to look at the reasons why you share these stories. The purpose in this line of inquiry is to support you in being in the now, to encourage the awareness of your awakened self. So we come back to your sagas and view them from that standpoint. What is your motivation, your reason for telling your tale? I wish to begin by suggesting that you become aware of the thoughts you have around any story, as I have encouraged you to do with each thought that enters your mind – a story being just a drawn out thought. It’s a picture you have from the past that you are sharing in the now. First of all, the narration has nothing to do with the now other than the fact that you are presently thinking about it or relating it. I think we can agree that the tale is about the past, not about what is now happening. As we know, there is no such thing as the past. You cannot find a place called the past. There is only the present moment. So the story is something your mind brings forth in the present that relates to an imagined past. I say imagined, because it isn’t really there. What you are describing is not going on. When you are telling the saga about this imagined happening, you can’t even have certainty that your story matches what supposedly happened if, indeed, anything did really occur. You have your perception of this past occurrence, peppered with your projections. If another who was involved in this story was to be the teller, the “facts” would likely be quite different. This would certainly be true if the other was the so-called victimizer in your story. So, we are not talking about “truth” when we refer to these narrations. If you say to your children that you are going to tell them a story, they won’t be expecting the evening news. They expect the tale to be made up. Are any of your stories really any different from that?

Let’s say that you want to tell a story about something you think happened to you that you wish had not occurred. We’ll say that it was painful, whether physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially, or some combination. You still feel that you suffer some from what happened. What now is the motivation for sharing this tale? This is what I want to encourage you to look at. I can’t tell you what your motivation might be for sharing any particular story, but if you are unconscious of your purpose, you are unaware of what you are actually doing and what effects it may have on your present moment. As we mentioned in the last message, your actions are very important. Through the action of retelling this story you are expressing your belief in its verity. Do you want your listener to think “Oh, poor you” and give you at least a spiritual hug to ease your pain? If that is the case, you are asking for validation of your painful saga, for support for your victimhood. You are asking them for agreement that this event should not have happened. Not only are you carrying around an old story that keeps you from noticing what is in the now, but your old story is based on not accepting what happened. Instead of experiencing what is present in the now, are you choosing to fill your life with sadness and anger from a thought memory in your head?

You may not choose to have a memory come to mind, but you do choose to hold onto it and to feed it through retelling. Is there a benefit from this choice? Does the sharing of your narrative allow you to release it forever? Likely there is a tradeoff where you receive a short term relief from the listener in exchange for a longer term continuance of the pain and suffering. If you continue to tell the story it is like another drink for the alcoholic. The attention helps for a while, but the benefit wears off and you feel compelled to tell the tale again. Of course you are not limited to one story; you likely have a collection of them in your arsenal. Look at the different elements in your narration and ask yourself if you are sure that each one is true. Be honest with yourself. You have nothing to gain from trying to pull your own leg. What happens if you accept the absolute perfection of that event having occurred? If this presents a big challenge you can ask Spirit to help you accept the perfection of the now. This story is coming into your now, but why? Is this tale to be told, or is it to be released so that it no longer blocks you from being present? It is not being suggested that you pretend as if this event never happened to you, to go into denial, but what happens when you choose not to be weighed down by something that is nowhere in sight in the present moment?

Perhaps an old story that you tell repeatedly is one that was highly traumatic for you, such as experiencing violence, molestation or rape, or the death of a loved one. Part of the belief that your mind carries and society reinforces is that you not only are saddled with this event for the rest of your life, but that it is your duty to never forget. A judgment, a condemnation of the act must be expressed. Such actions are not acceptable. It is your job to ensure that the deed is never forgotten, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The perpetrator deserves condemnation and punishment. This is what mass consciousness teaches. Now, accepting the perfection of the now isn’t a justification for an action. It is not saying that it is okay to intentionally harm another. But the truth is that it happened. Right or wrong it happened.  The truth is that whatever is in the now is happening. There is nothing you can do to change any of that. Asking Spirit to help you accept the perfection of what is happening or has happened does not mean you want to be shown that it was okay for somebody to do what they did. This is about you. It is about realizing that anything that is in your now has already been accepted into existence. Not accepting it is a denial that it has already happened. It is not changeable. Any attempt to accomplish that is a fool’s task, one at which you cannot succeed. Notice your pain; notice your emotions; return to the present and see what is there now. Pain and suffering are not constants. Everything moves and changes. Let it; watch it. The past is unchangeable. The future does not exist. There is just now. Do your best to focus here. This requires enormous will, but no understanding. It asks only that you persist in staying present, while noticing when you aren’t able to. Your job is not to understand. That is a gift that may or may not be brought into your now, but it is never the goal. There is no goal, only focus. Free will is not a matter of being able to choose what will happen; it is the ability to choose your reaction. Fighting what is or what has happened will lead to a life of pain and suffering, to war within you and with the world.

I want to remind you that every person out there, no matter how hurtful their actions might appear to be, is a Child of God, trying the best they can to find love, to find their way home, to find God. Like you they may not always be making the best choices in order to accomplish that, but they will always have the option to learn from the choices they make. Nobody will ever find the love that is the truth within them if their mind is consumed with victimhood.

The idea may be formulating now in your mind that telling stories might not be a wise course to choose to follow. However, it is always a good idea to look at why a story wants to be told. Perhaps you are listening to another tell their sad or angry story. That brings to your memory a similar type of story that you might have once told, but now you accept the perfection of what occurred and may feel a deep sense of gratitude for what happened. You are aware of how that event helped you to let go of a whole layer of victimhood and you feel freed by that acceptance. You might feel guided to share your story and what you have done with it. Rather than suggesting to them what they could do with their story or lecturing them on how it hurts them – usually not the best choice in any situation – you just talk about you. Maybe you tell your story in such a humorous manner that people laugh at it and that brings you enjoyment, because you have not elicited pity but have brought lightness to the whole situation. You may need to be able to laugh at yourself. Laughter helps to center people in the now. Stories can provide an absolutely  beautiful, divine service. Jesus conducted much of his teaching through stories or parables. They can bypass the ego defense structures people have in place to fend off challenging ideas. Sometimes I “out” Michael by sharing some of his personal stories when I am talking with groups. He is hesitant to do this himself, not wishing to appear arrogant or superior. He gets to observe – whether it is a story about a time he fell flat on his face but learned much, or a situation when he acted in the way I was suggesting he go, despite great fear – that others can benefit and gain courage and inspiration from hearing them. Stories can help move people off the pedestal where you may have placed them. Such tales remind you of what you hold in common with them. They can show possibility.

Again, ask yourself why you want to tell a story. It might prove helpful to go on a story diet, severely limiting the number you share. Instead, spend that energy investigating the stories, checking to see if holding on to them is keeping you out of experiencing the now, looking to see what untruths may be promulgated through them. Always look at the motive behind your wish to share a tale. As a story comes to mind, remember to notice if you have told it before. Be brutally honest with yourself about why the story bears repeat telling. The ego can be very convincing in encouraging you to share a story because it would be “good” for someone else to hear it, when the actual purpose is to get stroked for how evolved you are. There is nothing wrong with wanting a little attention, but it is helpful if you are upfront with yourself about your motives. When in doubt, you might wait until the story seems to be dragged out of you. Do you find yourself being in a competitive situation with others, wanting to get your story in? Try being a good listener, perhaps asking them questions. Is there something there for you in another’s story? Do you find yourself in judgment of what you are hearing? What are you projecting onto the other person? Realizing that will likely benefit you more than having your fifteen seconds of glory from telling your own tale. If you truly listen and find common ground with another, there may open up a space for you to offer true support. Be compassionate with others with their stories as you are hopefully gentle with yourself and your old sagas. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How should I deal with my strong feelings?

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There is a significant difference between noticing a feeling that comes up in your now and defining yourself by that feeling and accepting it as the truth about you. In the moment you may feel grief. To describe yourself by saying that you are grieving expresses a thought from the past which will carry on indefinitely. This becomes your belief of who you are. The former simply means that you are aware that a feeling is present. You can then pay attention to the next thing that comes to you. Rather than holding on to the feeling, which then becomes an idea and identification, you simply allow yourself to notice and release each feeling or thought as it emerges into your awareness. You can tell when someone has defined themself by an emotion, because they hold on to that same feeling/thought for many years. Holding on to old feelings and judgments keeps you out of the present. You become a prisoner of those emotions, caught in a web of suffering. We would be the last to say to ignore the feelings. Acknowledge them! Then let them go and let the next feeling or thought enter. Be aware of where there might be roles you think you should play to accompany the feelings that come. Are you supposed to act sad, angry, or as a victim? Recognize when you are playing a role and then move on. It is also not for you to analyze, justify, or rationalize what appears. What stories have you been telling yourself? Are you certain they are true?

I want to suggest that whoever in your life, past or present, you feel you really know…you are fooling yourself about that. You have no idea who they are. You see your projection upon them, not them themselves. In a similar manner you are aware that nobody around you fully and completely sees you. Part of that comes from your hiding in the belief that invisibility provides you with safety; that if people really knew who you were it would be all over. They would reject you, wouldn’t love you, would see you for the idiot you are afraid you are, and would ostracize you – throw you into the wilderness to the wolves. If people knew you “warts and all” they would not want to be around you. Instead you want to present the image that you believe is loveable. This is not honest. It is not the truth of who you are in the now, and you become hostage to upholding that disguise. These false fronts might include that you are a good mother, considerate, spiritual, honest, intelligent, successful, and on and on. These are ideas, images. What is a spiritual person like? They never lose their temper, judge others, feel guilt, or suffer pain? If inappropriate feelings or thoughts arise, you then want to deny them. If they are too strong, you may succumb to them, go into despair and self-blame, and define yourself as an unspiritual failure. Meanwhile, you are free to be who you are in this moment, which might be angry, grieving, sad, happy, jealous, or guilty. Feel that fully without defense or thinking you should be different. Experience the full spectrum of emotions, and then let them go to feel the next item on your palette.

If it is not okay to feel those things, you either cover them up or succumb to them and they will run your life. None of these feelings or ideas about yourself has anything to do with the truth of who you are. They are experiences to be had and then released. If you try to understand or explain the truth, you will fail. These beliefs become a place to hide, but provide no real peace. As we said before, you can never truly know another or yourself or be known because there are no such separate identities. All those defining thoughts about self and others are just that, thoughts. They come from the past and have nothing to do with the now, the only place you will ever be. In the now you will have many experiences, but none of them have anything to say about who you are, only about what is happening. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. The only thing you can be sure of is that the now always changes. If you hold on to it you leave little room for the new that is constantly appearing. Pain can dissipate quite quickly, but suffering happens when you hold on to your pain. Notice your emotion; take a breath; let it go; see what comes next. Receive each moment fully, without resistance. Let the perfection of the now wash over you. Hold on to none of it, whether it feels good or bad.

Why are we saying these things to you? We are not telling what the truth is or what your spiritual practice should be like. Such things cannot be done. Whatever is suggested here can be considered as “pointers”, pointing toward the truth but never defining it. That work is yours. Reading these words is of little value if they are just taken as ideas, and is of no value if they are taken as the truth. If you are at peace with all that is present in your life, continue as you are. If you are not at peace but fear rocking the boat, look at that and let it go. The longtime habit is to be run by the past and fearful of the future. The only “truth” I would attempt to offer is that anything you think is true is not and that holding on to any belief will only bring you more pain and suffering. Truth is being brought to you each moment for that moment. Receive it and let it go. See where that leads you.  It is one thing to experience a feeling of guilt. It is a whole different matter to hold on to the thought that you are guilty. I suspect that if all you focus on is the now you will eventually experience unconditional love. However, if you deny any present feeling that doesn’t look like it is unconditional loving, you will hold on to pain and suffering. The universe presents you with a feeling of guilt. Do you hold on to that guilt as the truth of you? Do you deny that you are guilty? Admit you have the feeling and let it go without analysis. If it sticks around you could ask yourself if you are absolutely certain of its truth. Do you have a thought or a belief that seems to justify the emotion? Do you feel guilty because you think you have done something wrong? There is an enormous gulf between emotion and thought. The thought likely triggers the emotion. Is that thought actually true? Do your words and actions determine what happens to everyone else on the planet? Are you that powerful? Are others helpless in the face of your will? Perhaps you believe that your thoughts, words, and actions affect only a few and not all. In that case, who is running the switchboard? Who determines which people are affected by you and how? Are these other people helpless in the face of your power? So, you are feeling guilty but can you say for sure that you actually are guilty? Do you see the difference between a feeling in the now and truth?

Question every thought that enters your mind. You don’t ignore the feelings, but you don’t give them a special value either. Notice them. Be aware of the thoughts. It is all just what is there right now in this moment. It is not right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable. What is the gift behind it? If your feeling of guilt actually stimulates you to investigate the truth behind your emotion, what a service it has provided for you. If you were to deny your feelings, those investigations would not take place. They also would not happen if you wallow in the guilt, holding on to it in your certainty that you are at fault. The negative emotion is a signal to you that you believe something that isn’t true but is running your life. With physical pain it is much easier to see what is to be done. If you touch a hot stove, you quickly pull your hand away. With psychological pain the lines aren’t as clear. You may actually believe that the thought that is triggering the pain is a good thought; one you should hold onto. Old thoughts are useless in dealing with psychological pain. When you listen to them, your mind is too busy to let true wisdom come in. If the past truly helped you to decide what to do now, we should have ended war long ago. Culturally, we would take nothing personally. We would not be in competition with others, fighting over the scraps that we believe are never enough. The old ways have never worked. Your spiritual practice and beliefs have also failed you. They don’t help you when you most feel the need of being saved. Thoughts can only come from the past, but you live in the now. When the point comes where you are only accepting what comes to you in the quiet space of the now, not listening to old thoughts from the past, then you will act with the same certainty and decisiveness that you employ instantly when confronted with physical danger or pain. Awareness of what appears to you in the now is similar to what happens when you do the five-step process. It might support you to check that process out.

We call it the perfection of the now and a gift because you have asked Spirit to support you in awakening. Therefore, everything that comes into your now is there to support waking up. If you are listening to your old thoughts, you cannot open the gift. There needs to be a quiet that comes from letting go of the old thoughts and the accompanying feelings. In that calm space you can hear the guidance for the moment. Nothing is your responsibility. You are carrying a weight you don’t need to bear. Let go of past thoughts. Give up worries about the future. Everything is happening in perfection. All you need to do is to let it happen. Your feelings are there to let you know when you aren’t doing that. Pay attention and then let go and notice the next thing that comes. It is recommended that you reread this message several times. Your ego mind wants to accept the validity of your feelings and to hold on to them. It wants to convert them into ideas of yourself that you can believe in and use to justify your pain and suffering.

Enjoy it all…or don’t. It doesn’t matter.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How do I deal with distraction?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Why is it so hard for me to find my perfect relationship?

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It is so hard for you to find your perfect relationship because you are looking, as the song goes, in all the wrong places. You are searching outside of yourself to find that relationship with another person, but your perfect relationship can only be with yourself. Let’s start at the beginning. When you are looking for your ideal or perfect relationship you are seeking completion, to be made whole. Perhaps, on another level, if someone else loves you, you just might feel loveable. All of this stems from the belief that you do not deserve love, that you are not a good person, and that you are not loveable. The grounds for your desire for a perfect relationship are in your belief in your separation from God and in scarcity, that there is not enough for you. This sense of lack rules every aspect of your life and the whole world around you. You think that you are incomplete, separate from each other, from Divinity, and from Spirit – that there is no Oneness. However, nobody can make you feel whole because you are already whole. No matter what relationship you might attract to yourself, your beliefs will remain unchanged. Though the relationship may seem to begin in the blissful fantasy of having found eternal love, as time passes the realization painfully descends upon you that, no, you haven’t. Difficulties and challenges emerge in the relationship. You were expecting that other person to come in and fix everything for you. That’s far beyond their pay grade. Nobody can fix anyone else. Whatever lacks, deficiencies, or problems you feel you have are your creation and not theirs.

This relationship you are looking for is the one you have with yourself. Whatever your mind tells you that you wish to receive from another – notice that. This is where you believe in a lack in yourself. Fortunately, the truth is that you lack nothing and that you are fully lovable. You are a Divine Child of God, created in the image of Divinity. You could no more be lacking in anything than could God be deficient in any way. The idea is pure insanity, but it is that craziness that got you stuck in this illusion to begin with. Nobody forced you into this illusion. You are here by choice – whether you remember the choosing or not – along with your beliefs of lack, guilt, and not being deserving of love. Your job is to notice that. Be aware when limiting thoughts arise. Notice when you have the thought that another person can be your savior, can make you feel whole and complete. It would not be an easy job to change those thoughts you now have; most likely that task is impossible. It is sufficient for you to notice that you have them, without trying either to deny the thoughts or to run away from them. Accept those thoughts. Own them. “I am unlovable. I am guilt. I am jealousy. I am lack.” Don’t divert your awareness from these thoughts. Notice them. Be with them. If you find you are blaming or judging yourself for these thoughts, then pay attention to that. Your job is to simply be alert as to what flows through your mind, if possible without any attempt to change what is there, but certainly noticing such thoughts if they arise. It is not for you to try to change your outer world, nor your inner world. All you have to do is notice and keep noticing. Accept what is there.

Remember always that your partner, as well as all other people, is your mirror. You project on them what you believe to be true for yourself. Often you do not wish to face these self judgments, so it feels safer to project them on another while denying that it is about you. This is usually done unconsciously. That is why it is so important to look at every thought that enters your mind. If the thought comes that your partner can be so selfish, look at that. “I am selfishness” is your belief. Don’t fight it. Don’t try to change your behavior. Simply observe and accept. Do not let a single projection live on without this kind of examination. As long as you deny this part of yourself and see it only in others, it will continue to be a painful and hopeless problem in your life. Your perfect love is you. As you truly realize that through accepting the perfection of you as you are, you will feel yourself engulfed in love with everyone you meet and every situation you encounter. Perhaps you may find yourself sharing your living space and/or your life with another, but this won’t be because they are your perfect partner or because you feel a need for their presence to feel loved and completed. They will simply reflect or mirror the love you have for yourself.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of how the mass consciousness has formed and fed you. You are not a victim to this, but have likely been an unconscious participant. Now it is time for full awareness. One of the ways mass consciousness works is to tell you that you should have a partner and also, most likely, children. It may say that your relationship is to be forever, that separation or divorce is wrong. To change partners can bring a sense of failure and guilt. Having more than one relationship at a time is also usually frowned on by that societal teaching, leading to further guilt. There is no right or wrong in any of your actions, but, again, notice your thoughts around these things. There may be contradictory messages that come to you from the “spiritual” realms. This guidance from teachers or teachings might tell you that you should not have a partner, that you should be celibate. You should not even entertain sexual thoughts. This is just as confusing as the judgment that you should have a relationship. Some of you are dealing simultaneously with both teachings. Letting beliefs dictate your actions in the hope that your separation from God will end or that you will awaken is not going to happen. Whatever you resist will persist. Your job is not to try to control or change your behavior, but to just notice what is there. Otherwise you are putting things outside of yourself, therefore not accepting what is. Any fight or struggle to oppose what is will leave you in the perpetual state of conflict. The peace of God is not there.

To be One with God, be One with Yourself. Perhaps you notice no desire for a relationship or you may notice an intense desire for a partner or simply for sex. It doesn’t matter what the thoughts and desires tell you. Just notice and accept the perfection of what you are feeling or experiencing. In your perfect relationship with yourself there is no judgment or need to change. You accept yourself exactly as you are. Will this acceptance be followed by a difference in the kind of thoughts that enter your mind? It is likely, but not if your “acceptance” is rooted in the hope for such change. Notice such thoughts and stay with whatever is present for you. You are becoming your perfect relationship. Lovely!

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

How am I to deal with disease?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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