How can I learn to love myself?

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We have a question that came in response to the previous message on co-dependency. It is paraphrased here.

Many of our problems seem to come from not being loved as a child, and then we feel we have a black hole inside that needs to be filled. All spiritual answers I have heard are saying the same thing, that you must love yourself. But how to love yourself if we don’t know how to do it or even know what love is? How do we get to know if no one shows us? I’m sure the answer is true, but I feel a big blaming towards the one who doesn’t have love. My feeling is that the ones who have love in their life should show the others love. I have read “You shall love others as yourself” from Jesus. He didn’t say, “You have to love yourself first,” as I often hear from spiritual books and teachers. That has always made me wonder, feel, or sense that this interpretation can make people more egocentric.

Thank you for that wonderful question. Hopefully we will deal with all aspects of it. I wish to begin by saying that not many, but all your problems come from wanting your personal will to have precedence over the Will of God. They germinate from your wish for what is to be different than it is. What is is the will of God. It is God’s gift to you in this moment, the perfect thing for you. It is given with love because God is Love and could give nothing else. It can feel painful to you because your personal will wants something else, contrary to what God is providing. If you maintain that separation, you will suffer and feel unloved. This has nothing to do with how you were raised. Your perceptions about your upbringing have everything to do with your beliefs and projections, in your separation from the Divine Love of God. I will tell you the absolute truth about your parents. They, Divine Children of God, were doing the best that they could. Mostly they were choosing personal will over Divine Will as all humans do most of the time. If you want to know how to love, begin by thanking your parents for not only doing their best, but for playing the role that needed to be enacted in your life to best support your awakening process. Your work now is to go inside and see where you hold your parents in judgment; that place where you do not love them is where you also do not love yourself. Ask Spirit or God to assist you in receiving the gift that your parents were and are for you. Wherever you feel less than full acceptance, that is the work for you to do. To be a victim is to say to God that “You are wrong”. It is to choose your personal will over that of God. It is to state that you think you know better. It is to condemn yourself to misery and separation from feeling the Love of God. While believing that God didn’t give you what you wanted, it was you who resisted and didn’t want what God gave you. Give up your separation. Give up your personal will. Stop fighting what is, while wanting things to be different. This is what being in the now is. Have the intention to accept God’s Will for you. Trust what is here now, knowing that it is the highest and the best thing.

The question about loving yourself, the spiritual teaching…I can understand your confusion. How does one go about loving oneself? How do we define love? What is it? Other good questions. It is said that the truth that can be written or stated is not the whole truth. Words cannot explain what love is. We encourage you to approach these questions using the process of elimination. What is not love? We have already provided one enormous hint. Choosing personal will over Divine Will is not love. If God is Love, then not choosing God’s Will is not choosing love. This likely means that everything you have ever learned about love is probably untrue. If it is about getting your personal desires met, it is not about love. Look at all the goals you have for your personal self. Wanting to feel loved is a goal for your personal self. Stop striving for those things. Instead focus on receiving the love that God is giving you each moment of every day. See what that is. Reread the last message and see all the aspects of co-dependency that are mistaken for love. Anything you wish to receive from anybody else is not an expression of love. Those are expressions of lack, of neediness. God provides everything you need in the now. Looking elsewhere is a refusal to accept the Will of God.

You are not a hole that needs to be filled. You are a Divine Child of God, perfect as you are. The human condition is belief in separation from God. That is the biblical fall. It encompasses not feeling loved or loveable, of feeling guilty. This has nothing to do with your parents. It has to do with you. This is not blame. This is the human condition. You share it with everyone on the planet. Everyone’s job is to let go of their personal will and to follow the Will of God, to accept the perfection that God is presenting in the ever changing and morphing present. Whatever you are experiencing now that is not acceptable to you is your creation. That is not blame; it is how it is. If you pretend this is not your creation, you give away all your power. When you choose to want your will to rule, you create these painful experiences to appear to be real. Use your power by surrendering it to God instead of pretending to be a victim. To say that others who have love should share it with you is an expression of victimhood, of co-dependency. You are saying that you need somebody else to do this work for you, but they cannot do that. You are in charge of your experience, not them. If they could control your life by determining whether to give you love, you certainly would be a helpless victim. Fortunately, this is not the case.

Nobody can show you love because others act as your mirror. If you are not loving yourself, if you are not accepting yourself as you are right now, then you will not find that love reflected at you from others. Oh, you might bask in it for a while, but the feeling of being loved won’t stick. To ask for others to show you love is not a realistic request. If another is living in love, they can only spread that love to everyone else on the planet. This is not even a choice. If others are not in such a space, they have nothing to give. In either case, the effect on the one who feels unloved will be nil. So, to ask for others to share love with you is a futile gesture. That can only start with you. Then you can begin to receive what has always been there for you. The irony, of course, is that when you are capable of receiving love you have no need to do so. Again, give up your personal will’s need to be shown love, and surrender to the Will of God who will always rain love down upon you. Again, in the final analysis, only you can do this work. Nobody can do it for you. That may sound frightening; it may leave you feeling helpless, but ultimately it is the most empowering thing that you could hear. To feel love, you do not need anybody else to do anything or to act in any certain way toward the world. You have the absolute power here. You are not and cannot be a victim because it is all in your hands.

Let’s go back to the statement about spiritual teachers saying that the first thing is to love yourself and your fear that this might lead people to becoming more egocentric, just thinking about themselves. If one’s interpretation of loving yourself amounts to looking at what you want to have in your life and feeling that you deserve to have these desires met, then that is an endorsement for following personal will. That is not surrendering to the Will and Love of God. It could be said that it is an act of thinking you know better than God what is best for you. It is an act of resistance to God’s Love. It does not demonstrate trust; it is not an acceptance of the now. If that is how “loving oneself first” is interpreted, you have a good point. Now, looking at the biblical statement from Jesus which is often interpreted as, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” there arises a curious question. If you are not loving yourself, does that mean not to love others either? Perhaps this is not a statement of putting yourself or others in the supreme position, but one of expressing the Oneness between you. You are encouraged to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, not so that you have a technique for getting what you want, but as a statement of fact. As you do to others, you at the same time do to yourself. It can be no other way. There is no separation.

Your job, as was mentioned in the last message, is to take care of yourself. As you do that, there is no problem with having the intention to give loving service to all others around you, not because it is the right thing to do, but because it requires you to be in the now and to pay attention to loving energy. As you do this you become aware of every place where you hold a judgment about another. You own that judgment, realizing it is one you hold toward yourself. You work with that in yourself until you look out and see nothing but loving acceptance of the other. Truly loving others is quite an accomplishment that should keep you busy for a while. If you hold the thought that your feelings of love are other people’s responsibility, that you don’t know how to love yourself so they have to do it for you, to teach you how, then I am sorry to inform you that you will remain unhappy and feel unloved and separate from God for as long as you hold onto that belief. This is not blame. This is how it is. Fortunately, you have absolute choice here. You can choose to follow the Will of God instead of your personal will. You can choose to accept and face the now to see what that is. Ultimately, we are not talking about a question of love, particularly in terms of what most human’s understanding for that term is.  We are talking about will. Is it your will or is it God’s Will?

Let me bring this to a conclusion by reminding you about how you might go about surrendering to the Will of God while releasing your personal will. This is not a formula. This is not telling you the way to do this. This is not written in stone. These are simply pointers. Ultimately, your inner Divine Knowing will guide you. To begin with, you can notice two things. First observe your thoughts. Be aware of when the thoughts indicate that you don’t want things to be as they are or where you want the future to be different from the present. Notice when the thoughts are about being a victim of your past. As you are aware of these thoughts, do your best not to act on them. Just be conscious they are there in your present. Don’t allow your mind to follow long trains of thought along those tracks. These are thoughts from your personal will. Notice they are there and give them to God, to Spirit, to Me, to Someone Else. Holding on to the now as being unsatisfactory creates the illusion of separation from God, and therefore, from the Will of God. How it is right now is God’s gift to you; whether you understand it or not doesn’t matter. Your only task is to look at it as you release your judgmental thoughts. Try to really see what is here. Focus on that rather than on what is not here. As you become practiced in this you will notice that what is here is in constant motion, changing, morphing, reforming. Replace your thoughts about how it should be or about what is missing with your awareness of what it is.

I said there would be two things and that was the first. Secondly, notice that you might be having emotional reactions to what is in your now, both connected to the noticing of what is happening and to your thoughts. These feelings are your reactions to your beliefs in separation. You are reacting to what isn’t rather than to what is. Notice those feelings and stay as present as you can with them. If your mind wants to rationalize the feelings as being caused by this or that or feeling victim to whatever this or that is, notice and let the thoughts go. Whatever your mind is focusing on as a cause is not here now. If a cause should be here in your now, then action might be appropriate, but usually it isn’t present. A car headed directly at you is in your now. Your parents are not likely here now, nor are world events you have read or heard about. What is here right now? Your feelings are here, so accept them. There is no need to act on them, just let them be present and release any need to change them or to judge yourself for having them. Simply experience them until they are no longer in your now. Wherever your feelings or your thoughts try to lead you, do your best not to follow. Stay with what is happening. It is that simple, though not necessarily easy. Your habit is to follow the ego driven personal will, but God is in the now.

God’s Love is in the now. God is within you. You are Divine. You will never experience that just because I am telling you who you are or should other people share that with you. If you are feeling separate from God and lack trust in the perfection of what is being brought to you, you will not likely experience your Divine Nature. When you don’t accept the now, you are expressing distrust in God and choosing your personal will over God’s. If you want to follow God’s will, stop! Stop following your own will. You do this through practice, by welcoming and saying thank you to whatever is there, and by fully accepting your feelings without trying to change them. You can do this. You are Love. You are Divine. As your Creator is, so are you. One and the same. Could not be different. The awareness of this arrives as you stop resisting God’s gifts, as you let go of efforts to try to change things or to make yourself better. That’s part of the reason that We say:

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Can you explain to us about co-dependency?

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This question surfaced in a group several months ago, but now the time has come to respond to it. We will begin by talking about what is referred to as the special relationship in A Course in Miracles. The special relationship is a co-dependent relationship. Since most human relationships are special, they are in most cases co-dependent. If your mind wants to limit the term co-dependency to extreme or diagnosable relationships, it is aiming a bit high. But first, let Us step back and define the special relationship. It has been some time since we have mentioned this, and likely before many of you began reading the messages. In the special relationship one person wants the other to act in a specific way, to play a certain role. For example, you meet someone and they make you feel special; they make you feel loveable. Whatever it is that they do that makes you feel good or special, you want them to continue. This is co-dependency. You have a need for them to keep on doing those things that make you feel so wonderful. Normally in the special relationship this neediness goes both ways, but let’s just stay with you for now. There is a flip side to the co-dependent relationship. This is where the words or actions of someone you spend a bit of time with seem to cause you upset, pain, or negative emotions. You blame them for your negative reactions. You point the finger; You think you are going through what you are feeling because of them. This is a co-dependent relationship. Special relationships usually have a mix of both the positive and the negative triggers. As we have talked about recently, these liaisons involve projection. We have focused more on the negative aspect there, where you don’t wish to see yourself as having a certain quality so you can then convince yourself that it is the other and not you who is that way. This is co-dependency.

The projecting goes both ways, though. If you are unable to see yourself as loveable, you let another do that for you. The biggest problem here is that, as with all projections, deep inside you believe it isn’t true. You don’t love yourself or believe that you are deserving of love. Sooner or later your denial surfaces and you prove your partner to be wrong. You will not be able to continue performing for them and they will not be able to always act as you wish them to. It feels so good to have someone tell you that you are loveable, but you don’t really trust that. You begin to resent having to perform for them. You become upset if they change in any way or show you anything but unconditional acceptance. The honeymoon is over. The flame of your relationship was based on the other causing you to feel in a certain way, but now that has blown out. The things that used to turn you on begin to turn you off. This is the normal trajectory of the co-dependent relationship. If you doggedly hold on to the need for them to complete you, the battle will rage on and on. The negative aspects of projection may grow to exceed the positive ones. At this point you may decide to pull the plug. Since the problem is with the other, you have obviously picked wrongly. You seek another relationship. Until you give up co-dependency, reclaim your projections, and take responsibility for everything in your life as your creation, the new relationship will go through the same cycle. In despair somewhere along the way, you may decide to stay with the relationship you have, withdrawing from your partner and settling for feeling separate and unloved, deciding on some level that is all you are worth. Even then, there is still the possibility that you can stop looking to your partner for the love you want. The only solution, whether choosing fight or flight, is to come to the point of recognition that this isn’t working and it is time to try something else.

Sometimes in this special relationship you feel that you must take responsibility for the other. This often happens for parents, but it can just as well be a part of a committed relationship. Now you are doubly trapped because the bond is not only unfulfilling, but you have too much guilt to be able to leave. The other person needs you, or so you believe.

So, what is there beyond co-dependency? The relationship that is not marked by specialness can be called a holy relationship. In this association you have no desire for the other to be or do anything different from what they are now expressing. You accept them as they are. You love them without conditions. It is not possible to express unconditional love for another unless you are already doing that for yourself. When you are fully accepting yourself, you notice where you have guilt, where you are judging, where you are unkind to yourself, where you are experiencing strong emotions, and you commit to loving, accepting, and forgiving all of that. You take full responsibility for what you are thinking and feeling about yourself. You own your projections mirrored in those who trigger you. You do not allow these projections to go unchallenged. Remind yourself that this is you. This is what you are not wanting to face in yourself. Notice what you are holding to be true about yourself from both your own thoughts and from your projections and ask if those thoughts are really true. Work with all of that. Own it all. Take responsibility and sort through it. Look nowhere but within for the love you seek. Where you find this challenging, give it to Spirit, give it to God.

Let go of those thoughts. Don’t hold on to them or follow them. Don’t act from them. Notice them and move on. If the thoughts return, be willing to stare them in the face. Look deeply to see if there is indeed truth there. I know they are not true, but you must stay with them until you too know it. You are the Divine Child of God, made in the image of your Creator, an entity of love. That’s all you can be. Anything else you are holding on to is not the truth. It stems from the belief that you have separated from God. That is not possible. That is an illusion. That is the illusion. The holy relationship is your relationship with the Divine; it is only about unconditional love. The only function of the special relationship is to show you where you are co-dependent and not giving everything to God. It is an opportunity to recognize where you hold untruths about yourself so that you can realize your Oneness with God. Your relationships with others don’t exist in order for you to get something from them, but as places for you to give love. You have no need to be completed. You are whole. It is never about changing another or yourself. It is all about accepting the Divinity which is the truth of all.

I want to remind you that co-dependency is not limited to the perceived negative aspects, to the places where you judge or feel yourself to be victim to another. It is just as significant with the things you perceive coming from others that you consider to be positive. When you know that you are love, created in the image of God, how can you have any need to hear that from another. The latter expression can only feel good to you, feel special, if you have doubts as to its veracity. Whether the reinforcement from others feels to be negative or positive, it is just a pointer to where you are holding yourself separate from God. Give silent thanks for the reminder, take it to heart, and go to work.

Over time you will find yourself unable to hold on to the praise of others. You will perhaps begin to doubt their sincerity. You decide they are just being nice or that they have ulterior motives, they want something from you. They’re buttering you up, “kissing your ass”. The bottom line is that you cannot receive from them something you don’t know to be true. If you know its truth, the praise is redundant. Otherwise, it may feel good for a moment but, like with any drug, the effect begins to wear off and you desire another hit. You start to do things to win other’s approval. Perhaps you do things to prove they are wrong in their praise. The bottom line is that you cannot receive from them something you don’t know to be true.

If you know you are love, you will have nothing but love for others, no matter what they might say or do. As you are practicing loving yourself unconditionally, letting go of all guilt, judgment, self-hatred – think about loving others unconditionally. Have the intention to give love to everyone you meet, rather than looking for what you can get. See their Divinity. Look through their pretence at being human and unlovable. Observe the truth of them. Know they are doing the best they can and offer whatever you can to lighten their load. Have a holy relationship with everybody. Above all, have that with yourself, particularly when you are aware of its absence. Be kind, loving, and gentle to yourself and ask for Spirit to come help you release your personal will and surrender to the Will of God, Who only loves you.

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

It seems like the world is falling apart; how can I deal with my fear?

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We wish to begin by returning to our definition of reality. It is quite simple. Something is real if it never changes. Anything that can change is unreal or illusory. When you observe anything going on in the world, change is involved. If everything in the world remained the same, no fear would likely be felt. Fear is of something different and uncontrollable happening. I suppose one could be afraid of the same horrible thing repeating forever, but your experience shows that the last thing you could say is that anything ever stays the same. The worst that could happen is that one undesirable thing mutates into another one. The only thing that ultimately matters is reality. None of the things that comprise “the world falling apart” matter in the end. Whatever is here today in the world will one day not be here. Everything that is presently in the world, was, at some time previously, not here – including the earth itself, the solar system, and the universe. All in the physical experience is transient.

You are. That’s it. Notice I have placed no words after are. I haven’t limited or defined you in any way. I haven’t mentioned anything about a physical body or a gender. I mentioned no nationality or religion. Nothing was said about a talent or vulnerability. I am only speaking of you. You are. That is reality. Any words that might be placed after are would not represent the true you. They would not be talking about anything permanent. This body will die, but you are. Beyond all physical existence, you are.

Every fear that you have is a child of your deepest dread – your death. When there is war on the planet, it is your own anxiety about death that is touched. If you feel worried about something happening to your children or other loved ones, it is all projection. It is your own demise that you don’t want to face. If you are worried about losing your job, behind that terror is your fear of death. No job, no money, no shelter, no food, and no health care – something will kill you. I can tell you the truth, or you can read it in numerous other places. There is no death. You are. You cannot but be. It is your Divine nature. You are. The part of you that is convinced that who you are is a body lives in constant fear of annihilation. You might be able to hide from it. You may bargain with the devil to gain immortality. Some do that by trying to be a “good” person in the hopes that God might smile upon them. Some try to leave their mark on the world so they might live on forever. Others hope to remain alive through their descendants. All of this is in the futile wish that you will be worthy, the hope that God might accept and love you, might welcome you back. This pointlessness is a wonderful thing. The attempt to be immortal guarantees a continuance of your sufferings. Behind this futility lies the possibility that you might finally say, “Enough!” You can’t earn immortality; you already have it. Trying to gain what you already have is a fool’s task. Not only is it unachievable, but it keeps you from enjoying your birthright.

Some years ago we spent a lot of time talking about fear in these messages. It is time to make a return. The only way that you can discover for yourself that your fear is not real is to fully experience it. Most people when confronted with fear choose either denial – pretending it’s not there – or indulgence – “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die”, which could be drugs, sex, overeating, surrounding yourself with friends, throwing yourself into a cause, or becoming a workaholic. If you want to overcome your fear of death, you must confront it. You must stare it right in the face. What you will find if you truly do that is that there is no fear and death doesn’t exist. This is not something you can ever deal with on a mental level. Your mind can only succeed in making death real and justifying your fear. Nor is it a question of overcoming fear, which would only serve to make it real. That is the game of duality, creating separation and then doing battle with an enemy. It is a fight that will never end. There will be a perpetual supply of threats in the illusion, each one more convincing than the last. How much toilet paper can you stockpile before there is an end to fear? It is not about overcoming fear. It is time to leap right into the mouth of your terror.

Ask yourself where in the body you feel this fear, where it is being held. Maybe it feels like a tight ball in your solar plexus. Locate it wherever it seems to be. On a mental level you may “know” that the fear is not real. But this is not about knowing or understanding. There is nothing to change, and nothing you can do to make it go away. The belief or idea that triggers the fear isn’t real or true. What is there is any energy that seems to be going on in the body that you are labeling as fear. As you are experiencing these thoughts and feelings you can use the pointer we gave recently of “Next, please”. Allow that thought to go and let the next one come. That might be all it takes. On the other hand, you may find that regardless of the thoughts you dismiss, the feeling persists in the body. If that is the case, go into this feeling, face it. Shut down your mind. Make no attempt to explain, understand or justify the feeling. Don’t try to chase it away or destroy it. Don’t make it wrong or right. All of those activities make it real and give it “life”. Look at it. Feel it. Fully experience it. Go deep into this “fear”. Do this thoughtlessly. We have given you a technique for doing just this, though it hasn’t been mentioned in a while. If fear seems to be present in any form, it may be time to either dust this off or use it for the first time. If you click onto this link for the five-step process, you will find an explanation of how to do it, as well as a download which guides you through the five steps. It is also available on another page in Swedish. Your job – you have only one simple job – is to go into any fear you feel until it dissipates. This it will do because if you focus on something that isn’t there, without any thoughts in your mind, you will become fully aware that it is illusory. There is simply nothing present but the Love of God. The supposed fear disappears into the nothingness from whence it came.

As you are doing that, why not go for the gold? Look at your fear of death. I predict that when you look at this worry and see that it is not real and that, therefore, death is not real, your experience of life will be quite different. As you face your fright and watch it dissolve, so that you go through your days fearlessly, you are going to find yourself living in a whole new world. One thing you will become aware of is how fear-based your daily activities have been. You will be acutely aware of when a thing is done out of fear rather than from the joy and love of doing it. Until you stop reacting to God’s Love with apprehension, you will not know who you are. You will have no clear idea of how to behave within this illusion. Allowing the presence of fear makes you feel not worthy, as if you don’t deserve Love or peace. You do not merit Oneness; you are doomed to struggle for everything you wish to have. As long as fear is present there will be suffering and you will remain asleep in that nightmare. Fear is not the opposite of Love. It blocks out the Love so that you can neither see nor feel it, just as the clouds are not the opposite of the sun. When they dissipate you notice the sun which was always there. Without fear you can only act out of Love, you can only be the sun, because that is who you are.

I am not claiming that he was a great spiritual master, but about ninety years ago during that period known in America as the Great Depression President Franklin D. Roosevelt came on his weekly radio talk to the nation and declared, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself”. Millions heard this message. How many took it to heart? Probably not so many, but truth was told to the masses through a new universal forum. This was coming from a man so crippled by polio he could hardly get up from his wheelchair. Despite this disability he became the longest serving president in American history. Whether people loved or hated him, and there were plenty of both, here was a voice of truth. That message is still there for you today. Go into your fear. Face it fearlessly or fearfully, but face it. You have nothing to lose but your fear, and it is of no value to you. You don’t want it. It protects you only from Love, from your Divinity. It serves you only as a wakeup call. It does not keep you safe or alive. Your life can never be threatened by anything. The body you are using has instincts born and bred into it that serve to protect the physical life. Instincts help you jump out of the path of a moving car. This is not fear-based. You don’t have time for fear to direct your escape. The anxiety comes afterward. It keeps you from ever crossing the road. Fear does not keep you safe; it sustains your pain and suffering. Terror deals with threats that are in the mind rather than in the now. Bodily death is inevitable. Fear cannot stave that off. But, the physical death, like the physical life, is ultimately meaningless. Facing fear will help you to understand that. Nothing stands in the way of your opening to accept the truth of who you are, except your fear.

Fear wonders how you can function in the world, taking care of yourself and your loved ones. Fear believes that is all on your shoulders. Fear does not trust God, Spirit, or Divinity. Everything is being handled on a level of perfection that is beyond comprehension, but fear is insisting that you have to be in control, handling everything, while at the same time knowing you are perfectly unable to carry out that task. You are afraid to trust and afraid of your own lack of power. What a double whammy fear packs. The only way out is through. Face your worst fears. Today. Now.

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

Will you speak to us again about the Coronavirus?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

If the world is an illusion, why does it matter what I do?

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That is a very good question, though all questions are very good questions. It sounds as if it might be a question from the ego to try to trip me up, but it isn’t really. It is a very profound, important, and deep question. We have been talking about this world being an illusion; that nothing here is real; that nothing is really happening. If that is the case then why should it make any difference at all what somebody does? What difference does it make if you help or hurt others, if you love them or kill them? None of it is real, so there is no consequence for any action because nothing happened. Why not just do whatever brings you the most pleasure in each moment, no matter what the illusionary effect upon another?

Since this is the world of duality there are two answers to this question. The first one is that you are absolutely right. It makes no difference at all what you do. It doesn’t matter what happens here. It is inconsequential if you appear to make situations better or worse. You’re right. It is not real. Nothing is really happening. The part of you that believes that it does make a difference is trying to do one of two things. First, you may be trying to create a heaven on earth. If that is true with you, I will just say “Good luck with that, love”, and suggest you read this previous message. Secondly, the whole idea of thinking that anything you do here makes a difference is motivated by an attempt to win the approval and forgiveness of God. The thought is that if you can do the right thing, if you can guess what God wants you to do – which is the entire basis for how the Bible is interpreted – you can get back in God’s good graces. Of course the Old Testament shows that if you fail to do this all hell will break loose. You will be punished and probably killed, or worse, if you don’t do God’s will. This is your ego’s teaching about why what you do in a body matters. On that level, on the level of God caring, it doesn’t matter. God is not going to love you more or less based on what you do or don’t do here. God has no idea that you are even here. This is purely your dream. It is your belief that you have separated from God. He does not have a horse in this race. God loves you unconditionally. You are his beloved only Child and there is nothing you could possibly do to make Him love you more or make Him love you less. That is the end of it. Again, on that level it makes absolutely no difference what you do here.

Now for the long awaited and eagerly anticipated dualistic answer, the other side of the coin. Yes there is a difference here. Here’s what the difference is. You don’t always want to face it and it doesn’t always feel this way, but you are in hell. What you do or don’t do here makes no difference to the illusion. It does make a difference to your experience of the illusion. If you treat yourself in a loving way, if you notice where you feel guilt or pain or where you are suffering, and you bring all of that to Spirit, what happens is not that you create heaven on earth, but you create a space of experiencing less and less pain. It’s only about you. That might sound selfish to you, but it is only about you. Everything else is your creation, your reflection, your mirror. You think there is a world out there to fix, but it is your mind that is creating that world. The only fixing that can be done is in your mind. That adapting means aligning with Spirit instead of with ego. Back to the original question that sounded like an ego trap, well, it can be. The ego may be yelling in your ear that since this is all an illusion and nothing really matters that you have permission to do anything to anybody without consequences. You can do anything and get away with it. That’s one way the ego can talk to you. This is a ruse; it’s a trick; it’s a magic show. Whatever you do to someone else you do to yourself. If you hurt them, you hurt yourself. If you steal from them, you steal from yourself. The only reason to take from another comes from the belief that you don’t have enough. If that is your belief, no amount of taking from others will change this conviction. Your lack is in your mind and not in the world. Now, in addition to still not having enough, you are building up more guilt. The part of you that believes you are being judged by God fears that your hand is getting worse and worse. When the game is over you will be slaughtered by God. Remember, this is not about God; it is about you and your experience.

The difference it does make is that if you act from the guidance of ego, your experience in a body is going to be painful. If on the other hand you act on the guidance of Spirit, your experience of being in a body, of being in the illusion, is going to become increasingly pleasant and enjoyable. This is not because the world is likely to change around you, but your way of seeing it will change. It matters to you what you do in the world. If you want to experience the peace and the love that are your birthright, then what you do is to listen to Spirit one hundred percent of the time. You listen to ego zero percent of the time. Now you are laughing! Of course you’re at times going to listen to your ego, but hold the intention to always listen to Spirit. When you notice yourself acting from ego – stop! Bring it to Spirit. Beyond that, become proactive. Don’t wait until the shit hits the fan before you ask Spirit what to do. It’s very hard to hear Spirit when you are in chaos….and you’ve got shit all over your face. It’s very difficult to be aware of Spirit at that time. Get in the habit of talking to Spirit before you get into the deep doo doo. When you wake up in the morning, ask Spirit what He would have you do today. Get into the habit of asking Spirit “What would you have me do?” Listen for the response and then do it. If you can remember that one time a day it is enormous. And then it will be twice a day, three times a day; it will become more and more a constant way of being. As you develop this habit of asking Spirit for guidance and following it, Spirit will communicate to you more and more clearly. Your ability to hear will sharpen. You will develop the capacity to anticipate those moments that would have previously been quite troublesome for you, so that you can ask for help before the flame is ignited. Remember that what you are always asking for is to change your way of thinking and your way of seeing. You want to see everything through Spirit’s eyes; you are not asking Spirit to intervene and change the world. Spirit sees the whole picture and is bringing you exactly the world experience you can use in order to awaken. Asking Spirit to interfere implies that you know better how things should be. It goes back to believing your actions make a difference.

So, to return to the question, does it make any difference in this world of illusion what you do? To God, no; to you, yes. Allow yourself to be freed by the first answer we gave. Remind yourself whenever you are feeling guilty about anything you have done or not done, “sins” of commission or “sins” of omission, that it doesn’t matter. Your job is not to change your behavior but to change your mind. Ask Spirit to remind you that you are innocent, that there is nothing you need to do or anything you could do that would be wrong. You don’t even need to ask Spirit for help. God will not judge you, period. What makes a difference is choosing an action that is aligned with Spirit, not because it is the right thing to do but simply because it is aligned with truth and love and helps bring you the experience of peace. Such alignment can take hours, days, weeks, months, and maybe years off this period of being in hell that you have been experiencing. Both the time and intensity can be reduced. You can feel yourself to be moving off of death row. Ultimately time is an illusion, but while you feel yourself to be here it can feel infinite. It feels like it goes on and on and on, like the only end to it is a graceful death. But even death brings no conclusion, because it, too, is not real. You cannot be killed. You go on. Awake or asleep, you go on. In agony or in peace, you go on. All that is certain is that your pain will not go on forever because forever is eternity and in eternity you are One with God. The illusion has a beginning and an ending. Both have already happened; in fact they never happened at all. All that seems to keep your separate life alive is your belief that it is real. By asking for Spirit’s guidance in every moment that you remember to do so, you come closer and closer to realizing a freedom from the prison you have created. The ego mind that created this illusory jail cannot end it. That is why you must ask and listen for Spirit’s help.

It is very simple. It is easy. You have the choice to listen to and follow the guidance of Spirit. There is no duality in that there is only one thing to do, one choice to make. The more you do it, the better you get at is; the easier it becomes. The better you get at it, the more you will do it. Everything becomes lighter and easier. The truth is always simple – and beautiful. We are always here at every moment, whispering in your ear. “Come this way. Come this way.” All you have to do is to allow yourself to become quiet enough to hear. If there is too much ego chatter and noise, give that to Spirit, and ask again to hear with Spirit’s ears and to see through Spirit’s eyes. Nothing else. Act from that place with trust and love. And peace.

Good Now

Sanhia

If the world is an illusion, why does it feel so real?

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The ego is many things, but one thing that it is not is dumb. Your ego is very clever and incredibly fast. It has convinced you that it is something separate from you, as it has convinced you that you are separate from God. It seems as if what the ego shows you and tells you is not coming from within yourself but is simply obvious truth that the outer world is presenting. The ego convinces you of your victimhood, pain, and suffering, while hiding the truth that everything springs from your own mind. We are not going to go back over the creation story now, though you can click here if you wish to revisit it. The bottom line of this creation story is that somewhere along the line the ego voice wanted to create a place for you to hide. It had to be a place that was so well hidden that you could not only hide from God, but also from the truth of yourself. Your ego needed to create such a compelling, convincing scene that you could totally believe in it. I am saying that the ego created this, but of course the ego is a part of you. The human mind assumes that only God could have created such an enormous and complicated universe, but it was you, the Divine Son of God, created in God’s image, who accomplished this. So through your ego you created this world with its laws that appear to have a consistency about them – although physicists for years have realized that this “consistency” does not hold up when they look at macro and, particularly micro structures. Neither time nor matter are what they appear to be. So ego-you created, or miscreated, this physical earth and placed your Divinity into a fragile, limited body, convincing you that this is the real you. Seemingly unable to hear the still, quiet voice of Spirit within, you live as if this is the truth. And when one suggests to you that the world and your body are not real you pound the tabletop and yell, “That sure feels real! The cold air feels real, and so does water and my thirst, and what about the animals and plants? These rocks and erosion, and our history and evolution, and the love/hate I feel for others – all of this feels so real. How can it not be real?” I can remind you that the last dream you had might have seemed very real as you slept. Now that you are awake do you for a moment seriously believe that your dream actually happened? Perhaps some of you do, but most probably do not. You will have a similar experience as you awaken from this dream of your body in the physical universe.

Let’s come back to story of everything seeming so real. The ego did a brilliant job. There is enough beauty here that you can say, “Oh, this is God’s creation:” It also has enough destructive qualities, pain, and confusion that you might say, “If this is God’s creation, He certainly doesn’t seem to like us very much does he?” This generates a great discussion. Is there a God or not? If there is a God, why would he create or allow such pain and suffering? Why would he create war or children starving to death? There must not be a God. Or, perhaps God does exist and He created those things because we are bad and have to learn how to be better. Whether you decide on no God or angry God, you are led into a place of helplessness and hopelessness. Either we are guilty and deserve to be punished or there is no God, no meaning to anything. We live, we die – end of story.

The second part to this is that your ego created your physical body, making it seem so real. You can feel the heart beat and panic when you can’t breathe. It seems as if this body is who you are. You are surrounded by other physical bodies and they are they and you are you, and you can’t be one with them. It can’t happen no matter how much you might try to merge with another. You can have communication and relationship, but you remain separate, unable to bridge the physical chasm between you. Fortunately, you have evolved in your civilization to a point where you have the technology to create scenes on video that also seem so real. When you watch these shows you really believe that these things are happening before your eyes. Even your thinking mind knows that nothing is really happening – that it is all a play; it’s all staged. Much of what you see was actually put in to the background by technicians after the scene was shot. It’s all fantasy. Yet you still react as if it is actually happening. Your bodies and this world were created in the same way, to appear to be very real. What are you to do with that? Having the awareness that the world is not real, you can bring your experiences to Spirit. You can ask for help in seeing the world through Spirit’s eyes rather than the ego’s eyes. Gradually this will happen.

In the meantime, the larger part of you believes in the illusion, is convinced of the reality of your body and the physical world. This is the classroom you are to learn in. If you pretend that the illusion is not there, while actually believing the world is real, you are going to have some problems. If you cross the street telling yourself that the cars are just illusions so you don’t have to look both ways… there may be a BAM moment! You are not there yet. There is no expectation that you should be there yet. So, you can do several things. First, you accept whatever lesson is being presented to you in this so real-feeling illusion. Remind yourself that it was chosen by Spirit to help you wake up. Your classroom, which might feel more like a battlefield, is there to help you move past the idea of the illusion to the full realization of it being illusion. We do not encourage you to pretend that you understand, that you do have an experience of the unreality of your body and the physical before that actually occurs. If there is pain in your suffering, you are being asked to look at something that is uncomfortable. Don’t pretend it isn’t there. Look at it. Ask Spirit to look at it with you. This discomfort is your belief in your separation from God. It is your guilt. Bring this to Spirit and ask to be able to see the situation through Its divine eyes. Then let it go.

Constantly have the awareness that what you are seeing or experiencing may not be real. Give up your attachment to how things are working in the world; stop pretending you know how things should or shouldn’t be. It is the ego voice that thinks you know. Your ego has an investment in keeping you tied into the illusion. So you are both in the world and not in the world at the same time. You face and fully accept the lessons that are presented to you. You then turn and give whatever pain, guilt, and confusion there is to Spirit, asking for help in seeing it for what it really is. You ask to be able to forgive, which is only possible with the acceptance that there is nothing to forgive. Bit by bit you become aware of the illusion. There is no rush. It is not your job to see through the illusion, to have the realization that the world does not truly exist. Spirit will do that work for you. Your only job is to be aware that any pain or discomfort you feel is always sensed through your ego’s eyes. With that awareness, you then bring it to Spirit. Looking through Spirit’s eyes, nothing in the world could cause you any distress. You would be filled with love and peace.

As you feel love and peace in your day…..wonderful! If other feelings arise, it is not your job to pretend that all is perfect, that you are more advanced in your process than you are. Notice that you are being presented with a challenge in your classroom. Your guilt is manifesting in form, but you have an opportunity to notice and give it to Spirit rather than crumbling into self-flagellation or finger pointing. This challenge is a great gift of Spirit to assist in your eventual awakening. You are taking seriously something that is actually kind of funny….Divinity pretending to be hapless. Your only job is to notice and then to ask Spirit to help you with seeing the truth, with forgiveness. Either Spirit or ego is active. Which one is it? Notice. If there is anything other than love and peace, it is not your responsibility to see it differently, only to ask for help. Spirit in its own way and in its own timing will bring the awakening to you. Gradually, you will find the pain, the fear, and the discomfort melting away, no matter what transpires in the world about you. It is never your job to change what is happening in your classroom. This is not about behaving in a different manner. It is only about noticing and being willing to have Spirit work through you. Everything is happening exactly as it should. No change is needed except the changing of your mind. Change your mind.

Good Now

Sanhia

Are love and hate opposites?

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One common question when looking at this world of duality, this illusion of opposites, is to ask if hate is the opposite of love. That’s a very good question. The answer is that love has no opposite, because it is not a part of the illusion. Love is absolute; it is truth; it is Divine. Love is the true nature of God and the true nature of you. So, you may be wondering, what about this love and hate that people are always talking about? They certainly seem like opposites. Yes, you are right about that because when humans talk about love they are usually not talking about Divine love, which we could call “holy love”. Holy love is unconditional. It is not something that can be earned, nor can it be lost. There is nothing you could do to change the unconditional love of God. Nor is there anything you could do to earn that love because you already have it. But in human terms love has many conditions. We will identify this conditional love as “special love”. It does have an opposite, which we can call “special hate”. Hate is absolutely a part of the illusion. There is no concept of hate in Divinity; it doesn’t exist. You could say that special love and special hate are opposite sides of the same coin, heads and tails, good guy and bad guy. They are part of the world of judgment and separation.

Let’s explain it like this: In this belief you have that you are separate from God and that God has disowned you, has cast you out, is angry with you and wants to punish you – in this absolute untruth which is nothing more than a projection upon God of your own guilt and self-judgment – no one wants to face that guilt and to feel that badly about themselves. Even those of you who are depressed and self-deprecating are not that depressed and that self-deprecating. There is no pain that could equal that of fully feeling the imagined separation from God. You don’t want to go through that and therefore do not want to take responsibility for having caused that separation. What you do then is to project that pain. When you project it upon another, they are now at fault for your pain and discomfort. That is called special hate. It might be an individual who you see as your enemy. Maybe you blame your mother or your father for your pain and troubles. Perhaps it is your ex who ruined your life. What happens is that through projection you make somebody the bad guy. Sometimes this projection is not so personal; it could be a politician, or a race, or a country, or a religion – but you create multiple evil ones. The, perhaps, unspoken direction you are giving is: “God! Get them. It is their fault, not mine. Look how I suffer at their hands. Punish them. Condemn them to hell. Bring me home with you. I am the innocent victim here.”

This creation of enemies and special hate is an ego game. It permits you to not take responsibility and look at your own creation of the illusion with all its pain and suffering. It allows you to hide from your guilt that you separated from God – which you never did – and to pretend that the guilt isn’t even there. That all may sound confusing, and it is! There is a double bind. You have guilt over something you never did, but you can’t get rid of this guilt because you refuse to even look at it or admit that it exists. How can you forgive yourself for something you never did if you refuse to face the fact that you believe you did it? Your ego convinces you that the way out is to find others to blame. This ruse is destined to fail because they are not at fault either. There is nobody to blame because nothing ever really happened. This is why forgiveness is so crucial. You cannot forgive yourself and blame others at the same time. Forgive them and yourself. Nobody is at fault. There never was a separation from God. God loves everyone unconditionally.

On the other hand, because you don’t want to go through life just hating everybody, you create special love. You create those who agree with you. They sympathize with your victimhood – “poor you” – and agree with all of your judgments. These friendships are built upon common enemies. But it can go much further. When you don’t believe that you are a good person or loveable, you create these people to come in and tell you how wonderful you are. This especially emerges in special romantic love. Here two people agree to hold each other up on a pedestal. In the end special love cannot work because it is created from fear. No matter how much your partner might tell you that you are loveable, deep down inside you are sure that you are not. You cannot fully trust their love because you don’t believe that you deserve it. This means that you don’t fully trust your partner either. And that is just the beginning. Special love is always conditional. You love the other because of how they make you feel, so you want them to always continue to make you feel this way. Change is a dangerous thing. Strings are always there. “If you loved me you would…..” Each person wants something from the other. At first it is so wonderful to feel wanted, then it slowly dawns on you – at least on a subconscious level – that you are codependent. Without them loving you as you wish to be loved you are not happy. That dependency slowly turns into resentment. What you used to love about your partner now drives you crazy. What used to be cute is now irritating. You rebel against the codependency. Having to be a certain way to keep the other’s love makes you a prisoner. You cannot be who you are in the moment, in the NOW. That is special love, which can gradually turn into special hate. They are opposite sides of the same coin. It is possible for two people to hold on to the special love through holding common judgments and enemies and friends, but this is at the cost of denying their Divine selves, being unable to look at their own or their partner’s guilt.

When one holds guilt, there can only be special relationships. The purpose of relationships is to project the guilt away either through special love or special hate. Ultimately all special relationships keep you stuck in the circle. The exit from this vicious circle always lies in forgiveness. You can begin by forgiving those for whom you feel special hate. You can only do this by accepting that this is all an illusion, that they have done nothing, that there is nothing to forgive. This illusion is all your creation. They are merely acting out your orders. For those whom you feel special love, set them free. Look at your expectations. What do you want from them? What is their part of the agreement that allows you to continue loving them? Notice also the places where they don’t seem to be holding up their end, places where you are already beginning to withhold your special love. Again focus on forgiveness. Bring all of this to Spirit. If you want to wake up, if you want to follow Spirit’s guidance which leads you to experience the truth of your Divinity and of the holy love that is you, it is absolutely necessary to give up these special relationships, the special hate and the special love.

It is a given that as a human you will have both special love and special hate relationships. That is part of your classroom, part of the battleground. If you did not have those relationships you would not be in a body. If you always saw every human through the unconditionally loving eyes of God – asking nothing of them, not judging them, seeing their divinity – you would also be holding yourself as Divine. If you were holding yourself in that way, you wouldn’t be here – at least not for long. Remember not to judge yourself for having special relationships. They are necessary to your awakening. Notice them and bring them to Spirit. Your intention is always to replace the special relationship with the holy relationship. The holy relationship is one where you have fully forgiven the other for what they have done – or more precisely for what they have not done. It is a knowing that everything in the world is illusion and that the truth of them is Divine. The holy relationship demands nothing on the part of the other. It doesn’t even matter if they have intended to cause you pain. They might be filled with judgment about you. Your job is to see them as Divine, though perhaps asleep. You take responsibility for any pain, knowing that only you could create any suffering, out of your own guilt. The other has done you the Divine favor of pointing out that you have guilt so that you can bring it Spirit for release. Through Divine eyes each relationship becomes a holy one. Reciprocation is not required. It is absolutely irrelevant whether the other has any commitment to realizing holy love. What is there is your mirror. If they seem to be denying you unconditional love, that is your creation. That is what you are denying to yourself. This is never about them. It is about you. Go to Spirit. Ask for support in releasing your guilt and accepting your innocence and the full love of God. When you only feel love coming to you from all others, you are realizing holy love. Only you can block holy love and only you can ask for it to fill you.

This does not mean that you need to throw yourself to the wolves by surrounding yourself with those who most challenge your ability to feel holy love. Spirit will bring you the lessons you need to learn. You can even learn these lessons alone by allowing your memories to come in to your mind, looking for where special love or special hate remains. It makes no difference if the specialness feels minor; love is either special or holy. That would be like saying to God, “I don’t hate you, but you’re not my favorite god.” There is no in between. There is the absolute unconditional love of God and there is specialness. This may seem to be an enormous gap and you are likely wondering how to cross it. It will probably not be in one big jump. This is just like we have discussed before when we have talked about choosing to stop listening to ego’s voice and instead listening to the quiet gentle voice of Spirit. You begin by noticing when a relationship is expressing either special love or special hate. This is the most important step. Your ego has convinced you forever that there are good people and bad people. It is a big deal just to notice that you are playing that game. You are halfway home. Great job! Congratulate yourself for noticing and bring it to Spirit. Remember the forgiveness work is Spirit’s and not yours. Your job is to notice your illusion, bring it to Spirit, and listen for any guidance. You do this over and over. There are no special people, neither especially good nor especially bad. There are only Divine children of God, asleep and in the process of waking up. Again, your job is simple. Notice when you think somebody is special, whether you experience it as special love or special hate. Bring it to Spirit and ask for help in converting the specialness to holiness. There can be no greater trade off for you then exchanging special love for holy love and experiencing the full love of God.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is the difference between judgment and discernment?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia