How can we not see children as innocent victims?

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It’s a funny thing, but I have never talked to a human who didn’t have parents. Sometimes, one might not know who his birth mother was; there was an adoption and the mother’s identity is hidden. In this case there are two mothers that you have stories with, one that abandoned you and one that you can have the everyday issues with. Even if there are no identifiable mothers, you will have numerous tales with foster parents, relatives, or orphanages, along with the actual birth mother relationship. There is always a father, also, even if the mother doesn’t know who it is. Present or absent, which is of course its own drama, you have a history with him along with any other men who have played that role for you. Within the illusion, everyone has two parents, and many stories come with those relationships. An interesting thing about the parent-child relationship is that it is a lifelong one. Most relationships are for a short period – perhaps only a one time meeting, or for a length of time – but only a few traverse your whole life. The relationship with a parent is carried deep within you, particularly if you haven’t taken full responsibility for it. This is true even if there has been a separation, whether through death or from personal choice. The relationship is a constant presence. If there were an order of importance of relationships in the illusion, these might be the biggest ones. Many of you, if you are honest with yourselves, blame your parents for one thing or another. You believe you are the way you are because your father was so cruel or because your mother was so judgmental. So, you are a victim all of your life because of whom your parents were. This is not true. That is the ego’s story. It is another way of confusing cause and effect.

The mass consciousness presents the illusion that a pure, innocent, helpless baby is born. The child is a blank screen onto which the parents will begin to write. Such a responsibility! If they do things right, the child will thrive; if they do things wrong, the child will suffer. What a burden! Fortunately it is an illusion. Children hardly come in as blank slates; they arrive fully formed. Of course we are not speaking physically, but as we know the physical you is not the true you. Physically, infants are helpless, but mentally they carry with them all of the ego beliefs of guilt, fear, and victimhood they have burdened themselves with through countless incarnations since their imagined separation from God. What happens is that children create experiences in the world just as you do as an adult. From the first day onward, and even before that in their prenatal experiences, children create in accordance with these beliefs. Like you, they project their guilt onto others and receive punishments they believe they deserve, which will hopefully square them in God’s eye. Now they have others, particularly their parents, who they can blame and point a finger at. You all did this, and you are still doing it.

I want to talk about this from a few different perspectives – firstly from your specific relationship with your parents. As you were growing up it certainly seemed that you had no choice. You couldn’t pick up and leave or select different parents. You couldn’t avoid abusive situations at school, in your neighborhood, or with relatives. You felt yourself to be a victim. You simply had to endure these experiences. But then, as now, you always had the ability to say that the outer world did not affect you. In some places you made this choice and your parents’ words and deeds did not touch you. You knew they were not the truth. You created your own truth in these situations. If you are not an only child, you see how your siblings developed differently – none of you are alike. If you were blank slates written on by the same parents, you should have turned out the same. Yet, you and your siblings are quite different. Why? Because you each created your own experiences and made your own choices in dealing with them. It was not so much a question of what happened to you as how you dealt with it internally. Did you practice forgiveness and seeing the Divinity in your parent, or were those skills yet to be developed? The potential was there to access those truths. This is not to point a finger or to say that it was your fault that you were not more aware, but simply to shine light on the reality of the situation. You came to wake up and Spirit provided you from birth on with the opportunities to do just that. You came in believing in your victimhood and you proved yourself right.

At some point you left home. Now you are on your own. Your parents are no longer in your day-to-day life. Yet, in how many ways are they still running it? What judgments did they make about you that you took on as your own? What fears did they instill in you that follow you around even when your parents’ physical presence doesn’t? Unless you do a forgiveness process, your parents will continue forever to run your life, even though you have been an independent adult for years. If you tell yourself that you are over all of that, that you are an adult and your own person now –wonderful! But take a good look at each of your parents and notice where you have any judgment remaining about them, or about the way they raised you – or about things they are still doing today. Where you find judgments you are discovering the places where they still run your life. This is projection, a confusion of cause and effect. You are always the cause of everything that happens to you. The world is always the effect. This is true now; it was true when you were a child. Your judgments of your parents are a refusal to admit the truth. It is time to grow up. Stop being a helpless child. If you were not really a victim then, you are even less so now. Be an adult and take responsibility. It is yourself you are judging. Handle it. You know how to do that – kindly, gently, lovingly, but firmly. There is no kindness to your parents or to yourself in projection and blame. They are attacks. Blame is a statement that you are a helpless victim. You pretend that you didn’t choose these parents, but you did. You may scream that you didn’t ask to be born, but you did. You created the perfect parents for you, the best classroom for you to learn the lessons you came to master so that you could awaken – leaving the pain, the guilt, the suffering, and the belief in separation from God that are a part of the world of duality – and come home. You chose the perfect parents to support you in doing that. Their job ended years ago. It’s over, complete. Now the only work left to be done is yours.

Until you do this work, you will recreate your parents in all of the authority figures you meet in your life. It might be your boss and it certainly will be your partner. If you have not forgiven your opposite sex parent, you will find yourself married to that parent. It will make no difference what your spouse does; you will perceive them acting as your parent did. Remember that it is all you. There is no other. You are the creator of everyone in your life. You will create your mother and father everywhere you go. Make it simple for yourself. Rather than dealing with challenges with every person you meet every day of your life, just heal with your parents. Give gratitude to Spirit and to them for playing this game with you, for being your teachers. Look where you have judgment. Let Spirit lift that and help you to forgive. Ask for gratitude for having these perfect parents who came into your life to teach you exactly the lessons you came to learn. If you are not certain what the lessons were, request to understand what you came to learn from your parents.

In conclusion, you are all children. When you were a physical child it seemed that your parents were on another level. They certainly had the physical power. In truth, you were all children, asleep and hoping to awaken to your true selves. You and your parents are siblings, as is your brother Jesus. Your only job is to love them and to love yourself, to forgive them and to forgive yourself. To enter the kingdom of God you become like a child: innocent, pure, forgiven – the very idea that the mass consciousness holds of the newborn. Become the child you never got to be in this body. You are the Child of God.

Good Now

Sanhia

Do I have to be perfect to ascend?

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We have been covering a lot of territory in the past few messages, talking about pure non-duality, confusing cause and effect, accepting everything that comes to you, and the impossibility of creating heaven on earth. Sometimes, and it is perfectly understandable, you might have the reaction that this is all too much. On a conceptual level you might believe in what I have shared; that you are creating it all, that none of it is real, to forgive yourself for everything that has happened and to not judge anyone, and, and, and…… You might be thinking “But Sanhia, it feels enormous. It feels so big. I don’t think I’m up to it. I don’t think I can do all of this. How could anyone accomplish such a feat? You would have to be perfect.” Wow! That was quite a rant. Is there anything more? Don’t hold back. Excuse me while I chuckle just a bit, not at you but with you. You are absolutely right. It is too much. It is too big. Fortunately, you are not expected to be perfect. In the illusion in duality, it is an absolute impossibility. You cannot go through your day and not have a negative emotional response, not get angry, not blame someone, or feel like a victim. It’s going to happen. It is the human condition. If it did not happen, you would not be here in a body; you would be finished with all of this.

Maybe, you notice that these reactions are not happening as often as they once did. Think about how it was before you begin working with non-dualistic thinking. Over time, this change in how you react to the world will increase in its occurrence. But, you will never realize a time where the ego’s thoughts don’t grab a hold of you. If you have it in your mind that your ascension can only come about through perfection, that day is never going to come. There will never be a time where your ego is absolutely unable to get a foot in the door, or even a toe. Hearing this may bring on a wave of sadness or hopelessness for you. You may feel that you can never make it. That is not the case; it is but an opening for the ego’s voice.  In fact, the opposite is true. You are going to make it; you have no choice. We are in charge of that, not you. You can slow the process down by digging in your heals and refusing to listen to Spirit, by insisting on being a victim and projecting your guilt on others. You can do that and slow things down, but you can’t stop it. So, if you can do your worst and are still guaranteed your place in heaven with God, where in fact you truly are right now though lacking the awareness of being there, how much more quickly are you going to realize your Oneness with God if you are trying to work with the process instead of against it?

The secret is not in being perfect in every moment. The secret is in becoming aware after you have let the ego run rampant, that you have done so. With this awareness there are two steps to take. First, give whatever it is to Spirit. Don’t tell Spirit what to do; this is not yours to handle. Just let it go and let Spirit handle it. The second step is equally important. Be kind to yourself. Let it be okay that you did what you did, or that you didn’t do what you didn’t do. Let that be okay. It is not the expectation that you will never stumble. There is no thought about that. There is no judgment. Remember that nothing here is real. Nothing you do is wrong. Nobody is hurt, not even yourself. It is all an illusion. That is the forgiveness process, so be kind to yourself and forgive yourself. It is perfectly okay that you listened to the ego. The important thing is that you noticed and have chosen to try not to do that next time. You might still do it again. No biggie. What is important is that you notice, even if it takes days to do so. It makes no difference how long it takes you to notice. Time doesn’t matter, except when you are in pain. Holding on to your blame and victimhood is always painful…well, after the initial rush that comes from feeling yourself to be a righteous martyr. As soon as you realize that you have projected, that you have confused the cause and the effect, the pain eases. This is an enormous accomplishment, the noticing that you have been listening to ego and now want to give it to Spirit. Nobody is counting how many times you trip, except yourself. So stop counting; be kind to yourself.

Let go of seeking perfection. You are already perfect. You are perfection pretending to not be perfect. As long as you are in a body, that dance will go on…..it will for all humanity. You cannot be perfect in duality, because in duality there are always opposites. You cannot help listening to ego in some moments, and you are not judged for that or for anything else. So give it to Spirit and be kind to yourself. I want to remind you that as you are looking for perfection, you can be looking in all the wrong places. Perfection is not found in the world, which will never mirror heaven, which will never replicate the infinite love of God. You created the world, thinking you could do better than God. That was a mad idea. The world is not the place to look for perfection. However, there is a perfect plan for you and the Sonship to awaken. When something occurs in your life and you react in such a way as to be a victim, this is a perfect part of Spirit’s plan. If you were to spend your life in the belief that you are doing everything perfectly, you would be in denial. Your head would be deeply buried in the sand as you repeat to yourself “Everything is fine”. You would ignore your pain until it kills you. Then you would come back and try it again. It is through feeling the pain that you experience when you listen to the ego that you realize you need to choose differently. Without this suffering you would not choose to listen to Spirit. Each time you go through the cycle of listening to ego, feeling pain, giving it to Spirit, forgiving, and being kind to yourself – you are one step closer to letting go of the illusion. This is only possible if all of the steps are followed. You cannot learn without first making a mistake. So, the more mistakes you make the faster you learn, as long as you realize your missteps. There is perfection in your errors. You each have your vulnerable spots – your hot buttons – the places where you are most likely to go into victimhood, projection, and blame. Those hotspots are a gift that Spirit will use to help you learn to let go of the ego. Choosing wrongly is the necessary first step.

If you are in a body, you believe that you are separate from God and you fear God and his wrath. That is painful. It is not your job to hide from the pain. Spirit makes that easy for you. Spirit presents choices that make it likely that you came into contact with your pain. Spirit does not cause the pain. It is your belief in your separation and your need for punishment that cause the pain. If you are not conscious that you carry this guilt energy with you, how can you let it go? There is perfection in everything that is presented to you. There is not perfection in your ability to choose Spirit in each moment. That you will never have. You will simply, eventually reach the point that you give your pain so quickly, so automatically to Spirit that Spirit will say, “Come with me now”, and it will be the end of your earthly experience. This happens not from your perfection of action, but from your surrender of your little self to the Oneness of God. You cannot choose this moment. You can only remember that choosing to listen to the ego for an instant does not further separate you from God. It is a window of opportunity that is there to lead you home. You may have many rungs to climb up out of the hell of physicality. You will not likely be taking the express elevator out, though the ego will whisper in your ear that if you were really so Divine you would take that express ride right out of here, so you must really be a fuck up. Smile, and give all of that to Spirit. Let go of the need for perfection. Each rung will bring a lightening of the load you carry. You don’t need to demonstrate perfection; you are perfection…no matter what the ego might be saying to you. You are innocent. You are perfection.

Good Now

Sanhia

Am I really supposed to accept everything that happens to me?

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In any situation when something happens, you have the choice to listen to the voice of ego or the voice of Spirit. If you listen to the voice of ego, you stay on the merry-go-round. You keep going round and round, or up and down, and stay stuck in the belief that this illusion is real. Or, you can listen to the voice of Spirit, which will eventually guide you back home. We have talked about this before, but I want to describe it today using different terminology. It is not always easy in the moment to recognize what is coming from Spirit and what is of the ego. Here is a method for making this discernment, to become more aware with whom you are playing and giving energy. The two significant terms here are acceptance and analysis. It isn’t hard to guess which aligns with Spirit and which with the ego, but I’ll tell you anyway. When you simply accept what is happening or has happened, whatever it might be, you are opening up to the voice of Spirit. When you attempt to understand, to analyze, and to deal with the situation, you are listening to the voice of ego. Spirit accepts; ego analyzes.

Let’s talk in more depth about what each of these choices is like. I the last message we talked about cause and effect. When you analyze, you are acting as if the effect is the cause. You are turning things around. You are looking at how to change the world. You are accepting the world as real, and as the cause of your problem. You are trying to make your world better. That is always the voice of ego trying to make heaven on earth. Remember that the cause is always within your mind, not out in the world. When you analyze, you are pretending that the world is cause. So, you may be thinking, “Sanhia, should I accept everything that happens to me without resistance?”  And I respond, “Yes”. This is what Jesus was referring to when he said to turn the other cheek. Don’t fight what is happening, surrender to it. Accept it. Know not only that you are the cause, which means that anything and everything that happens in your life that does not feel Divine is experienced because you believe that you are separated from God. You fear that you are going to be punished, deserve punishment, and need forgiveness from God. This is why you have created everything that is uncomfortable in your life. Acceptance is merely the acknowledgment that it could be no other way. The cause must be in you and so it is useless to try to change the world. Rather than trying to change the effect, you go to the cause. You change what it is in you that feels you are guilty, that judges yourself. What you want to heal is your belief in your separation from God, this thought that you are not worthy, this idea that you have sinned against God and been found guilty. These false beliefs are what you want to change.

Another side of the story is this. Spirit always, with no exceptions ever, anywhere in time, has a plan. Everything that is happening to you is exactly perfect and as it should be. Spirit’s plan for you is that you wake up and come home. Every event in your life is part of this wake up call. When you fight what is happening or try to change it after careful or not so careful analysis, you are questioning the judgment and ability of Spirit. Only the voice of ego would have the temerity to try and pull that off. Ego is trying to protect its own turf by claiming to have a better plan than the Divine plan. You have bought this promise lifetime after lifetime. The reason for acceptance is to have faith in the voice of Spirit, trusting that Spirit is bringing you the perfect thing in each moment. Acceptance is the shortest way home. No need to question, to analyze, to understand…you simply accept that this is the best way. If it is hard to accept, you can do the five-step process to ease your experience. Rather than asking Spirit for understanding, ask for support in letting go of your illusions and the belief that they are real. Ask for support in giving up your self-hatred and your fear of God, letting go of your self-condemnation. If Spirit in its plan provides you with understanding, then of course you will accept that insight, but it is not your job to figure things out. That is Spirit’s job. Your only responsibility is to accept what comes and to trust, knowing that Spirit will provide you with everything that you need. So, cover your ears. Shut out the voice of ego. Starve it. Do this through acceptance.

As you have the conscious intention to choose acceptance over analysis, you will become more proficient at it. You will find that the more often you choose acceptance the easier it becomes. All things begin to look more divine, especially in places you would have previously had difficulty in finding perfection. Eventually, everything will look Divine. That is the state of mastery that precedes the full realization of ascension. Jesus was able to look at those who were putting him to death and see them as Divine. He could see every moment as holy, including the one where a spear was jabbed into his side. He accepted. He saw the Divinity. He saw that nothing else was real. In full acceptance there is unconditional love. There is no pain, no fear. You will all get there. That is already in Spirit’s plan. You get there by taking one step at a time, by noticing where you are analyzing rather than accepting.

Let’s take a few more moments to look at the analyzing process so that you may more easily recognize it. You are so skilled at this ability of looking at another and seeing how they are making choices that are not in their best interests. You want to help them. You want to point out to them what they are doing. That is the voice of ego. What you see out here, what you see them doing, is you. It is not them. It is always you. Your self-analysis is projected upon another. You are trying to heal it out there, instead of taking responsibility for your own thoughts. You are trying to change the effect instead of the cause. The other person is always showing you the effect of your mind. When you recognize how that process works, you begin to accept the behavior of everyone else and stop analyzing them or trying to change or assist them. You simply acknowledge that you are seeing places where you do not accept yourself and you take that inside and forgive. You accept everything as yours and give it all to Spirit. Think about how much time and energy you spend thinking about and worrying about others. You may hold it as your holy responsibility to do that. But, that is all from the ego. It is all analysis. It is all projection. It is not your job to help anyone else. Your job is to save yourself and you do that by accepting everything around you.

So, with all of this time and energy not being spent in your habitual manner, what do you now talk or think about? What is left if there is no more problem solving or “loving” spiritual gossip to share? This is a big space; it can feel like an enormous void. You give that space to Spirit. You accept that everything you see is your projection of your separation from God. You work on forgiving yourself and God; forgiving the other….reminding yourself constantly that none of this out there is real. In truth there is nothing to forgive. Everyone is innocent and Divine. I am aware that you are surrounded by spiritual teachings that contradict this. You are to be the Good Samaritan. You are to help others. You are to be a “good” person. There is nothing wrong about helping another, but that is done by simply loving them unconditionally, by accepting them as they are. If you think it is your job to fix them, you see them as broken, not as Divine. That is the service you will provide them. And as you see them, so do you see yourself. So we have the blind leading the blind. This does not mean that you don’t help somebody who asks for help. Be kind. But don’t confuse the issue by thinking you are healing somebody by giving them assistance. For more on this subject you can reread the message “When should I share my spiritual perspective with others?” You have no obligation here. It is not your job to heal. That is Spirit’s job. Spirit may use you in the healing process, but not through your conscious deliberation of what is needed, not through your analysis of the situation. You give yourself to Spirit and wait for Spirit to direct you. If you truly want to help others, then realize your own ascension. That is the greatest gift you have to offer to the whole. If Spirit has a role for you to play, that will unfold. It’s not up to you. There is nothing to figure out. Let go of that weight. Free yourself. Your job is to simply accept everything. You don’t have to do the right thing. Whatever you do is perfect. It doesn’t matter. What everyone else does is perfect. It doesn’t matter. If it looks like somebody out there needs correction, the truth is you think you need correction. You are all Divine, but asleep. You have to awaken yourself before you can awaken another.

Let’s close with this image. You are watching a movie on a screen. You don’t like what is happening so you get up and try to change the screen. But you can’t do anything. The movie continues. That is because the movie is not created on the screen. It is created by cameras and then projected on the screen. The screen is the world and the projector is your mind. The only way to change what is happening on the screen is to change your mind. This means that what is on the screen or in the world is not real. Only your thoughts are real. So change your mind. The catch is that you don’t really know how to do that. So it all comes back to the thought for today. Accept the movie as it is. Take responsibility for it. Forgive yourself. Give it to Spirit in the realization that Spirit is the true creator of the movie. All you can do is accept what you are seeing. Stop analyzing the show and give it all to Spirit. It is so simple. Analyze, listen to ego, and continue to suffer. Accept, listen to Spirit, reclaim your Divine heritage, and go home. No matter which choice you make in this moment….

God Blesses You

Sanhia

Are other people a part of the illusion?

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In the previous message we talked about the illusion, and I meant every word I said. Now, it is time for some balancing words. It is true that your physical body is an illusion, but it is not true that you are an illusion. You are very real. It is true that the physical bodies of others are illusions. But it is not true that other people are illusions. As you are working with this truth of the illusion, I wish to suggest that it is fine to look at everything in the physical world going on about you as illusion, including things and events. Remind yourself that they are not real. However, it is not recommended that you look at other people and tell yourself that they are illusions, that they are not real. There is a practical reason for this. Whatever you see in others, you see in yourself. I have called this the mirror effect. If you identify others as illusions, you will view yourself in the same light – or lack of light. When you see yourself as an illusion, nothing is left that is real. That can be a depressing way to exist. That will pass. No permanent damage can be done. Denying your reality, your Divinity, can never change it. You are real and so are others. In the meantime, holding yourself as an illusion may not feel so comforting.

To avoid this, simply don’t think of others as illusions or as part of the illusion. This doesn’t mean that you look at them and say, “Ah! This physicalness is real.” All physicalness is illusion. But, when you look at someone, the truth of you sees the truth of them, recognizing their Divinity. If you say that they are illusions, you are saying that the Divine is an illusion. Here is what I suggest instead. As you are observing other people around you, practice seeing them as Divine. Forget about whatever you notice them doing or about how they physically act or appear. See them with your Divine eyes, as Jesus saw everyone. Behold their Divinity. If that is a challenge for you, and some individuals will present you with enormous challenges in perceiving their Divinity, ask Spirit for support. As you master seeing others as Divine, so will you identify yourself.

Remember that when it is hard for you to recognize the Divinity in another, you are looking in a mirror. You are projecting upon the other whatever is most difficult for you to love and forgive in yourself. You are not truly seeing the other. If you were, you would recognize Divinity. If you are identifying anything less, you are seeing your mirror. Of course, when you perceive the Divinity in another, you are also seeing your mirror. When you look with judgment you are watching through the eyes of your ego. Your Divine eyes can only see with true vision, can only perceive the Divinity in another.

Knowing that the action, rather than the actor, is illusion allows you to see the Divinity. This helps you to let go of the false picture of the other person. Your projection, your judgment of the action, is what is not real. The person is real. The truth of everyone involved is unaffected by the action. No harm can be done to Divinity. This is where the illusion is significant to realize. The players are real and are Divine. Only the action is not real. So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Discard the illusion of the action without rejecting the Divinity of the actor. This is true forgiveness. Whatever you see that is not Divine is your projection. It is what you don’t want to notice in yourself, because it is too painful, too frightening. Hold everything in the physical as illusion except for other people (and of course yourself).

That is it for this month. Short and sweet. See the Divinity in others so that you can see the Divinity in yourself. That is what is real. All the rest is illusion. You are real.

Good Now

Sanhia

How can we deal with the world immigration problem?

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I have been asked to say some words about the issues of racism, immigration, and the reactive rise of conservative political parties around the world. There are important questions about how to deal with the people who have been dislocated by wars and abusive governments. There is also the ongoing story of racism, both in the United States and in Europe. We always wish to begin by having an awareness of the illusion. If there is any part of the illusion that is triggering fear in you – whether it be expressed in anger, judgment, or confusion – take that and work with it, seeing it as a gift. The truth is that there are no victims or victimizers. Everything comes out of the creation of the individual.

When one believes one’s self to be separate from God, whether or not the awareness is conscious, there is fear and projection. The projection may be upon the victim and how in some way they deserve what they got. There could be projection upon the heartlessness of the victimizer. People may be seen as power driven, ignorant of what is going on, or stupid. So, forgiveness is called for on both sides. Keep in mind that all of this is about you. If these events and people did not touch on something deep within you, we would not be having this conversation. As long as you believe that this is all outside of yourself and a part of the world, a part of others, it will continue to trigger fear and helplessness in your life. It is not about the events themselves or about the unfairness, the pain, and the suffering. It is about the fear that is triggered in you by these events, by these stories. One way of dealing with these fears, of course, is to use the five-step process to transform the fear that is generated.

The route to spiritual awareness often passes through territory of intense fear and suffering. If your world appears to be okay, there may not be anything to drive you to go past your self-imposed limitations. If the world is absolutely insufferable, you feel a need to find a way to deal with it. The only way to truly make sense of what is going on in the world is to realize that nothing real is happening. If you take it seriously, you will never find a solution. If these racial/immigration situations can help you to face your fear or to realize that love or fear can be chosen as a response to any situation, a great gift has been realized.

If you are choosing to help others because you see them as victims who cannot help themselves, that is fear based. You cannot see another as a helpless victim unless you hold yourself in the same light. You can choose to project your sense of victimhood on others – and the world will be so generous in providing you an endless list of sufferers – or you can deal with your own fear of vulnerability. I am not picking out any group of people and labeling them as victims. To be human is to believe that you are a martyr. Every human does that. You believe in your separation from God. The history of humanity is the history of victimhood. Your job as a human is to realize that you are Divine. As a human, all you can do is pick your poison. Which side do you wish to view as the victims, those who have been driven from their homes or those whose homeland is being changed? Either way there are good guys and bad guys, winners and losers. Either way there is separation. Either way there is fear. The only way out of the morass is to no longer see yourself as a victim. You begin by forgiving both the victims and the victimizers, however you may have those roles distributed. You can’t have one without the other. Both are your creations and both represent your belief about your identity.

Let’s look at the Swedish immigration situation. The question is one of how to experience things from a position of unconditional love. If you hear someone state that the immigrants are destroying “our” way of life, how can that be looked upon with love? The bottom line is that fear begets, or gives birth to, fear. When you act out of fear, you create the very thing you are afraid of. Reacting out of fear is always self-defeating. It can never bring a solution; it can only make things appear to be worse. The approach to take with those who act from fear is not to throw fuel on the fire by accusing them of racism, hatred, or selfishness. It is of greater service to acknowledge their fear and to help them to do the same, without judgment. Realize that you could not feel fear in them without holding it yourself. The question then becomes one of asking how this fear can be transformed.

The same question is there for those who see all of the immigrants as victims and those who oppose them as victimizers. What is the fear? What are they terrified of? What are you terrified of? Your job is always to see the Divinity of everyone involved. The truth is that everybody just wants to find their way back home and they don’t have a clue how to get there. Back home might look like pre-immigrant Sweden. Perhaps, if we could get back there, there would just be peace, love, and safety. Or getting back home might be possible if everyone just opened their doors to all the world’s victims. Then, everything would be fine. If we all just found a place in our hearts to take care of them, we could live in peace, love, and safety.

In truth, there is no idealistic past to return to, except the Garden and the reality before your imagined separation from God. There was no perfect time in Sweden or in the United States. Every “present” was a time of fear and of longing for an earlier “perfect time”. On the other hand, if you try to be the white knight for all the victims of the world and bring perfection to the now, you will quickly realize that there are more victims than you could ever be able to handle. If you tried to bring all those in need of help to Sweden, the number would be many times greater than the current Swedish population. Are you prepared to invite anywhere from 10 to 100 people into your home? Are you ready to care for all their financial, emotional and psychological problems? On a logical level, this is obviously an insane solution, but far beyond that, it cannot deal with the problem because it does not recognize the true cause.

The solution does not come through changing the outside. It is your inside that creates the outside. If you are placing the blame on the outside and think you can do something about it, you are in denial of your own victimhood and helplessness. How can you save the world if you cannot save yourself? Ultimately there is no difference between feeling sorry for the immigrants and blaming the victimizers than in judging the immigrants and saying that it is their problem and not yours. It is just a different choice of how to deal with your projection. You can blame yourself and believe that you can’t do enough to make the situation right, or you can blame the victim and therefore can’t do enough to eliminate that problem.

The only solution begins with owning and facing your own fear. This requires taking responsibility for creating the world, rather than acting as a victim to your creation. It is not that solutions cannot be found, it is that the answer begins within you. First you find your own Divinity and then see it reflected in every other human. You see all as creators and none as victims. From that place you can invite others in love to look within for solutions. Since you know that every apparent outer problem is a gift from Spirit to help you open to your Divine self, you can support others to do the same. This is not to say that you ignore the outer because it is only illusion. You support each person in the way that you are guided without taking their problems seriously. You know it isn’t real, but sharing that with another who is not ready to hear it may not be the greatest support you can offer. On the other hand, buying into their story only helps to cement it in place.

If this dance is a difficult one for you, you probably have more work to do with yourself. Silently thank your victim “mirrors” and go back to transforming your fears. Be kind to yourself about this. If you are in a body you have fear and you believe in the reality of the illusion. If you have made the intention to release the illusion and to let Spirit guide you, there is still work to do. It may be part of Spirit’s plan for you to be here to support others. You are not here to help them solve their problems (a Sisyphean task if there ever was one) but to help them take responsibility, to take their power, to find their Divinity. Whenever it all feels like too much, remember that it doesn’t really matter. It is truly all illusion. You cannot take a wrong step. Nothing outside needs to change. Within is love and Divinity. Ask Spirit to help you find it.

Good Now

Sanhia

What is a spiritual response to a world crisis?

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As you are working with your own spiritual healing, realizing your personal ascension, and perhaps using the five-step process, there often seems to be a stark contrast between the spiritual work you are doing and what seems to be the “reality” the world is presenting you with. One of the current “realities” is connected to the situation in Syria. This appears to be a complex political situation. The Mideast was destabilized by the Afghani and Iraqi wars instigated by the United States. This led to the formation of terrorist groups in the former Iraq. These groups spilled over the border into Syria. The long-standing dictatorship in Syria began to experience a civil war. Of the groups opposing the regime, ISIS emerged as the strongest. For those of you who are intent on rescuing to make the world a better place and to supporting the “good guys”, it is hard to find a champion. In addition, an extremely large number of Syrians have felt that there was no choice for them, in order to protect themselves and their families, but to flee the country and to seek refuge elsewhere. Many of them have fled to Europe, because there were few good options in the Middle East. That is the stage that has been set.

The situation tends to trigger extreme reactions for some people. One response is, “How can we take care of all of these people? We have our own problems. We don’t want to accept more Muslims in our country because their ways and beliefs are so different. We would have to take care of them, which is expensive, and they don’t want to follow our laws or respect our way of life.” On the other hand are those who say, “Oh, these poor people. We have to do everything that we can to provide them with a safe haven, to help them to get there, and to assist them in starting their new lives.” Oh, and another response for many people is one of hopelessness. The inner voices might say, “What can I do? This is all too big for me to make a difference. It just isn’t my problem.” All of these viewpoints come out of a place of fear. For those who do not want to take on the responsibility of helping there is the fear of lack and the fear of becoming victims to the refugees. For those who want to take care of the refugees there is often guilt, which is a manifestation of fear. It is the belief that you have behaved badly and that you will be punished if you don’t somehow make up for it. This all comes out of the illusion that there was a “wrong” and that it, therefore, can be corrected. Hopelessness is the fear that one is powerless. The ultimate fear is of death. You can also reread What am I to do with death? for help in dealing with this issue.

It is time for us all to take a deep breath and to collectively take a giant step backward. Let’s look at this whole situation in a different light. First of all, it is absolutely essential to remember that whatever you see in the world is a projection of your ego. If you see chaos, if you see victims, if you see people who don’t deserve help because they are responsible for their own troubles, this is a projection of your ego and how you perceive yourself in the world. The first step to take in healing what feels to be enormous world problems, and specifically the situation in Syria with the refugees, is to look and see where your fear is attached. Take responsibility for it and realize that this is about you, not about them. Looking at the situation with unconditional love, taking full responsibility for your own life, you might consider Syria and say, “My, this is an interesting opportunity for healing that they have chosen for themselves.” You would not see victims. You would see powerful children of God who have collectively chosen to create a situation that forces them into enormous change. Such change always leaves wide open the opportunity for healing. In your own life, your greatest opportunities for healing often come in the face of what appears to be adversity.

Deal with your own fear that is triggered, perhaps using the five-step process, and see this as an enormous spiritual gift for the Syrian people as well as the people of all the countries that are also deeply affected. Then you can look at these people freed of your judgment, guilt, and the feeling that you have to do something to help. Rather, you can see their divinity and the opportunity they have created. You can go into a place in your heart and see if you are guided to support this healing process in some way. Only from this place of unconditional love and acceptance can you be guided to an action that will truly support the spiritual process of another. Remember that the solution to a problem is never about changing others or changing the outside. It is always about taking responsibility, about looking at the situation and acknowledging, “This is me”. The solution lies with healing yourself. If you absolutely succeed in that, your personal ascension will change the world.

This is an enormous challenge. It is one thing to choose to be a monk and to go into solitude to work on your spiritual process. It is another thing to stay in your community, your family, and your work where you are dealing with the energies of others and are exposed to much of what is transpiring in the world. But, this is the challenge that you have chosen, to be in the world but not of it. You might wish to go back and read two messages that dealt with world problems for further support: How can I change the world? and How do I deal with my environmental fears?. You have created Syria for your own healing. This a great gift and an opportunity for you. We encourage you to make the most of it and to find that unconditional love within you. And to live there.

God Blesses You,

Sanhia