Is it good to have a support group?

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Always! The primary value of a support group is to remind you of the truth. Most of the world is absolutely insane. Everything you experience day in and day out is crazy. There is very little truth expressed from your outer world. If you are able to find a group to meet with on a somewhat regular basis that is dedicated to the truth, such a meeting can remind you of what duality is. These people can help you remember to ask yourself the question “Is that really true?” about whatever you may be thinking. You can be supported in letting go of ideas of victimhood and separation. Such a support group is a wonderful thing to have. Again, most of your world will not reinforce your desire to awaken. Working by yourself makes it all the harder and will likely take a much longer time.

In a similar fashion it can be a wonderful support for you to read regularly – or watch videos, listen to recordings, whatever format works the best for you – things that reinforce non-dualistic thinking. That helps to train your mind to go there instead of into the ego knee jerk of bowing down to the mass consciousness and dualistic thinking.

So…Yes! Yes! Yes! Support groups and supportive reading material.

Now I have an enormous BUT. Notice that BUT is with only one “T“. I actually have no butt, no body, nobody. The BUT is this: The groups and the reading are supportive, but they won’t get you home. They won’t shake you awake. All they can do is point for you. Today we want to look at where they are pointing. If your group or instructional material is not pointing in the direction we are going to indicate, you might consider changing trains. For example if your support group’s leader says, “Follow me and I will lead you home”, it might be time to ask for a train schedule. If you are reading a book and it tells you, “These are the steps and processes that will wake you up”, there are plenty of other books out there. The pointers that come from your support systems should be leading you to go within yourself. They should point to that voice inside of you, your own inner guidance. Your inner wisdom recognizes the truth. That inner voice may recognize what you need to hear through these outer voices. You have asked Spirit for awakening. It might lead you to the truth through your mirrors. This is not to say that everything you hear in your group or your reading is for you. When you feel a resonance, you can trust that those are the words your inner guidance wants you to hold for the present. This truth is always inside of you and not outside. That is how you recognize it when you see or hear it. If you are not recognizing truth from your supports, it may be time to jump ship. The route home is in an inward direction. No groups, no source will do the job for you. You can’t read A Course in Miracles and expect to wake up; it’s a pointer, not the point. No person, group, or group of ideas can do that for you. They are all pointers and not the truth. The truth cannot be expressed in words. It is not a group of ideas. So take advantage of groups and other supports, but be eternally vigilant to see if you are letting them point you inwardly or outwardly.

Let’s take this a step farther. Wherever you think that something in the world is going to help you or save you, you are mistaken. If you think you will find fulfillment through seeking more money, a better job or relationship, or a more consistent spiritual practice, you are chasing your own tail. You are welcome to try it out, to prove me wrong. Most of you have been down that road, probably down many roads. You know what I’m talking about. Immediately you might get a lift, a high from these different sources, from these varying evasions from truly looking within yourself. Ultimately they are never enough. Nothing and nobody on the outside will ever be totally fulfilling. The truth of you, the Divinity, the home, the awakened state, the ascended state that you wish to be experiencing is within you. There isn’t anything to do except to recognize it. Wherever your attention is drawn outwardly, you cannot see it. It’s simply not there. Nothing there is really there.

Does that mean not to go to a group because it’s not really there? Good point. It’s not there, but that doesn’t mean don’t go to it. As long as you are in a body, you are going to go places and do things. Why not go someplace that will remind you that it is not real, that what is true is always inside of you? Most places encourage you to see the world as a place of victimization, of blame, of right and wrong, and to be angry. The trap is only in confusing the pointer with salvation. It’s your job not to do that. If the pointer encourages you to depend on it, get out that old train schedule. The group is there to remind you to look inside, not to provide you with all of the answers. You can also make a support group out of a close relationship with someone who you see daily, or often. You can act as pointers for each other, reminders to look inside to find the truth, prompters to not take the world seriously or to play the victim/blame game.

Recognizing that though the answer is not out there somewhere in the world does not mean abandoning the world. You deal with physical reality however you deal with it, but you are absolutely aware of when you are placing redemption in that outer world. You act in the world without attachment to results. You choose and participate from a place of guidance rather than from knowing. This can become the terrifying aspect of waking up. There are people you believe you need in your life. Not true. All you need is Spirit, your inner connection to Divinity. As long as you grasp onto your need for others you will fail to fully embrace Spirit. Let’s go another step. We want to remind you that nobody out there is real. Your relationships are all fantasies you are having with projections of yourself. You may have been going along with the idea that the world is an illusion, having read ACIM or other texts or heard different speakers. That is just an idea. In order to convert that from an idea to the truth will require you to act. You need to take the steps you would be taking if you knew all of this was true. You are no longer getting a free pass to let fear dictate your choices. This calls on you to be aware in every moment of what you are thinking and doing, and to see if it is based on the truth or illusion. If you are giving ultimate value to anything other than your relationship with Spirit it is time to stop playing spiritually immature games. The only reality is that One relationship. If you wish to end suffering, your priorities need to be straight. Nothing in the world matters. Nothing. You are the one who knows when you are not being honest with yourself. No teacher or book can do that work for you in the now. They can inspire you and redirect you, but the work is absolutely yours.

I encourage you to hold onto that focus. I encourage you to come back and read this again, to remind yourself that your only refuge is within you, never in others or in things or in events. Your only truth is within you. The only time is now. Bon Voyage!

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

How will I be able to tell that I am awake?

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It is fun to be back to a question this month. The short answer to this query is that you won’t be able to. You won’t be able to tell if you are awake. Now, perhaps you have at least figuratively thrown your arms in the air and are screaming, “What now? If I can never know…..what meaning is left?” To further muddy the water We will add a corollary. If someone comes up to you, or you are reading what they have written, and they tell you they are awake, or enlightened, or ascended – walk, don’t run, quietly but quickly in the opposite direction. Why do We say this? To say that “I am awake” is a statement of separation. Who is this I? If one were awake, there would be no more identity for them as “I”. Though they might use the name they have been known by, it would mean nothing to them.

One who is awake would see that awakeness or Divinity in everyone, regardless of whether the “others” could see it themselves. In that sense to say “I am awake” is perhaps to really express “I am awake and you’re not. Nanny, nanny, boo-boo.” It is creating a separation, which is not the expression of awakeness. This smells just a little bit like having an ego attachment, superiority. Perhaps they want to keep you as a student so they can hold an identity as a teacher. If somebody claims to be a teacher who can teach you and bring you to enlightenment, turn around and quietly, but quickly, walk in the opposite direction. This is not your teacher. This is not to say that you cannot have a teacher. I speak to you not as a teacher; I speak directly to the awakened you who knows who you are. That true you recognizes truth. It is not by following me or anyone else who is providing information or pointers that you experience your awakening. That you will experience yourself in your own way. You will experience through focusing inwardly, not on outer examples, however helpful these might be. If in this process you think that you are now awake, keep going. You are not there yet. If you are still experiencing an I, a you, and a them, there is still separation.

You might think that I am now saying that there is more work for you to do. You don’t work your way to awakening. It might be more accurate to say that you unwork your way. Awakening is noticed after you have let go of every false belief you have. As long as you hold on to having to work at that, you are holding on to a belief. If this sounds like a Catch-22, that’s because it is. Remember that the truth that can be explained is not the whole truth. So you work at not working. You believe in letting go of beliefs. You stop searching for what you most want to find. You will know that you are there when you realize there is no you there. If you are thinking in terms of having an “I”, notice that and go on to your next thought. You are still holding on to a separate identity. When you try to do something, you are reinforcing a you who is trying to change your experience in the illusion. Every thought in duality has its opposite. “I am awake” is opposed by “I am still asleep”.

There is no place to start other than with intention. Eventually the intention gets lost. I cannot tell you how this process will work for you. You will find direction as you seek different guidance, different pointers from different places, and play with them. If your life is consumed with this process of letting go of process, then perhaps you will get lucky one day. I can offer a few pointers. There have been a number of them in the last few messages. Notice what is coming in to your mind. While being aware of your thoughts, notice that you have very little control here. Most of your thoughts appear, unchosen. Suddenly they are there. Where did that thought come from? The illusion is that you are the creator of your thoughts, which would make your thoughts a product of separation. But if you are the generator of your thoughts, you should have absolute power over determining the next one. Play with that and find out how helpless you are to control your next thought. As your body is being breathed, your mind is being thought. You don’t know where they are emanating from. You think you are thinking thoughts, but the thoughts are thinking you. Life is living you. Rather than taking ownership of these thoughts and taking on the fool’s task of trying to herd them, just notice them fly by. Notice the thought that is now in your mind and then say, “Next, please”. Let it come. Look at it and say, “Next, please”. And so on. Give the thoughts no particular value; don’t judge or evaluate them; just watch them pass by like clouds on a windy day. The true you is the noticer of the thoughts, not the thinker of the thoughts.

The you that believes it has a separate identity – that exists, that has a name and a body separate from other bodies – is living in an illusion, in a fairyland. That you thinks it has to do something, go somewhere, or know something to become awakened. It believes it is separate from its awakened self. And of course you will be right, because that will be your experience. That’s why following any particular practice, discipline, or teaching will help you to stay asleep. Your awakened self is not somewhere else. Your awakened experience is not something else. It is right here, right now. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing to believe. No one to show you the way. It all comes back to the noticer and the noticing. See what is here. Accept whatever thoughts come. Nothing to change. Nothing to improve on. Nothing to figure out.

Meanwhile, here is a game you can play. It is not the game. It is not the path to awakening. It is not a must or a should. It can simply help you to notice the separate self you think you are, that is…..to separate you from your separate self. The irony of words is just too much. You can play this game for any period of time. You can try it for a minute, for five minutes, for a day, for a week, for ever. It doesn’t matter. Just have fun with it, or struggle. It doesn’t matter. Here is the game. You eliminate in your thinking and conversation all first person pronouns. There is to be no I, me, my, mine, myself, Instead refer to self in the third person. Use he/she, her/him, his/hers, or herself/himself. You can also identify self with a name. Instead of saying “I am happy”, say “Emma (supply your first name) is happy”. Little kids often do that: “Johnny thirsty”. Practice being in the third person. This helps to take away the direct identity and ownership of this personality. It helps one to be the observer rather than the observed. It is as if you are talking about someone else, a place where you already have separation. Now you can begin to feel a separation from your ego identity. It can help you to loosen those chains. No guarantees here. It’s just a game. If it does cause you to awaken, write and let us know. Of course we’ll know you are not telling the truth. If you wonder how we will know that, please return to the first few sentences above. The game might best be played when you are alone with your thoughts, but if you have others who are willing to play along – go for it. Embark on a third person diet, abstaining from the first person.

There is no randomness to the thoughts that come to you, no randomness to anything that appears to you in the illusion. Everything is scripted and planned out. Everything is in perfection. Everything is there to support the awakening process, or more precisely, the awareness of the awakened state. Where do the thoughts come from? They come from Spirit, from Divinity, from the Awakened Self. Whatever you choose to do with the thoughts is also scripted. Sometimes you have to go down a road and beat your head against the wall for a while before you can realize that is not the way. You are guided to take these steps, though your separated mind likely believes the guidance had a different purpose and may be disappointed by the destination you find yourself arriving at. Your goals are not realized. The Divine purpose is realized. There is always method in the madness. What you might hold as a failure is actually a success at eliminating another untruth from your mind. The experience was necessary to the letting go process. As you become more aware of the workings of Divinity, you will find it easier to accept the perfection of what is here and to give up the false beliefs – remember, all beliefs are false.

We have been filling Michael’s head with thoughts since he was young. Some he resisted, some he pondered over, and some he acted on. None of those choices is the correct one. Whatever you do is the perfect response. It was what We knew you would do. Most of these thoughts are not designed to trigger an immediate awakening to the total knowing that it is all an illusion and the separate you doesn’t exist, though one of them will do that. The thought you are having now will probably just lead you to the next step. The number of steps is finite. So, pay attention to your thought, and then say, “Next, please”. At some point it may be obvious that there is nobody there thinking those thoughts. You will be awake, but there will be nobody there to notice. There is just life living life – the eternal joy of the moment, no matter what it is filled with. There might be pain or a flash of anger. Like everything, this will be present and then leave. That is the nature of the illusion. Nothing lasts, unless you make up a story about it and hold on to that. The awakened you won’t do that. There is nobody there to hold on. There is just the observer, experiencing what is there. Immediately that is replaced by something else. Zero attention span. “Next, please”.

So, We have a bonus for you this time with two games you can play. First is the third person diet and second is the “Next, please” game. Enjoy! Then let go. Perhaps in mid-game you notice nobody there playing the game and just laugh. Nothing left to do. Nowhere to go. No responsibility. No weight on no shoulders. No job. No purpose. As the man sang…there is “nothing to do but today”.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

Do I create my reality or does Spirit?

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It seems that this month’s question is one of those chicken or egg quandaries. Let’s begin in this manner. When you say “I”, that means the question is emanating from your ego. The ego “I” is the only one you can relate to because there is no true “I”. Only your ego can be asking this question. Then we have the dilemma of deciding what the hell is meant by “reality”. If reality is defined as how you perceive the world, then of course you are the creator. Everything you see in the illusion is your projection, is your creation. Your body, the people around you, the physical world, the weather, the drama, the governments, sports…..it’s all your creation in terms of what you perceive. The important question now is do we want to label your perceptions as reality. I have told you many times, including earlier in this paragraph, that all this is an illusion. Yes, your ego self creates these illusions. I can hear the wheels spinning inside your mind and you’re thinking “Sanhia, you are really not answering this question for me in a satisfactory way.” “Do my thoughts affect this “reality” I’m in, or is Spirit running everything?”

That’s a very good question, but I want to return to what I have already stated. If you are speaking in terms of this illusion being “reality”, you are absolutely in charge because you choose your reaction to each moment. You choose how you perceive; you choose to judge; you choose your emotional response. If you are asking if you have the power to absolutely control this illusion, to make it exactly what you want it to be, the answer is yes, to some degree, but no, not really. If you have a child whom you perceive as lazy, never helping around the house, leaving messes all about, and so on, do you have the power to change this behavior in your “reality”. Those of you who have been in these shoes are laughing and thinking, “Not a chance”. What you do have the power to affect is in how you choose to react. Here the only limits are the belief structures you restrict yourself with. You might tell yourself that any rational person would react in a negative way to this behavior and try to change it. If you are cut off in traffic by another driver, the “natural” response is to honk your horn and display your middle finger. Otherwise, they will never learn proper driving etiquette. I ask again, how successful do you think your expressions of anger are in changing the other driver’s habits? So, if “reality” is what is happening in the outer world, you probably have little power to affect change. You do have the power to stop thinking you should be changing this “reality”, you can give up the thought that it should be different. It is insanity to believe that if you honk your horn loudly enough and thrust your finger far enough out your window, suddenly the highway will be a peaceful place filled with courteous drivers. Maybe the thousandth time of asking your child to clean up after themselves will magically work. Maybe this is why the illusion is referred to as a dream. You have the power to accept how it is. You have the power not to be upset by what is.

The question now comes back that if you are actually not creating this “reality”, who is? Is it just random? Does Spirit create everything that seems to be happening? My answer is “absolutely”. Then you ask me if Spirit has a screw loose? Why would Spirit create this mess? You cannot even begin to grasp the answer to this question without accepting that nothing going on in the world matters at all. I am not saying this metaphorically; this is as close as we can get to expressing the truth in words. Nothing in this world has any value or importance. The only purpose for anything in this dreamscape is in assisting you in waking up. You have no other function or purpose other than awakening. This is not to say that Spirit won’t use you in the master plan of awakening everyone, but while you are asleep you can have no awareness of how Spirit might be using you. When awakened, you are aware that your only function is to do as Spirit asks. Again, this function is not one of saving the world; the universe is going to disappear. It is only in supporting others in awakening and you will not have the responsibility of figuring out how to do that. Spirit will guide your every moment. Everything that happens is guided by Spirit. Everything is planned. Not only is everything planned, but Spirit knows exactly how you are going to respond. Therefore, it is impossible for you to make the wrong choice. Self judgment and guilt are absolute wastes of time. Spirit/God can hardly hold you responsible for doing as you are expected to do. Spirit creates the situation and you respond. If you are in resistance to what is presented and think it should be in some other way, the lessons continue to be presented until you realize that all is as it should be. Maybe that happens in this body and maybe in another. None of that matters because none of this, including time, is real. Eventually within the dream you will have that moment when you realize you have been rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic, trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. You will laugh at your own insanity, let go, and accept the glorious perfection of everything you are and have been experiencing.

You, and here I am speaking to your ego self, fortunately cannot control this illusion that you have been projecting outside of yourself, this dream world. If you could, you would choose from your ego and remain forever asleep. But that’s not in the cards; you won’t be able to accomplish that. On a good day you may fool yourself into believing that you do have that power and want it to continue indefinitely. Ultimately, the weather will change. That’s the nature of duality, of this illusion. Every up is followed by a down, and vice versa. They may not seem to be in balance but neither of them can fully disappear. In Spirit, in Divinity, everything is perfect. There is nothing you would consider changing. The stubbing of your toe, the kiss of the sun, the sting of a bee, and the laugh of a child are all part of the perfection of the now.

I want to repeat that as you are dealing with your life each day, you cannot do it in a wrong way. You are just following the plan. The end of the plan is the awakening and the awareness that it has always been a dream. There is no way you can make that happen today, nor is there a way to stop it from happening now. It’s simply not in your control. The plan is all there. The perfection of it is beyond ego comprehension. The enormity of the seemingly infinite interconnections of Spirit’s plan should be humbling to your ego thought system. If you are reading this message, if you are taking it in, if you have been choosing to listen to Spirit and to let go of your ego mind, all of this has been planned. None of it happens by accident. If you seem to be either ahead of or behind another in your awakening process, take no credit and leave no blame. All is going according to plan (not to speak of the fact that your placement of your “growth” in relationship to others is likely to be faulty). Your reaction to what you are reading here is also planned. You cannot make a mistake.

Those of you who feel all alone, who think nobody understands you, feel that God has abandoned you, or believe that you can’t hear Spirit – know that Spirit is with you at every moment. Your consciousness of this has nothing to do with it. Spirit is always whispering in your ear, whether you are listening or not. There is never a time when you are alone. You are truly One with Spirit and with each other. Absolutely One. Ego believes in your separateness. Again that is why there is a call for gratitude for your inability to be able to control the dreamscape “reality”. The ego can only use its power to maintain the sense of separation. Otherwise your ego disappears. For the ego to make such a choice is not in the cards. Ego dies from a lack of attention.

In truth, this is not a chicken or egg question. There is only one answer and that is that Spirit creates the “reality” of your dream world. Spirit controls every aspect. Spirit does this through a loving, connected “spirit” of Oneness, leading you step-by-step to stop listening to your ego and to hold Spirit’s hand and experience the Love and Oneness. Your ego wants you to believe that you can and should take control and make the world the way you want it to be. It’s never going to happen. When you experience being One with Spirit, you will find that you do “create” your own reality, but this is a co-creation with Spirit; Spirit speaks and you act. There is an absolute alignment. You would never want it any differently. There is nothing you would rather do.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

What stands between me and my awakening?

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All of these questions come from the ego. There is a certain irony involved in this in that the ego is asking questions about awakening when it does not want to wake up. The first place to look with this question in mind is at this fact that it is your ego which is leading the inquiry, so where is the duality that is always part of the ego? Your question assumes that there is something outside of you that is blocking the way. You can spend the rest of your lifetimes searching for what is outside you that needs to be moved without finding it. The obstacles are always within, not without. This is a trick question. Perhaps I could rephrase it. What are you placing in front of yourself to prevent your awakening? Now things become straight forward. I would turn this around by asking the following question, “What is more important to you than awakening?” If your answer is that nothing is more important to you, I will reply with, “Now tell me the truth.” If there was nothing that was more important to you than awakening we wouldn’t be having this conversation; you would be awake. The ego may be hiding from you what you value more highly than awakening, but more likely you are fully aware that other things are more important for you. It will be a while before your full focus is on awakening. Check back with me next week, or month, or year, or lifetime.

What is more important for you? Maybe it’s your relationship, or your children, or your career, or your home, or your dreams for heaven on earth, or your need for love or approval, or your need to be a part of the group, or your personal identity. Maybe it is your need to have a quest. If you awaken, there may be nothing left to search for. It is time to be honest with yourself. What is it that you value above awakening? Until you have satisfied that need, it will stand in your way. This is the block you have placed in front of you. I will say that whatever your ego mind is telling you about the importance of fulfilling this need is a lie. It is an excuse. It is fear based. This is never Spirit guided; it is always the voice of the ego. The ego will unfailingly come up with reasons, with excuses. It does its best work when it convinces you to be justified in following it, particularly if there is some sort of sacrifice involved. You believe that somebody else needs you. Your children or your family depend on you. Your workplace needs you.

Right now you are in one of three places. The first place you might find yourself in is one of recognizing that there are things you place more value on than awakening and don’t desire to switch your priorities at the present. A second place you might find yourself in is one of being really confused. You thought you wanted to wake up, but now you are not so sure. The third place is one of reaffirming that you really want to wake up, but realizing that you have some work in front of you to see what you have been placing in the way. If you are in the first position, I offer you congratulations on your honesty. Go after your dreams or continue carrying out your responsibilities and check back later if they leave you unfulfilled. If you are in either of the other two positions – it may be hard to distinguish between them – we will talk further.

I want to remind you of something we have mentioned before. There are just three simple steps to the awakening process. The first one is to have the awareness that at any moment you are listening to a voice, either that of the ego or that of Spirit. If you don’t realize you are listening to a voice, it can be assumed that you are hearing the voice of ego. That is the normal chatter inside your head and out in the world. Without being aware that you are always listening to one of two voices, you likely go on nonchalantly listening to that of the ego. When a voice enters saying that you want to awaken but ………….. (fill in the space with one or more of the various things we talked about in the second paragraph), that is ego’s voice. This first step is the hardest one. It is a constant training to be aware that at every moment each thought that enters your mind comes from either ego or Spirit. The default is to think that things are as they appear, that they are true and real, and that there is no other way to hold things. That is ground zero. You are to train yourself to take a step back and to examine each thought. Rather than simply accepting the thought as a true perception of the world, recognize that it comes from either ego or Spirit. At this step you are not even determining who you are listening to, just being aware that you are listening to a voice as opposed to observing “reality”. The heavy betting, however, is on your thoughts being dominated by ego.

Now comes step two, where you attempt to discern whose voice you are listening to. If you are serious about awakening, you are eternally vigilant; you are looking at each and every thought. It is most likely that the thought is from the ego, but ego has the ability to hide in Spirit’s clothes, to convince you that the right choice, the moral choice, the responsible choice is the one it is promoting. One of ego’s favorite games is to say that you have responsibilities to others that take precedence over your own desire to awaken, which perhaps is a little selfish. Spirit never asks for sacrifice. It knows that your own awakening is the greatest gift you could offer to anybody else. If ego cannot tempt you with earthly goals like special relationships, wealth, or reaching personal goals, self-sacrifice will often do the trick. However, your awakened self has so much more to offer your family, friends, and world than your puny ego-driven self that it would be a “crime” to deny it to others. Jesus said to teach others how to fish rather than just giving them a fish. You must learn how to fish before you can do that. The second step is the one where you discern which voice you are listening to. Be brutally honest with yourself. Are you absolutely sure you are hearing the voice of Spirit, or is it an ego game and trick?

If you want to awaken, and some thought or reason comes to you as to why you can’t do it now, you are listening to the voice of the ego. Spirit will never encourage you to maintain a false separation from yourself. What is it that your ego is manifesting in order to pull your attention away from waking up? Sometimes it might be health issue; other times it may be tasks that you feel compelled to undertake; friends or family may be tugging at your sleeve. This is not to say that awakening should come first; it is a reminder that if you are telling yourself that your ascension is the most important thing, the only important thing, in your life – nothing else will get in the way. If it does, you are not being honest with yourself. You are left in the dark; you are left in suffering and in a sense of failure. Since we have made it this far together, I must remind you that any choice other than to awaken is fear based, is grounded in untruth, and is a disservice to you. Again, the second step is only about noticing which voice you are listening to. You cannot go on to the third step without this awareness.

It is only with the third step that any action is suggested. Where you discern the voice of Spirit, you follow it. Where you ascertain it as the voice of ego, stop listening or ignore it. This takes practice. It requires discipline. The ego mind will go crazy and throw tantrums. It will litter your path with obstacles. Your ego mind thoughts stand in the way of your awakening. The obstacles will be specific to you. Though some will be shared, nobody else is presented with exactly the same obstructions. When you commit to Spirit you begin to relinquish these ways of the ego. Of course you won’t always succeed. Notice yourself following ego insanity. Release judgment; just watch. Come up here with Us and observe your crazy little ego self’s games. Nobody can just shut down the ego mind. Notice as quickly as you can the ways you have responded. Don’t feed the ego by beating yourself up. Whenever possible, join us in laughing at the folly. You will begin to sense the difference between the actor and the observer. The you that observes yourself acting in the world is not the you that acts. The awakening process is one of becoming aligned with the observer instead of the actor. You begin to realize that the actions do not matter, that what transpires in the world of illusion truly is of no importance. The observer is just watching. The unfed ego will slowly starve.

To return one last time to the original question – nothing stands in your way. There is no place you have to go. You, the observer, are home. All that there is to do is to notice what goes by in the world, you included. As you hear your true inner voice, the one we call Spirit, you will find it encouraging you to action in ways that you are totally aligned with. Your focus will just be in the acting. Results will not matter. The world doesn’t matter, but it is the only game to play while experiencing self in a body. Somewhere in the midst of this, with the grace of God, lies your full awakening. So stop pretending there are things standing in your way. Rise above it all and enjoy the show.

Good Now

Sanhia

What do we do with the war in Ukraine?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia

Is there a difference between awakening and ascension?

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This question has come up recently. We have been using the term awakening quite a bit lately. People are wondering if that word means the same thing as ascension. Are the terms interchangeable? I can understand the confusion, and it is time to clear things up. Not only will we clarify the information, but we will give you some valuable insights that I have not previously presented. Now it is time for you to receive them. We dealt with this question some years ago using still different terminology and I highly recommend that you click here to read that message as it provides good information on this subject without specifically focusing on most of what I have to say now. So, with no further ado, let’s speak of awakening and ascension. In that previous message we used the term enlightenment.  We’ll deal with that word right now so that our focus can be limited to the two terms in the title. Enlightenment and awakening are synonyms. They have the same general meaning as I use them. You are welcome to substitute the word enlightenment any time I say awakening, but I will only use the latter term for the rest of this message.

Now, let’s go back to the beginning. In this process of dealing with the subject of pure non-duality – the realization that any time we are dealing with opposites we are dealing with illusion, with things that are not real in that they do not pass the test of foreverness – we are dealing with questions of truth or untruth. In truth there is Oneness. Of course it goes without saying – though I am saying it anyway and have said it before – we are using words here and words never express the truth. They are by nature dualistic because your reasoning mind can only work in the realm of separation. When we speak of Spirit and ego, we are speaking dualistically as if these are two different things that truly exist, when in truth only Spirit exists. Spirit is connected to the Divine and ego is not. This process that we are talking about in using the terms awakening and ascension has two steps. This is the new information for you, or at least for most of you. The first step is what we have often been dealing with in these messages. That is the letting go of the ego. This process is what we have been calling awakening. When you are awakened you are in an ego-free state. This means that you have no attachments; you no longer hold people or things as special; you have no personal goals; you have no horse in the race – whatever happens is perfect. What you do is to simply listen to your inner guidance, to Spirit, and follow it in absolute trust and love without a need for understanding. When the ego is dropped there is no judgment, no competition, and no right and wrong; there is only love.

Let’s go deeper into what this ego-free state is like. I won’t cover all of the many questions you might have about it, so feel free to send any that linger with you to Michael and we will visit them in future messages. When you are in this awakened state there is nothing that limits you. This physical illusion is now your playground instead of your classroom. You know that whatever happens is perfect, so the thought of anything possibly being upsetting to you is insanity. It does not compute. It will not happen. You know that everything that does happen is on purpose and as it should be. Your part is to play your role, following your guidance, doing something that will be a joy for you. You know what to do because you feel guided. You are being told what to do, but there is no separation between you and the guiding Spirit. Your wills are one. That is non-dualistic. There is no limit to the possibilities of what different services you may be asked to perform. You might be teaching others through your words, written or spoken. You might be led to artistic expressions. You might be building things or growing things. Again, there are no limits to what you may be inspired to, other than you will be filled with love and joy in the doing. Results will not matter; only the doing itself has value for you.

You may be wondering how long this ego-free state goes on for. The answer to that is up to the Divine. We will say that as you are performing the services that Spirit is asking of you, which you are doing with love and joy, you are still aware of yourself. You notice the world. You have consciousness, even though the ego has disappeared. There is the observer and the observed. You are in an in-between state. Perhaps we could say that you are not ruled by dualism, yet you do not have the full experience of Oneness. It is not possible to have a self and to be One at the same time, so your non-dualism cannot be pure. You are still experiencing separation from God. The longer you are in this state of egoless self, the more you will feel the separation blurring. As you do all of these Spirit inspired things you will gradually realize there is less that you are motivated to do in the illusion. Ultimately, you come to the second step which is the letting go of the self. When this occurs you no longer have an identity; you no longer have consciousness. There is no you remaining that can observe. You are One with all, One with God.  There is no longer a physical experience, a body.

There is an important understanding that accompanies the two step ascension process of first dropping the ego, and second dropping the self. Some of you have been afraid to drop the ego because you thought that ascension was in one step. You feared that dropping the ego meant you would immediately – poof! – leave your body, the world, everything! But that is not the case. When you awaken, everything is still there, except the ego. You are now experiencing the illusion without an ego. That’s it! Then you will have a long run – or a short run, depending on what Spirit has in mind for you – of playing with the illusion from an egoless perspective until you are complete with that. You cannot be forced into letting go of the self, nor can you force it to happen. You will stay and play in the illusion until you have had your fill. What we call ascension is the point where you willingly and through the grace of God let go of the self. Then the illusion absolutely disappears. There is no separate consciousness, and you are One with God. Of course the truth is that you are already One with God, even as you are experiencing the illusion of a separate self and an ego, but that hasn’t been a part of your conscious awareness.

In the awakened level of letting go of the ego, you know that it is all an illusion so you are able to play in it without attachment to anything. In the second level, or ascension, there is no more you. You have let go of the self, of consciousness of any separate awareness. Both of these ascension steps happen with the grace of God. Your ego will not choose to let itself go, so you ask Spirit to do that for you. You, therefore, cannot control the timing, though you can maintain a clear focus and continually face the untruths you are holding. Your awakened self also cannot decide to let go of itself because that would be an act of consciousness. Only Divine energy can dissolve that illusion of separation to allow the self to be submerged into the Oneness. It is analogous to falling asleep. You cannot will yourself into sleep. The more you try to sleep, the more you will remain awake.  Sleep comes when you let go, which allows it to happen. When you have left the ego, your awakened self may still have a lot to do. Let it run its course. Your ascension occurs when the self has nothing left to do and can let go, simultaneously free of any need to stay or to leave. When this happens, we call it “by the grace of God”. This was demonstrated by Jesus. This was not demonstrated by the Buddha, though he did demonstrate awakening.

We have today, and in all of the messages talked about the egoless experience, how to achieve it and what it is like. To talk about the self-less experience is not possible. There is nothing I could say that would give you the remotest feeling for what the Divine experience is, not even a sniff. I have given the following analogy before. It has been said that the human mind only uses five per cent of its potential. What would the experience of using the full potential be? The awakened egoless self has a similar relationship with the experience of the Divine. Notice we’re not even bringing the ego consciousness level into this equation. And in saying that the awakened self experiences only 5 percent of the ecstasy of Divinity, we are being very generous. When the self has a “divine” experience, this a projection of the self, not a true experience of the Divine. The most glorious earthly experience with perfect weather, fantastic nature, smells, sights, sounds, loving people, and the feeling of a divine connection with God would, from the Divine perspective, be a descent into hell. The highest dualistic heaven would be experienced as hell by the Divine. So much for your ego attempts to create heaven on earth.

For most of you reading this, the information about leaving the self is academic. Your work is in leaving the ego. If there is anyone in the audience who is egoless, your job is to enjoy creating in that place as long as you are so inspired.  Leaving the self is not a focus of any importance. Back to the rest of you, there will likely be a gradual transition where you are less and less influenced by your ego and more and more listening to the guidance of Spirit. If you still can get upset, there is work remaining. Again the final letting go of ego is through grace, not your efforts. It is not earned, but there is clear intention. For all there is never a rush. Everything happens in Divine time and order. Go set your alarms for awakening, but without selecting a time.

Good Now

Sanhia

Sanhia, how can we trust that the things you are telling us are true?

/in , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wow, that is a question that gets right down to the nub! How can you trust that anything you are reading or hearing from me, or from any spiritual teacher or book, or from your own mind is true? Scary! What if you act as if something is true and it turns out to be a false teaching? Now you may have wasted your entire life or at least destroyed major parts of it for no reason, losing along the way the other opportunities that might have presented themselves. Life as you know it is over. As you may have noticed, there is usually a short answer to the question. The short one is that you can’t. As Bob Dylan said, “Don’t follow leaders; watch your parking meters”. You absolutely cannot trust anything or anyone. The second short answer is that whatever you may think the truth is – you are wrong. Is it the truth that whatever you think is wrong? No, wrong again. Boy this is fun. We are, nonetheless, winding our way toward where we want to go. I will continue by jumping in with both feet, which is quite a feat because I have no feet, by saying that there is only one truth. That truth is I Am. I could also say You Are, but I won’t because it is not for me to speak for you. I have no idea if you are. You are free to declare the one truth for yourself, I Am.  As you think about that you can ask yourself if there is any way it can be refuted. Can you say I am not? Can you say that you have no awareness, no consciousness? You might think that your awareness is only connected to this physical body and its brain. In that case, when the body dies, which by all evidence will be the case, you will not be any more. Maybe that is true. I guess you will have to kill yourself to find out if there is still an I Am. Or, you can start with the truth of your I Am-ness as a working basis for looking at everything else you think is true or that you think is false.

We call this considering of something as true or untrue – belief. The thing that separates I Am from all the other beliefs we are going into is that you do absolutely experience your being-ness. There is no time when you don’t experience your being-ness. A hypothesis for you to test out for yourself is that any qualification you might add to I Am is not true. Again, I am not telling you that everything else is false; I am asking you to check it out for yourself. The hypothesis is that any qualification you might put on anything in the world around you is false. That is what I suggest you test for yourself. You will likely find yourself in one of three places right now as you read this. One place is that you are holding the thought, “Sanhia, you are so full of shit. I can smell you from here.” From this position you believe that there are obviously diseases like Corona, extreme weather, falling rocks, and all other types of things that are dangerous to humans. You can provide endless items to add to this list of things you know are true. A second position you might take is that this is an interesting way to look at existence and you might want to think about it some more and see what you can make of it. In the third position you might think I am correct with my hypothesis, but you still experience your body as very real and have physical and emotional reactions to things going on in the world. It makes absolutely no difference where you place yourself on this spectrum. I could care less. It doesn’t matter. All three points come from a place of being asleep and not awake. The question you could ask yourself is, “Am I content with my state of slumber?”

If your answer to the slumber question is that you would like to wake up, the question now becomes one of what you need to do to shake yourself awake. It is likely that if you are still opening these messages you have some level of desire to wake up. On the other hand, maybe you are just fooling yourself. Maybe you like being asleep and it is just a fun game to entertain thoughts about non-duality, but you don’t really take them seriously. That’s fine. As we said, none of these ideas are true. I Am is all that is true. But if you are saying to yourself that you really want to wake up, then my work is done. My only job was to rattle your cage a little, to offer you the possibility to make that decision for yourself, or not. I cannot tell you what to do. It is absolutely your job, your responsibility to follow the road to truth. Nobody can do that for you, nor can you do it for anyone else. But, you ask, can’t you even give us a hint? Well, if you twist my arm – which I also don’t have, I am unarmed – I will say a few things, but don’t write them down in stone. Don’t make commandments out of them or a Bible or a religion. These are only general guidelines; your truest direction will come from a voice inside of you that will set your course if you allow it to. It will not come from a voice outside of you – hello, that’s me. You can listen to me until the cows come home, as they say, and you will still be fast asleep. You might laugh a bit because I can be amusing, but you’ll be laughing in your sleep, which might be less objectionable than snoring. If you want to fully awaken, the ball is in your court. You make that happen.

Okay, here are some of the promised hints. First of all, keep in mind that whatever you think is true, beyond I Am, requires deep examination. Look at it and look at it and….okay, you’ve got it. Question yourself about it. Ask it questions about itself. Do this in writing if you choose, or maybe speaking out loud. Stay with it until you either can prove it to be true or until you realize it was just an illusion; it is not really true. This truth is to be beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is to rely on no outside “experts” for validation. This can be aided by asking yourself how you can be sure that any “expert” is right. Most of what you believe is something that somebody taught you. How likely is it that one would open their eyes one day, look around, and out of the clear blue say that there is a pandemic around and it would be a good idea to take a vaccination? That is probably not an idea that comes to one through an inner guidance. These ideas of pandemics, disease, vaccinations, and death are all ideas you were taught. Perhaps the “authorities” that you give power to in your life said these things: doctors, scientists, media, governments, or friends.

How do you know absolutely that any part of what you “know” is accurate? If you actually look and look and question everything until you have irrefutable proof for yourself that a belief or statement is true, you will end up finding only untruth. If you commit to follow each trail to its bloody end, I guarantee you will go through terror, fear, and pain on every level. All your comfort areas will disappear. You will find yourself alone. Even your friends who feel like spiritual buddies will not be there with or for you. The cozy, warm beliefs you shared will not stand the test of truth and your co-conspirators will not be willing to walk this path of blowing up truths with you. You will find yourself separating from them and nearly all of society. Perhaps, if you are really serious about your pursuit of truth you will eventually find others who are similarly drawn. This will likely only happen when you have already done the heavy lifting and no longer require outside life support. If you are hoping in any way that your salvation will come from some place outside of you – like the second coming of Jesus, aliens from more advanced planets, or a master teacher – you will simply fall back into deep slumber. If you hold the belief in a savior, look deeply into it until you see your way through. You will have to kill the Buddha. As long as your actions are based on beliefs of how the universe is, you will remain asleep to the truth. On the other hand, if you grab that bull of “truth” by the horns and don’t let go until you are aware of the untruth, these beliefs will one after another fall away until all that is certain is I Am.

When everything but I Am is gone there will remain an inner voice which guides you in each moment. You will be aware of a Oneness and a perfection, that there is nothing that needs to change. You will accept your role in the human drama and carry it out without question and without attachment to results. You will simply love the game. Now, perhaps some of you are thinking that these last sentences sound like beliefs. Wonderful! You are on the road to truth realization. I agree with you absolutely, absopositivily. There is no way to jump directly into the awakened state to see if this will be your experience. All you can do is to unwind the untruths to see what remains. Holding these thoughts as beliefs while you are still sleeping will leave you still asleep. I am simply suggesting that as you release all the false beliefs you have and go to your inner core, your Is-ness, your I Am; your experience may be something like that. But it is practice, not belief that will take you there. Look at everything. Question everything. Doubt everything, including all that I say to you. Believe nothing. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

As we let this entertaining discourse draw to an end, I want to again remind you that the words I am speaking to you or that you are reading are never the truth. I can only hint, and talk around the truth, and sometimes speak out of both sides of my mouth, even though I don’t actually have a mouth. I have said in the past that you are not really in charge of anything, that Spirit is in charge of everything and that all will happen at the perfect time. I still hold with that as I ask you what choice you are going to make here. Mostly, those who feel like they are making the choice to absolutely and fearlessly face the truth are not doing so because they got out of bed one day and said that it seemed like the time for truth realization. More likely they got out of bed (or couldn’t) and realized there was no other choice. “The world is hopeless and useless, and so am I. I have to do something to end this misery.” That’s a common beginning. There is a saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I’m going to make a slight modification and say that when the student is ready the shit will hit the fan. That is when the student chooses to act. Yes, perhaps a teacher appears at that moment, but it is not the teacher that is important. All depends on the actions of the student. It is all connected. There is a Oneness and a perfection as you let go of what is not true and allow your inner guidance to lead you to the truth of I Am. You will find yourself acting in the world in a way that impacts others. You will do this, not because you know the truth, but because there is a perfect plan we are all a part of. When you are truth realized, you would never choose any other course than the one being presented to you. Your part in the perfect plan today might be to continue to play the loyal opposition, holding on to your “truths” and thinking everything else is bullshit. Everything has its purpose. Maybe your perfect place is to suspect there is no truth in your beliefs but you aren’t ready to act on it. Perfect – that is Spirit’s plan for you today. When it is time for you to wake, it will feel like you have no choice. Spirit will provide a swift kick in the ass and you are off to the races.

What is true is true. No amount of belief can make anything true or untrue. What is true is I Am. The rest of it is all illusion, nothing but smoke and mirrors. Within that dream you will awaken. It can be no other way. You will never accept this truth until you follow every untruth to its logical end and destruction. How long it will take for you to choose this makes no difference. Your level of intelligence makes no difference. Your spiritual discipline makes no difference. When the moment comes, it will happen. Is that time now? There is no correct answer to that question. You may make a start and be satisfied with whatever distance you come toward letting go, telling yourself that you are through for now. You may say that you are not ready now and then find things happening in your life that make any other choice impossible. As I said, my only job is to rattle your cage a little, to shake things up. Maybe something falls on your head or your toe stimulating you to take some sort of action. Maybe not. Maybe you are just left with the thought that Sanhia is full of it. I certainly am. I Am.

Good Now

Sanhia

How can I get control over my ego?

/in , , , , , , , ,

Wow, what a fun question this is!  There are so many different aspects to it that I hardly know where I want to begin. Let’s start with this. We want to talk about the truth of you, which I will call your I Am consciousness. We mentioned this in the last message. You Are or, as you would say it, I Am. That is the end of the story. I Am. It is not “I am spirit” or “I am ego”. It is I Am. But here you find yourself in this story, this movie, this illusion. You appear to have a body. It looks as if there is a physical planet. You seem to be interacting with other people. There appears to be this ego, this craziness, convincing you that the whole package is true, and, as we talked about last time, you are having a lot of emotional responses to the drama being presented. So, you wonder what you can do to reel in this ego. The shortest, most clear, direct, and honest answer that I can give is that you can do nothing. Trying to do something about the ego is on the same level as trying to create heaven on earth, which is on the same level as rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic. You are on a fool’s errand in which you cannot possibly have any success. You will be wasting energy and ending in more confusion than you began.

Having said that, let’s come at this from a totally different point of view. Your mind has a habit of holding onto thoughts or beliefs that are not true. You often begin these thoughts or statements with the words “I am”. For example, you might say, “I am depressed”. That cannot be a true statement. There is a difference between your divine I Am that always is and this illusory physical self, that we could call your “me”, which experiences all of this fear, doubt, and guilt in the world. Your me and the events it encounters are all temporary, while the truth is always true. When you find yourself feeling depressed you can say to yourself, “I am noticing that my me is feeling a little depressed right now”. This is a far different statement than saying to yourself “I am depressed” which suggests a permanent and unchangeable truth of who you are. Instead, you acknowledge that this little me is experiencing depression. Interesting! All you do is notice. The process of waking up involves the realization that your me is not real and what it is experiencing is of no lasting importance. Your job is to develop your awareness of what your me is doing.

The process can happen something like this. You have, or more correctly You Are, a Divine I Am. When we have spoken of taking things to Spirit we could also describe it as taking things to your Divine I Am. As a visual, you can picture yourself high above the playing field, the game, the battlefield, the physical plane. You are looking down on your little me. Oh poor little me, depressed, angry, jealous, horny, happy, sad, head-over-heels in love, heartbroken and so on. All that this awareness amounts to is that you are separating your true self from your me. You look down and observe your me, not with the idea of changing its thoughts or actions, simply being aware that this is not the truth of you. Your I Am is just watching and noticing what your me is going through right now. If you try to change your me, that is if you try to control your ego, you will fail. You are then making the experience of your me real. You are giving it an importance and an existence that it doesn’t have. That is a big one to get over, because your me thinks that everything that happens to it is so important. But the experiences have no meaning beyond being the description of your self-created prison. Your job is not to stop feeling whatever your me is going through, but to simply notice what is going on from a detached separate space, from your I Am. You might lovingly notice without judgment or guilt, “Oh isn’t my little me cute”. That is called being aware.

As you are able to simply be aware, the behavior will begin to dissipate. You have likely heard before that what you resist persists. Your attempts to bring about change are only empowering and encouraging the craziness of the ego to continue. When the behavior is given no attention, it has no further reason to hang around. So, it is not about controlling the ego; it is about ignoring it and instead focusing on your I Am, which doesn’t have a horse in the ego game race. Of course, ignoring does not mean sticking your head in the sand, pretending you don’t see what your me is doing. Notice everything, but don’t identify with it. Give it no juice. That little me is not You. Of course, you will forget to step back at times. You will find yourself again caught up in the ego games. This is not because you can’t control the ego; it is because the ego still has control of you. This is not a fight over who has control. The ego will win every fight. All you need to do, as often as you can remember to, is to become aware of the situation. Separate out and rise above to your I Am and watch the spectacle taking place. “There I go again.”

One of the most persistent me fears is around death. It might look like your fear of losing somebody close to you, or the reaction to just that having happened (as we talked about in the last message), but it is always the fear of your own death. Your awareness job is to notice yourself having that fear. The I am does not know death. It is not real. I am is only life, consciousness, and awareness. Death is the perfect vehicle for your me to ride in and for your I Am to look down upon, observing yourself dealing with your fear. When your fear of death dissolves, which it will do if you persist in watching it in awareness without judgment from your I Am, you will for the first time realize life. Your ego mind thinks life is all of the things that are not real, all the dramas and emotions.

Your ego mind looks at the possibility of awakening and asks what is left when all it values disappears. If the drama is gone, what remains? There is no good answer to that question. The I Am is what is left when all that is not real is gone. The best I can do is to tell you what the “I Am” is not. I Am not depression. I Am not sadness. I Am not fear. I Am not hate. I Am not anger. I Am not jealousy. I Am not boredom. I Am not death. We could say that everything that you do not want, everything that causes pain and suffering is a part of what I Am not. I Am also not special love, heaven on earth, or any idea you have ever had. The only way for you to realize who You are is to jettison everything that you are not. I Am is what is left. What I can tell you is that while you are in this awareness process of separating your I Am from your me, watching and slowly allowing those behaviors to dissipate – not by trying to change anything but just by noticing – you will begin to have less of your me operating. You will experience less depression, fear, jealousy, worry, and so on. You will experience yourself as living more and more in the now. In this disappearing act will be the guilt about what you have or have not done and the fear about what might happen. Fewer thoughts will run through your mind about what you should be doing, to be replaced by thoughts of what you could be doing. In the now there exist none of the emotions we have been talking about. In the now there is guidance available from a Divine intelligence that is directing everything, perfectly.

This is what happens when you move to the I Am consciousness and simply observe. Your I Am does not pretend to know everything, or perhaps even anything. It simply is. So, gradually, bit by bit, your little me begins to exist just in the now. The separation between your I Am and your me slowly dissolves. You realize that whatever is supposed to happen in this illusion is exactly what is happening. There will not be a thought that things should be any different than they are.  You will simply know how to react to whatever presents itself. You will be guided. That’s all there is: no drama, no confusion, no fear, no past, no future. So, returning one last time to the opening question, there is nothing to control. It’s about letting go of control and replacing that need with awareness, noticing how your me is acting and reacting. There is no battle. You get to sit back and observe the absolute insanity of the ego world. You will grow to appreciate the humor in this absolute insanity. It is permitted to laugh. Sit back and enjoy the show.

Good Now

Sanhia