What Is the meaning of life? | Sanhia on Letting Go of the Search and Resting in Being

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Good Now!

This question brings to mind a cartoon of a sage with long flowing white hair and beard and wearing a simple robe sitting cross-legged on the top of a mountain. In the next panel a seeker has scaled the mountain and prostrates himself before the sage. The caption reads, “Oh Master! What is the meaning of life?” Perhaps in the final panel the sage kicks the seeker and he goes tumbling down. But this is a question that consumes the thoughts of many people, particularly those who consider themselves to be on a spiritual path who want to understand, “What is the meaning of life?”, “Why am I here?”, “Why is the world here?”, “Why are these events happening?”.

There is none.

There is no meaning to life. You are searching for something that does not exist. When the searcher is looking for anything, the belief is that whatever is being sought is separate from “me”. This belief in separation creates an addiction, a constant searching for something outside of the self. The attempt to understand is comparable to figuring out what gives life to an animal by killing and dissecting it. What is the meaning of life? Life is. It simply is. Life is in the animal or it is not.

This searching for meaning is all about having a story. There must be some story that lets everything make sense. That’s what made this happen and that happen, and it all eventually leads to this. We are greatly amused by writer Kurt Vonnegut’s story about how and why humanity evolved on earth. According to this tale there was a space vehicle weaving its way through the universe from the planet Tralfamadore. It broke down with the closest inhabitable planet being the earth. Some Tralfamadorians took a shuttle out from the mother ship in search of a repair part. Not only was there no part available, but the most intelligent form of life was an advanced ape. Those apes were bred and trained, eventually evolving to become homo sapiens. The Tralfamadorians continued to evolve these primitive people until after many thousands of years the race was able to industrialize and finally create the repair part for the visitors, who immediately took the part back to the mother ship, fixed it, and returned home. What is the purpose of life on earth? To allow the Tralfamadorians to return home. This makes as much sense as any of the stories that you have heard or otherwise come up with.

In the last message we talked about awakeness. Awakeness looks for no meaning. It simply lives. It is part of being. When you search for a meaning to your life, you come up with a story. For many of you it’s a sad story, though it may have its bright moments. You didn’t ask to be born. Then you were stuck with those parents who affected you in ways you are still healing from. You got sent to school for years, also with multiple side effects. And let us not forget the church indoctrination. The story goes on and on and on.  Likely some event came along that caused you to wonder if there was another way to look at life, so you began following a spiritual path, seemingly growing from one experience or teacher after another. Eventually enough things may happen down the road that you become enlightened, awakened, ascended. That’s a story. Maybe the story includes an evolution covering many lifetimes pointed towards this wonderful future happening.

But there is no story. It’s just in the mind. First of all, out of the millions of events that have happened around you in this lifetime, the mind has filtered out a relatively small number of them out of which to sculpt your story. Anything that doesn’t fit with the saga is discarded; it’s out the window. Only those happenings that reinforce your tale are held on to. As you encounter the present moment you look for how it supports your story. Events are made to fit a pattern, kind of like the “Procrustean bed” (from Greek mythology, where the bandit Procrustes would tie travelers to a bed, stretching the short and cutting the tall to make them fit). Sometimes so many things fly in the face of your story that you realize you need to modify it. But you still have a story, even if it is a new one. 

When you must have a meaning to life, even if it is a frustrated, hopeless lack of meaning that you feel stuck with, the times can prove to be quite challenging. Perhaps you can’t figure out what the purpose of something is or you wonder why God would let an event happen. As long as there is a looking at life with any kind of expectation of what should be there, there is not a full experience of life. Instead, there is a resistance, a desire to change, to mould, to form what is being experienced to match the story your mind has created.

As there is no meaning to life, there is no personal story. You do not have a story. The tale your mind has woven is not true; it is not real. It is a fabrication of your mind. You think you are controlled by what you think of as your past, by your story. But there is no past. It is just a figment of the imagination. Where is it? Can you go there? Can you find it? No, you just make up stories about it, like the politician who promises to return the country to the greatness it once experienced. Where are those wonderful years? There is no such time. There is just now. As long as you are looking somewhere else, you don’t see the present, you don’t truly experience life.

So, the beingness of life, rather than the meaningness of life, is here, but it is unobserved because the mind is focused elsewhere – either into the illusory past or an imagined future, or projecting on to the present what it believes should be there, rather than what is. A story requires a continuum of past and future. If they don’t exist, how can there be a story? This brings terror to the ego mind: no story means no ego, no me. I die without a story, without a sense of uniqueness and separation from the One. Understandably, that is terrifying. But to dedicate your life to the creation of your story, to finding meaning, to understanding can only lead to a sense of failure and frustration because it is a search for something that does not exist. You are looking for the holy grail out there somewhere. The only place to look is within. If, in looking within, you find a story, dig deeper. Keep looking. Are you absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt certain in the truth of your story? Is any aspect of it suspect, perhaps not fully true? Keep looking. Are you certain? Are there events that don’t fit the pattern? Is projection involved? Are there non-conforming experiences that you are overlooking. Did things just happen rather than happen to you? Then return to the now and see what is here. Where is there a story in the rustling of leaves or the chirping of birds?  Where is there a story in seeing the clouds in the sky or in feeling and smelling the drops of rain falling from them? If the mind says that there is a sequence of seasons and there are reasons for movements in the weather, ask yourself how many seasons you see right now and where you should look to see the cause of the rain falling on your head. There is no story in the weather; there just is what is.

Stories bring comparisons such as, “This is the hottest summer ever”, leading to ideas like, “Maybe global warming is going to kill us all”. In the now there is no hottest or coldest, there is only the current temperature. Again, there is no story. The mind wants to make stories rather than to see what is actually present. One of the more popular forms of that is conspiracy stories. Somebody or somebodies are out to get you and other innocent victims. “There was no moon landing.” Look around you. Is there a moon landing either happening or not happening in your presence. Even in your memory has such a thing either occurred or not occurred in your sight? In fact, one of the craziest notions of the mind is the existence of something that is not present. The possibilities for what isn’t are infinite and the feelings and the body go through enormous gyrations in response to these fantasies. All for naught, all for something that does not exist, something that is not in your present. Can you do anything about the ten thousand things that are not here now? It’s questionable whether you have the power to do much of anything about what you do see here now, but the idea of affecting the imagined is pure idiocy. And you wonder why you are not at peace, why you don’t feel safe, why you wish things to be different than they are? 

I encourage you to take a deep breath and let your eyes close. Imagine that you realize there is no meaning to life. There is nothing to understand, nothing to figure out. You are now off the hook. You have no responsibility to figure out or manage anything. Sense the freedom in that. Feel the relaxation that accompanies the dropping of those burdens. If there is no meaning there is nothing you should be doing. Life just is. There is no reason for it. Nothing is asked of or demanded from you. Nothing happens to you. Things are just happening. They just are; life just is. You have spent your life trying to make meaning where there is none. Are you laughing yet? Pretty funny, isn’t it?

Are your eyes still closed? On top of this imagine that your story doesn’t exist; there is no meaning there either. There is no pattern to trace, no steps of growth. You are not coming from one place trying to get somewhere else. There is no story here. There is just here, just what is. There is not even really a now because all is in constant movement. If you try to nail down or hold on to any moment you are now trying to be somewhere else instead of with what is. It is more like floating down a stream. There is just what is, what you can sense. There is no place to try to get to and no ability to get there if there were such a place. Keep breathing. Are the shoulders feeling lighter and lighter? Nothing needs doing. Nothing to prove or justify. There is just beingness, the sounds you hear about you, the things you can see if you open your eyes, the smells. You may be asking if you can do anything then?  Is everything simply as it is and you can have no effect upon it? Does nothing matter? Well, I encourage you to try to do nothing. Of course you will do something. You have always done so. The animals and plants all do what they do. But this doing is not with a goal in mind; it is not to achieve anything. So, you will do what you do, not out of right and wrong or shouldness, not out of a story, not out of earning love or respect, not out of achieving something or reaching a goal. You will do it because in being, doing simply happens.  As a young child you were doing, doing, doing – but you had no purpose, no goals. It might be described as playing, playing, playing. This doing is not to try to get somewhere or to change things, it is simply your dialogue with life, your interaction. 

I would suggest to you that if you want to cease your search for meaning, stop building, expanding, and living in your story – and simply encounter your beingness in each moment, allowing whatever it might be to exist without trying to change it, interacting with and experiencing it – you will find that this whole question of the meaning of life will gradually dissolve or disintegrate and will cease re-entering the mind. So will it be with your personal story. In the meantime, notice that you wonder why and have these questions. Notice…and then return your focus to what is now, to your senses and feelings. Notice that in what is you no meaning and no story can be found.

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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How can I tell if I’ve awakened? | Sanhia on the Myth of “Becoming” Enlightened

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Good Now!

Most of you who open these messages have the desire to awaken, or perhaps you might say to become enlightened or to ascend, to become aware of your divinity, to let go of identification with the “I”, “me”, body, ego-self separate from the One. If you did not have that intention you would have likely unsubscribed by now (there is still time!), or at least would not be reading this message. As with all questions there are no easy answers and perhaps no answers at all, but we’ll do our best.

We could say that there are two schools of awakening theory. The first could be called the absolutists. They identify the awakening process as an on/off switch. You are either awake or you aren’t. There is no waffling back and forth, no being partially awake. Upon awakening the person that the seeker has identified as “me” is no longer there. There is nobody there trying to accomplish anything or to get anywhere. There is nobody resisting or trying to change what is. There has been no change in the personality; there is simply no longer the presence of a separate self. There is no longer any ownership of self or anything else. The absolutists state there is nothing that the seeker can do to awaken. The attempt to awaken can only be an action of the ego mind, of the separate-self trying to be something else than what it believes it is. Awakening already is – right here, right now – so you can’t make it happen. Awakening is realized by the grace of God. It is beyond personal control because there is no person there to control it. 

The second school of awakening might be called the gradualists. They acknowledge that the sudden switch turning on may happen, but not necessarily for everyone. Perhaps there is a moment of insight, of awareness that there is no you. The mind then might jump in and claim that “I am awake”, but who is “I”?  The person who claims to be awake doesn’t exist and we are thrown back into ego slumber. At best there was a moment of awakeness and then a backsliding. There may be a bit of back and forth. Some experience that there is mostly no self, but occasionally the little me pops back up, though not for long.  Even with a steadier state of awakeness there is a learning curve of how to use that tool. Now that there is awareness that there is nothing that must be done, no purpose, no plan – that there is simply isness – what is to be done in that space? The gradualists say that you learn how to be with that isness. Maybe you become a spiritual teacher, maybe not. Maybe you share your process with others and maybe you aren’t guided in that way. The gradualist school might also suggest that the experience of life, in general, becomes more pleasurable. As there is a movement toward awakening and a letting go of untruths that the mind has believed in – as one finds self being increasingly present, neither weighed down by the past nor anticipating the future – life likely becomes more peaceful, more pleasant. There may be fewer and less intense negative emotions, and daily activities likely may prove to be joyful experiences. So the gradualist might suggest that as your focus remains on the awakening process, the experience of life involves less suffering. 

Both schools would agree that if you have a picture of the awakened, enlightened self as one who is above everything, always peaceful, free of all negative emotions, perhaps just sitting cross-legged for endless hours in bliss, then you are likely part of the horde of seekers who find themselves frustrated by their inability to awaken. That is not the awakened state, for most people at any rate. The awakened you is like the asleep you, just not being a separated individual. No two awakened states will be the same. Sorry, there are no models out there. What you seek is within. The personalities and the preferences are not likely to change much. There will simply be no ownership or attachment to them. There is no way you can know what that will look like nor what that awakening might feel like. 

Let’s return to the initial question. How do you know you’ve awakened? If you are asking the question you are not likely fully realizing your awakeness now. The awakened self would have nobody there to ask such a question. That you doesn’t exist. There is the you that exists, but not the one who is the thinker, or feeler, or doer, but rather the one who is aware. There is no you who is a chooser. You are awake right now. Every one of you. You always have been; you always will be. There is no time, no past or future. There is just the now and in this moment you are awake. You are aware of what’s going on. That is awakeness. Your mind might be denying this awakeness and believing that you have to do something to arrive at such a point, but that doesn’t eradicate your awakeness. It simply means that you are unconscious of your Divine state. In what ways is this unconsciousness expressed? It is through thinking and believing that you are not alright as you are, that you need to be better. Something needs to be done; neither you nor the world are as they should be. The process of realizing your awakeness is always one of subtraction, not of addition. There is nothing you have to become, because you already are that. It’s just a matter of letting go, the subtraction. You let go of beliefs, particularly ones about what enlightenment should look like and of how you need to be different than you are. If you think you need to be more disciplined, you let that go. When you think you shouldn’t be feeling what you are feeling, you don’t hold on to it. You can’t let go of the feeling; that can’t be stopped. It is like the weather. If you don’t want the rain, you let go of that resistance. You can’t stop the rain, so let it pour. You can’t stop your anger, so let it roar. Just leave your mind out of it. There is no cause, no justification, and no reason for the anger. It simply is. Keep noticing where there is no acceptance, where there is resistance and the desire for change. Perhaps you wish to let go but the thoughts are like flypaper and keep sticking. Then you can notice that the inability to let go seems to be happening.  Apparently you don’t have the power to change, because if you could you surely would. You can just notice that inability to let go is happening, and let that be okay. Or that the inability to let go of holding on is happening and that is what is. And so on down the endless hall of mirrors. Let it be okay. Let go of changing it.

The process of noticing your awakeness is a process of simplification. If everything is fine as it is, then there are no problems. There is nothing to fix. You are off the hook. There is no responsibility. On the other hand, as long as things are seen that you think need to be changed or fixed, inside or outside of you, with other people or with yourself, it is not possible to experience your awakened self. No you exists to make those adjustments. It is like clouds separating you from the sun. Nothing is hard except the doomed attempts you make to change what is. Then it becomes impossible. There is no solution. There is no resolution. Over time some of the following characteristics may begin to appear, at least according to the gradualists. The past just disappears and isn’t really there at all. There is no focus on the future. Increasingly the focus is only on what is here now. Often the mind moves into the background and the senses are the focus of attention. When emotions rear up they may not last for long. Is there judgment about those emotions? Yes, sometimes, but it doesn’t usually last for long. There may not be lightning bolt awareness of awakening, but things are okay as they are. Awakening, actually, is not much of a focus anymore, though it might be fun to read about. 

Let’s deal with one last point. The absolutists say there is nothing to do. You will awaken when you awaken. You can’t choose when. You can’t try to make things any different than they are. If you are drawn to this voice, go for it, absolutely. Or, more correctly, don’t go for it.  You might enjoy reading books by Tony Parsons or Wayne Liquorman. For those of you who are drawn more to the gradualist school, you are probably thinking that there must be some things you can do to make a difference. We’ve already discussed this to some degree. You might enjoy reading books by Adyashanti or Fred Davis. Keep noticing where there is resistance and attempts to change things and let that go. Remember to subtract things rather than adding to them. Less trying to change, less judgment, less projection. There can be more allowing, more letting things be as they are, more acceptance of emotions. Let it be okay when you catch yourself holding insane thoughts or thinking you should be doing a better job at screening your thoughts. Notice without holding on or pushing away. Have more awareness of what is actually present. More senses, less mind. Do this when you notice your mind going on a bender. Use your other senses to notice what is really here. The focus of the mind is usually on what isn’t here. What is here is probably fine, or else you will notice a call to immediate action. Keep bringing yourself back here. Look around. Listen. Smell. Feel both with the body and with the emotions. As you are fully present, aware of what is here, you are awake. When the focus is on what is not here, you are asleep. You can always hedge your bet. If taking actions is, as the absolutists suggest, of no value, if you have no ability to affect what will happen, you have nothing to lose by acting. It can neither harm nor help. On the other hand, as the gradualists suggest, you might just be inching your way home. At the very least, your enjoyment of life may be greater. Remember always that you are awake.

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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Am I responsible for what happens in my life? | Sanhia on the Illusion of Control

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Participant: Am I responsible for what happens in my life?

This is one of the areas of greatest confusion for the spiritual seeker. The belief that is present, that has been learned and programmed, that is probably embedded in the DNA, that has been there through lifetimes and through civilizations is that your choices and actions make the difference in your life. The teaching is that you are responsible. You are to decide what you want in life – what you want to do, how you want to be – and then you put that into action. Let’s just be open for a moment to that actually being possible, that is that you decide what you want and then manifest it in the world. If that were the case, would you create unhappiness, conflict, or pain? Would there be war or poverty? The answer to those questions is quite obvious. People don’t plan and wish for such things. They likely have other things in mind when choosing futures and making plans.

So, if you are responsible, if your thoughts and desires create what happens, how can such conflicting results be explained? I can see two ways that attempts might be made to justify these results. One is to decide that you must not be very talented at creating what you want, that somehow you allow disparate thoughts or actions to creep in that are not aligned with what you really want. Secondly, perhaps, you simply don’t have that power; you have simply been programmed to believe that you do or at least that you should possess such abilities. If we look at failure to realize your goals as a weakness on your part, it begs the question of whether that failure is your intention. Is it your plan to fail? Or do you simply notice that the lack of success happens and blame yourself or, perhaps, others? Logically, it makes more sense to assume that you do not have the power to control your world. The mind might argue that sometimes you make a plan and things happen nearly as you wanted them to. Does that happen every time? Ask yourself honestly if it even happens most of the time. If your response to this question is in the affirmative, then keep working your magic. For the rest of you there must be something else going on here.

Participant: Some spiritual teachings say that you can listen to one of two voices, the voice of ego or the voice of Spirit. Am I responsible for that choice? 

This opens us up to many questions. One of those is that if you listen to and act from the voice you have identified as Spirit, or God or love – will things work out as you hope they will?

Participant: Not necessarily. And I wonder if this is really what God wants. Can it really be the will of God if it feels so uncomfortable to me?

You have stated a second question. How do you know what the voice of God is saying? How can you be sure it is not that wily ego voice?

Participant: It’s not possible to be sure. 

Once again you are in a position where you are the one seemingly making this choice and you therefore feel responsible for the outcome. Did you listen to the right voice, and, even if you did, are you still responsible for the result? Or can you now blame God if you guessed right, but things didn’t work out as you hoped they would? 

Participant: I have no clue what God’s will or plan is. That doesn’t seem possible. Maybe when things come to some sort of crisis we surrender and realize we just aren’t able to choose what should be.

One thing that often happens when you choose and take responsibility for that choice is that if things work out the way you hoped they would, you pat yourself on the back and think you have done a good job. If things don’t work out in what you consider to be a satisfactory way, you then blame yourself. You decide you didn’t do a good enough job. Or you blame others or God for this failure. And, as we suggested earlier, this lack of positive results is much more likely to be the result you experience. So you spend most of your time with a sense of failure and guilt, or in a place of victimhood and anger. What if what happens is not determined by your choice and action, that you are not responsible for it? If that is the case, there is no reason for self-congratulations or for blame. You are not responsible.

Participant: That can be a relief!

It can be a tremendous relief. Now let’s look at the mechanics of what goes on. When you have convinced yourself or have been programmed to believe that you are responsible for your decisions, that they determine what happens, your mind focuses totally on these choices. It leaves out the ten thousand other variables that are a part of what is. Let’s give an example. Say that you make the choice to attend a spiritual group. Your intention for doing this was to awaken to the truth of yourself. You believe that you had the power to make that choice. But let’s look more deeply at this choice, to really investigate it. How did you become aware of the opportunity to attend this event? Maybe you heard about it from a friend or saw a poster or heard about it online. Did you have the intention to find out about this meeting? Was that planned? No, it just happened. You are not responsible for creating this opportunity. When that choice did become available to you, what made you say yes? Perhaps you had previous experiences that made you open to this one. Did you choose those opportunities coming to you? And what came before them, and before them? Likely there was a time in the past where you would not have chosen to say yes to this spiritual event. You are constantly being reprogrammed by life experiences. Most other people have not been programmed to be drawn toward such an event. Some of you, whether you call it your DNA, past lives, or whatever, came into this life with a predisposition toward the spiritual. Are you responsible for that? For others it may have been the farthest thing from your mind, but life pushed you in that direction. In either case, where is the choice? Maybe your parents were an influence toward exploring Divinity. Do you remember choosing your parents?

Participant: No

Maybe you had a parent who was so abusive that in trying to heal yourself from all the pain you feel from that childhood you were guided in a spiritual direction. Did you choose that spiritual direction? No, you were choosing to heal and that is what appeared. You didn’t choose the abusive childhood experience and it seemingly led to a spiritual direction. Where is the choice? Where is the responsibility? This just appeared to happen. Returning to your attendance at the spiritual group, are you responsible for that, even after becoming aware of it? What if a friend had called yesterday and you decided instead to meet with them? Maybe you wake up sick. Maybe you oversleep. Maybe your car doesn’t start or you run out of gas or get into a minor accident on the way. Look at all of the things that needed to happen in this universe to get you to this workshop today. 

Participant: Most of the time we think we are the center of what’s happening and things happen from our choosing. Now you are suggesting that there is something else making the decision.

We could identify what believes it is in control and is responsible as the ego mind. But it isn’t in control. All these other factors exist along with the ego mind. As a pointer we could say that everything in the universe is interconnected. The ego thinks that it did something and therefore a result occurred, but there were ten thousand things happening at the same time. All contributed to what happened. There is never a single cause, nor a single effect, but a ripple, a constant movement, an interconnectedness of everything. We could call that the Oneness. We could call it Divinity. We could call it Not-Twoness. We could call it God. There are many names. You can have the thought that there is a meaning behind all of this, that the multiplicity of happenings is conspiring to bring about certain results. Perhaps there is a “method to the madness”, but how could you ever know? 

Participant: That’s a problem. You can never know?

But, is there a need to know? If you don’t have the ability to affect and change what happens, what good would it do to have understanding?

Participant: It is a relief. 

If it is simply what is happening, let it happen. What else is there to do?

Participant: So are you saying that it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do? Why even bother to do anything then?

Good question! I’m sorry if I misled you. I didn’t say that it doesn’t matter. What was said was that you don’t have control. You don’t determine the outcome. But you are one of the ten thousand things that are happening. It’s not that your action doesn’t matter: it’s just never the sole determinant. And whatever you do also likely comes out of your pre-programming rather than out of an uncluttered, informed choice in the moment. You make a programmed choice, notice what happens, and that goes into your programming. You are constantly being reprogrammed and so your choices may change over time. Still, your action or thought is but one factor in determining what happens. There is no rightness or wrongness about these choices. It is not your choice. You have no responsibility. Can a computer make an error? It may malfunction, but it can only act in accordance with its programming.

Participant: When you say this I wonder what the reason is for me being here. Is there something special I should learn? Why am I here?

You reach out for understanding because the ego mind demands a basis for separating right from wrong. It believes that it is responsible. When you ask this question, you are jumping over the fact that you are. You exist. You are aware of what happens around you. You are not the creator of what is. You are the experiencer of it. You may think that you are choosing and responsible. You may observe yourself believing that you are in control. As you become aware that you are not in control, that your choices are probably not freely chosen, but are programmed, you may notice that you choose what feels best to you. Perhaps at this point we could suggest the word preference, rather than choice. If there is any meaning to be found, it will be discovered in the observing, in the awareness of what is unfolding. The meaning of life, if there is any, is not connected with your ability to make decisions and to take responsibility. It can only be determined by paying attention to what is already happening. What an adventure such an investigation can be. You are a part of the whole, not the center. What happens when you stop feeling responsible?

Participant: Maybe there is some humbleness that emerges, along with some trust that what is happening is as it should be. If I have resistance to what is, I can have something to look at. Why am I not accepting?

A trap here can be that the mind decides it has to be aligned with what is happening. This brings you back to responsibility.  Now you are responsible for not being responsible.

Participant: It’s really hard to take this in. What does it mean to not be responsible? It seems like there is some choice there that comes from me. 

Yes. But how did it get into you? Is it your conscious creation? Where did this idea come from that you are absolutely responsible for what you call you?

Participant: That’s more like programming or the mass consciousness has spoken to me.

Let’s say, for example, that you are born with natural athleticism, while another is born with little coordination or physical strength. Was it your choice to be a good athlete? Did they choose the opposite? Did you choose your level of intelligence? Did you choose to have more or less compassion, anger, depression, or happiness than another? I challenge you to look at all of these things and find something that you actually chose. Yet these and a multitude of other qualities, both long term and short term, help determine the choices that you make today. 

Participant: The word that comes up in my head now is preplanning. Have I done a preplanning for all of these things?

Let’s just assume that there was some pre-plan. Do you remember being involved with that preplanning? Do you remember sitting down with Spirit or whomever and saying that you want this body and that nose, that you want to be controlling or fearful, that you will have a spiritual curiosity? Do you remember choosing your parents, your children, or all of the people who would play major parts in your life? Do you remember planning successes and tragedies? Is there any memory of any of that? 

Participant: When you say it like that the answer would have to be a no.

Then how can you be responsible for any of it? If you have no conscious memory, it may or may not have happened. All that you know is that what is here now is here now. You can be aware of that but have no responsibility for its existence. You cannot change that it is here now. 

Participant: But mostly we don’t go there with all of these questions. We just glide on the ice and think that we need to take control.

And you also think that other people are responsible. You think someone hurt your feelings. You give them a false sense of responsibility. You project that they have the power to control the world through inflicting pain on you. Perhaps they had that conscious intention and got lucky, but most likely they were trying to create something totally different and were oblivious to your feelings. As long as you hold onto personal responsibility, you are going to suffer. You will usually fail to achieve your goals, but even with seeming successes your ego will go crazy, inflating its sense of accomplishment. That, of course, leads you to your next fall. Your awakening process cannot really begin until you accept the possibility that you aren’t running the show, that neither you or others have any real power. No amount of hard work or self-discipline will ever allow you to take control. 

Participant: So I have to stop listening to the mass consciousness. 

However, if you are claiming that the mass consciousness is wrong and you are choosing differently … (laughter). It’s about not believing in choice, period – without making that a choice. Most spiritual paths encourage you to choose differently. The expressions offered here are not tenets of truth; they are simply pointers. Awareness may lead to less suffering, but choices are only likely to increase it. Awareness that choice leads to suffering might lead to an end of suffering, but that cannot come about from choice. Choice is an adding on while awakening is a letting go, a letting go of everything but what is, everything that you have no control over. The less responsibility you take, the less suffering you will have. So when you stop choosing will painful things stop happening? Absolutely not! Painful things might still happen. However, you will simply notice the presence of pain. There is no blame or projection, because things just happen. You are not responsible. You don’t have that power. There are no worries about what you have to do to prevent a repetition. The future is of no importance. Since you are not the cause, the past doesn’t matter either. All that remains is this now. You can experience the pain while it is present. It will soon be replaced by or morph into something else. The suffering only comes from your false sense of responsibility.

Participant: But I want to be enlightened.

That will happen when it happens. You are not responsible for making it happen, so holding on to being the cause can only get in your way. Your preference to realize awakening has been expressed. Your work is done. The universe responds with “duly noted”. Let go. If enlightenment is a knowing of the Oneness with all and choosing comes from the separated self, how can an expression of separation lead to Oneness? Continuing to exercise your independent will means a continuation of suffering. Enjoy your sleep. 

Participant: But there is something. I can choose a spiritual path. So, I need to step out of how it is in the world. There is a confusion there. I have to do something. 

Who is this “I” who needs to do something? This is the one who believes it is separate from the whole. All it can create is more of a sense of separation. It has things backward. There is nothing that it has to do, only things to stop doing. Stop trying to be in charge. Let the world be as it is. Is there really any other choice? It is only denial and insanity that would think the world can be other than it is right now. So, see what is there. Stop blaming and resisting. No guilt and no blame. You are not responsible for the good or the bad. Neither is God. Things are as they are and can be no other way. This is the Oneness and it is perfection. There is nothing for you to do other than have awareness and eventually gratitude. Anything else is an expression of not being aligned with the Oneness, of being separate, of being asleep. 

Participant: I am aware that there is a belief that that isn’t good, that I don’t want that to happen. This keeps me from truly seeing the now.

Belief is no different from choice. Does your belief change anything? Let’s say you believe that everyone should act kindly toward everyone else. Does that change how others act? Your beliefs have no power. If there is Oneness, it exists whether or not you believe in it. If you believe that unkind acts will be punished by karma, do you witness that to be your day to day experience? When your beliefs do not prove themselves to be correct, there will be suffering. Let them go. There is the belief in right and wrong. How is that working for you?

Participant: It’s not working at all. It is like stones in my shoes. It causes pain with every step I take.

Again, these are not beliefs that I am sharing with you. They are merely pointers. They are suggestions for things to look at, to try on. I suggest that if you look long enough and hard enough at the idea of your having personal responsibility, you will recognize the untruth of it. It is all a smokescreen.

Participant: I can see how letting go of that would be an enormous relief. What can I say to my fears of what might happen if I don’t exercise choice?

Will that lead to meaninglessness, hopelessness and despondency? Will that lead to a world where worse and worse things will happen because nobody is stepping up to take responsibility? All that I can say is that if you have reached a dead end with your attempt to be in control, what do you have to lose? If you still believe that you can make a difference, go and give it your best shot. You cannot make a mistake. There is no right and wrong. Maybe another day will come when you want to have this conversation again. 

Participant: The world isn’t like what you are saying. It is screaming out just the opposite.

That is so. We never have to worry about turning people away at the door (laughter). Here is one last game you can play. Look at a few things that you consider to be among the best things that have happened in your life, the most important and valuable events. Which ones did you plan and choose? 

Participant: (Laughing) I didn’t plan any of them.

Which of the events that you consider to be the worst did you plan and choose?

Participant: None of them.

So you had no part in choosing any of the most profound things to happen in your life. If you look more deeply at those events that seemed the worst at the time, how many have since shown an upside and in fact may now be considered as fortunate jewels that came your way? Perhaps the Universe has always done the superior job in creation, not really the superior job, but the only job. Take your hand off the wheel. It is not and has never been directly connected to the driveshaft. You can do much worse than accepting the hand you are dealt and playing it to the hilt. 

Good Now!

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What Is Freedom? (Part 2) | Sanhia on Finding Inner Spiritual Freedom

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Participant: You have described how to find the outer freedom, can you say more about how to find the inner spiritual freedom?

It would be nice if I could give you a blueprint for how to do this, but it is going to be different for each one of you. I can offer some general pointers. The first one is that if there are things that you feel you should do, that they are the right things to do, that you need to do, that it’s not safe to not do … Stop it! Don’t do it! 

Participant: What do you mean that I shouldn’t do?

That in your mind you believe you should be doing. That everyone says that it’s the right thing to do. You’ll be a financial or emotional disaster if you don’t do this. You’ll lose everything if you don’t act as you are supposed to. The first thing is to stop doing that. I’m not so naive as to believe that a person is going to be able to stop on a dime doing everything they feel they should be doing, but nonetheless you make that commitment. Then you begin cutting and cutting. 

Participant: Tell me more about this commitment.

There are two steps. First you don’t do things you are not guided by your heart to do. If you have spent your life ignoring your heart while doing what society expects from you, this may present an enormous challenge. You have no practice in it. It may be difficult to even hear your heart. All you hear are these voices of fear. The first step is to have the willingness to hear your Divine personal will, to begin to turn this ship around, to begin to be guided by that voice. If you can’t hear your inner voice, create space for it. You create space by letting go of things you know it isn’t; the things you truly don’t wish to do. This doesn’t mean you need to quit your job today. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything. But, if the job doesn’t bring you joy you will probably leave it sooner or later. The creating and filling of that space is the second step. Maybe you start in a small way. Here’s an example: the grass is growing and could be cut. The neighbors’ lawns are all better trimmed. In addition, theirs are free of the dandelions and weeds that spread across yours. The mind says that you should go out and mow it, perhaps also finding a way to eliminate those pesky dandelions and weeds. Does the heart wish to cut the grass today? If it doesn’t, don’t do it today. Facing the judgment of others, not to speak of your own, will put you through great emotional upheaval. 

Participant: So don’t follow the fear or act from it. 

Be aware each day where action is triggered by fear. As you stop trying to be a “good girl” or a “good boy” space will open up in your life, the space that was filled with acting from guilt and a sense of duty. Don’t fill this space with more obligations. This is a space to play in. Enjoy it. Slowly find things you have been wanting to do but have denied yourself. This is not a space for judging what is practical, good, or right. The only filter is whether you feel like doing it. Is there at least a modicum of passion present?

You have been taught to believe that you are little, that you are a sinner, that others need to show you the way, that you lack the wisdom to choose for yourself. Is any of that true? That is a prison. You hold the key. You commit to not accepting all of that anymore. You open the door and let yourself move toward the love and the light and the joy that you wish to know and experience. 

Participant: It sounds like when you are grown up you can have this discernment: is this what I want to do, is this my freedom? How is it for a child? Is there freedom for them also? 

You notice how everyone is different. Some children acquiesce when confronted with the discipline adults ask from them, saying “Yes ma’am” and “Yes sir” and trying to be “good”. Some rebel and refuse to cooperate; they won’t play the game. Why do some claim freedom while others don’t? We could look at many reasons for that, but the audience receiving this message now are not children, so we could say that it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, it could be said that much of the audience is still acting like children, still trying to do the right thing or perhaps living in rebellion. Those who rebel may not be any freer than those who cooperate. Rather than being free to do as they wish, they may be controlled by a need to oppose, to fight, and to do the opposite of what is desired by others, rather than listening to their heart. It could also be suggested for those of you who are no longer children, but occasionally or more often find yourself in their presence – that you could try two things. First, do your best to allow the children to follow their hearts as opposed to trying to imbed in them your thoughts of who they should be and what they should do. You will not have much success there if you are not allowing such freedom for yourself. Children will be more influenced by your actions than your words. So, let yourself out of jail.  Second, you can consider the possibility that perhaps the children are the teachers and you are the student. They likely are in greater contact with their passions and act more frequently on them. The socialization project of mass consciousness has not yet been completed. Let yourself play with them. 

Participant: Why is it good to choose freedom? Where will it take me?

If you can think back to being a child and playing, just playing … there was no reason for your playing. There was no goal involved. You were simply acting out the joy you wished to express at that moment. That is all that was there. There was no meaning, no reason for your play. There was no sense of something you had to accomplish, something you came here to do. There was not likely such a mental awareness as this, but you were simply God expressing through a human body whatever was desired to be expressed. You were absolutely free to play with that in any way that you were moved to do. 

Participant: As a grown-up does it lead me to freedom to follow my inner divine voice? 

It does not lead to freedom; it is freedom. You are free to do that. Nothing can stop you from that except you. When you act from a motivation of joy rather than fear, you are expressing freedom. It is not leading you to freedom. You have always had that freedom. But you haven’t necessarily chosen to exercise it. The mind often draws a line limiting your freedom. You can do this, but not that. That is going too far. Really? Says who? It is only a belief that draws these lines, that builds the walls of this prison. These beliefs are not imposed from the outside. They are chosen and re-chosen in the present by you. If you allow yourself to follow your inner voice you will find it to be in constant movement and change. The joy that guides you in the present doesn’t lead anywhere. Where does the weather go? Does the weather have purpose? It constantly changes and expresses. So do you. You learn from everything you express in the present, from everything you do. Your computer is constantly being reprogrammed.  You may decide not to try that one again, or you may have a “Wow!” and want to go that way again. Of course it will never be the same way again. Everything changes. You may be inspired to tweak it in a certain way. 

Participant: As you started to say that for a child there are rules all around them about what to do and how to behave. Do I have to balance that in some way to get my freedom?

What usually happens is that as an adult you take over the role of the enforcer that was in your life as a child. 

Participant: And you call that freedom?

No, that’s not freedom at all. You could call that “being socialized”. You no longer need an adult telling you what to do because the policeman is in your head now. 

Participant: Oh, yeah, so how do I get to the freedom?

By saying no.

Participant: No?

No to the should. No to what there is no passion for. No to the guilt. 

Participant: So it’s no to this and no to that. Where is the freedom?

It may start out that way. The freedom is wherever you notice it. Maybe today you notice you wish to take a walk in the park. Perhaps now you wish to lie in a hammock and read a book. 

Participant: You make it sound like there is an inner voice of freedom. All that you need to do is to listen and follow that inner voice. Is it so?

Yes, but we could replace freedom with joy, curiosity, excitement, or passion. But you would not use terms like duty, responsibility, what is “right” or “the right thing to do”, or what “should be done”.

Participant: Why is freedom something that is not promoted by society? Why doesn’t society want me to be free? 

This is learned behavior. It is how people’s computer minds are programmed. Society cannot teach you to be free because it was not taught how to be free. 

Participant: Will society break down if most of the people take their freedom?

That is the fear that is held. Not only should you do as you are told because the authority and the rewards and punishments go way back, all the way to god, but you are also letting society down when you don’t follow these dictates. Such freedom leads to anarchy and lawlessness and who knows what. This comes from a society that has created constant war, poverty, separation and aloneness, and a multitude of unhappy, unfulfilled people. Listening to outer authority has demonstrably failed. Can your inner guidance do worse? Is it not worth taking the chance; could things really be more disastrous? It is the reaching of such a point of thinking that things cannot get any worse that leads some to consider other possibilities.

Participant: You are talking about freedom and God. How do they connect with each other?

We could say that if God has a horse in this race, the horse is God expressing that you were made like God, so why not be like God? No limits. Divine. Free to create whatever you want. Do it!  

Participant: Where can I find this Divine freedom? Where is it speaking?

It’s speaking wherever you have insight or passion, wherever you are drawn to something. 

Participant: So if I follow my passions, it slowly deepens my freedom?

Or your awareness of your freedom deepens. The freedom is always there. There is knowing that. No one can control you. Even if they take your physical life, that is nothing. That is not who you are. You simply are. You are God having experiences through a body. If you want to come back using another body, you will do that. 

Participant: I want to have freedom.

You have it. 

Participant: How can I be sure?

By exercising it. You will not know it by listening to me. Act on it. That is the only way to find out. The fear is all that stands in your way. Even when you choose what you truly desire, the fear will probably not go away immediately. It will likely intensify. It is waiting for what it believes will be the eventual punishment. The old tapes will continue to roll, warning you that you won’t get away with this, that you just can’t do what you want to do. The fear will be there, so you face it. Let it be there. Let it express. Feel it in your body. Don’t deny it or try to chase it away. Welcome it as long as it wishes to hang out with you, but don’t let it run the show. Don’t let it guide your actions. It is simply time for the fear to wash through the body like a summer storm, to do its cleansing and to pass on allowing the sun to shine again. 

Participant: So freedom is connected with being brave enough to face my fear.

Yes

Participant: So that is the balance … with the freedom and the fear. Would you say? 

Yes, but you need to let it rage as long and as loud as it wishes. You fear that your fear will kill you, but it won’t. Try it out and let me know how it works for you. Face the fear. Let it roar. Take no actions to abate it. Do nothing that mind tells you will protect you. Sooner or later the fear will run its course. Everything changes. Nothing goes on forever. Put off action until the calm has returned and then choose from your passion. 

Participant: So the freedom is realized when you have the guts to not follow what the fear would have you do, but to just face the fear until it’s gone and then choose from your passion.

I couldn’t have expressed it better, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So, to conclude today’s conversation, we will make reference to the all-American game of Monopoly. You land on “Chance” and draw a card. It reads “Get out of jail free”. This card is my gift to you now, and this particular card has the magic to be reusable. Anytime guilt, shoulds, victimhood, or fear come to you, play this card.

Participant: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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What is freedom? | Sanhia on escaping the prison of the mind

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Good Now!

I am going to begin this talk on freedom by speaking of the United States. Many of you, of course, are not from that country, so as you are hearing the comments, please relate them to your own land or to your adopted country and see how it fits. It is fun to begin with the United States because it claims to be the land of the free. Let’s look closer and see what freedom means in this case. How are children raised to be free? Most young children are taught to obey their parents. You are to do what you are told to do. At a certain age the government forces the child to go to school. The parents are not free to say no to this order. Is there freedom of choice for child or parent? At school you are forced to follow rules, to be quiet and still, to do the work you are given. Not only are you not physically free, but mentally you must do the work you are told to do. There is no freedom to choose your subject matter, the way you will learn it, or even to choose to do or not to do what you are assigned. There are rewards for performing the desired behaviors and punishments for deviation or resistance. Much the same is true at home with the parents, though this might have much more to do with rules, expectations, and behavior, along with performing any assigned tasks. So, freedom in this country seems to mean that you are rewarded for doing what others want, and you are punished for doing only as you desire. It might seem that only adults have freedom, but let’s keep digging. So, where is this freedom? The communication to children seems to be that they cannot be trusted with freedom, that adults need to teach you how you should be and what you should do.  This “education” goes on for twelve years both at school and at home until you either fully learn how to surrender your autonomy to those who “know” or you suffer endless punishment and are labeled a failure.

Now, as a young adult you have learned to perform in the “right” way, or you find yourself in an endless and probably losing battle with authority. Are you free to do whatever you want each day? No. You are now programmed to do what you “should” do. If you don’t perform as your mind now tells you that you should, there may be horrible consequences. You won’t be able to support yourself. You will not be acting in a responsible way. You will not be doing something useful with your life. You may lose your house, your car, your loved ones. You will have no future. You will die homeless, and friendless, a total failure. People won’t love you; they won’t even want to be around you. You have to follow societal expectations or you will be ostracized. This is what happens in the land of freedom. Young children who want to do nothing but play and explore the world about them are trained to be automatons. The concern now is to have health insurance, which requires you to hold down a job, and society tells you through advertising and less subtle nudges that you are what you own. You are defined by your car, clothes, home, electronic gadgets, physical appearance, and that of any partner you might have. You may choose to stay in a marriage because you think you will be judged as a bad person if you divorce, particularly if children are involved — and you might face losing your health insurance. This is freedom. You may have a mortgage, student debt, and your credit cards are loaded. Or maybe you struggle along with little as you spend frugally, avoiding costs for things that might be enjoyable. You trudge ahead, doing what others, what experts, what authorities tell you to do. 

Perhaps you are fortunate enough to be raised in a religion. Then the church tells you what is right and wrong, as well as what will happen to you if you are good and what will happen if you do wrong. There are all of these rules for you to live by. Even if you were not raised in a religion, you were still infused with a moral sense, still taught what is right and what was wrong. Perhaps you were raised with scientific beliefs. What you are taught is that science is what smart people have studied and proven and that it describes how the world truly works. Science tells you that you have to protect yourself from disease through taking vaccinations and other shots, as well as eating certain medicines if the prevention fails to work. It tells you what you should eat and how you should treat the environment, as well as suggesting that science cannot prove the existence of any God and that anything it has not proved cannot be trusted to be right. Again we have rules, rules, rules for how to live your life. Where is the freedom? A funny thing about “science” is that a true scientist accepts nothing he is taught as absolute truth. Everything is questioned. All investigations are entered with an open mind and a curiosity to find what results experiments will produce. The desire is to go beyond what is “known” to new frontiers. They understand that science proves nothing; it only provides theories. Theories have a shelf life and are eventually replaced with new “understandings”. Science is never certain and never finished. It is a work in progress. Scientists disagree. It cannot be accurately stated that science proves anything. Yet people live their lives directed by the “beliefs” of science. They have been raised to give their power away to science, to religion, to parents, to authorities, to employers, to relatives, to friends, to the mass consciousness. Where is the freedom? In the land of the free, people are raised, educated, and encouraged to trust everyone but themselves, to let others determine how their life should be led.  For the most part living is done unconsciously. It is just how things are done. Those who don’t conform to this protocol are highly suspect. Who do they think they are? 

In truth, every person has freedom. Nobody is being forced to give their power away. However, very few claim and exercise that freedom. In the United States a person is free to choose whatever work they desire. They are not limited by any patterns or beliefs. They can think what they like. They can act as they wish with the restrictions of not harming others or breaking existing laws. In fact, though, they are free to break those laws and suffer the consequences if that is the desire. In their minds and in their hearts they are absolutely free…. if they wish to claim that freedom. Again, very few do. People choose careers because of family and societal pressures, with a hope for financial freedom, for dreams of power and control, or out of hopelessness. A person is free to claim each day for their personal joy and exploration, but they choose to go to work. Only for a small minority is the freedom and joy experienced there. Even where there is immediate payoff it is usually accompanied by some sort of compromise, a surrendering of current freedom for imagined future freedom. It ultimately makes little difference if you are living in “the land of the free” or in a totalitarian society. In either one you can follow your inner guidance, can choose to follow your inner joy and Divinity or you can surrender to the pressure of the mass consciousness. Four walls do not a prison make. The warden is your inner capitulation to the voices of the world. Nobody can touch your inner sanctums but you. Others can scare you. Then you must face your fear or give your power away to it, surrendering your freedom. The result is that from that time forward you live in fear. Truth be told, you already were living in fear, the outside threat just made it more obvious. The fearful mind believes that it has no choice. 

What is this freedom? We would suggest as a pointer here that freedom is doing that which you truly, truly wish to do. How many of you truly, truly wish to get up and go to work five days a week and then stay at the job for eight hours? That can be a prison. Do you choose freely each day to do that work? Or are there qualifications such as that you kind of like your job – it’s better than some you could have, or that the pay allows you to have other freedoms. Are you filled with joy in anticipation of going to the job? Is there no place you would rather be? We could say that freedom is taking steps in each moment toward what you feel passion for. The teaching that comes from the mass consciousness is that you just can’t do what you want to do. You have to be practical. You have to protect and take care of yourself. That is your responsibility before you can pursue joy. Maybe you can do that on the weekend or in the evenings. But even then if you have a family and a house there are errands and cleaning and shopping and numerous other things to do. Who are you kidding? Unless you are a rare exception, this is what you have been taught by parents, by schools, by society, by churches, by science, and so on. Where is this freedom? Where is this joy and passion? As long as you believe these limits on your freedom are the truth, they will be. You cannot surrender your freedom to choose, but you have the freedom to choose what you don’t want. You are free to choose your prison. Nobody forces you to do that. You have the freedom to believe that you have no choice. As long as you make that choice, life will prove you to be right, because you do create your world through your thoughts. You will suffer and experience a variety of negative emotions. There will be a roller coaster of ups and downs. There will be no escape from this cycle. There will be no true feeling of freedom or of lasting joy. It’s a life sentence and then you die. Where is the freedom?

The freedom lies in your choice. Are you choosing to believe you have no freedom? Or are you choosing to know that as a Child of God, you are made in the Creator’s image with infinite imagination, joy, and ability to create from that passion? Knowing that you are here to follow whatever expressions come to you while experiencing the physical realm, while using this physical body. The only freedom comes in making this choice, in listening to where your inner guidance takes you rather than bowing before the mass consciousness. Will making that choice guarantee a problem free life from here on out? Probably not. It’s like anything else you’ve never done before. You don’t likely do it so well to begin with. The old beliefs may die slowly. You may think at the start that if you just achieved a certain something you will have joy. The belief may be that joy comes through acquisitions, relationships, and successes. I could save you time by telling you that it won’t work that way, but you probably have to learn that for yourself, so knock yourself out. I am not the expert here; your inner drive is. When you choose from your heart, your learning curve rises dramatically. You will learn what it is that is truly desired. Meanwhile, there are no mistakes, no wrong turns. Keep your GPS headed toward the peace, joy, and love that you truly are. Where your freedom takes you will be constantly changing and evolving. Always it is about the process and the present, not about any goal or target. Freedom can be very scary for people. You have no idea where it will take you and what you will let go of as you follow your heart. At least in prison you don’t have to worry. You are told what to do all of the time. Surprises are minimized. Even though it may not make you happy, at least you fit in. Everybody else is doing it. There seems to be safety in numbers. With this freedom thing, nobody else can tell you what to choose or which way to go. You have to find that out for yourself. Nobody can tell you where you are headed. Most will criticize your direction. You will find that your path is unlike anyone else’s. It is unique. Others cannot guide you because they don’t have a clue where you are going. They don’t even know what their own true path is. Only you know what to do, where to go.

Freedom is giving yourself permission to do just that. It is listening to that quiet voice within you rather than the loud voices that you are surrounded by. It doesn’t matter how you have grown up, with what kind of parents, what schools, what religious thoughts, or what society. Like everyone you were persuaded by all of these forces to think and act in certain ways. Freedom is turning you back on all of that and living out your passions. Just say no. Like Sinatra, say, “I’ll do it my way.” You follow your own guidance. You march to your own drummer. This is freedom.

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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What do you mean by ownership? | Sanhia on the Freedom of Having Nothing to Lose

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This conversation comes from a recent session.

Participant: You have used the term ownership a few times. Can you explain what you mean by that?

There is a quote attributed to Jesus in the New Testament in which he states that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. In another situation Jesus is asked by a rich young man what he would have to do to become a follower. He was told to give all of his money to the poor. The young man chose to remain at home. Another significant Jesus quote relative to ownership is where he said that the kingdom of God is within you. Ownership, though, is not limited to money. This should not be interpreted to mean that you must give up all money and live in poverty in order to realize your Divine awakened nature. Ownership is a state of mind. When you say that something is yours you are expressing ownership. This would include your ideas, story, partner, children, friends, health, and career…. We could go on and on. When a possessive pronoun is placed before a noun, ownership is implied. Ownership keeps you stuck in the illusion for a couple of reasons. First of all, none of the things you possess are real. There is no story or career. There is no past or future, no partner, and no money. I guess some of you would readily agree with the last two. (Laughter) These things are all a part of the illusion, of the movie. They have no true existence. Of even greater importance is that the being you call you also has no existence. That is what you consider your greatest possession. To be awakened is to have no sense of self. There is no identification with the body/mind construct, that is – no sense of self, but simply the noticing of the body as you might observe the sky or a building or anything in the manifested world.

Participant: Is ownership the same as control? Is letting go of ownership like letting go of control?

Of course. There is nothing. There is nothing to control. If there is nothing there, how can anything be controlled? So, …. We could stop right here. This is really the message……but let’s talk about it some more. I encourage you to be aware of where you hold ownership. We have used terms like the Divine or Holy Relationship, the Divine Presence, or the Divine Now. None of these involve any ownership whatsoever. You cannot possess anybody or anything. You can neither control them nor change them. What is there is simply noticed, accepted, and loved. Without ownership there are no loves and hates.

Participant: (laughter) Wow!

This isn’t to say that there might not be the noticing of preferring to or not preferring to be with, say, a certain person. That won’t change; there simply will be nobody there to have those likes and dislikes. There is no ownership of the reaction. This is an impossible concept for the ego mind to wrap itself around. But then, all of being awakened is like that. Without ownership there is no ego mind. It is the ego mind that believes it has things and needs them in order to get where it believes it needs to go, but there is nowhere you need to go. You are where you want to be, though there is no you there. When you hold on to things, your focus is on them and therefore on you, the holder, the human entity who feels separate from the Divine. This does not mean that you do without all these things. There are still going to be homes, vehicles, money, jobs, friends, enemies, partners, children, and relatives, but they will not be owned. They will simply be in your movie.

Participant: So, there are no likes or dislikes for the awakened me?

We have talked about this with emotions. Rather than saying, for example, that you are depressed, you notice that depression seems to be present. The former expresses ownership of a feeling. There is no definition of self as depressed. Again, ownership is not restricted to objects or people. It includes thoughts, feelings, and health. Anything tacked on to the end of the thought or statement “I am” shows ownership. I am happy. I am poor. I am sick. Awareness simply notices the apparent presence of happiness, poverty, or sickness. The ego mind might argue that it can’t see any difference, but you will find that noticing without ownership allows a totally different life experience. There is nobody there in the awakened state to own anything. Therefore, it is as impossible to lose anything as it is to hold on to it.

Participant: Doesn’t saying “I am” still imply that you exist?

That’s a sharp question. Who is? Is there ownership of being? We would suggest that you first practice dropping the words that follow “I am”. When that becomes your default thought in all situations, we’ll have further discussion about your question. There is beingness and it cannot be possessed. It simply is. It is what is aware of the created, the phenomenal world.

Participant: Is surrender to the Divine what you are talking about here. I have been trying to surrender control of my health to Spirit. Are you saying that this is a giving up of the ownership of my body? 

Yes. We can look at it in this way. You have been letting go of control of your personal will and asking to be able to surrender to God’s Will. What is being suggested here is not just letting go of the personal will but letting go of the person. There is nobody there to have a personal will. You can have that awareness. It’s not simply noticing that you have a personal desire which is separate from God’s Will, but that you are believing in a person existing that could have such a will. There is no you who could want something; there is no you who could lack anything. There is no you. There is only Divinity observing the situation. The ultimate step in giving up ownership – beyond letting go of people, things, thoughts, and feelings – is this letting go of ownership of self. There is no person here.

Participant: I think that is very hard to understand that there is no person here. What is it then? 

A movie. A hologram. A creation of the Divine Mind.

Participant: Yeah? That is difficult to understand, to grasp in some way what this Divine Mind is.

The Divine Mind has not only created this body you are pretending is a real person with a separate identity, but has created the whole movie, the whole thing …… the whole universe, everyone who seems to be in it, and every aspect of it including the “laws” by which it seems to function. That’s what Divine Mind has created; what you think of as you is not separate from any other part of the physical manifestation, whether animate or inanimate. The perfection of the Divine You has created this and is watching it, but it is not the personal you which pictures self as the creation and not the Creator. This brings on the feelings of separation and all the pain and suffering that goes with it. When the ego self believes it can own anything it is giving both self and the objects a reality they don’t have.

Participant: I can feel how a partner and projections upon him is so connected with ownership. It is another word for the same thing. Just saying “my partner” is expressing ownership. 

You’ve got it! The thought “my partner” implies ownership. Who is owning? The owner is the one you think of as your self, who feels separate from the rest of the universe and certainly from “her” partner. Ownership requires a separation of the owner and the thing owned. With Oneness there is no separation. The saying, “I am you and you are me” expresses no separation. No separate self exists. There is just the One, created by your Divine Self which is watching the movie it created.

Participant: This is scary.

What is scary about it?

Participant: It is like letting go of the only branch connecting to this world of confusion and going into freefall. 

So, who is holding on to this branch?

Participant: It’s this little me, a creature who is so terrified of God.

The Observer is simply observing. It doesn’t have the terror possessed by the little one being observed. The observer is not the person. It is simply watching. When you see only from this Watcher, there is no terror.

Participant: I can feel that this is what you mean when you suggest to fully let go and let God.

Now, as we never grow tired of saying, but you can’t get there from here. (much laughing)

Participant: Now it is a real riddle here. (continued laughing)

The ones who think they exist and possess things and need to possess things in order to survive and protect themselves are not able to choose to let go of that because there is nobody there to choose to let go. The ego mind cannot choose. The best that you can do is to be aware that there are beliefs in ownership and not act from that and to allow the emotions that are triggered to be there until they aren’t. You may find yourself attached to less and less.

Participant: Nothing left to lose.

Yes, without attachment or ownership, when something goes out of the picture there is no sense of loss. The picture is still there. It keeps on running.

Participant: But it really helps when I feel like I have nothing left to lose.

When you say, “I have nothing left to lose”, you still have “I” to lose. And it may come down to that for some. They lose everything until they finally lose themselves.

Participant: It’s a little bit tempting.

You can also do it a piece at a time. you notice that there seems to be ownership present. Whatever it is. Whenever the possessive pronoun enters the mind, you notice that there seems to be ownership here.

Participant: There is a fear here that if I go against the mass consciousness in this way I might be seen as crazy. For me, to be perceived as crazy is the worst thing that could happen. 

At the same time, you recognize that the mass consciousness is crazy. The mass consciousness believes the world is the cause and you are at effect. The mass consciousness believes that it needs to choose and choose well. It believes that you are responsible.

Participant: But what happens if I am ostracized?

The awakened individual is by definition ostracized. It no longer belongs, even though it appears to be fully participating. It is not connected to a body and to the world as others are.

Participant: Can you still use the language of the ego when talking with others, though you have fully let it go inside of you? Otherwise, you run naked in the world.

When you are out and involved with the world, you can play any role. You have no identity as a person, but you certainly have a personality. There is nothing you need to do or be; you simply react in the moment. In fact, there is no you. There are no goals such as presenting an enlightened face to the world, – whatever that might be – healing or awakening others. There is no purpose. There is just life. There is awareness. There is the movie, but there is no “you” in it. The form will still be out there carrying on, having all the experiences you have now, but with no sense of ownership of any part of it. There is no you to own it.

Participant: Sanhia, it is amazing to see that when You are speaking with people You meet them exactly where they are. The language is exactly what that moment calls for, exactly what that person needs to hear. Is that what you are talking about here? Is this “being in the world but not of it”?

All that language does is to point. One looks at what is being pointed to and may find it interesting and wonder what to do with it. There is nothing magical about the words that come through Michael. They are just what is there and are simply shared. Everything that happens can only be perfect. The language is not there to teach what the truth is. The awakened you does not need to walk around telling everybody what the reality is. Then they might lock you up. (laughter) Jesus warns not to cast your pearls before swine – and of course we are not calling the unawakened pigs – but there is no reason to cast them unless that is the guidance in the Now. You might take it as a sign that another is ready to hear something if they come and ask for help. It’s not just a question of intuiting what should be said, but it is responding to questions with what comes to the consciousness in the moment. I am not approaching random people on the street and saying, “give your money to the poor and follow me”, or “divorce the bitch or bastard, quit your job, and follow me.” (much laughter). We are not saying that. All that I do when somebody comes up and asks for directions is to scratch my chin and say (points) “I think you go this way”. Maybe they are more lost after talking to Me than before, but that’s not My problem. (laughter) My job is simply to point.

Participant: I like this pointer I have received from you now, but I am aware there is a fear to be noticing, but there is also a big yes.

When there is ownership there is something to take care of, something to protect and defend and to be afraid of losing. Without ownership, as you pointed out before, there is nothing to lose. There is nothing you have to do, no responsibility. This is a great and tremendous freedom. It points to awakening. You cannot choose to awaken, but you can notice when ownership is present, recalling that possessions just lead to pain and suffering.  So, you don’t follow that train, don’t act on those thoughts. If a thought comes to mind about “your” partner, you recognize that you think you own your partner. What a responsibility that is. Now you have to make that person be who you want them to be. If you notice that there is no control possible, then there is nothing for you to do. Perhaps ultimately it will be noticed that there is no you to even try to be the controller. If there is no you to be hurt or abandoned or upset, there is nothing but freedom. It doesn’t matter what you or others do. Whatever is done is simply done.

Participant: It’s like if the relationship is with the Divine, then it’s just “Let go and let God”.

Yes. Unless your relationship with God or Spirit or the Divine is, “Bring me my perfect relationship. Bring me money. (laughter) If you are trying to control God, then it is your God, it’s your Jesus, and then what happens? ….. You end up pissed. You asked for specific help and adequate delivery was not forthcoming. (laughter). This possession becomes total: your religion, your beliefs, your reality – as if it could possibly make a difference to the truth of the universe what crazy beliefs your ego mind might have. Reality is what it is, not what you think it should be. You cannot see reality before you if you are blinded by your reality.

Participant: I can feel this enormous relief and at the same time I can notice how much fear I have.

Yes. Good! Fear seems to present, but it is not owned. Take a step back and notice the fear. Notice who is noticing the fear.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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Why does seeing from the Observer´s eyes seem so damned impossible? | Sanhia on the Illusion of Choice

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This conversation comes from a recent Spiritual Awareness Group.

Participant: How can I choose to see things from the observer’s mind?

It seems that you can choose either ego or Spirit. In truth, there is no choosing. It is already written. It is just what happens. The mind may see it as choosing, but there is just the appearance of choosing happening, just as there might be the appearance of a sunrise happening. The viewer would just notice that there is an apparent choosing. The choice does not affect the movie. It is a scripted part of the movie. Ego mind wants to hold on to the thought that it is choosing. Ego wants to claim, for instance, that “I” am angry. In reality, there is no one to “own” that anger. There is only the appearance of anger being present. There is no judgment in this noticing. Anger is not good or bad; it is simply present. The observer feels no anger. It is only aware of the presence of anger in the movie.

Participant: I seem to be stuck here.

There seems to be the appearance of stuckness here. The observer is not stuck, but only noticing the presence of stuckness.

Participant: I am worried that my observer might be laughing at me.

The observer has no reaction other than absolute love for whatever is there. The part that you think of as me, who feels separate from the One, who feels it can choose – and is therefore not doing a good job – is thinking “Why did it choose this?” The observer simply notices that there seems to be a belief in choosing; there seem to be upsetness; there seems to be stuckness.

Participant: I can be okay with that. I don’t want to just jump from this place right now because something is needing to be done here. I don’t want to go back to trying to be nice. That’s not so fun.

If you could simply choose to jump from your ego and only see from the Divine Observer, you would have done that long ago. You can have the intention to do that, but you can’t make it happen because you don’t have choice. If you had choice, that would place you separate from the Divine. But you can’t be separate, so what is happening can only be perfect, a part of the script that is already written. At some point it may be that in the noticing of the now the ego is just seen rather than experienced as self. That cannot be chosen because only the ego mind can pretend to choose. The noticing simply happens. There no longer is anyone there, there is just the noticing. But you can’t choose that.

Participant: Not just now.

Not at any time. It will happen when it happens.

Participant: Something feels very powerful in this.

If you have the thought that there is stuckness, and you hang on to that thought, you will likely decide there is some fault in you that maintains the feeling of stuckness. When you are aware of that, let the sense of stuckness be there as long as it is going to be there. It is perfect. There is nothing to fix. There is no effort you could make to cause the stuckness to go away.

Participant: I could sing a song. Then I’m not focused on the stuckness.

Yes and then what is apparent is the singing of the song. Will the feeling of stuckness return? Probably.

Participant: This is very good. I like it very much.

Choice is the domain of the ego mind. As you let go of control and simply notice what is present, you are opening to the possibility of seeing through Divine eyes. If you do that to try to enable Divine seeing, you are back in the ego trap of choosing. So, you just do it when you notice and stop trying to choose, instead noticing what is present. It’s a razor’s edge you are walking. I mean let’s get serious. Is the ego really going to choose to give up its control by truly allowing you to choose Spirit? That would be suicide. The ego is a survivor and a very clever one. Choice is not a choice; it is a subterfuge. Every choice affirms the reality of the ego. Its disappearance requires not choosing. The best you can hope to do is to notice what is going on without following any of the threads.

Participant: But I do know that this is all an ego game. I know that it will probably eventually go over to something else, but I guess that right now I need to be in it.

This is such a humorous thing – perhaps more humorous from this perspective than from yours – but whatever you decide you want to do; you can’t possibly do. All that is left is to give up trying. But you can’t try to give up trying. Finally, you get so exhausted from trying and failing that you just give up trying.

Participant: But sometimes I’m able to walk or sit quietly or sing and my mind calms down.

Yes, but what you have then is a calmer ego driven person, but still not an awake person. Not that this is a bad thing. Being calm might be more enjoyable, but the balancing dualistic energy will eventually surface. Watching from the viewer is not about being calm or distressed.  It is noticing what is present without identifying that as self. There is no self. There are no techniques for taking you to that place. If anything, it may be necessary to let go of all techniques, but that can become its own technique.

Participant: Just now, this is what I needed.

The perfect thing is always here. If you try to understand why it is perfect, you are back in the ego mind. You will never understand.

Participant: Then I could be grateful that this is what it is…and not a heart attack.

That would be perfect too (much laughing). It would be what is there. If you have the thought that awakening means feeling fine all of the time, which you think you might be able to do if you let yourself just find and practice the right things consistently, you may, as I said, find yourself as a mostly satisfied sleeping person. You will, however, still believe yourself to be your “self“, separate from the One. What is transpiring for an individual or for the world in general has no identification for the Divine Viewer. Happiness or sadness may be present, but it makes no difference. There is nobody there experiencing this. There is something magnetic for the searcher in having a practice, but eventually the practice doesn’t deliver. So, you try another and then another until perhaps you crumble into hopelessness.

Participant: I am tired of techniques. I just want to be.

Notice that that is all you can ever do. Just to be. You cannot stop being. You cannot make yourself be. You are. Any technique is simply a diversion from noticing the isness of everything. So, we are back to this razor’s edge of having no techniques without that becoming a technique. Everything is perfect as it is. Nothing to change and nobody there to make a change. There is just what is, Divinely inspired. You can’t change anything, but you might be aware of the desire for change. You can’t make yourself accept what is here, but you might notice that the desire to do so is present.

Participant: I have the thought that coming to this group is a holy thing to do, that it will support my spiritual goals. This morning I didn’t feel very holy so I thought I shouldn’t come.

Sorry, but there is nothing holy here. This is like Walpurgis night in Sweden (a holiday celebrated on the last day of April where people make fires and burn whatever has accumulated over the dark period of the year). You come here to release things, not to get anything. There is nothing to get. You already have it. Your job is not to be or feel holy, but to take out and burn the trash. So please! Bring us your garbage. Of course, you don’t need to come here to throw out the trash. You can do that at home. There is nothing holy about this or any other place, or it could be said that every place is holy. There is only holiness. That is all there is. You are also not here because you chose to be here.

Participant: It is not my choice to be here? You mean in this body?

Well, yes that too, but to be here in this room now. That is just a belief of the ego mind. It might be more accurate to say that you are here because the universe has chosen for you to be here. It might be most accurate to say that you are here because you are here. You can play the game of believing that you are choosing things, but did you choose to become aware of this group? Even when you might think that you decided to be here today, it was the universe that provided you with a ride. The universe could have caused the car not to start or there might have been an accident on route. You could have been too sick to get out of bed or you could have listened to the voice that said you weren’t holy enough to be here today. The universe wanted you here. It is a fool’s task for you to wonder why you were wanted here. It is just yours to be here and notice what is here before you. On the other hand, you may notice that there is nurturance here for this seemingly separated being. That nurturance is also here for the group member who did not appear today. The universe wanted him elsewhere, even though he might be beating himself up for believing that he created not being present. There is nothing wrong or right about attending or not attending. There just is what is.

Participant: Yes, I do think it is good to be here. Good to have support in seeing things from another side.

If you allow yourself to notice when you think you are choosing or when you find yourself feeling negative emotions that you wish were not taking place, if you decide to then reverse the process – good luck with that. You cannot choose that or anything else. At the same time, within the imaginary realms of past and future, which don’t exist, yet feel so real, the choosing part of you that believes you have a whole story of connected events that led you to being where you are now, there is just the isness of this moment. There is no past or future; there is just the isness, the being of what is here in this moment from the vertical perspective. There is just what is being observed. Nothing else. It certainly cannot slow down this illusory process of becoming the Observer to be more aware of when you think you are the chooser, but if you are doing it to try to get “there”, there is nowhere to get, and you are spinning your imaginary wheels. But that doesn’t mean not to do it, if doing it is what is here right now. What is being noticed is that there is resistance to what is here now. What is going on right now is that “I” think that I am this body, and “I” is being used to identify that body. Can that identification be changed right now? No, that is just what appears to be happening. All that is really happening is the noticing that this appears to be going on. Thinking you are the body does not make you the body. Thinking that you are not the body does not stop you from believing you are. Thinking doesn’t do anything. There is no you to be or not be the body. There is just the seeing, just the being.

Participant: That’s good. Good enough.

Or bad enough (laughs all around). This noticing that there is no chooser, there is only the Divine watching can only come upon one who believes in their separated self. There is no chooser so it cannot be chosen. This Divine Watcher has no idea what is coming next. Everything is being viewed for the first time. How could that not be thrilling? This creation is only Love. Everything is seen through these eyes of Love. This does not mean that pain won’t seem to be present, but it will not be owned or possessed by the Viewer who can possess nothing, Who is not there but only Is. Like everything else in the illusion, pain will appear and then disappear. Pain is not good or bad; it is simply what is on the screen now. Ego mind wants to hang on to the exhilaration of the positive experience, but that can only be accompanied by the pain of the fall. The Viewer owns neither. Ego mind is destined to a seeming eternity of up and down. It wants to hold on to the up and it fails, adding insult to injury. Meanwhile there is just Life, Oneness, Divinity. There is no up and down, no judgment, no separation, no guilt, no suffering. The ego mind really believes that it is responsible, that it is in control and can handle things. But it absolutely is not and cannot be. It has no idea that everything filling that mind comes from someplace other than Divinity.

Participant: But isn’t it the human state to seek happiness and avoid pain?

The deeper truth is that the human desire is to go home, and the belief is that something must be done to get there. For some the belief is that seeking happiness will bring them home. For others, the belief may be that pain and deprivation will lead them home. Spirit says that you are home; you never left. The ego mind can never see this, but the Observer’s eye does. Sooner or later the ego mind gets tired of trying.

Participant: I’m tired already.

Wonderful! (laughter) How successful have you been so far in manifesting what you wish to create in your life? That must be exhausting! You can stop trying. Your true nature is Oneness. You are Oneness playing the game of twoness. Is the game always fun? Not from the ego mind, not from the perception of twoness. From Oneness, from the Observer it is neither fun nor not fun; it simply is and all that simply is is Divine, is Love. But in absolute Oneness there is no experience. There is no movie. There is no sunset. There is no storm. There is no pain. There is no sweetness. There is no orgasm. So, Oneness can have the experience of these sensations through this movie. Every moment of the movie is glorious to the Observer.

Participant: How can the Observer experience yet not be a part of what is happening?

The Observer watches without projection. This Watcher does not pretend that It is the person being observed. There is no story, no history. Nothing is held on to. There is no future. There is just the Divine moment. Pain, for example to the ego mind, is connected with past ideas of blame and guilt, and with fears of the future. For the Observer, pain is just a particular sensation in the Divine now. Nothing lasts. Everything changes. Nothing is held on to. Everything is noticed. The Observer notices the pain is present but is not identified with it. Again, these are just words and cannot approximate the actual experience of not seeing through the ego’s eyes. You call this twoness “me”, but where is this “me”? Who is “me”? The twoness is “me-ing” while the Oneness is “be-ing”. “Me-ing” always has questions. “Be-ing” knows, but not in words.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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How can I learn to love myself?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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Can you explain to us about co-dependency?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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Why should my goal be to not set any goals?

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A question has arrived from a member of a recent online group. I had lightly mentioned during the session that it could be your goal not to have any goals. A later discussion with the person’s family brought up many doubts about the advisability of such a course. Talking with family and friends is always an excellent way to have your doubts and confusion expressed for you. We’ll start with the word “should”, which I didn’t use. I suggest replacing that word with “could”, or “would”. “Should” implies a right or wrong, suggests that if you are “good” you will do it in this fashion. The statement that was made was not that it is wrong to have goals and good to not have goals. And, if you are following along at this point, how crazy is it to have the “goal” not to have “goals”.  The statement was made in jest, but also in all seriousness. Duality requires that something be said, but not worshiped as absolute truth. What we wish to do is to investigate what is involved in the whole goal setting process.

One of the ideas put forth by the pro-goal faction is that there can be no progress without goals; for individuals or the world to improve, goals must be set and reached. Is that really true? Let’s take a closer look. To begin with, goals are set by the mind. The mind knows only what it has learned in the past. Therefore, goals can only seek to achieve what already exists. The mind runs on old stories. These goals can only reinforce old ideas about how things should be.  People who are truly innovative, who help bring about remarkable change in the physical reality do so by ignoring their minds and what they have been taught. Instead, they observe what is and follow their inner guidance leading them to ideas that have not surfaced before. We could go back into history and witness those like Copernicus and Galileo who ignored what was taught to them about the earth being the center of the universe with everything rotating around it and observed what was to be seen through telescopes. They went inside to find explanations for what they observed. Or look at Einstein whose ideas went counter to everything that was taught in math and physics. He ignored all of that, in fact he was reported to not be a good student at all, being too busy seeing what he saw and going to his own intuitive guidance to find explanations that were not available in the world. New ideas do not spring out of old knowledge.

We could take a sidestep here and demonstrate the difference between being present, seeing what is there, and following inner guidance – all of which is not goal oriented. How can you have a goal about something that you know nothing about? Einstein developed theories that absolutely changed how we look at time, space, and matter. Later physicists have expanded upon these insights through their own observations and inner guidance. Parallel to this were goal-oriented scientists who chose to take these concepts learned from Einstein to develop a weapon that could be used to kill countless thousands of individuals. The old idea of war and destruction was a part of the justification for such goals. Even though centuries had shown that war never leads to peace, they took these old ideas and set a goal that allowed them to destroy two entire cities. It is very difficult to have a goal that doesn’t incorporate old ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, or should and shouldn’t. While humans continue to set goals as they have, nothing is learned. Past mistakes are repeated. War and poverty continue. Environmental degradation increases. There are fears that the ultimate result of human goals will be the annihilation of the planet. It could be. Goals are based on past learning and past learning is wrong and has never worked. Notice we didn’t say partially wrong. Past learning is all wrong – we are not talking of learning that allows one to function in the world, such as operating machinery and computers, cooking and finding one’s way around, but learning what life is about, what is important, and what is true. Something in the past may have been true for that moment in time, but it is not for today, not for now. Those answers lie in the present, not in the past. The past is not creative. It is repetitive. Repeating the same failing ideas will never make them work. A world that is not working cannot be made to work with the same old beliefs and ideas.

Why do you set goals? This is a place where being completely honest with yourself is important. Perhaps you believe that the realization of that goal will bring you happiness, peace, security, or love. I suggest that you look at your personal history at those times you have realized personal goals. Have they brought you any of that, other than the momentary high when the goal is first reached? Is that happiness, peace, security, or love sustained? Does that continue to be felt in your day-to-day life or do you compulsively set new goals to try to get that feeling back? Perhaps one sets the goal of being wealthy. Does that person ever have enough money? Is there a constant desire to accumulate more, perhaps more than could even be reasonably spent? So, the question remains of why the goal is being set. Again, honesty is important. If you are lying to yourself as to the true reason, how can you ever be satisfied? Is it because you want to feel that you have been successful in life? What is success? Who decides that? Whose approval is being sought? I suggest that you look long and hard for the true motivation for the goals you set. If you seek to feel at peace, then be at peace now. There is nothing that needs to be done. Peace is not earned. It is here right now, right in front of you. If you desire to feel loved, then love yourself now. Love everyone you meet today. Love what is happening now. Notice when you are not expressing love. Don’t decide that you need to be different in the future. Let go of unloving thoughts right now. Don’t feed them. One reason why goals fail is they are dishonest. You do not truly seek the realization of the goal; you seek something beyond that. What do you really seek? Where is it? Do you know exactly how to get there? My guess is that if you knew how to get there you would be there now. Why would you procrastinate for a minute? Instead, you have this belief that achieving a goal will bring you where you want to be. But it doesn’t do it. You don’t really have a clue. You are following somebody else’s formula for how your life should be. That formula is not working for them either, but it is what they learned.

Let’s take another sidetrack here. One of the greatest misunderstandings that most minds accept is that you have free will. You believe that you have a choice and your choices matter. You have no choice. It doesn’t matter what you do. Everything is predetermined. It is all planned. It is known exactly what you will do in each scripted moment. You will realize your Divinity, but you will have no idea where or how this awareness will come. Everything is in motion constantly moving you to that realization. You can go kicking and screaming, thinking that you know better than God, rejecting the Divine plan and trying to replace it with your goals. You can fail and suffer. Or. You can open your eyes and see what is before you. You can watch that plan unfold. You have no need to understand why things are set up as they are or why you are here. You are here. Nothing you could try to do will change that. The plan is far grander than anything you could imagine. You can welcome it and enjoy playing in it. Everything is offered right now, not in some nonexistent future. The past doesn’t exist either. Try to find your way to either place. Where are they? There is just the glorious now, all yours without even having to ask. There is nothing you can change no matter how much you might wish to. There is nothing you would wish to change if you truly let your thoughts go and accept what is here.

If there is something that is your special thing to bring to the world, it won’t come from the past and no teacher or teaching or idea can tell you what it is. If the past knew what it was, it would already have been done. It must come from the now. If it is yours to do, it cannot be anybody else’s. How can someone else tell you something that only you can know by being in the present, seeing what is there, and listening to your inner direction? How can anything you have been taught about who you are, or should be, and what kinds of goals you should or shouldn’t have be true for you? Is everyone supposed to do the same thing? Why are there so many different people then? That seems rather wasteful and inefficient. On the contrary there is something unique about you. You don’t discover that by being directed by your mind and all it has been taught from the past. That’s where you find how to be like others, rather than finding your own uniqueness. You learn how to be another crazy person in an insane world. So let that mind go. That’s what true creators do. They see what is in front of them in this very moment. They learn to hear and trust their inner voice, their inner guidance. This is about what to do right in this moment; it is not about goals for a nonexistent future. If there is a goal for you, you don’t know what it is. If there is a goal for you, it is for you and not for anybody else. You have a unique role to play in this awakening process. You find it, not by going where your thinking says you should go – as your thinking is faulty – but by listening and letting go of your mind to see what you are drawn to, what is drawn into your life. Everything is being provided; it is not your work to figure out what to do but rather to follow the trail that is being presented.

Everyone is here in a body with a common purpose. That purpose is to awaken to the truth of their Divine nature, to the truth of who they truly are. You are to be a loyal follower of your purpose. Your purpose is set. As long as you agree to let your life be led by your mind and old thoughts, you will remain asleep. Whatever goals you set are built on sand, not solid ground, and the whole structure will eventually collapse. You will be frustrated in your attempts to realize what you have dreamed of. Don’t take my word for this. Go ahead and set your goals. Give them everything you have. If that works for you…wonderful! If someday you realize this is not bringing you what you hoped for, come back and we’ll talk some more.

As you are awakening to the truth of you, which can only be experienced in the now with a silent mind; as you are now ignoring or no longer following the untruths that you have learned; as you see what is truly in front of you and you work with it rather than resisting it and attempting to create something different; as the Divine voice within you becomes increasingly clear – then you support others in doing the same. If you wish to end poverty on the planet, you let go of all beliefs you hold about scarcity. When you notice those thoughts arising, you do not act on them. You simply notice the thoughts and let them go. When you believe you do not have enough, you manifest poverty in the world. Goals emerge from a sense of not enough. That lack becomes your gift to the world. What is right in front of you is all you could ever need. Goals emerge from a belief that the world is not as it should be, and that it is your responsibility to change it. How has that succeeded? How many people have been trying to change the world and for how long? Every improvement that comes from human attempts is two edged. Every plus brings with it a negative. That is the nature of duality. Technological advances are used in war. Medical advances are used to keep people sick. It’s a big business. Money, rather than being used as a tool to help share what is there, is used for competition with winners and losers. Love is used to control others, to keep them where they are wanted. Again, be honest with yourself as to why you have your goals. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble. If you want to trust that you have enough wealth, do that right now.  What do you truly need that is not before you now? Let go of the dreams of accumulation and the future. You don’t live there. Accept the wealth that is offered right now, the beauty of nature, air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and people to be with and to love. Go directly for what you want. Find it in the now rather than shuffling everything off to an imagined future that never comes. If you want to be happy, then be happy! It is right here in front of you. Look. Accept what you see. Welcome it. There is nothing to change. All that is required is to be present with it, to flow with the ever-changing moment. Notice the insanity of your thoughts.

We will go back to the original question, the humorously offered suggestion to have the goal of having no goals. That suggestion might be softened by saying to have the intention to have no goals. You notice when you have a goal and instead of trying to reach that goal you simply recognize its existence in your thoughts. Interesting. Is the goal something that can be realized now? No, it is off somewhere in the future. The goal is never fulfilled in the now. So where is happiness? Where are peace and love and fulfillment? They are all out there in the future. Where do you live? You can only live in the now. When does the future arrive? Never. Why sacrifice your now, the only place you will ever be, for, the future, where you will never be? But this is what you choose to do when you have goals. The insanity is in having goals. Sanity is living in and loving the only place you will ever be. Seems to be a no brainer, which is a fortunate state of affairs because you just might stop using yours.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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