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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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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Good Now!

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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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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Can you talk more about the personal self not existing? Part 1 | Sanhia on Waking Up from the Story of You

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(recorded from a live session)

The ego mind has its own definition of perfection, and it only, occasionally, accidentally bumps up against the perfection that is. Part of that picture of perfection often is that the ego mind fully understands what is going on. But the ego mind never understands what is going on. It can’t because it is insane. It feels that it is real and it thinks that you are separate from the One. And it feels it has a mind of its own that should be listened to. Einstein once said, “The mind that created the problem is incapable of creating the solution”. You can rest easily with not understanding. Understanding is the function of the ego mind. Knowing is the function of Spirit. So, when you know, it is beyond understanding. There is no explaining why you know or what you know; you just know. There is certainty. That is why when you follow the will of God there is no choice. You just know. If you think there is choice, then you are in the ego mind trying to figure it out. And, as I like to say, good luck with that, because it doesn’t matter what you choose. We’ll talk more about these experiences of noticing, being what you think of as you, but noticing. What kind of experiences? And so you find that the world doesn’t disappear if you wait and don’t make a decision. What is important? If there is fear in the now, then that is what’s in the now. That is the gift. But it is not something to be overcome. 

Participant: Coming up distrust. Sometimes it is painful and I can feel it is so hard not to project it. I can see when I project. It is like abandoning myself. Even though I see all of this it’s really hard to let it go. There is some ego voice that is so angry, or very loud. So it’s really a roller coaster. And there is another thing that is very important, that’s about my karmic eight. What an enormous ego power it has. How my impulse is really driven by this controlling bitch. That is also an important insight. 

The place that we want to come back to is this place where there is no you. If there is no you, then there are no stories. Then there is no karmic eight. That’s a story. You can deal with all of the stories. You have found in another discipline that you could deal with your feelings and deal with your feelings, and the bucket is bottomless. You never reach the end of it. There is always another feeling. There is always something else. If there is fear it works better to accept it than to resist it. But, who is having this fear? As long as you believe there is a you who has fear, you will have fear. But there is no you having this fear. That is the illusion. Go. You look and notice that there is something noticing the story; whatever it might be, that is not the story. It’s simply noticing the story. No different than if you are watching a film on the television. You are noticing that story but you are not the story. So the question continually is, “Who is noticing this?”, and, “Where is this noticer?”  If you keep looking at that and looking at that, if you think you have found the noticer, “Who is noticing the noticer you have found?”  There is a step back and a step back, but there is no forwards and backwards so we are just saying that in a metaphorical sense that there is a step back until there is simply noticing. No noticer, simply noticing. 

Participant: What does that mean? The difference?

When you are watching a film, say on the television, you are noticing. First of all, you are noticing it is all projected on the screen. It’s not real; it’s not happening in your living room. You are simply noticing a projection on the screen. Where there is a character on the screen, you are noticing the character but you are not saying that’s me. But in the screen that you call your life, you are pretending that the character that you call “you” on the screen is real. But it’s not. It’s an actor that you are watching. You can practice when you’re watching the television screen and notice where you project yourself into any of the characters – either through thinking, “Oh, they are a good character”, or “Oh, they are a bad character”, or “Oh, they shouldn’t do that”, or “What are they thinking?”, and so on. Notice that there is projection going on. It’s not real. You turn it off and everything is gone. Nothing is there. Or you can turn it back on and watch the same episode over and over and over. Does it change? It’s just a projection on a screen. So you can practice with that and notice where you are giving reality to what is on the screen. 

Participant: Now when I have experienced so much physical pain it feels so real because you can’t get away from it, or you can take a painkiller but then everything is gone. 

Now you are projecting on your screen. Is there pain present in the now? 

Participant: That is a memory I am talking about. 

But that is what I am talking about. A memory is not the now. It’s not real. It’s not happening. 

Participant: I couldn’t handle that in that way when it was there. And that’s why I bring it up – to get some guidance around it. 

In the now there may be an experience and your mind might label that experience pain. When it labels pain and names it, then it moves out of the now and allows all of the stories of pain that the mind is holding on to, to be experienced in the now. Not simply what is in the now, but the whole idea of pain and everything around it. For example, a thought comes in, “Aw (breathes deeply), what if the pain keeps getting worse and worse?” “What if it gets to a point where I absolutely can’t stand it?” “What if it never stops?” “What is the meaning of this? Is this a punishment for me?” “What have I done?!” “What’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn? What’s the message? Spirit tell me what’s the message! Why am I having this pain?” The mind goes into all of this craziness that has nothing to do with the now. It’s going off in all of these directions instead of simply noticing the sensation, which is not pain. Pain is a word. You don’t experience a word. So you experience something in the body. So you go into it and you just experience nothing but that; let the mind go. Doesn’t matter what it’s about, where it came from, why it’s there, how long – it’s just what is here right now. And so you say, “Thank you Spirit; this is what is here right now”. And you experience it. And if the mind goes a little bit nuts and it’s more than you can tolerate, then take a painkiller. (laughter). There is no right or wrong about it. And then the next time the sensation comes, it’s a new experience. It’s a new now. But you are with the feeling, not with the thought of the feeling, not with the label of the feeling, but just the feeling. I want you to notice the resistance you have to simply letting it be there. 

Participant: Yeah. I see that. 

And so, for example, you project that.

Participant: Yeah, I have noticed that. And it’s one thing to notice it, but it’s not so easy to stop it. 

Yes, but noticing comes first. If you don’t notice it, it goes on forever. And the second thing you do – you can’t stop these thoughts from coming up but you say, “Ooh, but I’m not going to act on that now. Just going to notice that it’s there.”  

Participant: Then I get a little bit shamed about, “I’m so bad I can’t deal with this”, and so there is judgment on myself and…

It’s all the same thing. Judgment is not of the now. Judgment is comparison to what the mind thinks should be there. And the mind’s crazy. 

Participant: There is this fear of letting it go because then there is this abyss. That is so scary. (laughs) Scares the shit out of me. 

So where is this abyss? 

Participant: Yeah. (laughs) Where is the fear? From where does it come? If I accept it then it just takes over. So that is why there is some fighting against it. 

It already has taken over. (laughter) You’ve been letting it take over, empowering it all of your life. They say that the horse is already out of the barn. The thought of the mind always is dual. There is good and there is bad. Only the good is of God; the bad is not. And of course where you fit in, the you you think of as you, you’re on the bad side. 

Participant: I am? (laughs) 

Always. Trying to be good. “God look at how good I’m being. I’m so good.” But you believe that you’re bad. So what? Punishment? Sickness? “Guilt, fear, all these punishments that come to me because I’m bad.” “But I’m trying to be good. Tell me what I should learn here, God.”  (laughter) And all we’re saying is there’s no good or bad here. Whatever God brings is from God. There are no good gifts from God and bad gifts from God. It’s all Divine. The mind says, “Where is the love?” The truth says, “It’s all love. That’s all there is.” The mind says, “How can I feel loved?” The truth says, “You are love.” But the mind that sees a you as real, separate from God, then sees you as not love, because God is love and you are separate from god, therefore you are not love. 

Participant: Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. 

Loved if you do and loved if you don’t. 

Participant: (laughing) I think I’ll choose that. Is it possible to choose that? Who is choosing?

You’re choosing damned if you do and damned if you don’t, because as long as it’s you choosing, you are choosing separate from God. So no matter what you choose, you are choosing separation. But the truth is…not real. You’re not separate. And the pain is just on the screen. It’s not real. The part of you that believes there is a separate you also believes that pain is probably a good thing; because if you suffer enough, God will take you home. And if you stop suffering you are lost in hell forever. 

Participant: It’s a lot of confusion.

It’s only the mind that creates confusion. There is no confusion, It’s very, very simple. Whatever is here is from God and is Love. If you want to resist and fight it, that’s when it gets confusing. You simply silence what is. How crazy would it be to try to change what is; it already is.

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How do I deal with challenging people in my life? | Sanhia on The Power of Projection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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Can you explain more about personal will and God’s Will?

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The following was taken from a recent group session.

Participant: I have a question about the Will of God. Is it our awakened will? Why would such a will need to exist? Does it lead to something good in the end? What is this God?

Sanhia: The real questions are, “Why is what is happening?” Is there purpose or meaning in it? Is there any connection or Oneness in it or is it just random? If you resist or fight whatever is happening, you will experience pain and suffering, and it will still be here. You may decide to stop resisting because you can’t do anything about it. This level of acceptance might be to say that you won’t try to change things, but you’re still pissed about it. Your will is that it be different. The only way to find out if what I am saying has any substance to it is to try it. So, we can replace the expression “the Will of God” with “what is”. Instead of “personal will” we can use, “I don’t want what is” or “how I want to change what is”. Be aware where personal will exists and experiment with not empowering it, not following it. See what happens when you welcome or practice expressing gratitude for what is. What have you got to lose when you have realized you are powerless to change what is. Goal setting and positive thinking just don’t work. It’s not about understanding. That need to know will just lead you down the same rabbit hole. Your only job is to recognize when your personal will is active. Notice that you cannot simply decide to not have a personal will anymore, because it is expressing in your present. That would be a resistance to what is. Notice but don’t follow. It may seem that you can’t decide anything. That can be a healthy realization.

So, for you it seems that your right now is that your husband feels stressed around his work. Your personal will wants to do something about it. Why fight what is? So, you notice and then see what comes into the new now. Is it true that your husband should not be experiencing what is happening? Is it true that you should do something about it? Are you certain you have a better idea about what should be? If you are not sure, why do you choose to fight? What if you could rise high above all that is, see through all illusions of time and space, see that your husband is experiencing exactly the perfect thing to support his awakening?  Here you are resisting what God is bringing. Are you doing this for yourself also? All you need to know is that this is what is.

Participant: Does this mean that I should never take any action? What if God wants me to respond here in a certain way?

Sanhia: If that is what is wanted in the situation you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing it. Choice is not involved. When you spontaneously react, all you can do is notice what happened. When you act from your inner guidance there is no question of whether you did the right thing or not. There is no expectation of any specific result or reaction from your husband. If a similar situation were to occur tomorrow, you might find yourself guided to act in a totally different way. It is never about right or wrong. This gives you enormous freedom to just be in the present, responding to what is.

Participant: It seems that it just becomes witnessing, witnessing, witnessing. Do I have any importance?

Sanhia. Let’s just play around here. We will use words because that is all we have. God created you in Its own image. For fun. God desired to have someone to play with. But if they only do what God wants them to do, then they are not in Its image because God does as It wishes in every moment. How does God create a game where It can play with the creations without controlling them, having the potential for meeting as the equals they are? The only difference between you and God is that God is the creator while you are the created. You did not create yourself, but otherwise were created in God’s image. Your relationship with Jesus, for example, is as an absolute equal, both created by God. So, we are playing this game and when you realize that We are One in Divinity, how could We have different Wills? It isn’t that the human bows down to the Will of God, it is that there is absolutely no difference between them. When you believe there is a difference and that God is up there and you are down here, there is fear. You feel a need to choose independently of God out of fear. Fear generates more fear. But you are not separate. God is just here and trying to play. You are the aspect of God that seems to have a body and senses and can play in the physical illusion.

Participant: Is blame part of the game?

Sanhia: Blame is only apart of the game in terms of fear and resistance to the game. In the now there is no blame; there is just the reacting to the moment, the playing of the game. Everything and its opposite are true at the same time. This drives the mind crazy until it drops out of the competition and plays with what is instead of what isn’t. I have been telling you that you have no free will, but without free will, you could not choose the Will of God over your personal will. Without free will, you cannot surrender your free will. Had you been created without free will, you would just do what God wanted.

Participant: That might be better.

Sanhia: But what fun would that be for God? How can you truly have fun with others if you believe there is a level difference? In that case one of you feels responsible for the other. It’s ball-and-chain time again. Your belief is that you must have your personal will to be free, but that is actually the ball-and-chain. A rebel has no freedom because he is limited to acting in opposition. If you really look at what is, rather than what you think it should be, you will have the realization that no improvement could be made. Just hearing that is meaningless. It is something you must investigate for yourself. When you ask the question, “What is God?” You are God, but not the part of God that created you. It is all One. Personal will is based on the untruth that you are separate from God. There is no trust in the separation. It believes that if you don’t take care of you, nobody will. The insane thought is that you can do things better than God can. Part of that confusion comes from your belief that what you see in the world is God’s creation rather than your projection.

Participant: Is our personal will really our will or is it our rebellion?

Sanhia: You have freedom only if you take it. Most people do not exercise that freedom. They listen to the dictates of their minds, which were trained by the mass consciousness, and then carry out the will of other humans rather than listening within to their own Divine Will and following that. In this way they keep themselves in bondage going to jobs they don’t love, sacrificing the now for illusory futures, remaining in unsatisfying relationships, watching their dreams and their bodies slowly deteriorate.  Out of a world of infinite choice where they can follow their passions and truly live for the moment, they keep themselves chained to unsatisfactory pasts and unknown futures. Personal will becomes an exercise in how they can best keep themselves safe. But they can’t. There is no certainty other than death and taxes. You are created in the image of God. You can play creatively in the universe with God. You can be “buds”, hang out.

Participant: But you are saying that I cannot change what God has done, that I only have the power to accept what is.

Sanhia: That thinking comes from the belief of being separate from God. When you surrender to God’s Will you are surrendering to your own true will. Your personal will is a lie. It’s not the truth. It is not what you truly want.

Participant: One could say that this personal will is connected to my separation story, that I am guilty, and God is out to get me.

Sanhia: If you were God and were creating a world it would be one where people never had to worry about food or shelter or any of those types of things. Each time you set goals to handle such matters you are expressing the belief that they are not already being taken care of. You are refusing to accept God’s gifts and feeling you must take that role upon yourself. Rather than trusting and living in the now, you are trying to control and live in a future that doesn’t exist. You are using your Divine power to be powerless. Therefore, I am saying that your personal will never serves your true interests.

Participant: So, I have been using my personal will to try to create something that is already here right now.

Sanhia: Yes, and most likely in a superior form from what your personal will had in mind.

Participant: Thank you! That is enough!

Sanhia: If the mind goes “How?”, the response is to open your eyes and look around. It’s here right now. It has always been here right now. You are always provided for. There have been no times when you starved to death, when you could not breathe, when you had no awareness, when you weren’t in the now – even if your thoughts were elsewhere. Do you remember the times that were the most glorious, the times when you truly felt alive? All times are like that when you let go of the mind thoughts about how things should be and face what is. How it is is exactly what you want it to be. Nothing has to change. Now you can play with God. Accepting what is does not mean rolling over and playing dead. It does not mean inactivity. It means that you listen to the Divine Guidance within you and react to what is. You are fully engaged in this dance with God. This awareness and co-creation will not burst into being and stay forever. It will come in bits and pieces. Two steps forward, one step back. This is perfect. No faster than you can assimilate. There may be old fears and beliefs still to become aware of and let go of, more personal will to become aware of and released. The Will of God is always there, always carrying you, always deeply desired.

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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How should I deal with my strong feelings?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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How am I to deal with disease?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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