How can I deal with my aging judgmental mother? | Sanhia on the Power of Projection

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(Taken from a Zoom group)

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Participant: I would like to go deeper into my childhood. Since my early years I remember my mother as a heavy drinker. I have a conflict with her but she wants to come live with me. I do not want that. She requires elderly care. I spend so much time arguing with and taking care of her. I have chosen to avoid most people these days. None of the people around me get what is happening with me. I have gone in a totally different direction than I previously had and from that in which others are going. 

What is your current direction? 

Participant: A self-knowing direction.

Knowing the truth about yourself? 

Participant: Yes, my friends and relatives don’t want to go in the same direction. They don’t understand what’s happening with me. But I choose this for myself. I don’t want to share anything with my mother because she doesn’t understand. I have moved to Ireland. She is going to have an operation and wants to stay with me afterwards, but I don’t want to see her or help her anymore. I have not yet communicated this to her because I don’t want to talk with her at all. She is selfish and only thinks of herself. I hate all the lies she says. She speaks one way when I am with her helping, but then says bad things about me behind my back to my sisters and other relatives. 

Your commitment is to finding the truth about yourself. There is no greater tool you can use for that than understanding how projection works. This does not require the involvement of anyone else. You simply become aware of when you have judgment of another. You acknowledge that this judgment is really about yourself; it is about a part of self that you don’t want to look at or admit to. You state your willingness to look at everything now. You have said that your mother is a liar; she is not honest with you. The question now becomes one of looking at how you lie and are not honest with yourself. What are you saying to yourself that is not true? Keep looking at that. You can look at specific things you have heard that she has said about you. If you didn’t hold some of those same judgments about yourself, they would not bother you. Look for the truth there. This is not about her; it is about you. What separates you from her and from your other friends in this moment of time is your willingness to look for the truth. Whatever you see in others is the truth of you as you believe or fear it to be. Now you can take that and go to work with it yourself. If you wish to, I can work with you here now to help you realize what has been spoken about using specific ideas or thoughts that you are holding. 

Participant: Yes, for sure.

Tell me a specific thing over which you are holding judgment about her. 

Participant: I judge that she had many relationships with men when I was a child. I judge that she was a heavy drinker and she was beating me. She did not give me the love that I needed. She did not spend enough time with me. 

Notice how the mind is working on two different sides here. On one hand she was drunk, beating you, and didn’t love you. On the other hand, she didn’t spend enough time with you. There is a confusion here. Why would you desire someone to spend more time with you who didn’t love you, and was drunk and was beating you? Perhaps separation from all of that might be welcomed. Maybe somewhere in your thoughts was the belief that you deserved the punishment, and that you weren’t worthy of her love. Here are two issues to look at deeply. These are beliefs that you hold that have nothing to do with her. If it had nothing to do with you, if you knew of your innocence and Divine lovability, you could look upon your mother with compassion, noticing that she seemed incapable of loving herself, as someone who drank to hide from her negative thoughts and feelings. You might have compassion for the projections that she aimed at those around her – not that it is your responsibility to heal or change her, but to feel love and support for her despite what she was doing to herself. The inability to spontaneously react in such a fashion happened because as a child you bought into and believed in the reflections your mirror was showing to you. You thought that you were guilty and deserved punishment. You believed you were not worthy of love. Now it is time to look at the truth of all of this. You have been holding those beliefs since childhood. What do you think you are guilty of?

Participant: I don’t know. 

What did your mother say you were guilty of when you were young? Why were you punished?

Participant: I caused all of her problems. 

Can you be more specific?

Participant: She told me that before me she had a son, but he died. Then I appeared. The death was my fault, she told me. Everything that happened was my fault. I, along with my sisters, destroyed her life. I don’t know what she meant specifically, but we were always judged. 

Let me ask a few simple questions. Did you choose for your brother to die? Do you remember doing that? Were you responsible for that? 

Participant: No.

So, you have believed this thought that came from outside of you, that you are responsible for your brother’s death. But it just happened, in fact it happened before this body that you are connected with had even formed. Notice how you have accepted this untruth, and allowed it to drive your life. You have accepted the judgment and guilt for something you had nothing to do with. Connected with this is the thought that you must be a really bad person to have done such a thing. Notice that those thoughts are there. Notice the feelings that surround them. But let go of the thought that they are true, that you have any responsibility there. 

Another question. Do you remember choosing to be born to this mother? Do you have that memory? 

Participant: I understand that I have chosen this, but I don’t know what I have to learn here.

But do you recall actually choosing this or is it just a belief that you have done so?

Participant: I don’t remember that I chose this.

Then could we just say that this birth happened? This was not a choice. It just happened. If this was not your choice you cannot be responsible for ruining anybody’s life. We would suggest that you aren’t that powerful. Not only do you have no power over your mother or your brother’s lives, but you have no control over your own. If you were choosing your mother, would she be an alcoholic who beat you? Your ego mind is giving you powers that you don’t have. They are simply not true. 

Participant: Why am I thinking I am responsible then?

You were taught this as a child. This is no different than having a parent tell you that you have to work hard and make sacrifices to get ahead in life. As an adult you still believe many things you were taught as a child. What matters is not that she said what she said, but that you believed it and your life is still run by that. As we have looked at this, the belief is craziness. You can’t possibly be responsible. However, perhaps behind all of this it could be that you brought that guilt in with you. Perhaps you had previously accepted that you were guilty, judged, and deserving of punishment, that you brought all that into this life with you. Can that be the truth of you? If everything is of God, how could you be less than Divine? How can God create anything that is not of love? These are questions to investigate deeply. Everything that comes into your life is from God; it is not your choice. It is there to help you realize the truth of yourself. It is a gift. Your job is to accept these gifts; accept what is rather than wishing it was some other way. You had exactly the perfect mother. She was what she was and she wasn’t what she wasn’t. She was the right mother to support you in your awakening process. You have no control over any of this, but that is good. If you could choose whatever you wanted, you wouldn’t know what to choose. It is being done for you. Relax and enjoy the ride. You are always supported in realizing what your heart truly desires.

There can be a process of forgiveness for yourself. You can forgive yourself for self judgment over your brother’s death and ruining your mother’s life. Forgive yourself for believing that you deserved punishment. 

Participant: I have to forgive myself. I have been destroying myself and creating suffering all of these years because of these beliefs. 

Allow yourself to feel what it would be like to know that you are absolutely innocent of everything. You can be free of all the pain and suffering right now because nobody is doing that to you but you. Nobody has the power to stop you from letting it all go. 
 
Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit                      

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Why can I never reach my goals? | Sanhia on Why Success Never Satisfies

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(Taken from a Zoom group)

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Participant: I’m having a really hard time. It feels like the longer I am alive, the more I feel aware of being profoundly damaged and misguided. I’m supremely confused because I feel like I’ve been blessed – or cursed – with tremendous gifts, and feel a responsibility to bring them out into the world. However, I feel that my path is consistently blocked and unsupported. It’s like life keeps wanting me to sit on my hands; every effort that I put out into the world fails to bear fruit. It’s really painful. I feel ashamed of feeling I have problems because I’m equally aware that I am blessed and have a lot of grace. I don’t know if there is something in my ego coming from a place of desperation instead of pure inspiration. Everything feels like an abortion or a stillborn. There is all of this enthusiasm and vision; I put a lot of effort out into the world and express my vision, but I don’t get any support. It seems that all of my projects are much bigger than me; they require a team to manifest. Then the energy dissipates and I’m left by myself, spinning my wheels. I am disheartened and feel thwarted at every turn and don’t feel proud of myself. I want to feel proud of myself because I think I’m a good person with a lot of beauty to contribute. People say they want to participate and then they disappear. I feel like Sisyphus with the boulder, and then I retreat back into nothingness. This can’t be right. I’m alone most of the time and not nearly as productive and creative as I want to be. How come Michael gets to put something out in the world and gets to manifest it and people show up and pay for it? Why can’t I have that? Why can’t I have the thing that I want to do be embraced by the world? It doesn’t make any sense to me. I work so hard on being positive and being grateful. I recognize that everything is divine grace and I am so fortunate to exist, but in my mind’s eye I see this prolific person, energy is flowing and I’m out in the world and doing things and sharing my gifts. But that’s not my experience. I wake up nearly every day with dark thoughts, hating my life. I have to spend a lot of time redirecting myself, feeling gratitude, and being patient and gentle with myself. But it’s boring and it hurts. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I feel like I’m being punished or cursed. I don’t know what I’m doing. Why? (tears)

You may be familiar with the expression “with strings attached.” Someone gives something, but not freely. There is an expectation of a return gift or that it be used in a certain way. God has no strings attached to any gift that you receive. There are no expectations that they be used or not used in any particular way. Not even an expression of gratitude is required. Any string that you feel is yours. You have placed it there. Notice that. You are the only one holding an expectation for yourself. 

Participant: Why shouldn’t I? I have been given gifts. Why can’t I share them?

You are free to share them, but it is not required. Feeling that you need to only brings you pain and suffering. Then you project this neediness onto others by holding strings for them. They should receive and enjoy your gifts. If they don’t appear to do this there is, again, pain and suffering. It is the ego mind that sets goals, wants to achieve things, and wishes to be loved and appreciated. The ego mind is never satisfied. It always wants more. The peace and love you seek is not in the world; it is within you. You are bigger than the world. It can never fill that void. The ego mind thinks it knows who you are and what you should be doing. That “knowledge” has not done much for you. Instead of “knowing”, you can look within to find out who you are. You can ask. You can search. You can step back and ask who wants to know. Who is watching your life unfold? If you allow the focus on this question to be of supreme importance, the goals and rantings of the ego mind will atrophy. The ego mind says that you are such a failure. Ask who is such a failure. Who is thinking that? Who is noticing? Notice that thoughts and feelings arise, but then try to notice who is noticing. Notice the thoughts, but don’t chase after them. Be aware of the feelings but don’t try to rationalize, understand, or escape from them. Thoughts and feelings come, but do you choose any of them? You don’t wake up choosing to feel depressed and not wanting to face the day. If you had the power to choose you would wake up radiant, excited for the possibilities the day would bring. You didn’t choose these thoughts. Where do they come from? Who knows? All that can be known is that you are not responsible. You could say that this is the gift the Divine has brought this morning. Give thanks and take a close look at it. This is not happening to you. It is simply happening. Who is noticing that? 
                                                                                                                                                 

Participant:  It just feels like so much work. Why is it this way? Why do I have to struggle every single day?

You are speaking for 99 per cent of the people in the world. 

Participant: Which makes this life a nightmare instead of the blessing it should be.

Here is the difference. Most of the ninety-nine per cent say that that is just the way it is. They have no awareness of nor desire to find another way. But that’s not where you are. It feels like hell, but that’s because you are in-between. You are straddling two worlds. You are aware of the spiritual awakening and that the world is a blessing. At the same time, you are drawn to the ego promises of heaven on earth. Sooner or later the choice will be made to let go of the ego. The Divine door has been opened to you. Good luck in ever getting that one shut again. Meanwhile there is hell, which is its own motivator. You are being pulled in opposite directions and feel torn apart. If becoming constantly aware of which voice you are listening to feels too hard, just pay attention to what is here. Use your senses. You love to sing, so sing. If you want an audience go to the park or the subway or the mall or anywhere you can give people an opportunity to stop and listen. The whole awakening process accelerates when you truly get that the ego goals will never bring you the love and peace you desire. 

Participant: It sounds like you are talking about being content being retired as opposed to feeling like there is something that I’m supposed to be or do. 

You asked why Michael gets to be successful with his business. This is his reaction to retirement: “Thank God I can get up each day and just do whatever I want.” 

Participant: But he plans these meetings in advance and sends out emails and is able to fund apps and other things. There is certainly action that takes place in 3D.

He does what he does because that is his joy and passion. He plans things because in the moment it feels that he would love doing them. Sometimes things are planned and nobody responds. No problem. Sometimes plans are offered to him out of the blue. If one person wants to talk, he says, “When?”. I have told him to ask for money. He doesn’t get rich; the business has yet to show a profit and he works for free. But money is there to publish books, have a website and a YouTube channel.  He doesn’t worry about money. He keeps track of it, but being a CPA was once an unrealized passion for him. He simply trusts that the Universe will take care of everything. He’s happy talking with a half a dozen people, but if the universe wants to put him in front of large audiences, he’ll try that out. What is important is his own daily dialogue with life. Interesting things always happen. This is not where Michael has always been. There was a time when he wanted worldly success, too. Keep your eye on the prize of awakening. Nothing else matters.
        
Participant: I once participated in a conference where one of the speakers, an author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, said that if God put this idea in your head, how dare you not honor it? I struggle because I have been given global vision but doubt my ability to do it. I get these large visions, deal with all my stuff about being able to do it and then taking the plan to the world. But I don’t get any level of traction under it and it feels like there is something fundamentally wounded in me that sabotages the manifestation. I’d rather not get the global vision if I can’t deliver it. Occasionally things happen but I mostly feel utterly underutilized. 

Let’s look more closely at what this guidance from God is. The thought is that God put this idea in your head so you should carry it out. You don’t seem to be able to bring the plan into fruition. Isn’t that also from God? 

Participant: Then I feel like he’s fucking with me. 

Again, God’s gifts don’t come with strings. There are no shoulds in Divinity. The question is, “What is really the truth of what you want?”

Participant: I want divine collaboration with others in a shared vision. 

Why do you want that?

Participant: Because it feels enlivening.

So, you don’t feel alive?

Participant: No, I feel flat. 

Aliveness is within you, not outside in the world.  

Participant: It’s also said that no man is an island, and these visions are much bigger than me. They aren’t anything that I can deliver by myself. 

We come back to the question of what is the truth of you. 

Participant: She seems to be a well-meaning struggling character in the divine play. That doesn’t feel right to me.

Let’s go deeper into this. Who is it that is seeing you and making judgments about your life? Where is this ego that is watching and evaluating?

Participant: In my mind? 

Where is your mind?

Participant: I think it is in my head, but I don’t know for sure. 

So, you are your body then. Without your body and your head there would be no awareness of anything?

Participant: It seems that way. It’s confusing to manifest in physical form and keep awareness in the oneness – as opposed to enjoying the deliciousness of the illusion of separation, the getting to be a distinct character with specific desires and preferences and idiosyncrasies as part of the game here. It feels alienating to be hanging out in the oneness when the rest of the world is running around being individuals. 

In the play each character gets to have all of that and yet knows that this is just a role and not the truth of who she is. Letting go of ownership of the body and control of the script does not mean that there is no longer a distinctive personality. It does not mean separation and aloneness and lack of participation in the game of life. In fact, there is a greater aliveness and fearlessness in throwing yourself into the game because there is nothing to lose. There is nowhere to get to, just the playing of the game. You are able to do all of that because you know that the truth of you is not this character. It is simply the role being played. Do you believe you actually are this character?

Participant: I think so. 

Sooner or later this physicalness that you think you are will die. Will you no longer exist then? 

Participant: Seems that way. It also seems like the story of death may or may not be true. If we arrive at an incarnation that we really love, we should be able to hang out in it indefinitely. 

And you have met lots of people who are doing that, right?

Participant: No, I haven’t. (laughs). I haven’t met a lot of people who think like I do. 

This question comes back to the question of whether you are this character or simply observing this character. 

Participant: I must be someone observing this character. I think that the observer is rooting for the character to achieve her dreams. 

Who is observing the observer rooting for the character? Let’s use the metaphor of film. The character is the film and the observer is the audience. No amount of rooting is going to make any difference on what happens on the screen. The character will act and react and events will happen as they do. The audience has zero control. 

Participant: I thought I was the writer/director. 

If that were the case, why are you not writing a script where the character exceeds her dreams?

Participant: I don’t know! That is the whole point!

Apparently you are not the author. If you don’t like that, who is noticing that? Stand back further. 

Participant: The executive producer? (laughing)

And behind that is who?

Participant: Oooooh! God! (much laughing). God is behind me. This is when they talk in the Bible about the vengeful god. This is who I’m grappling with. He’s fucking with me. 

We have another term for that. We call it projection. You see a vengeful god because you don’t want to see a guilty, vengeful self. This allows you to absolve yourself of some guilt, but leaves you a helpless victim. Who can possibly be victorious over that super hero. 

Participant: Why am I sabotaging myself?

That is the question. Let’s go inside and take a look. The ego mind wants to frame everything around the question, “Why is that happening?”. If the truth is that you are doing it, the question becomes: “Who am I?” and “Why am I doing this?” 

Participant: Earlier you said that I have no control.

That was referring to ego you, not the Divine you. If the truth of who you are is the beloved child of God, created in the image of the Creator, who is the you who is pretending not to be that? Who is saying, “Daddy doesn’t approve of me”? Who is saying, “Bad girl. I have given you all of these gifts and you have squandered them”? That is simply the ego mind judging herself and finding her to be unworthy. Daddy says, “We love you no matter what you do. You cannot disappoint Us. There are no strings attached. You are free to do whatever you wish each day. Nothing controls you. The past doesn’t matter. The future is taken care of. Just enjoy what is here.”  Who is this character who refuses this gift saying she’s not good enough, she’s not deserving, she has to prove her worth? The ego mind thinks it knows what life should look like and if it doesn’t then something is wrong. On the contrary, life is always bringing exactly the perfect thing. It could be no other way because it is all of God. Yet, ego mind refuses to accept it; won’t even look at it; certainly, doesn’t open it up and try it on. Ego you refuses to recognize Divine you that is sending these gifts. 

Participant: So how do I get out of my own way? 

Give up. Give up all of the goals and dreams and thoughts of what should be and how you should be. Instead look around to see what is actually here now. What does Divine you have for “little” you today? 

Participant: So, I am good enough for this perfect, divine moment, whatever it should be.

It’s exactly as it should be, bringing what you truly want. 

Participant: So, this is what I truly want, even though it doesn’t look like what I think it should. 

For example, you spent how many years trying to do and be and have something that didn’t work as you thought you wanted it to. But you are Divine, so apparently what you were telling yourself you wanted wasn’t what you truly desired. If it was, it would have come. If you want to feel loved, you won’t feel that by being successful. As they say, the same people who kissed your ass on the way up will kick your butt on the way down. They don’t love you. Love cannot be earned. If you want to feel love, then love. Love yourself. Look inside at all the ego beliefs you have about unlovability. Where did they come from. You have been programmed. Look for the truth of your innocence, your Divine nature. Love every moment, everything that is in your life. Be absolutely present. See the beauty all about you. Nothing has to happen for you to feel loved. How can you watch a bird or the clouds without feeling the love of God? 

Participant: So, I am misguided.

Yes, but you are not alone. You have plenty of company. It is not a failing. Everyone else is as miserable as you are. Many are good at hiding it. Thinking that they feel happy and successful is your projection. You don’t have to continue to follow the misguidance. Again, the mind thinks it knows what it wants, but reaching those goals will not bring feelings of peace and love and joy in each moment. Those feelings are available to you right here, right now regardless of what you are doing or what is happening. Go directly for your true desires, not for things you think will lead you there. Those are always mirages. Each day when you awaken, look around and see what is here right now. Forget plans or worrying about what you did or didn’t do yesterday. Take your time. Experience your world with all of your senses. Should you become aware of something you wish to do, do it. Check to see that the doing comes from passion, not from getting some result. If disconcerting thoughts or emotions are there, let them be present. Don’t choose to act on or feed the thoughts. Don’t try to stop, bury, rationalize, or change the feelings. Just watch them. See how they mutate. Constantly. Forever. None of this is your creation. Relax and enjoy the show. 

Participant: So, what do you take action on? What is inspired action?

When you have passion. When it is absolutely clear. When you just know. When it is connected only to the doing, not to a result. Doing this right now brings joy right now. 

Participant: So, you are saying to just do whatever there is an impulse to do in the moment and not judge it, not evaluate whether it is getting me closer.

If you have passion for it, thank God for this gift in this moment. There is nothing to get closer to. Imagine each moment of your life spent in living out your passion. 

Participant: So, there is just doing what is joyful. If I have to chase after it, it’s not for me.

Unless there is joy in the chase.

Participant: There is no joy in the chase. 
 
There will be enough things that come into your life that might be a challenge to accept. Why choose extra stuff? 
 
Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit                      

All Rights Reserved © 2026  Channels Without Borders

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If we don’t have power to create, why should we even try to become enlightened? | Sanhia on Awakening

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                                    (click for audio on YouTube)

                                  (Taken from a conversation)

Good Now!

Participant: You say that we have no power to create. Why should we even make an effort to try to get enlightened?

Yes. Good question. This is a continuation on the theme from the last message which brings us back to the reality of not being able to serve two masters at the same time and to looking to see which master you are serving. Every question comes from ego mind. If you feel that you have found an answer to your question, you will quickly become aware of another question – and then another and another. This continues on and on forever.

Participant: Why? Why? Why?

Because this question from the ego mind is looking outside for an answer, rather than inwardly. 

Participant: So, the awareness of who I am is inside of me?

You won’t find that answer from the mass consciousness. There is nothing outside of you that can tell you who you are or what to do. To the ego mind this looks contradictory and impossible to solve, but that is how ego mind perceives everything. We sometimes say jokingly that the motto of the ego mind is, “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. 

Participant: I’ve been there.

We can also say that if you have had the realization of enlightenment, of awakening, of ascension, of knowing the truth of who you are (or perhaps, more clearly, of who you aren’t), that you don’t exist as a separate being, that you are just aware, noticing, conscious of everything, always – there is awareness of the actor, but you are not the actor. 

Participant: That’s a great step to have that awareness.

The awakened “non-I” has that awareness. Ego mind is always trying to get somewhere from here. But, as the old farmer in the Arkansas Traveler jokes liked to say to the lost city slicker asking for directions, “Son, you can’t get there from here”. You can’t get to awakeness from here. Ego mind can’t relate to that because it believes that you are not where you belong and can only get there by setting a goal and achieving it. It holds on to this belief even though the most significant things you have experienced in your life have been unplanned. Ego mind says, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.” Ego mind is always running for re-election. However, you do not have the power, the ability, the authorship to create and reach goals. If you think that you can, I will wait here patiently while you go and create a goal, fully realize it, and feel eternally at peace. Actually, I shouldn’t have to be that patient, because if you have that power, then time should be no obstacle. A quick realization can just be a part of your goal. So, come right back and tell me how it has worked for you. Obviously, if you have always had great success with manifestation, you are probably not motivated to be here talking with me. I only ask you to be fully honest with yourself and look to see if the reaching of the goal leaves you fully satisfied, or if it is simply replaced by a new goal? Is there any end to the search for completion? Is there ever enough of what you seek? For most of you, there has been a lot of pain and suffering because things have not worked out as you have wished them to. Some of you are in hopelessness that they ever will. That’s a nice place to be. The hopelessness may give you permission to stop trying, to look for another way of understanding why things happen as they do. Perhaps you go beyond understanding to a place of simply accepting that things happen – not because of your thoughts or actions – they simply happen. 

Most of you are reading or listening to this message because you have an interest in waking up or in whatever other term you might use, a place where the ego mind is left behind as well as the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth that you have been in for a seeming eternity. You have a desire to get off that wheel, to exist in a place with no suffering. You think that is where you wish to be, not in this world of frustrations, failure, fear, and loss. But now you think you hear me saying that you have no power to create what you want. Do you just not try? Do you throw up your hands and say that if the universe wants you to wake up, it will happen – otherwise you will just trudge ahead in your misery? I’m not actually saying to make no effort. I am saying that you cannot will your enlightenment into being. It will not be achieved by setting a goal. But I return to the question, “Which master are you serving, ego mind or the Divinity within you?” Ego mind has a thousand questions and a thousand goals. It sets the goal of awakening, wonders how to do that, and learns of a myriad of practices perhaps including meditation, diets, yoga or other body disciplines, ways of using the mind, religious instruction, and /or spiritual teachers or gurus to follow to reach that enlightened place. You work hard at these techniques, trying to figure out just what needs to be done. You are not likely to realize success because the ego mind does not have that kind of power. You are trying to get somewhere that doesn’t exist. You already are where you want to be, but can’t see the forest for the trees. Ego mind can never take you there; that’s why you follow the master within. You ask, “Who am I?” If you keep looking and asking you may find there is no I. There is just awareness. You are more likely to have that realization if there is intention, but if you look for it out in the world, you will not find it. If you expect it in the future, tomorrow never comes. If you allow yourself only one question – “Who am I?” – and you look only inside for the answer, the probability of experiencing awakening can only increase. If you have other outer desires – if you say that you want to wake up but you also want a relationship, money in the bank, or success in your business – you will be trying to serve two masters and probably will fail on all accounts. If you have other desires, then go for them but let go of thoughts of awakening now. Wait until that is all that is on your plate. Wait until the answer to the question, “Who am I?” is the only desire that burns in you. This does not ensure your awakening, but, again, it can’t hurt. Ultimately there needs to be nothing you want more, and ultimately the you that has that desire needs to disappear. Looking has to come to a halt, because there is no place to look. It is and always has been right here, right now. 

I sometimes like to say that enlightenment happens through the grace of God. When something happens that has been deeply desired a humble response is that it was through the grace of God. When something happens that is not at all desired, a humble response is to say it is God’s Will. (laughter) There is an expression that states that God helps those who help themselves. Focusing your attention within, asking who you are, always digging for the deepest truth – is helping yourself. If you tell yourself that you wish to wake up but have no power to create what is – so why bother trying, you are doing nothing to help yourself. Whether or not you focus your energy in such a way, the desire to awaken will still be present. Either way there is an ego mind that seeks a goal. When you do nothing, nothing changes. When you put your focus into finding the Divinity within, you may come face to face with the insanity of there being no “you” to want what you think you want. The ego mind eventually needs to self destruct. Doing nothing leaves it on auto-pilot. Dare to go crazy, to go out of your mind. Always come back to noticing who is aware, who is having thoughts and feelings, to noticing who wants to wake up. If you wish to experience the grace of God, stop bowing to the ego mind of hopes and desires. Doing this for five minutes a day is a start, but why not more? What else is more important? An intense passion for awakening can only help. Is not trying just an excuse? Is that just a giving up, a taking the position of saying that if it can’t be as you want it to be, you are just going to take your ball and go home? Nobody can tell you how to do this, but nobody can tell you that it can’t be done. You don’t have the power to control what happens, but you do have the ability to focus your energy in a direction. You can hold the intention to focus only on the inner master. You can resist ego mind’s propensity to divide and conquer by focusing on the one question. Ego mind wants to solve problems and it has no end of them to fix. There are a myriad of relationship, financial, career, health, aging, and self-esteem concerns that you want God to solve. If you want enlightenment, there is just one request, “God help me to wake up”. There is just one issue, “Who am I? If I am not my ego mind, if there is no me, then who is here?” 

Participant: To summarize, it is just to experience the divinity, to surrender to the divine presence. Then to have the trust that that will happen and to surrender to the will of God and let the divine guide me. 

What we would add to that is singleness of purpose. 

Participant: Hmmm. Say more about this.

If you have desires in addition to this awakening, what directions are you giving to the universe? “There is nothing I want more than to be awake God, but please help me pass this test today.”

Participant: Instead of accepting that if I don’t pass the test then that is the will of God?

Yes, the test can be taken with no attachment to the result. When you notice that you have desire for something in addition to being aware of your Divine Truth, you are trying to serve two masters at the same time. Notice that and stop it. Let go of all other desires when you are aware of their presence. Come back to the One inner master. Simplify. One master. One direction. Holding any other desires leaves you serving the ego mind. This is not wrong, but it will never lead you home. You only need to ask for enlightenment one time. Everything that comes to you from that point on is there to show the way. This is why you accept it and pay attention to it, rather than thinking it should be different, resisting, or choosing another way. 

Participant: So, if I think something is not as it should be, that it is a problem to be solved, then I am not open to following the divine inner master? 

You are then thinking what people have basically been saying for millennia, “God, you’ve fucked up again. When are you going to get it right?” That is what the ego mind is telling you, but like everything else this is a case of projection – not willing to look inside and take responsibility, to ask the hard questions, but instead projecting it all on God and playing the role of the helpless, but pissed victim. None of this is possible. You simply did what you did. There is no right or wrong. So, keep coming back to asking who is looking at this. Who’s having this thought? Is this thought really true? All the time you spend investigating the question inside is time you are not following ego mind. 

Participant: How could I know the difference? Is there a sign that I can be aware of?

You are following ego mind if you care about the outcome…if you think there is something that needs to be fixed…if you think that something is wrong. It is very simple. Singleness. Following but one master, the divine inner voice, one question, “Who am I?” 

Participant: But the trust is so important – how to have it and to hold on to it.

As we said in the last message, it may not come down so much to a question of trust, but to one of weariness. One becomes tired of the fight, so exhausted and disheartened from being on the losing end. The thought arises that there must be another way. There is a dejected realization that ego mind is never going to take you where you wish to be. Who is left to be listened to? What most people do is to not accept that all of this is coming from the ego mind, instead externalizing it to the mass consciousness. The power is given away. You have no choice. The world has made you what you are. If the source of your experience is within, is your own ego mind, then why are you doing it? Why not choose another way? There is no world out there. It is all projection. That is you. The realization of this is everything. If it is all you, why the self-flagellation? Your parents didn’t do this to you, nor did your schools, your churches, or your culture. It’s all you. Ask yourself why you have given your power away. You have denied your Divinity. You have given away the keys to the kingdom. Enough is enough, so you stop and bring it all back inside.

Participant: But there is some hope, maybe, that if I try harder, I may realize my dream. It seems like it takes a while to let go of that. 

If you are not ready to let go of trying to serve the ego, you are not going to stop, so you will keep on making those efforts until that level of weariness arises and you just don’t have the energy to try again. This doesn’t often occur. As I have said before, they are not pounding down the doors trying to get in to talk with Sanhia. If the time should come, then you will know. Meanwhile life goes on and nothing matters. You can stay lost in the illusion of the world indefinitely and it doesn’t matter. It is not real. You are. Eventually in one vehicle or another you will realize this. No rush. Time is not real either. But once you venture down the rabbit hole things will never likely be the same again. The inner path is not easy. That’s why it is rarely chosen unless it appears to be the only remaining option. 

Participant: Does it have to be hard?

It is hard because it is not fully wanted. The path of creating heaven on earth seems easier and more honored by the world. Even failure and victimhood are the comfortable old clothes that can be worn until the body gives up. Giving up the ego feels like a death. Because death is terrifying, the ego is clung to even though the death of the ego brings the awareness of eternal life. Fear of death rules every day until the inner master is honored. So, it is not following the inner voice that is hard; what is difficult is coming to the point of fully wanting to do that. 

Participant: It does seem that we choose the divine only when everything else is failing. It can feel like giving up. 

It seems like there is no other choice, so it might be time to make the choiceless choice.
                                
Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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If we have no power to create, how can we project? | Sanhia on Why Opposites Can Both Be True

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(click for audio on YouTube)

(Taken from an individual session)

Good Now!

Participant:  I heard you say that we are not creating anything. We are just here for this ride that life or the Divine is creating. Then you have also said that everything we see or experience is our projection. I wonder how both of those statements can be true at the same time. It seems like they contradict each other. 

To begin with, don’t take anything that you think you heard me say as the truth (laughter). We speak in pointers – as the truth cannot be expressed in words. What we have here are two different pointers, both pointing in the same direction. When we talk about not being responsible for anything going on in the world, we mean that you don’t have that kind of control. The part of you that wants to control the world is the ego mind. It has the mistaken belief that it can do that, that it can set goals, that it trains itself to be certain ways, and that it can somehow make the world be in a certain way and obtain the results it wishes to have. That is simply not true; it’s not what happens.

When you set goals you do not experience the awakening or the enlightenment you desire. What you are saying is that it is not here now; it’s somewhere else. If I do this – if I reach my goal, if I control the world, if I change something in myself – then I can wake up. This leaves you in a perpetual state of wanting and trying to be somewhere else. Your awakeness is right here, right now, if you simply pay attention to it and stop trying to be something or someone else. Notice, be with, and embrace what is there. Don’t be with the past or the future but with what is actually here now. 

Participant: The problem might be that I have a past and a future, I think. It’s today and then it’s tomorrow.

When is it tomorrow? 

Participant: Tomorrow!! (laughs)

But then it’s today. There is no tomorrow. That’s an idea in the mind. There is no yesterday. That’s also an idea in the mind. 

Participant: Do you say that the mind has the idea that I can decide what happens, but that is not right.

Yes, the mind may think it can determine what tomorrow will be, but tomorrow will be what tomorrow will be. If the mind did have that power, why aren’t you living in paradise? 

Participant: Yeah, that’s a good question. I want to.

Why would you choose anything else? 

Participant: So, all of this confusion about yesterday and tomorrow is an invention of my ego mind.

Yes. It’s avoiding this moment where Divinity lives, where your awakeness is, where life is. 

Participant: But it still seems like those two statements are not aligned with each other. 

Let’s return again to the first of the statements. Is there some part of it that you are not in alignment with? 

Participant: When I was reading A Course in Miracles it said that we create the world. My projection is also creating something. So, then there is a creation.

I see where the confusion lies. Ego has no power to create anything. Divinity, by its nature, creates everything. The physical illusion is this place where these meet. The ego mind tries to understand this but cannot because it makes no sense to the logical ego mind. It seems as if opposites exist simultaneously. In duality it is all opposites. In Divinity there is Oneness; there is no opposite. So, what you think of as opposites coexist and neither deny nor erase each other. Jokingly, we alternately say, “You are nothing” – particularly in talking to the ego mind – and at the same time, “You are everything” – now talking to the Divine mind. So, you are everything and nothing at the same time. Ego mind thinks you have an existence outside of Divinity. It would be your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your unique personality – and that’s who you are – but that existence is nothing. Sooner or later this physical body will die and it will be as if you never existed. It’s nothing. The truth of you that is observing all of this life always is. It is outside of time and space and physicality. It is everything.

Ego mind is terrified of looking at itself so it projects itself and sees itself through others. It can perceive with judgment or with admiration. Projection occurs because the truth of you is everything, has created everything. There is only you; there is only one. However, ego mind believes it is separate and limited. It believes that the other is separate and that both are real. Ego mind defensively protects itself from imagined shortcomings through projection. Its projection might be that the other is dishonest. Unconsciously you are projecting onto the other the part of you that you believe is less than honest. On the other hand, you might project the label of courageous upon another. This is where you are not willing to see the courage in you. We would go so far as to say that absolutely everything you notice is your projection, not just the words or actions of another, but the seeming existence of people, trees, birds, the sun, the universe. All is your projection, your creation, not from your ego mind but from the Divinity of Oneness that you are. Ego mind thinks all of those things are real and separate. The real timeless you is One with and the creator of all of it. This is beyond comprehension and acceptance for the ego mind with its belief of being separate and limited.

So, you have this wonderful, amazing thing called life, which is where the limited meets the unlimited. In order to have the illusion of physicality, there needs to be limits. There needs to be the appearance of difference and separations. 

Participant: Duality.

Yes. Multiplicity. If it is all one, how can a bird be experienced? So, the illusion of all of these different things is experienced. In reality these are just different projections out of the Oneness. In the illusion there are these unreal projections, but there you are playing with them. We call that life. We would say that the one we might call awakened or enlightened is fully aware of all of this – not in a form of understanding where they could sit you down and explain it all to you, they simply know it to be true. They don’t judge what they see, nor would they have any thought of trying to change what is. That would be crazy. Everything is what it is and all they do is interact with what is presented. There is no right or wrong response. They follow their guidance or passion in that moment. 

Participant: It’s not possible to understand this, but I can let what you say dance in me and then slowly the eyes get used to the bright light so it’s no longer black and white, maybe. 

We can frame it in this way, and we borrow this expression from our friend Jesus who said, “You cannot serve two masters at the same time.” Do you serve ego mind, or do you serve the Oneness? This requires no understanding, simply awareness. If your desire and your intention is always to serve the Oneness, you will notice when you are in projection and remember that this is all about you and take it home. You will notice when your mind thinks that something needs to be different and let that thought go. You will focus on seeing without resistance what is here now, rather than on what you think should be here. When your consciousness is absolutely with what is here now, that is the awakened state – no past, no future, no program, no rules. It is not for you to understand what is said here; there is simply choosing a master and acting on it.

Participant: Say more about acting on it. 

When you set a goal and try to reach it, you are acting on ego mind. That’s what you are reinforcing, so you get stuck in that endless cycle of trying and you are never satisfied. Instead, you might notice, “Ahhh! There I go setting a goal again,” and take no action toward its fulfilment, instead returning to see what is here now. You do that over and over again until it begins to become automatic.

Participant: I can hear what you say and I have what I call a dance where I let it be and move as it does in me. But many times, I have a strong emotional response to the now. Maybe the response is connected to stories I hold on to or have been unable to let go of. What do I do in those situations where I get stuck in my emotions?

Be aware of that and notice. It is not for you to understand what might be triggering the emotional response. If a story comes to mind, don’t follow it. That would be making ego mind your master. Come back to now. 

Participant: But the emotions are so strong. If I try to push them down…

But, that’s not the thing to do. Then you are saying that you don’t accept what is here and you want to change it. The emotion is here, so let it be. Neither push it down nor try to change it, but also don’t defend it. It is neither right nor wrong that you have the feeling. The feeling seems to be present. Let it be present and watch it as you watch everything that is a part of the now. You don’t choose your feelings. You also don’t choose your thoughts. They just come. So, you choose neither your thoughts nor your feelings, but you do choose your action. You can choose to let the emotion express itself until it doesn’t. You can choose not to follow your thoughts. You don’t choose an action to get somewhere; you choose the action of inaction. Action, when it comes, just comes. There is no choosing. A thought appears and the choice is not to act on it. It is not a question of what you need to do, but a matter of what you need to stop doing. The thoughts that come to you are not true. Stop listening to and following them. Stop serving that master. But also, do not judge the thoughts or try to push them away, the same as you would do with the feelings. The thought is there. Let it be present and have no concern if it returns. Simply don’t be guided by it. 

Remember that what is real does not change. Thoughts and feelings are in constant motion. What doesn’t change is the awareness that notices the thoughts and feelings. This is the you to keep coming back to. Who is noticing what happens in the present? 

Participant: That is a little bit scary. Very scary.

That’s why most people continue to listen to and follow the ego mind. It feels easier and safer. The suffering is familiar and shared with most everyone else. 

Participant: Yeah. And stop listening to the inner divine voice, too. You have given me some keys like investigating who I am serving, allowing thoughts and feelings to be present without judging or resisting, and taking a step backward to see who is noticing what is happening.

I would love to be able to give you a list similar to what you have just related and to tell you that all you have to do is to do those things and awakening will happen, but that’s not how it works. All of that will still be coming from your ego mind –the desire to not feel this pain, to not be holding these thoughts, the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and so on. But that’s the hand that you hold right now. Even though these ideas of what to do all come from the ego mind, that is all you can do for now. However, if your day-to-day focus is on being free from your thoughts and your projections, then you are focusing your energy in a laser-like way on the truth of you.

The relationship between the Divine you and your illusion of physicality is absolutely unique. There is nobody else like you. How can there be a one-size fits all path to realization when each path is different? Others can point but they can’t tell you what to do. If the pointing is of true value to you, you will be encouraged to look within where your true guidance, your true master dwells. 

Participant: When it all quiets down there is an inner voice that I call divine presence, so it seems that I have the choice to turn inside and find that voice or to turn outward and be in a fight. There is something with having to be aware of the inner divine voice. When I am there, I can take in what you are saying a little bit easier. At least I can quiet down.

Quietness is a key. That is the place where you can hear. Take time for quietness each day. This inner divine voice has no relationship to past or future. It relates to now. It doesn’t guide you to results oriented actions. It leads through the passion of the moment, through a knowingness beyond understanding. It might encourage you to take an action because you are terrified to take that action. (laughter) Your guidance will not identify any action as a step to awakening; it will simply suggest you do this now. The importance is for you to hear, trust, and act on this inner guidance. It is never a question of right or wrong, but one of what is here now. This is serving Divine Guidance rather than ego mind. Ego mind will likely express opposition to this voice. It is terrified of taking such steps. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. There are no disasters. You simply are. No matter what is done in the illusion, you can’t undo or destroy yourself. You are. There are no consequences to your actions. There is the presence of suffering when following ego mind, but it’s not real and it’s not forever. Eventually you will choose the Divine Master. This is not to say that nothing is gained by following the ego mind. These choices and their results become part of your programming. Eventually the response will become one of not wishing to go down that road again. You can’t force that point to come, but choosing your inner voice whenever possible can only speed up the transition. 

Participant: It feels like there needs to be some braveness to step out of following the voice of the mass consciousness. I need to be brave enough to listen to my inner divine voice.Perhaps – or maybe you become so exhausted that you just don’t have the energy to do it any more. Following the Divine Voice becomes the easier choice. It may feel more like survival than courage. Maybe in the end it is the weariness from repeated failures rather than courage or ability to hear your inner voice that is the largest determinant of the choice to follow the inner Master. Much of my job is to help wear down your mind. 

Participant: So now what?
                                
Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit                      

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What can I do about my anger? | Sanhia on Why You Can’t Fix Your Anger (And Don’t Need To)   

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                                     (click for audio on YouTube)

             (Taken live from a recent Spiritual Awareness Zoom group)

Good Now!

If you find yourself living in the present moment without a story, just with life as it is now – which is how it has always been, except that you’re looking at your story – if you let go of the story and you’re just with now, there couldn’t possibly be a story of “Why did I wait so long?” There is no time; there is just now. “Why is it like this?” Because that’s how it is. There is no why about it. “Why didn’t I wake up to this sooner?” You simply didn’t. That’s how it was. It is as it is. You would never step back and say, “Give me that old life.” Once that opening happens there is no turning back; there is just more opening and more opening. What could give more excitement to life than knowing there is always going to be more opening? Five years ago, you could not have visualized how you feel now, and you cannot visualize how you will feel five years from now. But perhaps that’s okay and you realize of course you can’t know because there is just now, and there isn’t anything particular to do because life is doing the doing. You’re just along for the ride. That part of the mind that thinks it’s in control and has to do things is absolutely crazy. It has no control. That’s probably a good idea because if it did have control, it would have no idea what to do with it. If you had known twenty years ago what you know now, then, obviously, life would have been different over that time. Twenty years ago, you didn’t know what was possible so you couldn’t even choose it. That’s where all of you are right now. No idea of what is possible. So instead of letting life, this enormous organic whole, do what it’s going to do no matter what you do, you choose to go into your story and let it guide and direct you, creating an enormous job of figuring out what to do that is not only unnecessary and unneeded, but is also doomed to fail. So, then you end up exhausted and hopeless and helpless. And meanwhile, all around you is heaven. 

Participant 1: But it seems, you know, when it’s good it’s good but when you have those experiences which you don’t like and you don’t prefer – it makes… AAAARG…you get angry, frustrated. It’s so difficult in those moments to say, “Oh yeah. Thank you life. Everything’s perfect. I love it”. 

The mind has a picture of what perfection should look like. And if it doesn’t look like that, there is resistance and judgment and the thought that this is not right, this is not how it should be. But it is how it is. There is nothing you can do to change that. So, you are fighting a fight that you can’t win because it already is what it is. In your non-acceptance and in your fighting it, you separate from God. You separate from the oneness, from the wholeness. Take a deep breath and ask what it is. If it’s not what you think it should be, what is it? What is here now? One of the benefits of getting older is you have had more experiences of how your resistance and your trying to choose and set goals has not worked for you. When you are younger you may be more likely to be optimistic and say, “Oh, I can do anything”. 

Participant 1: So, I guess the answer is: “There is a situation that I don’t like. I see it. I notice that there is something that my mind says should be different. I should act differently. So, what do I do? I breathe in; I breathe out. I say, ‘Okay to what I see here”. And then it might take me to that, ‘Oh, I see the situation’…and then I feel angry…or hopeless”.

First of all, the situation you are resisting is no longer happening now. It has happened. So, what’s going on is that you are in a story, but you are acting with all of the programming from throughout your life to this kind of story. It no longer has anything to do with what is here right now. Maybe it’s a beautiful sunny day but all you see are clouds. You’re not present, even if it’s a recent story. So, what’s here right now? Someone seems to be upsetting you; are they in the room right now? What is here now? Is there a person here or people? Why is your attention not with what is here now, with the people who are present, instead of in your mind with a story of people who aren’t even existing in your now? Notice what is here. React to it. 

Participant 1: Let’s talk about the repeating situation, not like a once in a lifetime situation. What if the situation is not here, but I have this feeling about it, so I have to bring myself back?

Then you have a feeling, and that’s here. But your mind wants to say that you are having this feeling because of this, this, and this. Not true. You are just having a feeling. The mind is saying that you don’t want to have this feeling, that it’s uncomfortable and you just want to get rid of it. How can you change it so that you feel better? This is not accepting the now. This is wanting to resist and to change it. Let that feeling be there. Nothing to heal here. If it is raining outside, do you need to heal the rain? The sun will return sooner or later, but not because you’ve healed the rain. There is nothing to heal here. There is a feeling. Let it be there. Feel it. Let go of control. Don’t try to heal it. Don’t try to justify it or find the cause.

Participant 1: Then it means that when the feeling changes, another feeling rises up, and another story in my mind, and another feeling, so it’s like perpetual modulation. So, what is here now, then? 

Let the feelings be there and try not to pay much attention to the stories. 

Participant 1: How come they are never true? 

Because the mind is a politician. (laughter) It is, by definition, incapable of telling the truth. It always has an ulterior motive. Basically, the mind’s motives are to do this to feel safe, to be loved, and to release guilt, but it tries to find other reasons because it doesn’t want you to look directly at those motives. So, it tends to project. You have this problem because…well men, you know how they are, or you have this problem because of your boss…well you know how they are, or you have this problem because of your parent…well you all had parents. The mind never really wants to look at what’s there. If it was willing to look at this all being about you feeling unloved, you could begin to look at the truth of that. 

Participant 2: What about emotions? Where do they belong? Is that part of ego mind going crazy? How can we find out what’s what here?

I don’t want you to take this as a literal truth, but the emotions are primarily a natural healing, balancing energy. The mind makes insane choices, self-destructive choices. There is an emotional reaction to that. It’s a balancing energy, like a storm balances the energy in the air and the earth. Likely, as the mind becomes less active, there will be less emotional reaction also. But while it’s there, let it rip. It’s not to understand; it’s just to be. One of the things that you expressed concern about is that if there aren’t goals and such, then all this excitement that comes about reaching the goal would be missing. That kind of a high is a bipolar energy.  Everybody is bipolar. When there is a high up, then there is a high down – or a low down. Stop trying to be somewhere else. Stop having goals. 

Participant 1: And it’s also stop trying to be different than you are.

Participant 2: What am I?

That’s again one of the ego games, one of the lies. “I’m trying to decide who I am”. Then you choose a picture of somebody who you think is more developed or advanced than you are. That has nothing to do with being yourself, because there is no other you. 

Participant 2: But are you saying that the way to come to that point is to see the recordings we have and let go of them?

Let me give you an example. How many of you have a thought that if you were a really, really developed spiritual, good, loving person – you would never get angry? Anger is wrong.

Participant 1: Okay, maybe not never but not that harsh…a little bit more balanced.

Not how you are, but how your mind is telling you, through whatever programming it has had, how you should be. You should never be worried. Never be depressed. How many “should” or “shouldn’ts” are in there in this picture of how the evolved, advanced you would be? Then you try to train yourself out of these traits.

Participant 1: Yes, I feel exactly this way, what you are saying.

There was.an American man who became a spiritual leader. He had a guru in India, and he said to this teacher, “One thing I admire about you is that you are so patient and calm. Nothing seems to upset you.” His teacher responded, “Yes but I was that way long before. That’s just my nature. My teacher would express enormous anger. He would say that he wasn’t angry but that sometimes anger was present. So, it is present. There is an expression. It is gone. That’s it.” If you have the thought, “I don’t want to be an angry person”, then there is a story and you remember that and you feel guilty and judge yourself.

Participant 1: I’m that kind of person who gets angry a lot and I don’t like it. I really don’t. It seems to my last breath I’m going to try to change myself here. I cannot accept that it is normal, that it is okay to be this way. I don’t think I can just say, “Yeah, I am how I am”. 

Relax with it. Give up the ownership of it – “I am an angry person.” Let go of the definition of yourself as an angry person. Sometimes anger is present. Is it always present?

Participant 1: Not always present, but it is sometimes, quite often, and it’s not just anger, anger. Its fucking anger.

Simply notice, “Ho. Anger is present.” If you don’t notice it being there until the anger is no longer present, you can then say, “Anger was present”. Did you choose it?

Participant 1: No

You have no control over it whatsoever. That’s what makes you so angry. (laughter) 

Participant 1: Yes, at times I would like to choose.

Obviously it is not your fault because if it was, you wouldn’t choose it. So, what you are doing is rubbing your own face in it, instead of just expressing your anger whenever it is there. You are judging yourself for being a horrible person for having it. So, you have two things going on: the anger and the judgment about the anger. Notice what happens when you see the judgment going on and say no, that you don’t want to do that. And maybe for a while not only is anger present, but also judgment is present. 

Participant 1: Yeah, those two come together, always.

And guilt is present, too. Simply noticing what is. You didn’t choose it. So, what’s here now? Let’s look at what is here now.

Participant 1: That judgment, the guilt, and then probably we can see something nice. 

When you are not judging yourself and you are not feeling guilty, then you can see what is nice. The story, whether it is “I am angry”, “I’m judging”, or “I’m guilty” – dig deep in there and what’s underneath is probably the same old things; “I’m not lovable” and “I’m not safe”. When you know that you are lovable and safe, what is left to be judged? You have a unique personality which will not change once you let go of your story. You still will have your you. Maybe someone is taking an action in the world that is hurtful to someone else. Maybe the anger just expresses to that. Maybe that person needed to hear that anger, to notice what they were choosing and how they were acting. But the anger just expresses. You don’t have to know why. You don’t have to have a justification. Some people might respond by walking over and hugging the other; some would respond by yelling. There is no rightness or wrongness about either action. But when you think you should or shouldn’t be in a certain way, that’s when you are not you. You are a picture of who you think you should be. And you will never be that person. You will always fail to be someone else, but you can absolutely succeed at being you. 

Participant 2: So, what is oneness?

Oneness is everyone being their unique self, together.  It all fits. Perfectly. 

Participant 1: But then I have this thought of why should I have to be the angry person in the room? That’s not fair. 

Because you have the judgment about your anger.

Participant 1: And it’s a good one.

You probably, as you are observing anger in others, have noticed that if they are expressing anger in a way that you deem as inappropriate, maybe undeserved, maybe bullying – you feel anger about their anger. But if you see somebody expressing anger and you think to yourself that the receiver of the anger deserved it, then you are like this about the anger: “YEAH!!” Is that true?

Participant 1: I guess so. It’s not that I’m against anger period. 

Unless it is yours.

Participant 1: Yes. (laughs) I don’t like anger in myself. 

It pisses you off…

Participant 1: Oh yeah. I cannot choose either. Sometimes I feel hopeless and sometimes I feel furious even more. I would like to go deeper into that question about finding ourselves. When I’m in a deep meditation, I have realizations, so I would like to ask if those realizations are from ego mind or do they come from our true self? What is it?

Notice how it feels to you. Does it stir you up or does it calm you down? This thing of learning to hear your inner guidance, my best advice is to follow what comes rather than trying to judge or analyze. Let go of thoughts of is this the truth for now and forever. It’s your guidance in this moment. Act on it and let it go. See what is there now. 

Participant 2: What do you mean by letting go?

Letting go of the belief that this is just the truth, because looking for the truth is just like looking for meaning. You’ll never know if you have it or not, but if you ever have it, you’ll never be able to explain it. So, you can say this is an approximation that’s your guidance for right now. A week later is it still the guidance? Hmmm, listen…feel it out. You acted on that guidance and you experienced what was in the world as you acted in that way. Your mind thinks that there is a story going on here and you are progressing, you are growing. But what’s really happening is simply that you are being reprogrammed every day by everything that happens. In some ways you hardly recognize yourself from the self you felt to be ten years ago. Maybe some of the root parts of your story aren’t still there as much as they once were. So, you get guidance in the now to do something, you do it, and then you let that story go and be in the present and see what’s there now. If you hold the guidance as being how things should be from now on, it’s no different than defining yourself as an angry person. 

Participant 2: Do you say that there is not a truth to look for? Most of us on a spiritual path are looking for the truth, so you say there is no truth? 

There is a corollary feeling with this guidance. If you feel a passion, follow it. Trust that passion.

Participant 1: Yes, I feel that passion.

Ultimately it might be said that being awakened might be about living in passion in every moment, and not forcing yourself to do something because you think you should. 

Participant 1: I just do it. The action comes with feeling. 

Then it is not about result; it’s about the doing. If it is about result, there will always be some selling out of the truth of it to get to the result. The results do not matter. A hundred years from now you will be dead, nobody will remember that you were around, and nothing you did will mean anything to anyone. The only thing that really makes a difference to anyone is this moment. This moment has nothing to do with where it might lead to. It has to do with this moment. That is all that this channeling amounts to. There is no place to get to. There is just the expressing of what wants to be expressed in this moment, and no idea what will come next. There is no concern about how it will be received, whether it is accepted, rejected, judged, or kicked around the room. That’s none of your business. You are free to do anything you want with everything that comes into this moment. That means you never have to respond in any certain way. Never.


Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit                      

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 How do I deal with the losses in my life? | Sanhia on Losing Everything and Finding the Now

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(Taken live from a recent Spiritual Awareness Zoom group.)

Good Now!

Participant One: (Laughing) Oh boy! It’s been kind of an interesting time. I’ve had a lot of endings this past five years. Every single time I think I’m going to get a break from another ending, I get another ending. I’ve been in a tsunami of endings. The big thing is I’m sitting here wondering what it’s going to be like just to be fully alone. I’ve gone through the alone thing with Sanhia before, but this alone is sort of different. I love being alone (laughing) with myself. I’ve found myself really struggling being alone without an anchor in the natural world, and without an anchor with my furry kids in my life. I’m down to one, having had enormous years, ten or twelve years, of doggy love and cat love. Just moving around and giving up everything that possibly meant anything to me over the past five years; just letting it go and moving forward. But I’m in a place where everything is standing still now. I don’t even know how to be in that space any more. That’s kind of my right now, very, very raw. I’m down to one cat that I’ve loved. I don’t know how well he is either; I’ve got a vet appointment in two months. I needed a break; I just lost one of my kids – one of my furry kids. I’ve gone through a lot this year – lost four furry babies, one dog and three cats. I can be alone with me. I’m just not sure how to be alone without that furry love. That’s my new thing, (laughing) sitting in the unknown without love for my kids. (laughing/crying) Anyway, that’s me.

Participant Two: I can bring you some cats.

Participant One: I know. I just felt that so much. I thank you. It’s just that having that love for so long, it’s like when you’ve had a furry kid in your life, whether it’s a dog or a cat, for so long, there’s something about that when you lose them you lose a part of you because they’ve literally been there with you for a decade plus. So, thank you for the new; I’m just trying to figure out how to be without the old. It’s a big loss, (laughing/crying) a loss, yeah. 

Sanhia: Perhaps you will enjoy or not enjoy the message that is going to come out February first. 

Participant One: I love all of your messages.

Sanhia: It speaks to the story because what has died is not your animal, but your story. 

Participant One: Yeah (crying) I know.

Sanhia: The story is always painful. Freedom is being without the story, just being in this present moment. This is the gift that your furry friends have left you. 

Participant One: Lonely

Sanhia: It’s lonely if you are comparing it to something else, which is called the story. If you are simply with what is here right now, loneliness is not possible. Loneliness is a comparison in the mind to something else. What is in the present is always absolutely fantastic. All that it requires is that you be with it instead of in the mind and the story somewhere else, wishing you had your story instead of what is. That’s always painful because you can’t; you can’t have that. 

Participant One: Over the past five years I’ve released the stories, at least I thought I did, of all the things I’ve loved. To be with the kids, my furry kids … and as I lost them one by one, sometimes two at a time, it’s been hard to stay out of the past. It’s just been such a lot of memories and ghosts all around me all of the time. It’s really been a hard struggle to stay happy in the present with that emptiness, which I know is not empty but it feels it. It’s a new me. I haven’t been without a kid, a furry kid, since I was a teenager. I know it is supposed to be this way and I get it, but I miss their love so much. It’s just the only thing that kept me grounded during this time that I’ve gone through losing so many things I loved so much. So anyway … 

Sanhia: Now you have graduated and you no longer need that. There is an enormous difference between allowing those feelings to be there – of grief and sadness – but letting go of the descriptions and just feeling the emotions that are there and letting them be there as long as they are there, and connecting those feelings with your mind thoughts.

Participant One: Lots of tears

Sanhia: You’re not trying to chase them away, not trying to change them, not trying to fill your life with something so you don’t feel that, but simply letting it be there and feeling it fully. 

Participant One: I managed the loss of my partner of thirty years. I didn’t lose him; we separated, divorced. But I lost the land that I loved so much where I felt home for the first time. And all the furry kids came from there. They were a part of the past that made that story that made me feel connected to something I love so deeply. I don’t have people in my life. I’m alone. I’m okay with that; it doesn’t bug me. I just don’t know how to be alone without that connection to the love that an animal gives, whether it’s out in nature and I’m observing or whether … whatever. So, it’s just letting go of that story and being with it. I have one furry kid left. I love him so much. There’s nothing that matters more than him right now. I don’t matter. Nothing matters and I don’t know where to be with that. It feels as though I’m ending my life. Truly it does. (crying) It feels like my life has just stopped and it’s done, and I know that’s not the case but it just feels that way. And it’s like you suggested, just being with it, what it is, feeling it. I appreciate that because I get up and I work and I come back and I feel completely zombied.

Sanhia. And you know what’s going to happen with your last surviving cat.

Participant One: Yeah. I’m going to sit alone at my house. I don’t know what that’s going to be like. It’s going to be really awful (crying).

Sanhia: Notice that your mind has a horrible picture for what is to come. Is that a future you desire? Of course not, so let these thoughts go and come back to now. You also mentioned losing a part of yourself. Where is this part? Who is seeing it being lost? Can you lose the part of yourself that is aware of what is happening now? Notice that when you are telling your story you are creating something you don’t desire, and, more importantly, you are avoiding fully feeling what is present.  Be brave enough to stay with the feelings while letting go of the story. What motivated you several years ago to come and meet here and to talk with us?

Participant One: My move. Leaving everything.

Sanhia: What were you hoping would happen from that?

Participant One: That I would find peace in the mayhem. 

Sanhia: How did that work out for you?

Participant One: It has worked out really well. If there is one place where I feel this crazy life all makes sense … it’s here.

Sanhia: There is only one thing that we talk about here, even though we may go off on different benders here and there about this and that. We talk about being aware of the truth of who you are, being aware of your divinity, being aware that you are an awakened individual not paying attention to your awakeness – but looking in other directions and at other things – and encouraging you to be aware of what is. There is nothing that is more powerful in the healing process than healing that separation between the truth of who you are and your story – than losing, than letting go. Whether you choose to let go or you create it so that it looks like the universe made you let go, it’s all the same. When it is time to let go it is the letting go that happens, and no amount of trying to hold on will give you anything but blisters on your fingers and your palms. There is no holding on. What’s gone is gone. When you think you have something, you don’t have it; you have your story about it. So, you have your twelve years of having this animal with you, but where is that?  Is it here now? Or is it the story in your mind that keeps you away from being here now? Well, it’s very hard to let go of the story when you still have the main character from the story in your life. 

Participant One: The ghosts (laughing) I call them.

Sanhia: You had that cat as a kitten. Do you still have the kitten?  Are you grieving for that kitten bouncing around, playing with things, and rolling around on the floor? No, you still have the cat so you hold on to that, but the truth is every part of your story dies in every moment. To whatever degree you try to hold on to it, it’s pain and suffering. So, these losses are enormous gifts from the universe to say, “You can actually let go right now if you want. You can be here present. You can be with what is.” Every ego mind has an absolute terror of looking and seeing what is. Everyone has a terror of that. Ego believes you are your story; without your story you are nothing. Truth is … with your story you are nothing. Without your story you’re eternity; you’re everything; you’re God; you’re divine. As they say: “selling yourself for a penny on the dollar.” Holding on to a story that’s worth a penny, instead of the infinite riches of now, of the truth of yourself, of your divine nature.

Participant One: Just on that note about how you’re explaining all of that which makes so much sense, it feels right the way that you’re discussing it and I see it. It’s the after-the-fact, and I kept thinking about it so much this time around … why does it hurt so much…. every time? I’ve gone through so many losses. It should be a lot easier. It’s the wrapping up of this period of time that no longer exists because it’s past. I’m sure many of us have been down this road where the heart is just wounded from letting go of things you love. We’re very aware that the present moment is absolute, only existing. Every moment is every moment and the ghosts are just stories and it’s so human of us to want to be connected to something that we love so much.

Sanhia: You are not connected to the story. If you want to be connected, you do it every time you step outside your door into the beauty of the winter, into the trees, into the birds, the deer, whatever animals you see about, even the people, even the cars. That you are absolutely connected to everything that surrounds you at every moment, unless you are in your mind saying, “I wish this weren’t here and instead I had this cat with me.” So, you would rather have the cat that you can’t have than this universe of riches that is right here, right now. Ever changing – not the same universe – constantly moving and changing. You would get bored if it were the same all of the time. Yes, there is grief, so feel it and let it move and then notice what is around you. When you ask yourself why it still hurts or why it hasn’t become easier, you are in your mind and separate from the real world in front of you. Your story always separates you from what is and causes pain and suffering. Notice that and come back to the now.

Participant One: I do settle back into that place where I get what the “what is in front of me” is, whether I am making a cup of tea or whether I’m walking out into a snow storm – that’s my present moment. I feel the joy, like shovelling snow gives me so much joy it is ridiculous. I love being out there in the middle of the night shovelling snow, watching it blow around, being out there, warm. I love all of these things. (laughing) That’s my journey; it’s to find the joy within this human experience. It’s always alone that I enjoy myself and my time. So, stepping out in the world and interacting with people, I’m happy and I share happiness. But that deep love, that deep something…. I’m just in a kind of nothingness, and I think that’s what I’m supposed to be. That nothingness is really what does exist. It just feels really empty of love. It’s more about a void of anything that really matters anymore. That’s the weirdest place to be. Feels dead — and yet you’re not dead – but you feel dead. All of that sensual love that I felt for the furry kids, there’s a bond whether you’re at nature, whether you’re having a great human experience of family – whatever it is. You feel full. It’s just been really strange having the fullness, but the emptiness, all at the same time.


Sanhia: You have hit the nail right on the head. Everything and nothing exist simultaneously. You are one with everything – with every object, every experience, every thought, every feeling, and every person. At the same time, none of it exists; it is all illusion. The place where everything and nothing intersect is in the now. The mind is absolutely incapable of understanding this. That is why you let the mind and the thoughts go; you give up trying to understand and just welcome whatever gifts God or the universe present to you. There is no story here. There is just life. Mind wants to find a story. This only leads to pain, confusion, and suffering. There is no story. There just is what is – and that isn’t even real! These are all just words and are not the truth. They are just pointers. Take your question about how can there be fullness and the void at the same time and keep looking within yourself for the answer.

Participant One: We also talked about – once upon a time – the service to others spectrum. That can also be a depletion of our own self love. Where we are always wanting to help others, as opposed to filling ourselves first so that we are full for everything out there. I think my energy, lack of energy, for the human experience comes from…. I just find it exhausting. I truly do. The other space I don’t feel depleted from. Even when I’m going through natural world or furry family trauma, it’s a different feeling of grief. The human experience is just a big journey; I know it’s the one we’re supposed to be on so it’s okay (laughing). It’s all part of everything. It’s just interesting going back to ourselves, always. Loving ourselves says a lot about what we can do in the world when we are that full. 

Sanhia: Usually when we talk about projection, we are talking about judging others for the things you don’t want to see in yourself, but loving another is also projection. All the love that you direct toward your cats is a projection of loving yourself, realizing that you couldn’t love them without loving yourself. Because you have the belief that you are not worthy of love, you project that love onto your animals. Notice that and look at the part of you that is self judging. Keep looking until you find the truth of your loveliness, of your divinity. The cats are there to remind you to do that. What a gift! In the same way that whatever causes you to not be around people, what judgments are there … that “Oh, thank you for showing that there is the place where I don’t love myself; there is the place where I judge myself.”  You may avoid people some, but we all know that you can’t do it all of the time, even if it’s just the clerk in the grocery store or the person who is throwing all of the fatty, sugary foods in their basket and you are thinking, “Oh, how can you eat all of that junk?” (laughing) So constantly you have this gift of the moment of seeing where you are not loving yourself. The mind wants to say, “No, this is about them. This is about my cat not being here.”  No, it’s never; it’s all projection. Whether it is love or judgment, it’s all projection. 

There is an enormous difference between service that just emerges spontaneously and passionately and service that comes out of guilt, of need for approval, of being worthy, of being good and so on. The latter comes from the mind; it just bounds out. The animals don’t ask for much. People ask for enormous amounts. Is the avoiding people out of, “I don’t want to feel all of that guilt and that pull on me because I would want to take care of them the way I would take care of my furries”, as opposed to allowing it simply to bubble up spontaneously where it does. Look at this projection where you feel compelled to help others. Take it home and look into it. Is it truly in your heart to serve, or is this an attempt to hide from feelings of guilt, unworthiness, or un-lovableness? Look at the truth of these self judgments. The people in your life are providing this wonderful gift to you. Offer silent thanks and receive what is being presented. It is always about you and never about them. You want to open these gifts. It is not your job to fill yourself anymore than it is your job to serve others. Life is filling you at every moment. Let it.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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A conversation over “What Is the meaning of life?” Part 2 | Sanhia on Projection

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(Taken from a recent Spiritual Awareness Zoom group. It is recommended that you also read the messages from January and February if you haven’t already done so)


Good Now!

Participant 3: Is a relationship possible if both partners forget all the past?

We call that a divine relationship.

Participant 3: Hey who are you? (laughing) Hi, all of the time. It’s like a new person. 

But they are. You are not the same as you were yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that. Every day, every moment you are a new person. So is your partner. The more tightly that you hold on to your story and the one you have assigned to your partner, the less able you are to notice the present you or the present him. You have already decided what you like and don’t like about that person. Instead of living with the person who is present with you, you are now having a relationship with a projection from your mind. The partner is just being there. You don’t know who they are. Look and see what presents itself in this moment. He doesn’t do anything to you. Doing just happens. Your mind wants to give meaning to everything. You can notice when you are doing that.

Participant 3: But it’s good sometimes. If the person throws cold water on me and I want warm water, then I need to remove myself from them. It’s good to know that it is cold water again and not to expect something else from this person. 

Who is giving them the label of cold-water thrower?

Participant 3: Yes, it’s cold for me. 

That means that wherever you go you will likely get cold water. It may look warm at first, but sooner or later it will feel like cold water. It is you, not the partner, who is giving meaning here. Let’s say that you are absolutely in the now, no past and no future. How can water be cold? (laughter) Something is experienced as unpleasant because the thought is there that this is not what you want to be here. Just for fun, let’s say that you are undifferentiated God and you have the inspiration to find out what water feels like. You have never experienced the physical so you manifest a body and water and jump into it. Would you say that the water is warm or cold? You would have nothing to compare it to. It is just the sensation of water in this now. You can only evaluate temperature if you have a story from another time. Since everyone has their own story no two people will absolutely agree about the comfort of the same water.

Participant 3: I’m confused. If I’m choosing someone to be with, and he’s treating me with cold water, and I keep letting it be, then I’m not being good to myself. 

Are you absolutely certain that you have been doing this choosing? Did you choose to meet this person whom you had never met before? 

Participant 3: It just happened. If he asks me out again after the cold water I can say yes or no. If I’m good with cold water, I can say yes.

But your saying of yes or no is based on your story. Did you choose your story? How far back does this cold water run in your story? Has it happened more than once?

Participant 3: I see how I feel when someone is caring and when they are not caring. It’s a mix of many stories.

It’s just your story. It has nothing to do with him. If you let yourself believe that it is about them, you will meet the same story over and over because it is your story. Your relationship is just the intersection of your stories. 

Participant 3: So, what do I do?

Notice when you are in a story. Saying that he is throwing cold water on you is a story. 

Participant 3: That’s his story.

No, it’s your story. He is just doing what he’s doing. Your story is about projection. You see him doing what you are doing to yourself. The question is why you are throwing cold water on yourself. 

Participant 3: But I’m still not going out with him again.

So, you will let the next one throw cold water and the next. This will go on until you recognize who is throwing the water.

Participant 3: Okay, I see your point. (laughter)

All that you can do is to notice your projection and let go of believing your story about it. The story is that you are a victim of jerks who throw cold water. Now you are the heroine, virtuous but long suffering. You can stand up for yourself, but the scenario merely repeats. The mind takes these things so seriously. But they are not true. None of the story is true. 

Participant 3: Is it about loving yourself? About wanting to be loved?

That’s a story too. Loving or not loving yourself is a story. It might be closer to truth to simply say you are love, or love is. There is nothing but love. It is all one. The mind thinks that perfection is somewhere else, that it’s not here. It’s always looking for someone or some place else and can’t see what is here. Love is here now. You do not fit my mind’s picture of who I want you to be, so there is not love here. Instead of seeing what is not here you can look and see what is actually here. Yes, the thoughts and the judgments and the guilt are here in your mind, but what can actually be pointed at? Do these thoughts actually appear anywhere? Can they be noticed by any of your senses? 

Participant 2: I think that the reason we sometimes feel we aren’t loved and that everything around is not love is because we are judging?

Yes, but mainly judging self. It may look like it is somebody else, but that is just projection. That feels safer. It’s not you, it’s that idiot over there. “Fry him God. I’m a good girl. Let him burn in hell. I’m trying to be as you want me to be.”

Participant 2: If we are saying that the only way is to see and accept what is, what if it doesn’t feel right? What if you don’t like what is?

You notice that there is not-liking-it present. That is not an emotion; that’s a belief or a thought. The emotion is felt in the body. When you push someone away because you notice you feel bad in their presence, you are saying that it is not okay to feel that way. Self judgment takes place for having that feeling. If you totally accepted all your feelings, you would welcome anybody to come in and push any button they could, so that you could feel every one of your feelings. 

Participant 3: I get so confused sometimes. Choosing someone who is a criminal so that he can push my buttons?

We’re just joking a little bit here. You don’t choose who you will be with. Relationships just happen, sometimes, perhaps, with a criminal (laughter). 

Participant 2: But you can choose to stay with them, or leave.

Maybe. (more laughter) Are you sure about that. It’s absolutely an illusion that you are choosing anything. It is just what is.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t walk away from something. When you walk away because it isn’t good, you bring mind and judgment in. The only thing you can be certain about with your mind is that it lies almost all of the time. It evaluates and separates itself from what is. It constantly judges. How do you know that something isn’t good for you? The body may just move away from something instinctively, but that does not come with a mind judgment. It just does that. The mind “chooses” as it does because it is programmed to do that, programmed by the past, not seeing what is present. The mind’s desire is to hide the truth from you; the truth is that you have a story, and that story causes you to have pain and suffering. It also justifies the existence of the ego mind. Better to be a victim than not to exist at all is it’s reasoning. Your story dictates your “choosing”. There is no freedom of choice in that. There is just an endless loop of suffering until you stop believing in your story. As long as you hold on to your story you find yourself back in the same situations. 

Participant 2: What is the way to let go of the story?

Notice that you are telling yourself a story. Notice that you believe your mind is right. Notice that projection is taking place. Notice that you feel a victim. Notice, notice, notice. But don’t take seriously what is noticed. Don’t listen to the voice that says that you must make the right choice to get away from your story. The only way to get away from the story is to realize it isn’t true. It doesn’t matter if you stay or walk away, if you still believe in your story. You’ll meet it somewhere down the road. 

Participant 3: But how to notice the difference. It’s also a judgment to say that this time you did it right. 

Exactly, but perhaps you notice that judgment is present. All that is here is that there is walking away taking place. It is not right or wrong; it simply is what is. If you physically walk away but mentally keep thinking of that person and analysing what he did, you haven’t walked away. You brought him with you while keeping the body at a safe distance. True walking away would not be walking “away” but would be walking into the next experience. Walking away because you have a feeling to do so may not be the same thing as walking away for a reason – for the judgment that there is something you don’t like about the other person. One is reacting to the now; the other is reacting to a story. If you walk away and are still thinking about him, you probably have a story. Notice that there is a story and then be willing to look deeply into it. That means that it is not about him; it’s about you and your story. 

Participant 3: What is my projection when I am perceiving cold water from him? 

How are you throwing cold water upon yourself? It may take a while to see it. It helps to be literal with what you see the other doing, in this case the “throwing of cold water”. 

Participant 3: Do you mean in this very moment?

There is only this very moment. In every moment, whether you are alone, with a male, or with anybody else – you are throwing cold water on yourself. You are the one doing that. Get rid of the middleman, whom you have no control over anyway. It is necessary to let go of the projection before you can really see how you are doing this to yourself. Don’t shoot the messenger. You are the one who has sent the message. If you were willing to look directly at this you would have no need for him to do it. It is scary for you to look at this, but absolutely necessary in order to end the cycle.

Participant 3: That’s why I don’t see it. So, how do I find the key?

The key is to really get that it is you and not him. When you are certain it is in you, I guarantee that you will dig until you find it. The wonderful news is that it is not him. How can you do anything about him?  At least with yourself you have the possibility of going past your resistance to finding why you believe you deserve to be treated the way you are treating yourself. From there you can see if there is any true justification for your self-judgment. Hopefully, you will find that it is based on untruths. If not, keep digging. Self punishment comes about because of self guilt. The truth behind it all is that you are innocent and Divine. Keep digging until you realize that. Without a story there can be no separation, no guilt, no victimhood, and no suffering. If that isn’t worth letting go of projection, I don’t know what could be. It’s not likely to be a quick fix, though stranger things have happened. Likely it will demand persistence. Ego mind will not usually retire gracefully. It will continue to whisper in your ear that it is him and you need to do something about that. 

Participant 2: So, in this case where she says that he did not take care of her and wouldn’t feed her, should that be taken literally?

Excellent point. How do you not feed yourself or otherwise take care of yourself? How do you not give yourself what your heart desires in the moment?

Participant 3: Being polite for example, and not leaving sooner.

When mind and judgment aren’t involved, then leaving is easy. It is better called going to rather than leaving from. You just do it. You have no idea if you are coming back. How could you? You are just going now. Life is just an endless chain of relating to what is here in the present. Some people will occur back in your life often; some never again. Most will fall somewhere in the middle. Even in the closest relationships you come and go; you don’t spend twenty-four hours together each day. 

If in your mind the strongest thought is that the purpose in life is for you to awaken to the truth of yourself, then everything else – relationships, work, money, success, achievement – will be filtered through how it relates to your state of awakening. Nothing else will have a value of its own; none of it can become your purpose in life. If awakening does become your purpose in life, a roadblock remains. You want to wake up because you believe you aren’t. However, you are awake but just not aware of it. So, your purpose is to get someplace that doesn’t exist and that is not possible. It’s here right now. So even awakening cannot be the purpose in life. Knowing your Divinity cannot be the purpose. You already are that. It is not the sun’s purpose to be the sun. It is the sun. You already are that. Look until the you that is looking is one with the observed. No separation. A fish doesn’t notice it is swimming in water. It is one with the water. If there is any purpose, there is separation. All you can do is notice that is present, thinking you should be something different than you are right now. 

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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A conversation over “What Is the meaning of life?” Part 1 | Sanhia on the Death of Your Story

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(Taken from a recent Spiritual Awareness Zoom group. It is recommended that you read the previous message if you haven’t already done so)


Good Now!

Participant 1: If there is no meaning to life, why are we here?

That’s what we’re trying to figure out.


Participant 2: For me I was also thinking that if there is no point to life it doesn’t feel like there is anything to want or to do. There are no interests, no nothing. It feels so empty and pointless. 

Is the meaning to have a point and to be full?

Participant 2: Maybe then it feels more joyful or…

What would bring joy or make you feel full?

Participant 2: I don’t even know. At the moment it feels like nothing and it pisses me off because I don’t like that feeling. 

So, you wish you weren’t feeling pissed off?

Participant 2. Yeah! Of course! 

So, the meaning of life is to not feel pissed off? Is that it?

Participant 2: It’s not the meaning, but it would be nice.

Then what do you do to not feel pissed off? Or do you just wait for that to come?

Participant 2: I really don’t know but I have to find something because I really don’t like it as it is. 

Let’s say that you came up with an idea and you said, “Okay, here’s my plan”. You carry out the plan and find that you are no longer pissed off. Will that feeling last forever?

Participant 2: No, of course not.

So the meaning of life is that you are forever trying to get somewhere else, but even if you succeed, it doesn’t last so again you are trying to get somewhere. 

Participant 2: Gosh, that sounds bad. Sounds like Sisyphus. Is there any meaning then?

Think of anything that all people would always want to have out of life…. (silence) Let’s say that you get that thing that gives life meaning and then you die. Do you still have that thing?

Participant 3: No

You don’t have the perfect partner. You don’t have the millions in the bank. Maybe we should say that the meaning of life is death, because that is the only thing that everyone shares.

Participant 1: Isn’t it to find out who you really are?

Oh! Who are you?

Participant 1: I have heard that I am divine 

He was probably just trying to get in your pants.

Participant 1: (laughing) Are you my mother? (laughing) And that I am not separated. that I am a part of the whole, oneness.

Let me interrupt you for a second. Let’s assume that all of that is true. Then, why do you have this life?

Participant 2: To remember and find that you are all of those things that were mentioned. Because sometimes it doesn’t feel like this at all. 

So, you have to have a life to find out that you are one with God? So, is that the meaning of life?

Participant 2: It sounds like it.

But you already are one with God. What changes by finding out?

Participant 2: Another feeling inside because just knowing it mentally isn’t enough. Sometimes my mind just goes “Bullshit”. Maybe truly believing it in my bones would be different. 

So, if you are one with God, you are thinking of self as “you” and are then by definition separate from God. How can you have a separate identity in Oneness? 

Participant 1: That is the dream we are dreaming. Most of us think that is the truth. 

So, let’s come back to this thought that maybe the meaning in life is to come to a place of knowing that you are One with everything and connected to it. Then, of course, there would be no separate you left to be looking for meaning. That might suggest that your life itself has no meaning; it’s just letting go of your separate identity, of your story, of the search.  As long as you are looking for meaning, you are looking outside of yourself. You are not looking within nor at what is in front of you now, but into the future. You are looking for what might be rather than what is. Everything you want is not here now, but now is all that there is. The rest is only taking place in the mind, in your thoughts, and has no reality. If you find yourself in the place where all that is real is what is present in the moment, you are now in what could be called cat mind. Animals do not fear death. They have instinctive self-preservation reactions. You could have let go of all fear of death, but would still leap out of the path of a speeding car. That’s simply what the body does. It’s no different than bodies eating or breathing. They just do that. It’s life living life. 

If you think, “My purpose in life is to wake up” – as soon as you have that thought you are saying that there is no awakeness now because if there is awakeness now how can awakening be the purpose? The assumption then is “I am not awake to the truth of myself”. Then you bring in a story that goes back to your childhood. “Because of what my parents did, I am still healing. I am a helpless, and perhaps hopeless, victim. My story includes what I was subjected to in school and at church, as well as what my friends, my superiors, and the whole damn mass consciousness has told me.” Some of your story includes successes and spiritual insights, but they are all still a part of your story. The story may include a future where your spiritual growth is enough for you to finally awaken. All of that is part of your story. It is what you focus on and hold on to instead of seeing what is here right now. There can be no awakening alongside an active story. There is just now; there is just life happening…not to you, but all around you. Your story is just a diversion, a game going on in the mind that leaves you asleep and suffering. You think the story is going somewhere. If there is no purpose, there is nowhere to go, there is no destination. There is no Hollywood ending. There is just this. There is no meaning. There is just this fantastic beingness that you are always immersed in, but you usually avert your attention from it by creating a purpose, a goal. Notice that in the story you have created up until now there has been no “ending” that has been fully satisfactory. There is always another goal. The job is never over. It is never enough so, you are back to Sisyphus. If there is no purpose you have permission to stop trying. But that empty feeling, that hopelessness, is just the death throes of the ego, the me that wants to be something special instead of just being. 

There was a fun movie some years ago called “50 First Dates” about a woman who awakes each morning with no memory. She has no story. She doesn’t remember the man she had loved the day before, so he has to convince her each day anew of his love. However, the movie wants to pull on your feelings of “poor her” rather than “lucky her”. She starts each day fresh with no story, responding simply to what appears in the moment. Again, I toss out to you the question, “What is the meaning of life?” 

Participant 3: It’s experiencing and feeling; being authentic with it. 

What does being authentic mean? 

Participant 3: Doing my best. Not running away from uncomfortable feelings because they are there now. Instead, I observe if this experience is a part of all.

Who determines what is your best? What is it being compared to?

Participant 3: To running away or not running away.

How do you know if you are running away or not?

Participant 3: If I am feeling my body consciously, I am doing my best. If I forget myself, I am away, so the experience is that I am in my head creating stories. 

What is the mind doing when it says you are being authentic or you are running away?

Participant 3: Evaluating? I don’t know.

When you evaluate, are you just looking at what is?

Participant 3: Just was (laughs).

You say you are running away. 

Participant 3: If I notice that I was in my head and I catch myself, then I am aware of it.

A bear is running toward you and you turn and run the other way. Are you running away?

Participant 3: No. no, that’s another story (laughs). I mean running away from my feeling which is uncomfortable. 

You could not label it “running away” unless you were in your mind rather than your feelings. “Running away” is a judgment. It is an evaluation which means that rather than being in the present you are bringing in your mind which is influenced by forty years of programming to determine whether your action is good or bad. That evaluation is not the same as it might have been twenty years ago as there has been much reprogramming during that space. But the action is still mind directed.

 Participant 3: Twenty years ago, I didn’t know that feeling my fears was a thing.

Yes, but forty years ago you did and you just expressed them. Then you learned that it wasn’t a good thing to express them. but now saying that it is a good thing to express them is just the flip side of the same coin. It is still a judgment, an evaluation by the mind. In terms of authentic, it is not authentic. Feelings are just there. 

Participant 3: But if I don’t notice them being there half of the day, I have missed all those feelings, for example.

You can’t evaluate missing feelings from this morning because you are not there. You are just in now. Now the mind is thinking about this morning and comparing and judging, saying could have, should have, would have. There is judgment of self, but what is is. In the now, there is a feeling that doesn’t want to be faced. Nothing good or bad, simply what is. As soon as you bring a morality into it, then you are saying something like, “The purpose in life is to express all of your feelings.”

Participant 3: Not express, just notice them. Feel them. 

How could you know if you are feeling all of your feelings?

Participant 3: Because of some bodily signs. Getting intense, for example, when I give it attention. Then the body reacts with energetic flow or something.

So that might be around one feeling. Perhaps while noticing that one, you are not aware of five others. 

Participant 3: Oh ya.

Oh boy! It’s a never-ending job to notice all of the feelings, especially if you don’t get to use your mind to evaluate how you are doing. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Participant 3: It’s another Sisyphus. I’m just registering the feelings; how many I have (laughing). 

There is an enormous difference between noticing what is, which includes noticing you are having a thought and acting on it. You can be aware the thoughts are there, without following them. Come back to now. The thoughts are always related to the past, never to the present. You may be having the thought that you are responsible for handling this, that you have to be sure that you are in touch with your feelings. What a thankless task you give yourself if you pay attention to those thoughts and let them guide you. Again, is the meaning of life to feel all your feelings? How much simpler to just notice that a feeling or thought is here and let it be. There seems to be anger here. There seems to be depression here. There seems to be excitement here. There is a tightness in the heart area here. There are thoughts of hopelessness here. There is nothing that has to be done about any of it. There is just noticing. You are not in control. The you that wants to be in control is the ego mind. The ego mind wants to find the purpose in life and then work to get there. It wants to set goals and strive toward them until they are achieved. In reality there is no purpose and there are no goals. There is just now. If you are not here all you can do is fail. The older you get, the more hopeless you become with your accumulated failures. 

Participant 1: So, stay young forever

Participant 3: Stay young, that is a purpose for life! (laughter)

Then we are aiming for not over two years old. (laughter) 

Participant 2: My twelve-year-old keeps bugging me with this question, “What is the purpose in life?” 

Asking questions that can’t be answered. 

Participant 2: That is exhausting. 

There is a very simple answer for your questioning mind. Life is. Being is. You see a butterfly flitting around your yard. Is there any purpose there? 

Participant 2: Beauty is the purpose.

The butterfly wants to be beautiful? 

Participant 3: It just is.

It just is. The mind will go overtime thinking about the butterfly’s purpose being to get nectar and help fertilize the flowers and to be a cog in this whole system. If that is the purpose, why does it need to dance around in the air? That is just what the butterfly does. It has no goals, no successes or failures. That’s why you do things. Because you do them. Perhaps you notice a desire and act upon it. Why? Where did the desire come from? Why did you respond to it? Life just happens. Another time you notice the desire and don’t act. There is no reason here. You act as you act. Life simply is. Life happens. If there is no meaning, it doesn’t matter what you do. That cop that sits in your mind watching everything you do, being ready to write you a ticket for acting wrongly, no longer has a purpose. You can’t do anything wrong. You are free. 

Participant 1: That’s kind of scary, to be absolutely free.

Scary to the cop. 

Participant 1: As I think of there being no purpose, I feel how empty it would be. It seems there are a lot of things I want to try to get or to get to. Those thoughts seem to give meaning to life. In dropping that there are a lot of different shades of terror. I guess I just have to look at all of that and let the feelings do what they want. In doing that I have been surprised that the terror is so deep. Do we need to accept that there is no meaning? If it is so, then I want to try to face it, not try to create something else.

You don’t need to do that, but it is very easy to face. Wherever you are, whenever you are, you simply look around you. You open your eyes. Look at everything in your immediate environment; use all of your senses. Be aware of what is going on in the body. None of it has any meaning. The mind may come in and make up stories, but they are just thoughts; they don’t exist in the world. There may be a chair sitting in the room. The mind may go into a story about how you got it, but that isn’t happening now. Now, there is just the chair in the room. If you are absolutely with what is here now, there is no meaning anywhere. There is just isness. Meaning comes only from the analytical mind. It is not inherent in anything. The mind’s job is to keep you separate from what is by naming, classifying, or reasoning. 

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

(This conversation will be concluded in the next message)

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

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Good Now!

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

There is none.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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Good Now!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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