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

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Good Now!

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

There is none.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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Good Now!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: It’s not possible to be sure. 

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

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

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

Participant: That can be a relief!

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

Participant: No

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: It is a relief. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: But I want to be enlightened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: None of them.

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

Good Now!

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

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                                                            (click for audio on YouTube)

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

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

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

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

Participant: Tell me more about this commitment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: And you call that freedom?

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

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

By saying no.

Participant: No?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: I want to have freedom.

You have it. 

Participant: How can I be sure?

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

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

Yes

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

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

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

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

Participant: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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

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Good Now!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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Is This My Will or God’s Will? | How to Differentiate Personal and Divine Will

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(transcript from a recent session)

Good Now!

Participant: I have two questions that are essential for me. One is about my knee and the difficulties of walking, as well as some other annoying health problems. There is a lot of fear and guilt around this.  How can I deal with this discomfort? Is there a lesson for me to learn? The second question concerns the noticing that I easily feel unloved, abandoned, or betrayed. It’s like I’m not sure I’m worthy of love and want to get affirmation from others. This feels out of balance and it is painful. I am trying to accept the will of God and let go of my personal will, but how do I know for sure which is which or understand the reason for God’s will being as it is?

So, there is some confusion in the mind about personal will and the Will of God. 

Participant: Yes. there certainly is.

We could put it in this way. We could say that the personal will is focusing the energy on things that are not truly desired.

Participant: It’s like I don’t know my own best.

For example, do you wish to have difficulty with your knee?

Participant: No

So, the situation with the knee is a focus on something you don’t want. That is an expression of personal will. The same with the other physical characteristics you have mentioned.

Participant: When you say it like that, I can get it at once.

The focus on the Divine would go something like this, “My body is perfect; everything is happening as it should.” Then, you let it happen. The personal will comes in and expresses concern with what is. It thinks it should feel differently in your knee. It worries that you should do something: training more or in different ways, applying salves, or taking supplements. None of these possible actions are motivated by love. They are not based in passion, but rather in fear. This is always the case with the personal will. For some, training is a passion. Be honest with yourself. Is that true for you here?

 Participant: There is a confusion in me. I don’t feel a passion to train in that way, though some of it I do enjoy.

Then let there be a clarity that you are doing things out of the joy of doing them, not to heal yourself. Do you passionately want to not be whole, to require healing? No, those thoughts come from the personal will. 

Participant: I can feel that. At the same time there is an enormous abyss there. 

Come back to the question of what you truly want without any reservations, without any guilt or shoulds. Do you desire to need healing or do you wish to know you are whole? What is it that you truly want? That is the Divine Will.

Participant: I spend a lot of time investigating the pain of my stories. If that is the will of God, I just want to accept it. I can stop trying to understand; I just need to know this is the will of God. I want to come to that point. But how to do this daily? Sometimes the physical sensations are so strong, and then my ego kicks in. It feels like a healing war.

Let’s go back to ground zero. Your expression suggests that you hold the Will of God to sometimes include “lessons” that will be good for you to learn. Let’s look at things from a different perspective. There is only one will. It is yours, the Divine You. You create everything in your experience through this mental activity. You have always done that. Many of these thoughts are based on beliefs that are not self-serving, such as not being deserving of love or being a victim to things from the outside that bring injury or sickness to the body. When you believe these things, because you are all powerful, such happenings are drawn to you. So, the first order of business is to stop holding thoughts that you are not passionate about manifesting. However, thoughts you have previously held are still doing their work. In reaction to their realization you are likely to experience what are called negative emotions. You cannot go backward and un-think those thoughts, but you can accept the feelings and sensations that they trigger and let them be there. This is not the “Will of God” acting on you, it is your “personal will” reaping what it has sown. It is not real; it is not forever. Let it be present – you have no choice as it is here. Eventually as you stop holding self-destructive thoughts, your experience will change. In order to have the power to choose your passion, you must also have the power to choose your poison. When you have had enough of that, you will let go of your addiction to pain. Again, there is only the Will of God. It is a question of what you are choosing. Any place you hold victimhood, you will continue to feel its effects. What is present is fully your creation, coming from the beliefs you hold. Don’t fight that, just decide to choose differently from this day forward. You will likely backslide, but stay with it. That’s what you do every day. Thoughts of being unlovable or needing to control the world to be safe do not come from love and passion. Love yourself with every thought. Worry does not come from passion. The Divine Will does not want to be healed, it wants to be certain of its wholeness. Would you rather see yourself as whole or broken? What does Divinity choose?

Participant: I need help. There is a part of me that doesn’t have that trust. I feel what you are saying, but how am I to fully step out there?

The power here is in how you choose to use the mind. You can use the mind to support the ego or you can use the mind to support Divinity. 

Participant: I want to support the Will of God but at the same time there is an area where I am not aware of what my mind is doing. 

Then, be aware. What is stopping you from being aware? 

Participant: It’s an enormous habit; it’s like being hypnotized. 

It is really very simple. If you are not feeling the Oneness, the Love of God, the Peace – you know the mind is holding on to something that is not true, creating a separation from the truth of your Divinity. It cannot be any other way. 

Participant: When you say that I can see that there is a belief in the body. When the knee does not feel as I think it should, then I think there is something wrong. That is where I am stuck. I really need help with this.

You can always begin by taking a deep breath and letting everything flow through you. Whatever is going on with the body that is not desired, that feels painful or fearful, is the creation of the ego mind. Know that behind all of this is a belief the ego mind is holding on to. Notice what your belief is and ask yourself in your heart of hearts if this is what you want your reality to be. 

Participant: So are you saying I just need to let it go? 

Let it go and know there is nothing to understand, nothing to figure out. The only question is what in your Divine Will do you truly want here. Let me give an example of how this might work. Let’s say that a person says that their will is to be taken care of financially. So, they decide to train to be a teacher, get a job, and work hard to maintain the position, and create the financial security they desire. This person is not being honest to their true will. It might not be in their heart to do that training, certainly not every day nor all aspects of it. They probably don’t truly wish to work as many hours nor as hard as they are asked to. There are likely some requirements of the job they dread facing. With all of those sacrifices, the job probably doesn’t pay enough – there are unmet desires. The security lasts only as long as they are able to keep the job. Changes in the market, or in personal health could put the job in jeopardy. If they are fully honest with themselves, they will go directly for what the Will of God is rather than thinking that the ego has to create and sacrifice in order to get there. Going directly there is focusing on the thought that they are always taken care of. That, rather than the teaching job, is what they truly want. Any thought that they are not always taken care of, that a certain action on their part may be necessary to ensure their security is holding a belief that they do not wish to be true. This creates a world of pain and suffering. There is no way to experience total support without sacrifice as long as limiting ego beliefs are harkened to. This is following personal will instead of Divine Will.

Let’s say that the training was to become a psychotherapist. Let’s say that the desire to investigate this field is the Divine moving in you. You want to explore the depths of psychology both for yourself as well as for sharing with and providing service to others. You are not doing this to provide financial security, but because the Love within you wants to create in this way. This is following the Will of God. In this quest you may find the training to demand things you are not willing to give. Stay with your Divine Will. You may have to create a whole new system of psychotherapy; you may not fit into the existing job structures. No problem. Stay with your inner guidance. Follow your passion. You have asked to be taken care of and you will be. That is of secondary concern. What is primary is the direction you are guided to take. Stay true to that. That is the Will of God. God does not settle for less. 

Participant: I feel taken care of economically; it is with love that I feel unworthy. 

We took this off in another direction so that we could play with it, so that it went away from the personal, but let’s bring it back there. As long as you allow your mind to play limiting games – not focusing on what you truly want, which is to feel and know that you are always loved – but asking yourself what you have to do to be loved. Maybe if your hair is just right, or if you looked younger, or if you are of service to others you will feel loved. 

Participant: I can see the craziness in it with your help.

Maybe the thought comes that if you can control the thoughts, actions, and energy of those around you so they will do as you wish them to, you will feel loved. You can always tell when it is the ego mind going; there is something in the middle. Instead of going directly for what you want, you create intermediary steps of things you believe you have to do to create what you want. None of these things are what you truly want. You have no true passion for doing them. Not only are these actions not what you truly wish for, they stand in the way of your realization of that Divine Will.

Participant: This morning I was paying attention to the energy in my knee and the pain didn’t scare me away, I didn’t experience it as pain. Then I began to question how I could know that I am right. Can I just feel the energy without taking corrective measures? The authorities tell me it is all about training. I am totally confused.

Don’t give your power, which is your Divine Right, away to anyone – including to Sanhia. You have a physical therapist whom you like and, you believe, is doing the best that she can, but does she listen to her Divine voice? Does she know that God always takes care of her, that everything is taken care of, that she has no need for a job in order to be supported, that she could wake each morning and ask herself what her Divine Will wishes to do with this day – what wants to express in this moment, what wants to happen? Would she be driving around from home to home as she does? Perhaps, but five days a week? This is not about her not trying to do the best that she can. It is about you giving your power away, and at that to one who has likely not claimed her own power. The advice comes from a belief that you are responsible for taking care of yourself. 

Participant: And that you have to fight the body.

So you can think, “Thank you for sharing”, and then follow your own Divine Guidance about what you are inspired to do. Maybe some of her suggestions sound like fun. Do it out of the joy of doing it, not because you are broken and need to be fixed. 

Participant: I see that I have fear around following the Will of God. I make God a part of the feeling that I have to do the training. It is like a war.

Have you made God your projection? You have a choice to make. You can listen to this ego voice that fears God and fears the Will of God, and tells you that you have to take responsibility, that you are broken and need healing, and spend eternity, like Sisyphus, pushing that rock up the hill, only to have it roll back down and having to start over and over again until you get so tired of it all that you decide to just kill off this body…

Participant: Let it kill itself?

No, you do the deed. You say you don’t want to do this anymore, that you are tired of it all. It’s too much; it’s too overwhelming. You don’t want to play this game anymore. Even at this point there are two choices. You can give it to God. What have you got to lose? You are going to die anyway. Or, your body dies because it is still too fearful to surrender to the Will of God. “Stop the world, I want to get off”.

Participant: No, I am not there. I don’t make the decision that I want to die now.

Most people make that decision unconsciously. Nor did you consciously make the decision to have a chronic problem with your knee. This makes it no less your creation. If there is a belief in victimhood, crazy things will happen.

Participant: Is God’s Will also my creation?

This, of course, is the second choice. There is no separation here. God’s Will and your will are one. The former comes from your love and passion while the latter comes from your fear and belief in separation. It is all your creation. The personal will does not represent what you want, however. We could say that your Divine Will back in your twenties was to know that you are loved unconditionally. Your ego mind did not believe that you deserved love. It whispered in your ear that you would be loved if you were a great mime/acrobat. Thus your passion for expressing through this art form became confused with a limiting belief. You could have manifested a successful career that left you still feeling unloved. Perhaps the passion to feel loved was stronger and losing the career made it more likely that you would come to love yourself. It is not important to understand just how things are working, only to realize that your thoughts are all powerful, so having an awareness of them can only support you in realizing your Divine Nature. Again, if you want to know you are loved unconditionally, go straight for that. Forget the diversions. If you have to do anything to earn the love, it is not unconditional; if you are judging yourself (or your mirrors), the love is conditional. Be aware. Go for the love. Totally. Conditional love is always saying, “Prove it to me”. Am I lovable even with this knee? The Divine desire is knowing that you are whole, not that you need and desire healing. The right use of the mind is to only focus on God’s Will, noticing when you are holding on to the separate will, and asking self what the hell you are doing? Why choose to create what isn’t truly desired? Everything is coming into your experience to lead you to what you truly want. That is a reason for not resisting what comes. You have asked for it, so take a good look at what you have asked for and notice how it doesn’t match your true desire. Let go of that type of thinking, that kind of request. Go only for the gold. 

Participant: Thank you.

Good Now!

Sanhia/Spirit

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Can you talk more about the personal self not existing? Part 2 | Sanhia on Letting Go of “Me”

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Participant: I see what a furious energy it is.

And you notice how well that has worked for you.

Participant: No, it hasn’t worked well. I’m punishing myself. 

Back to this word of “confusion”: to make it very simple, wherever there is confusion, or the experience or the illusion of confusion, it is where there is the belief that there is a separate you. And, simply, be aware that that’s what’s going on. When you are experiencing a separate you, you are not in the now; you are somewhere in the mind, holding on to an illusion that isn’t true. Be constantly aware of that. Simplicity is: there is just now and there is no you. So, notice when you are making it confusing and you are believing that there is a separate you. Notice it. You can’t make yourself change, because there is no you there to force that to happen. There is no mind that could choose that. There is simply the awareness of, “Ooh! Craziness at work.” Kind of like the signs at the side of the road, “Men at work ahead.” You know you could put a sign out in front of yourself, “Craziness at work.” (laughing) And you simply notice that, “Oh, craziness is at work here.” And then what can you do? You can ask yourself the question, “But who is noticing this?” Yes, there is this thinking, this believing that there is this separate character, this separate me, separate from God. At the same time there is experiencing going on. There is awareness going on. Where does that awareness sit? Is the one who is experiencing fear and pain also the one who is aware of the experiencing of fear and pain? Who is aware of this? Where is this awareness taking place? 

Participant: The awareness is the Oneness, the experience that there is no separation, that can come now and then.

There is a differentiation between the thought, “There is no separation,” and the experience of Oneness. So if the thought is there, “Oh, there is no separation”, who is aware of that? Where is that awareness? There is still a step back. It is like the exercise you were given in the book today, “Remember back to a time between five and ten years old that is a very wonderful experience in your memory. It’s so wonderful that you can still pull it up, and if you pull it up what you experience is an absolute Oneness with what is happening – no thought about how it should be or how it could be better or why it’s happening – just a joy and an amazement at what’s there. Even for the word pain to occur there has to be duality. 

Participant: So you say that pain is really when you resist….

The mind says that there’s pain and there’s not pain, so there is a comparison. So, it is not what I am experiencing now; It’s what I am experiencing now compared to what I experienced at another time and saying, “Oh, I prefer the other time”. I have said this before, but I’ll say it again. You have the story shown to you where Jesus appears to be tortured on the cross. But there can only be pain there if Jesus is comparing it to another time. If it is just what is; it is what is. There just is this now, nothing to compare it to, nothing better or worse, just this.

Participant: So help me to open up that reality. 

One pointer in that is remembering to turn off your mind, to not follow it, to simply be with what is there. And let it be what it is without resistance, without the thought of changing it – that it should be something else – to let it be what it is, to accept it as the gift of God that it is. Perfection that defies understanding, that goes beyond. The mind comes in, wants to bargain, “Okay God, I can accept this pain if you can tell me why it’s here,” making deals, not accepting.

Participant: This urge to understand... 

Is a desire to control.

Participant: There we have this controlling bitch again (laughing).

If I can understand how God’s working, (laughing) then I can do God’s job. I don’t need God. 

Participant: There is the Oneness. Yeah, and then it isn’t me or God; it is just the will of God. There was a little Ulla thinking she was separated.

But there is no little Ulla. 

Participant: But I guess it’s just something that comes when it comes because as soon as I want to do it, then I’m lost.

You can have that intention to notice when resistance to the now is active, when little Ulla is active, so that you don’t continue in an unconscious repetitive fashion.

Participant: I can really feel how nailed this is…with little Ulla, and try to be somebody in this world, try to get some love. It’s scary to let go of that. It’s like a survival thing. 

Except for one thing, it’s not survival – it’s suicide.

Participant: What a great misunderstanding (laughing).

Where it might start to stop is when there is an awareness of how suicidal it is, how guaranteed it is to bring pain and failure. And you say, “Well it’s scary to let go of, but if I hold onto it there is certainty. I’m going to suffer and have pain.” And when you realize the absolute certainty of continuing on that course, then surrendering to another course that offers the possibility that maybe something different can happen becomes easier. 

Participant: The feeling I can have is…there is nothing else to lose. 

Or to say, “Nothing to lose but your chains.” 

Participant: That’s scary enough to take them off. That is the surrender to the will of God.

When there is the realization that every negative emotion you feel is the result of your choosing separation from God, every one of them comes from choosing that there’s a you, a little you, separate from God. How long are you going to choose when you know beyond a doubt that it is your choice to resist the Divine of what’s being brought, and to hold yourself separate, and to believe that you are supposed to pick and choose, and that there is right and wrong and good and bad, and it has to happen the way your mind says. That that is a prison, creates pain in your body – every body – your emotional body, psychological body, your physical body. When you notice that, how long are you going to continue to choose that? For some time; it is habit. 

Participant: I wish it to stop now.

When your eyes are open and say, “Oh, but this has been my choice.” So every time, EVERY TIME, there is a projection on anyone, you are sending pain and imprisonment to yourself. Every time. No exception. 

Participant: Can the prayer of, “Help me to surrender to the will of God” break that?

“Help me realize there is no me.” As long as there is a you, there is a separate will. 

Participant: To surrender to the will of God is to let go of my separate will. 

But it is to let go of the separate self. 

Participant: What is the difference here?

If there is no separate self, then there is no will but God’s Will. As long as there is a separate self, there is a separate will. 

Participant: So this prayer comes from the separate will?

If you are saying, “Help me”, who is me? Every prayer comes from separation. Why would you ask God to bring you the perfect thing when God always does that? “Oh God, please let there be air today.” It is not your job or possibility to choose anything, to be responsible for anything. (soft crying) You are just here to play in the garden with what is there, with what is presented in the now. If it is not part of the now, it doesn’t exist. It’s not here. Everything that could come into the mind that’s part of the now is connected to the little you that doesn’t exist because if you really look at whatever feels hard, heavy, weighty, confusing, emotionally disturbing – in this now – it’s not happening in this now. Maybe one percent of it. It’s simply a recognition of that. “Is this happening now?” No. “What is happening now?” Hmmm. And when there are these what you would call “negative emotions”, they are always connected with something that is not now. You may be conscious of those thoughts right now, in which case you can look at them and say, “But is that happening now; is that part of the now? What’s here in the now?” But maybe the feeling is there and the mind has no idea where it is coming from. Then let the feeling be there. 

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

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

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

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

Participant: What does that mean? The difference?

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

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

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

Participant: That is a memory I am talking about. 

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

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

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

Participant: Yeah. I see that. 

And so, for example, you project that.

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

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

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

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

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

So where is this abyss? 

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

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

Participant: I am? (laughs) 

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

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

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

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

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

Participant: It’s a lot of confusion.

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

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Why do you refer to God as He? | Sanhia on Beyond Masculine and Feminine

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A good place to begin is to remind you that words do not and cannot express or tell the truth. At best they are pointers. As the poet said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. So, how do we even begin to speak about What is sometimes called God? Well, We will begin by addressing the question. There is no gender in the Divine, in the Oneness. Masculine and femininity are part of duality, belonging to the illusion. In Divinity there is no he-ness or she-ness. To talk about God, we are left to deal with the language as it is.

Here’s a little story which some of you might be familiar with if you have been reading these messages for a long time. At one time the closing that was used read “Goddess Bless You”. This was a fine mind game, playing around with the gender identification that the mass consciousness holds for the One. If some minds were thrown for loops, We are all for such accomplishments. Goddess is no more an expression of truth than is God.  When we changed the closing to “God Blesses You”, as you can see, there was also a change in verb form, replacing the common request or wish with a statement of what is. Everything is always blessed by God. Over time that gave way to “Good Now”, which is doubly fun. Not only is it an encouragement to honor the present moment, but it also is a great greeting in this digital world, where people are experiencing all different times of the day when communicating with each other. Good morning just doesn’t cut it if it is evening for another. There was also a method in the madness of choosing God as the new moniker. We were also playing some mind games here. Many people have an identification with a male God and it brings fearful pictures for them, such as the vengeful, wrathful Old Testament God. Hearing the masculine pronoun attached to the Divinity We were speaking of triggers confusion and reactions for some people. It is their own projection on God that requires some investigation.

One final visit to old motivations for gender use. Most readers pictured Sanhia as a male form. This partly came from the male-body channel and from some of the past life stories that were in circulation. In truth I am also possessing no gender, and am, in fact, not even Sanhia. That’s just a name, like God. I allowed these illusions to fester uncontested because they allowed a game to be played. The great majority of those meeting with Us or reading the messages were attached to female bodies. They often feared and gave away their power to masculine energy. My teaching was that the feminine always leads the masculine. Notice this does not say the female always leads the male. The feminine energy is intuitive, going inside for guidance. The masculine energy is mental and active. You can see the folly in allowing action to take place without guidance.  So the fun game was that these women gave power to the perceived masculinity, and We used that power to encourage them to take their own power, to trust and follow their own guidance. We never told anybody what to do, only encouraged them to follow their own guidance.

All games have their time and now it is time to move on. It doesn’t matter what you call this Divine Isness. You can call it the Oneness, Divine Presence, Divine Absence, Everything, Nothing, Brahman, Atman, or Allah. It makes no difference because the name neither defines it nor tells what it is. We can understand that an individual could have a problem with a significant term because of past associations with that word. If you are plugged in by the term “God”, feel free to choose an unloaded term or you can use that term and deal with what comes up for you emotionally and in your body. It makes no difference. We are inspired by this month’s question to drop the gender issue altogether. For the present we will change our reference to the Divinity previously known as God to IT. That’s IT! You, of course, are welcome to continue using whatever term catches your fancy.

We have more to say about this. One thing that comes up for most people on the spiritual path as they talk about IT is that they consider themselves to be separate from IT. They want to learn how to have the experience of being One with IT or perhaps be able to surrender to the Will of IT or there may be a desire to feel loved and accepted, forgiven and not judged by IT. There may be some fear of IT. Perhaps the dropping of the masculine identity will reduce this fear, but maybe it doesn’t. Again it is likely as you are reading this that you feel separate from IT and the idea of being One with IT seems beyond the realm of possibility. Actually, it is the only possibility. You are IT. Separation from IT is impossible. If everything comes from IT, how could IT stand separate? How could that be possible?  We ask you to look and see who it is that notices you. If you is your body, your story and history, your plans and goals, your accomplishments and failures, who is it that is noticing this you? Perhaps your response is, “It is me noticing me”. Can a light shine upon itself? Is that possible? The Isness is noticing. The Isness is aware. There is no you doing this. This is the one and only lesson there is. There is no you there to do anything; there is only the awareness of doing happening. As I say this I wish to remind you again that this is not the truth. There is nothing here that the mind can ever understand. The mind that creates the problem, the belief that there is a separate you that chooses and is responsible, cannot grasp the solution. Belief comes from the mind. It comes from separation. Knowing has nothing to do with belief. You don’t believe that the sun is rising. It is rising. You can neither cause it nor stop it. You are. There is nothing that can be done about that. You did not bring your awareness into existence and you cannot stop it.

One thing you can try is to take a step back. Look at this self that you thought of as you. Watch it acting. Notice that what is watching is not what is acting. See if you can tell where this noticer is watching from. Where does it sit? Is it within the body? If, so where is it located? Can you go there? Can you truly find where this awareness lies? If it feels like it is outside the body, can you go to the place where it is? Try this until you realize that it is not in the body but it is also in no particular place in space. Space, like time, is not real. It is just the screen upon which this life story is projected. You are the watcher of this movie, not the actor. If you think you are the actor, take a step back. Who is watching the actor? Step back as often and as far as is needed until you realize that the watcher simply is, without a body nor a place. Maybe you step back so far, that like in the cartoon, you fall back into the abyss. Who knows how and when the letting go of the personal self will occur. This is not about understanding. It is only about noticing. All comes from IT, as your awareness comes from IT. IT observes life. IT is life. Life lives you. The physical is simply here and events simply seem to occur in time. There is no volition involved. You, the actor, have no choice. Things simply happen. The Divine truth of you is simultaneously observing and participating. The participation will happen in a smooth, connected way unless the mind thinks it is supposed to somehow change what is.

Participant: With this being feeling like a separate entity, as most humans identify themselves, it is not so easy to understand. Also, because we have made God to be so separate from us, is there some way to make it easier to come into contact with this Divine Energy or this Oneness that we are?

You began by saying that it is difficult to understand this. I would say that you are understating the situation. It is impossible to understand this. Can you understand the taste of a strawberry? Can you explain to another who has not tasted a strawberry what that experience is like? The only way one can know what the taste of a strawberry is would be to taste one. Then, whether you have no desire to ever taste another or you want many more strawberries, you know what the taste is like. Are you now able to explain that taste to another? Can you even put it into words for yourself? Can the truth of the taste of a strawberry ever be communicated or understood? Can you ever understand the truth of who the physical you is, why you are here, or what you are supposed to do? In parallel, can you explain or understand the awareness that notices what is going on in the space about you? It is absolutely impossible. All that can be done is to experience it. Take a taste and see what is there. You can notice and pay attention. The attempts at understanding will be fruitless and will merely pull you away from the experiencing. If you have the direct experience that there is no personal you, there is simply awareness and beingness – how would or could you explain that to yourself or another?

Participant: There is something that comes up in me when I hear this. There is a recognition.

A recognition of…?

Participant: Who I am, of Oneness and that enormous Love. It’s like I’ve had an experience that has left a recognition in me. I don’t know exactly what it is but as you talk I can recognize it. Yes, it might be like that. 

If you were to explain what this experience is like to another listening to this conversation, what would you say?

Participant: I don’t know. Maybe it’s like the strawberry in my mouth would taste a certain way but for another it might be experienced or described in a different way. 

That may well be true, but can you even describe how it is in your mouth? Are there words that would give another that direct experience so that they would know exactly what it would be like?

Participant: I don’t think you can get it from outside;, it is an inner experience.

How would you explain color to a blind person? Is that possible to do? And, as you inferred with the strawberries, does another even see the same “green” that you see? If you see a line-up of TVs in a store, no two show exactly the same green. Which one is the true green? Maybe what another sees as “green” you would call “red”. It seems like a crazy thought, but how could you ever know?

Participant: I don’t know. I don’t think I could ever know that.

So all that matters is your experience of “green” in the now or of the taste of the strawberry. There is no truth here, only experience. All of that is One with IT. All emanates from IT and is IT, is a manifestation of IT, is an expression of IT. Also as an expression of IT is the little you we could call it. In actuality, there is no it, just IT watching, breathing life and light into it.

Participant: When you say all of this, it seems that everybody has their individual experience of the now. It seems that you can just experience it yourself.

It is not you experiencing life, it is Life or IT experiencing you. The actual experiencer is IT; you are just the entertainment on the screen. What is of interest is that the experience of IT that you are aware of comes from a unique perspective. Nobody else is watching the same movie, but all movies are interconnected. You cannot watch someone else’s movie any more than they can watch yours. Any attempt to understand this or to know why this is so can only lead you away from the experience and the awareness of it and into confusion and suffering. The movie is Divine, perfect as it is, meant to be fully experienced, a gift from IT.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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Why do you say that time isn’t real? | Sanhia on Escaping the Trap of Becoming

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Good Now

I don’t know if we have time to answer that now. Ha ha! Just kidding. Remember not to believe everything I say. In fact, don’t believe anything. Take the words only as pointers and then check things out for yourself. Even talking about what is real and what isn’t opens a whole can of worms. We have opened that can before and have no idea where all the worms have gotten to. So, let’s just talk about time. Under the rubric of time, there are actually at least two different times we could be referring to. These could be called chronological and psychological time. The first one is easy, so we will just get it out of the way before tackling the more challenging concept of psychological time.

Chronological time is just like the ticking of the clock. It appears to be regular and can be segmented into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, and so on. It marches on. Within the illusion of the dualistic physical world, time plays a significant role (some would say it is the fourth dimension). Like eating and breathing, keeping track of time plays a significant role. Awareness allows you to catch a train or flight or to meet a friend. Conducting business relies heavily on chronological time. Like the dream world itself, chronological time is not real (we’ll talk about that more in the discussion of psychological time), but it plays an important role in playing in the illusion.

But, as you have probably surmised, We did not come today to deal with chronological time. Psychological time is where most of your focus lies. in psychological time you believe there is a past, which you think about often. Most of the thoughts that enter your mind come from this past. The questions I place before you are, “Where is this psychological past located?”, “How do you find it?”, and, “Can you get there from here?” The honest answers to these questions are likely, “I don’t know”, “I don’t know”, and, “I don’t think so”. Then there is the psychological future. That is the one that affects you in the deepest way. Of course the past reverberates on and on in an endless loop through your mind. Those of you who consider yourselves to be on spiritual paths are well aware that it doesn’t support you to pay too much attention to these thoughts in your mind, or to listen to the mass consciousness…to all your programming. You are trying to ignore all of that and to live in the now, to hear what the present has for you. For many of you there are things in your mind or your behavior that you don’t approve of, things you want to change. You have goals. Maybe you want to be kinder. Perhaps you want to feel more peaceful. You could wish to let go of judgment and guilt. There are the physical goals like losing weight, giving up smoking, regular exercise, or eating better. You could all fill in the blanks of your own lengthy wish list.

In psychological time you are setting goals, want yourself to improve, to be better. This change will be realized somewhere in the future. You might go so far as to set an exact time when your goal will be achieved. Again, where is this future? How do you find it? Can you get there from here? You know the honest answers to these questions. There is just now. There is no past; there is no future. These are just constructs of your mind. Meanwhile, you can only be here. In psychological time you want to be anywhere else, but there is nowhere else to be. You feel ambushed by your past. You don’t like your present self and want to turn out a new, improved version. However, it is always now and you are stuck with the version you have. You don’t accept who you are, dreaming only of the hypothetical you that doesn’t exist. Tomorrow never comes. It is always now. So, in the insane world of psychological time you are guided by a non-existent past to create a non-existent future, while ignoring or resisting the only true time, the present.

This place you long for of peace, love, innocence, and acceptance can only be found now, in this present moment. It is here right now. You can only experience what is here. Why do I say that time isn’t real? I am talking about psychological time. I am talking about the past and the future. Now time is very real. It is all there is. If you want to experience peace, let go of your ideas of how to get there. Give up plans to find it in the future. Look right here, right now, and see what is there. Don’t let yourself escape into your mind. Stay here. Use all of your senses. Accept the feelings, the sensations that come to the body. If there is a perfect future, go there right now. Why live one more moment in agony? You don’t do it because you can’t. You either find peace here and now or you never find it. What you do when you live in the illusion of psychological time is to sacrifice the present for the future, which doesn’t even exist.

Let’s come back to true time. Whatever you want to have that you don’t believe is in the present and for which you decide to do your programs, your training, your meditation, or whatever systems you’ve come across so that in the future you will have what you now lack –  cut the middleman out. Don’t meditate for future peace. Have peace now. You ask how you can have peace now? Stop fighting. What are you fighting? You are fighting you now. When you say you are not the you that you wish to be, you are at war with yourself. How can you experience peace while being at war? Stop fighting the you that is here now and accept it. We are not even going to go into the many people in the world that you are at war with, that you want to change, that you might believe you or others are victim to. Stop fighting if you want peace. Stop believing you need to be different. Make peace with what is here now. Everything and everyone is as they are now. You cannot change it, no matter how much you might wish to. You can give up fighting. You can accept the perfection of God being in this very moment. That requires looking without a thought of what could or should be. It means really seeing what is present and fully engaging with it.

Of course all of this flies in the face of what most spiritual paths are teaching. These teachings say that you have to work for your spiritual goals. You must have discipline. You must make yourself grow and change. This guidance might have you work with your thoughts, practice positive thinking, express your emotions, always practice forgiveness, meditate, do yoga, eat a vegan diet, proselytize, fast, help those in need, or any other form of discipline. Act in the right way now so that you will have a better future, so that you can be the person you believe you should be. Ego mind goes crazy when told that you don’t have to do anything or become anything – that you are that now. There is nothing you have to do. There is no goal, no discipline, no guru. All of that is counter-productive. It takes your focus away from the now, from what is, and places it on what isn’t, the psychological illusion of time.

When your mind is encouraging you to set goals and think of a new you, open your eyes and see what is around you. Is what you notice there because you asked it to be there? No, it’s just there. Can you change anything about what is there? You might have a temporary affect through meeting what is there, but in the meantime life goes on. It is alive. It moves. It changes. It does not follow your personal will or desires. Life is what it is. You can notice what is there. Look at it. Let it be there. Enjoy it!  See what is actually there, rather than noticing what it isn’t. Let go of what it isn’t. It will never be that. You will only experience pain, loss, and suffering. Let it be. Stop fighting and accept what is there. If you notice having an unloving thought toward another, that is what is here now. If there is judgment toward self, again that is what is there. If there is sadness, let it be there. Rather than trying to change what it is, really let yourself experience it. Let the feelings be present. Explore them in your body rather than trying to chase them away or transform them. Choose peace now. Stop fighting. See what you actually find in the now when you are not busy trying to change it. Use all of your senses in this exploration. There is awareness. There is noticing. There is the illusion of choosing, but what is cannot be unchosen any more than it can be chosen. You can imagine an alternate reality, but you can’t go there. You just go into hiding from the present. You just go into a war against what God has brought to you – brought in Love. How can you possibly enjoy a present that you refuse to accept, that you don’t want? How can such a life be one of peace and love?

I’m not suggesting that you set as a goal to no longer set goals, that you choose to not be focused in the future, but look only at the present. If you are setting goals, notice that you are setting goals. If you are aware of looking to the future, just be aware of that. It is not about changing but about being aware; if you notice that you are not aware, also let that be. There is nothing to change. There is only what is here now. You’re here in true time, in the only time, in the present moment. Hang out. Hang out with whatever appears to be here with you. It’s all God’s gift to you.

Good Now

Sanhia/Spirit

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