Why does seeing from the Observer´s eyes seem so damned impossible?
This conversation comes from a recent Spiritual Awareness Group.
Participant: How can I choose to see things from the observer’s mind?
It seems that you can choose either ego or Spirit. In truth, there is no choosing. It is already written. It is just what happens. The mind may see it as choosing, but there is just the appearance of choosing happening, just as there might be the appearance of a sunrise happening. The viewer would just notice that there is an apparent choosing. The choice does not affect the movie. It is a scripted part of the movie. Ego mind wants to hold on to the thought that it is choosing. Ego wants to claim, for instance, that “I” am angry. In reality, there is no one to “own” that anger. There is only the appearance of anger being present. There is no judgment in this noticing. Anger is not good or bad; it is simply present. The observer feels no anger. It is only aware of the presence of anger in the movie.
Participant: I seem to be stuck here.
There seems to be the appearance of stuckness here. The observer is not stuck, but only noticing the presence of stuckness.
Participant: I am worried that my observer might be laughing at me.
The observer has no reaction other than absolute love for whatever is there. The part that you think of as me, who feels separate from the One, who feels it can choose – and is therefore not doing a good job – is thinking “Why did it choose this?” The observer simply notices that there seems to be a belief in choosing; there seem to be upsetness; there seems to be stuckness.
Participant: I can be okay with that. I don’t want to just jump from this place right now because something is needing to be done here. I don’t want to go back to trying to be nice. That’s not so fun.
If you could simply choose to jump from your ego and only see from the Divine Observer, you would have done that long ago. You can have the intention to do that, but you can’t make it happen because you don’t have choice. If you had choice, that would place you separate from the Divine. But you can’t be separate, so what is happening can only be perfect, a part of the script that is already written. At some point it may be that in the noticing of the now the ego is just seen rather than experienced as self. That cannot be chosen because only the ego mind can pretend to choose. The noticing simply happens. There no longer is anyone there, there is just the noticing. But you can’t choose that.
Participant: Not just now.
Not at any time. It will happen when it happens.
Participant: Something feels very powerful in this.
If you have the thought that there is stuckness, and you hang on to that thought, you will likely decide there is some fault in you that maintains the feeling of stuckness. When you are aware of that, let the sense of stuckness be there as long as it is going to be there. It is perfect. There is nothing to fix. There is no effort you could make to cause the stuckness to go away.
Participant: I could sing a song. Then I’m not focused on the stuckness.
Yes and then what is apparent is the singing of the song. Will the feeling of stuckness return? Probably.
Participant: This is very good. I like it very much.
Choice is the domain of the ego mind. As you let go of control and simply notice what is present, you are opening to the possibility of seeing through Divine eyes. If you do that to try to enable Divine seeing, you are back in the ego trap of choosing. So, you just do it when you notice and stop trying to choose, instead noticing what is present. It’s a razor’s edge you are walking. I mean let’s get serious. Is the ego really going to choose to give up its control by truly allowing you to choose Spirit? That would be suicide. The ego is a survivor and a very clever one. Choice is not a choice; it is a subterfuge. Every choice affirms the reality of the ego. Its disappearance requires not choosing. The best you can hope to do is to notice what is going on without following any of the threads.
Participant: But I do know that this is all an ego game. I know that it will probably eventually go over to something else, but I guess that right now I need to be in it.
This is such a humorous thing – perhaps more humorous from this perspective than from yours – but whatever you decide you want to do; you can’t possibly do. All that is left is to give up trying. But you can’t try to give up trying. Finally, you get so exhausted from trying and failing that you just give up trying.
Participant: But sometimes I’m able to walk or sit quietly or sing and my mind calms down.
Yes, but what you have then is a calmer ego driven person, but still not an awake person. Not that this is a bad thing. Being calm might be more enjoyable, but the balancing dualistic energy will eventually surface. Watching from the viewer is not about being calm or distressed. It is noticing what is present without identifying that as self. There is no self. There are no techniques for taking you to that place. If anything, it may be necessary to let go of all techniques, but that can become its own technique.
Participant: Just now, this is what I needed.
The perfect thing is always here. If you try to understand why it is perfect, you are back in the ego mind. You will never understand.
Participant: Then I could be grateful that this is what it is…and not a heart attack.
That would be perfect too (much laughing). It would be what is there. If you have the thought that awakening means feeling fine all of the time, which you think you might be able to do if you let yourself just find and practice the right things consistently, you may, as I said, find yourself as a mostly satisfied sleeping person. You will, however, still believe yourself to be your “self“, separate from the One. What is transpiring for an individual or for the world in general has no identification for the Divine Viewer. Happiness or sadness may be present, but it makes no difference. There is nobody there experiencing this. There is something magnetic for the searcher in having a practice, but eventually the practice doesn’t deliver. So, you try another and then another until perhaps you crumble into hopelessness.
Participant: I am tired of techniques. I just want to be.
Notice that that is all you can ever do. Just to be. You cannot stop being. You cannot make yourself be. You are. Any technique is simply a diversion from noticing the isness of everything. So, we are back to this razor’s edge of having no techniques without that becoming a technique. Everything is perfect as it is. Nothing to change and nobody there to make a change. There is just what is, Divinely inspired. You can’t change anything, but you might be aware of the desire for change. You can’t make yourself accept what is here, but you might notice that the desire to do so is present.
Participant: I have the thought that coming to this group is a holy thing to do, that it will support my spiritual goals. This morning I didn’t feel very holy so I thought I shouldn’t come.
Sorry, but there is nothing holy here. This is like Walpurgis night in Sweden (a holiday celebrated on the last day of April where people make fires and burn whatever has accumulated over the dark period of the year). You come here to release things, not to get anything. There is nothing to get. You already have it. Your job is not to be or feel holy, but to take out and burn the trash. So please! Bring us your garbage. Of course, you don’t need to come here to throw out the trash. You can do that at home. There is nothing holy about this or any other place, or it could be said that every place is holy. There is only holiness. That is all there is. You are also not here because you chose to be here.
Participant: It is not my choice to be here? You mean in this body?
Well, yes that too, but to be here in this room now. That is just a belief of the ego mind. It might be more accurate to say that you are here because the universe has chosen for you to be here. It might be most accurate to say that you are here because you are here. You can play the game of believing that you are choosing things, but did you choose to become aware of this group? Even when you might think that you decided to be here today, it was the universe that provided you with a ride. The universe could have caused the car not to start or there might have been an accident on route. You could have been too sick to get out of bed or you could have listened to the voice that said you weren’t holy enough to be here today. The universe wanted you here. It is a fool’s task for you to wonder why you were wanted here. It is just yours to be here and notice what is here before you. On the other hand, you may notice that there is nurturance here for this seemingly separated being. That nurturance is also here for the group member who did not appear today. The universe wanted him elsewhere, even though he might be beating himself up for believing that he created not being present. There is nothing wrong or right about attending or not attending. There just is what is.
Participant: Yes, I do think it is good to be here. Good to have support in seeing things from another side.
If you allow yourself to notice when you think you are choosing or when you find yourself feeling negative emotions that you wish were not taking place, if you decide to then reverse the process – good luck with that. You cannot choose that or anything else. At the same time, within the imaginary realms of past and future, which don’t exist, yet feel so real, the choosing part of you that believes you have a whole story of connected events that led you to being where you are now, there is just the isness of this moment. There is no past or future; there is just the isness, the being of what is here in this moment from the vertical perspective. There is just what is being observed. Nothing else. It certainly cannot slow down this illusory process of becoming the Observer to be more aware of when you think you are the chooser, but if you are doing it to try to get “there”, there is nowhere to get, and you are spinning your imaginary wheels. But that doesn’t mean not to do it, if doing it is what is here right now. What is being noticed is that there is resistance to what is here now. What is going on right now is that “I” think that I am this body, and “I” is being used to identify that body. Can that identification be changed right now? No, that is just what appears to be happening. All that is really happening is the noticing that this appears to be going on. Thinking you are the body does not make you the body. Thinking that you are not the body does not stop you from believing you are. Thinking doesn’t do anything. There is no you to be or not be the body. There is just the seeing, just the being.
Participant: That’s good. Good enough.
Or bad enough (laughs all around). This noticing that there is no chooser, there is only the Divine watching can only come upon one who believes in their separated self. There is no chooser so it cannot be chosen. This Divine Watcher has no idea what is coming next. Everything is being viewed for the first time. How could that not be thrilling? This creation is only Love. Everything is seen through these eyes of Love. This does not mean that pain won’t seem to be present, but it will not be owned or possessed by the Viewer who can possess nothing, Who is not there but only Is. Like everything else in the illusion, pain will appear and then disappear. Pain is not good or bad; it is simply what is on the screen now. Ego mind wants to hang on to the exhilaration of the positive experience, but that can only be accompanied by the pain of the fall. The Viewer owns neither. Ego mind is destined to a seeming eternity of up and down. It wants to hold on to the up and it fails, adding insult to injury. Meanwhile there is just Life, Oneness, Divinity. There is no up and down, no judgment, no separation, no guilt, no suffering. The ego mind really believes that it is responsible, that it is in control and can handle things. But it absolutely is not and cannot be. It has no idea that everything filling that mind comes from someplace other than Divinity.
Participant: But isn’t it the human state to seek happiness and avoid pain?
The deeper truth is that the human desire is to go home, and the belief is that something must be done to get there. For some the belief is that seeking happiness will bring them home. For others, the belief may be that pain and deprivation will lead them home. Spirit says that you are home; you never left. The ego mind can never see this, but the Observer’s eye does. Sooner or later the ego mind gets tired of trying.
Participant: I’m tired already.
Wonderful! (laughter) How successful have you been so far in manifesting what you wish to create in your life? That must be exhausting! You can stop trying. Your true nature is Oneness. You are Oneness playing the game of twoness. Is the game always fun? Not from the ego mind, not from the perception of twoness. From Oneness, from the Observer it is neither fun nor not fun; it simply is and all that simply is is Divine, is Love. But in absolute Oneness there is no experience. There is no movie. There is no sunset. There is no storm. There is no pain. There is no sweetness. There is no orgasm. So, Oneness can have the experience of these sensations through this movie. Every moment of the movie is glorious to the Observer.
Participant: How can the Observer experience yet not be a part of what is happening?
The Observer watches without projection. This Watcher does not pretend that It is the person being observed. There is no story, no history. Nothing is held on to. There is no future. There is just the Divine moment. Pain, for example to the ego mind, is connected with past ideas of blame and guilt, and with fears of the future. For the Observer, pain is just a particular sensation in the Divine now. Nothing lasts. Everything changes. Nothing is held on to. Everything is noticed. The Observer notices the pain is present but is not identified with it. Again, these are just words and cannot approximate the actual experience of not seeing through the ego’s eyes. You call this twoness “me”, but where is this “me”? Who is “me”? The twoness is “me-ing” while the Oneness is “be-ing”. “Me-ing” always has questions. “Be-ing” knows, but not in words.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Can you speak more about the observer who is not from the ego mind?
We have talked before about the observer. The observer is the one who is watching this movie that you call your life. What are perceived by your eyes are objects. These objects could be trees, birds, clouds, baskets, cars, or people. These are all a part of your movie. The body is also an object you see. If you have the goal to be one with your body, you want to make the subject and the object to be the same. This is not possible. You cannot simultaneously be the observer and the observed. You cannot watch yourself. You cannot do that any more than you can look at the window and say you are now one with the window. Something other than your “self”, or your body, is doing the watching. The Observer of the movie simply sees; It does not have the possibility of jumping up on the screen and acting at the same time. This is why We say that you are not your body. The You that is watching, the real You, cannot at the same time be what it is watching. When you identify yourself with the character in your movie, you have ceased to notice that you are the watcher and now pretend yourself to actually be the object on the screen. But You are not an object. The body, the object, does not experience the movie; it is a part of the movie. The true You is the Observer Who watches the body and notices what it is doing, thinking, and feeling.
If the thought arises that you want to experience Oneness, you are saying that you lack Oneness. This is not true. Your ego mind believes that it is separate, but the Observer is One with what it sees, though it is not what it sees. The subject is not the object, though there is no separation. There is only Oneness. There is no identification with the body, there is only the seeing of it. The Observer is One with everything that is. It is the creator of all that is. The thought of wanting in the ego mind affirms its pretense of separation. You can notice that such a thought seems to exist in the ego mind. You cannot make yourself feel oneness. All you can do is notice the thoughts of separation the ego mind holds and bring the awareness back to the now and the next thought. You keep peeling away what is being held onto that stands in the way of experiencing the Oneness. Thus, Oneness is not a goal; It is what is always present. To try to experience that is to maintain the illusion of being separate from it. The only process is to let go of everything that isn’t Oneness. You don’t try to change what is, that only feeds it. You simply do not dwell on the thoughts. The job is to be the noticer, not the thinker, the analyser, or the understander.
Let me give another picture of the perspective of the Viewer. The ego mind sees time as a horizontal line. It sees the now as the point where the past and the future intersect. In truth there is no point of now that exists because the movie is in constant motion. There is no way that you can try to be here now, because now is a moving target. There may be an attempt to hold on to something that can never be grasped. The result is likely a sense of failure to stay present without finding you are easily slipping into the past. Even the intention to experience nowness comes from the mind which is rooted in the past. Let’s replace the horizontal timeline with a vertical axis. The viewpoint of the Divine Observer comes straight down and contacts only the moment, not the whole horizontal timeline. Nothing is seen except what is directly in front of the Viewer. There is just what is. As long as the mind seems to wish to alter what is observed in any way, the appearance of separation is created; the viewpoint has returned to the horizontal timeline. The vertical perceives no past or future. Thoughts of wanting to be elsewhere are seen just as clouds in this moment’s sky. They are noticed and the eyes move on to the next thing that is presented. From the vertical perspective there is no such thing as past or future. There is just what is. You cannot look from this perspective and see a “younger” you. You might observe a thought of a “younger” you, but it will be quickly replaced by another thought or feeling. No “younger” you exists; no “older” you exists. Nothing exists but what is present now.
The object that is the “you” You are perceiving may be having thoughts about an imagined past or future, but all that is there is that “you” now. Not only is there no reality in the past and the future, but what is being viewed is not real either; it is all a movie. If the actor on the screen is perceived as an object by the Observer, rather than as self, that is an awakened viewpoint. All there is to do is to notice the passing of a thought. If upon noticing the thought you jump in and try to fix, heal, or otherwise change the situation, perhaps believing that you are as you are because of your “past”, you are back in the ego mind game and can only be certain of continued pain and suffering. You have again tried to make the object out as the subject, which it isn’t. Instead of looking down vertically at what is, you jump into the illusory timeline trying to heal the past and change the future. You are Divine as you are. There is nothing to heal, fix, or change. The you that is the Observer sees with Divine eyes. There is nothing to do to become enlightened. It is as simple as opening your eyes. Stop pretending to not be awake. See what is present without holding judgements. There is nothing that needs to be earned. It is your true birthright. Nothing has ever been done that needs to be atoned for. Nothing has ever actually been done. There is just now. See it from the vertical perspective. Seen for itself there is nothing to be changed. Everything is perfect. And You are One with it.
You are each watching your own movie. No two see the same film, even if they appear to be walking side by side. If you are thinking you are the character on the screen, you don’t see what is happening. You see from your ego mind perspective. If you rewind your movie back ten minutes, are you now in the past? Does that make the past real? You can jump all around in a movie. Does that make anything real? The movie has a beginning which for you might look like birth. Did the Viewer not exist before the movie began? The movie has an end which is called death. The Viewer is still there watching. If you are the actor, who is watching the actor? Through whose eyes do you see? Where are those eyes looking from? Can you be watching the movie and be in it at the same time? If you throw yourself against the screen, can you merge with the film? It’s just a movie. It’s not real, it’s just up on the screen and you’re watching it. Things become very simple. You are not the character on the screen. The movie is not real. You are just watching it. You can have no effect upon it. The movie has already been made. It is just playing. The script has been written. The actors have been cast. It has been directed and filmed. The special effects have been added.
One way to help the letting go of seeing yourself as the body and the seeing of things as they are is to change your language, certainly in your thoughts and out loud when you can get away with it. Stop referring to the physical body as I or me. Refer to that self in the third person. The words “I am” should stand alone, not to be followed by any descriptors. For example, rather than saying “I am sad” try “There appears to be sadness here”. Go a step further and replace “sadness” with words that describe the bodily sensations that seem to be present. Wherever words carry a heavy emotional weight for you, look for more neutral descriptors to use. Otherwise, you will likely go back to acting as if you are the object instead of the subject.
The question then arises as to how one becomes the Observer instead of the observed. It is important to be aware that all questions are generated by the ego mind, which is unable to ever find satisfactory answers. You can be aware that as long as there are questions and any beliefs that the body and the world are real, there cannot be a looking from the Observer taking place. All you can do is notice that you are still pretending to be the object and ask yourself who is watching this. Where is the observer located? If it is within your body, then find it. If the self seems to be interacting with the movie, who is watching this interaction? Wherever interaction is perceived, that is the observed and not the Observer. Take a step back and see who is observing the interaction. Each time you notice an identification with the actor, take another step back and see who is observing this. The part that wants to interact and believes that the movie can be changed is not the true You, the Observer, Who is simply noticing all of this. The movie, however, cannot be changed and so the actor is constantly frustrated. It is even scripted as to how long you will resist, argue, question, and continue to try to change the unchangeable before you give up trying and fall back to your true place as the Observer. You appear to have the choice to continue flailing away or to sit back, enjoy the show, and say “Pass the popcorn please”. You can’t make yourself let go and watch from the Observer’s eye, nor can you stop yourself from doing it. You cannot will yourself into being the Observer because you already are that. All you can do is notice where you wish to act and stop doing it.
One of the games of the ego mind is to say that if you are just the Observer you will no longer have any involvement with your movie, with other people, or with the world. The object “you” in the movie will still interact, but not in any attempt to change the movie nor with any goal or outcome in mind. The responses and actions will just be whatever is moving in the now. It is like improv theater. There is no conscious script nor outcome in mind. One simply responds spontaneously to the scene. The next response is absolutely dependent only on the new cues presented. There is no forethought nor afterthought. That is the game. It is comparable to a tennis match. All that matters is this shot. If your mind is anywhere else, you are not fully present for the next volley. This is just a movie. You know that you are not going to change anything; You are aware of no purpose. Yet, there You are, and you fully engage in the moment. But what possible reason could there be for an apparent birth and death, activities and relationships, failures and successes, ups and downs – all just to disappear? The ego wants you to believe that there is a purpose, a meaning in all of this. Where is it found? The Observer just witnesses apparent activity; it sees no plan. Ego mind creates a story with a beginning and ideally a happy ending. Spirit mind sees just life appearing to happen. Even for you on a spiritual path there is a thought that you will wake up and then understand the purpose and meaning of your life. You are already awake, and you can stop chasing your tail. You can begin that task by asking yourself who is chasing your tail. As you step back and observe from the true You, however, instead of understanding the answer, you will find that there are no questions. Some would say that the experience then is one of absolute Love, not as an opposite of hate or fear, but a steady state no matter what seems to be happening on the screen.
In conclusion, neither I nor anyone else can tell you how to accomplish the feat of releasing the ego self and viewing everything from the Divine Perspective. Nor can anyone explain to you what it will be like to realize the Divine View. Nobody will be there to have such an experience. There will be no sense of being awakened or enlightened because those are ideas of the separated mind. It is easier to try to tell what won’t be there. There will be nothing to fix. There will be no responsibilities. There will be nothing to understand. There will be no questions. Any questions?
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
I am hearing differing things from you. What is reality?
You know it is both difficult and easy to speak out of both sides of my mouth. It is difficult because I have neither a mouth nor sides, but it is easy because I just place the words in Michael’s mouth, and he has agreed to share them without question. Any words that I use do not tell the truth so it can be helpful to state things in differing and even contrasting ways to approximate truth, to triangulate what actually is. I have been talking differently about reality in some of the more recent messages than I did in messages back several years ago. If you want to check that out for yourself click here and then click on reality for a list all the messages where the term is mentioned. Anyway, this is a good question, so let’s look more deeply into it.
Recently We have talked about reality as being what is in the now. For example, if it is raining now, that is the reality. We talk in terms of simple acceptance of what is in the now. If you have resistance to reality, if you want to change it – good luck with that. But it’s not just the weather, it’s everything. What is is. It cannot be changed. You might want to change it in the future, even the near future. That’s another matter we will deal with shortly, but reality is what is here right this moment. When one ignores it or doesn’t accept it, is upset and in opposition to it, or wants to change it there will be frustration, pain, suffering, and a sense of failure because the now cannot be altered. The reality cannot be changed. When there is resistance to the now, it makes it nearly impossible to hear your inner guidance, Spirit, or your Divine Self, because the ego mind is just too loud. This is the reality we have been referring to. It has been suggested that the more one is willing to notice what is present right now – without judging it or wishing to change it – the more one accepts the feelings triggered in this now, the more one learns to hear that quiet inner voice. We have encouraged you to do that, to take what is in the now as the perfect thing, to receive what Spirit is presenting to you to help you realize your Divine nature.
Let’s start moving out to a wider sense of reality. One step out is to say that your only function for being, for having this experience in the physical with a body is to wake up to the truth of your Divine Nature. Nothing else matters. That’s a big step from accepting the now. Nothing else matters but being awake. In this process of awakening there are different levels. The ground level is having the desire, the intention to awaken. That can only come from the ego mind. As you have likely noticed by now, the ego mind is very clever and anything but self destructive. The urge to awaken is most unlikely to make an appearance when things are going as one wishes they would. The ego only grudgingly allows a peek at this when you have become quite frustrated with the lack of delivery on ego promises. But a full awakening would mark the death of the ego. So, what proceeds to manifest in this world of duality is opposites. On one side the intention to awaken is a prerequisite. On the other hand, as long as you hold on to the intention to awaken, you cannot notice you already are awake. Awakeness is in the now; goals put your mind into the non-existent future. How do you make the shift from wanting to awaken to realizing awakeness? At some point the synapse is crossed, you realize you are and always have been awake. You’ve just been pretending to be asleep. We could call the ego mind that pretender. However, you can have the idea that you really are awake, but that is still the ego mind running things, not a true experience. So, what happens somewhere along the line (remembering that time doesn’t really exist), through what I like to call “the grace of God”, after countless letting goes of the ego mind, is it happens. This occurrence is after intention has been released. You know in that instant that none of this really matters, that the physical is just an illusion. If that is followed by the thought that you are awake now, say hello again to your ego mind. It doesn’t matter. It will likely happen. The truth is in your divinity. It cannot be hidden forever. More often you will find yourself noticing the now with no attachment, with no agenda, with no resistance, with welcomeness and gratitude.
As we are talking about this, because all we can do is use words and point, we could describe this as the first step of awakeness. None of this really matters. You still notice the world around you, the phenomenal world. You are still aware of the body, the vehicle you use for this exploration and interaction with this physical illusion. There is another level of reality. It could be stated thusly, “Reality is that which never changes.” Ego mind will get hold of this and state that the now constantly changes; nothing stays the same. It will remind you that I have said, “As you are noticing the emotions, accept them, feel them, let them move about, let them be free, welcome them, and let them lead you. They will constantly change.” Ego may add that if change equates to not real, how could I say that what is in the now, including feelings are real? Now I seem to be saying the now isn’t real? And what about everything in the phenomenal world? The weather changes, plants and animals grow and then die, your physical body has and will go through enormous change from conception through birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturity, old age and death. So now am I saying that everything that is a part of the now is not real. You are understanding me completely. Anything that does or can change is not real. This becomes quite a challenge for the mind. Is there anything in the universe that does not change? If you think the earth or the sun will always be here, check out what the science says. Even if the Bible is taken literally, the universe has both beginning and end. Absolutely nothing of the physical realm is real because everything changes. What about this entity that I have referred to as “you” or you refer to as “I”, this awareness that experiences the changes in the phenomenal universe? Is it real? Whew!
The questions seem to be getting harder. Are you real? Let’s toss another one out there for you. If nothing in the physical world is real and you are the observer of these illusions – if there is nothing to observe, is there still an observer? If the world is not real, are you real? If there is nothing to observe, can you observe nothing? The closest that we can come with words in defining that which never changes might be to call it Divinity, or maybe God if you can suffer that term, or perhaps the Oneness. If you are a creation of that Whatever, made in Its own image, that too sounds like a change. Divinity simply is…always. If out of this never changing, timeless, infinite Isness you are created, then, by definition, you aren’t real either. Using the metaphor of the ocean, which is undifferentiated water; it is all ocean. A wave can emerge on its surface, but has no identity separate from the ocean. Without the ocean the wave does not exist. It may seem to have its own identity and direction, but eventually it crashes on a beach and returns to the oneness, having no further identity as a wave. Even the water that is considered to be part of the wave does not move with it; there is just this motion on the surface. Without the ocean there is no wave.
So, the ultimate reality is undifferentiated Divinity. There is no you. This reality is beyond anything the mind can comprehend. It is beyond anything the senses can be aware of. For the ego mind, such a picture triggers absolute terror. It represents not only the dissolution of the ego mind, but the dissolution of any aspect of a separated self, absolute non-existence. Oneness. No separation. Such ideas are impossible to comprehend or sense. So, after you reach the step of awareness that you are a Divine Entity, created by God in Its own image and that there is no reality in the physical realm, your awakening is not over. It has just begun. As long as there is an observer watching the illusion of physicality there remains a separation from the Oneness. The ultimate awakening, for which We have used the term ascension, is where there is no longer a sense of you observing the physical illusion. Now ascension implies a rising up, but there is no direction involved; there is nothing. There is no longer a separate observer. There is only the ocean of Oneness.
Even though there is no forward or backward, We will appear to take a step back into looking at this now. For some of you there is a great challenge in doing things like accepting the “perfection of the now.” I will encourage you to let go of perfection as a term. Instead, keeping in mind this larger vision of reality, flow with whatever is – reminding yourself that it doesn’t matter. Perfect or imperfect, it makes no difference. Either way it’s not real. It doesn’t matter. If you are only here to realize you are already awake, whatever is happening is helping you to do that. If you are pretending to be asleep, no matter what happens you will experience pain and suffering. Whether you are trying to find perfection or imperfection you are going to suffer. In duality there cannot be one without the other. This is true of every thought you might have. It has an opposite. There is no reality in trying to explain or understand. There is only more confusion. That is why we encourage you – as you are in the process of realizing that you already are awake – to let the mind go. It’s not about learning, it’s about unlearning everything you think you know. Whatever you think, you are wrong. If you are pretending to be separate from what you observe, you are going to suffer. Beyond that, this whole unreal movie you are pretending to be a part of is already scripted. You have no choice in changing it. Your only choice is whether or not you accept it as real. You are powerless as an observer. The outcome is already known. What is occurring in the minutia of the moment doesn’t matter. We can guess that in the scope of the illusion of time as the script runs, you stop playing in the game of time. You start playing with awareness in the game of Divinity, of infinity, in the game of God. You realize that you are One with what you observe; that there is no separation. You know that nothing matters. Even if you are still playing in the game, using the vehicle you have to interact with the now, you know that it doesn’t matter. You just enjoy the ride. Or don’t enjoy the ride. Or enjoy not enjoying the ride. It doesn’t matter.
If you have the thought in the moment – and maybe it has been a long-time prayer or mantra, maybe, God forbid, you learned it from Me – “Spirit help me accept the perfection of the now” you may be enabling the ego mind to try to find something good about what is happening. This triggers the good/bad duality. In that interplay the mind usually wants to go for the positive. It doesn’t ask Spirit for help in accepting the imperfection of the now. So, the negative is denied and pushed away. Try letting go of perfection and accepting what is as what is. That is reality. Eventually it is what isn’t. That, too, is reality. You begin by accepting the reality of what is. but eventually realize there is no isness. Nothing including the observer is real. But how can you realize that if you think what is happening in your movie is real? As long as that is the case, then the separate you is real too. If you are thoroughly confused at this point, then my work is done.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Does peace of mind lead to stagnation?
This question comes from a reader who writes, “I have a nagging question about peace of mind. Doesn’t that lead to stagnation? When people stop struggling it leads to lethargy and aimlessness. The heart of my question is ‘Is struggle a universal truth?’ I have tried to give everything to the spirit but am limited in being aware of the true potential of doing that.”
Okay. I think that many readers may share your confusion. I will start by stating that what you are encountering each and every moment in the now simply is. It cannot be changed. It is; it’s here now. There is no rewind to allow you to go back and to make it different. It is what it is now and could not be anything else. This is no small matter. We could say that this is everything. Your whole question centers around changing what is. There is nothing that you can change. The mind responds, “Oh maybe not the now but I can change the future. I can build a tomorrow that is better than the now.” My next question is to ask what is wrong with the now? You might construct a laundry list of what is wrong with things as they are. How do you know each of these items is wrong? Does it feel bad? Is it uncomfortable or painful? Are things not the way you want them to be? In your mind there is a past. Is any part of what you are unhappily experiencing now a part of the future you chose for yourself then? Have things turned out exactly as you planned? Why not? These are important questions to consider. There are many parameters to this. Maybe you have asked for something different than what is but find your request seemed to have little impact. So, what do you do? How many times do you try to run into that wall until you accept there is no doorway there? Perhaps you lack the power to change how things are.
Secondly, what makes you think that you know how things should be? Are you certain? Each one of you can recall things in what appears to be your past which were not pleasant, perhaps painful, and which you certainly would not have wished to have happened. But these events changed your experience of yourself and life in such a way that you can now have gratitude for their occurrence. Had it been up to you, you would not have chosen those happenings. Yet they helped you move through barriers that had previously felt to be impenetrable. Perhaps you are begging to and wondering if you can go forward and grow without having pain. The answer seems to be “apparently not”; at least you have not demonstrated that ability up to this point. The suffering is not brought about by what occurs, but by your resistance to it – by your struggle. So, we come back to this now. It’s the only place you are ever going to be. If you reject your now but claim instead you will create a better future, you will end up in a perpetually unacceptable now trying to create a better future. There is no future. There is just now. The only way that your now becomes acceptable is to accept it as it is. Otherwise, you will continue as you have, day after day, year after year, incarnation after incarnation, searching for a better now, looking everywhere but within and to this moment. There cannot be stagnation in the now because everything is in constant movement. Stagnation comes from the mind trying to control what cannot be corralled. So, stop trying to fight it, stop trying to change it, stop feeling the victim. Accept the present fully as it is.
Lethargy and aimlessness are consequences of repeated failures to create the world you think you want. Why even try anymore, you might think? Such a result is not a bad thing. As we have spoken about above, this can lead you to finally accept what is and find a peace that has always evaded you. It seems – and this is the fear you expressed in your question – that the choice is between struggle as a universal truth or aimlessness and lethargy. Are you sure those are the only choices? You said that you have tried to give it to Spirit but are limited in knowing the true potential of doing that. If when leaving things to Spirit you have an idea of how you want your situation handled, you haven’t left it Spirit. If you have a picture of the outcome, if you are directing Spirit in any way, you are not leaving it to Spirit. You are still struggling, still trying to change the now. Leaving it to Spirit begins with accepting what is here now without a thought of changing things. This isn’t such a bad idea because it is here. There is nothing to be done about it. The horse is already out of the barn. There is nothing for you to do. Giving it to Spirit requires only that you are aware of what you are giving, that you surrender any part of the handling of the situation. Give the present your full attention, letting go of all thoughts – which are of the mind, not of Spirit. Your mind has a goal and wants to reach the top of the mountain. There is no top; there is just climbing. There is just goal after goal after goal. There might be a brief respite in realizing a goal, but it is soon replaced by a new target. No achievement is enough. The ego is in full control. Giving it to Spirit is the end of goals. Even giving it to Spirit cannot be a goal, only a pointer, only a reminder to notice when you are not doing that. Home is not a goal. It is where you are now. Stop! Pay attention. Let go. See what is here. These goals and this struggle are all based on the belief that nothing is enough, that you are not good enough, smart enough, loveable enough, successful enough, evolved enough, deserving enough to be welcomed into the loving arms of the Divine. So on and on you struggle vainly, like Sisyphus, to reach what cannot be reached. None of those thoughts/fears are true. Again, just stop it. Let that mind go. Pay no attention. See what Spirit is bringing you now.
When you give it to Spirit you let go of all thought of control, all addiction to fomenting change, all lack of trust in the perfection of what is. You may ask, “How can I do that Sanhia?” It is my habit to do all of those things; how can I stop? You become aware of that. Notice when your mind wants to take over. Don’t act on it. Ignore what your mind is saying and bring yourself back to noticing the present. Your mind will likely go absolutely nuts with this. You will feel that your health, your body, your finances, your whole world will fall apart if you don’t exercise control. Notice all of that and give it to Spirit. Don’t look to the future; don’t consider the past; your only focus is on what is here right now. What you are likely to be absolutely aware of in your now are extremely uncomfortable emotions. Wonderful! All of your actions in your past have been to avoid facing these feelings. Now, that is impossible. Welcome to your NOW. Keep releasing your thoughts about these feelings. Avoid labelling them. Feel them. Notice where they occur in your body. Fully experience the sensations. Release the desire to chase them away, to change them, to rationalize their existence, or to understand them. Just let them be. Set them free to express however they might wish to do. Your job is to watch, feel, and follow. Notice where you hold a definition of yourself as depressed, angry, jealous or whatever.
Replace those thoughts with the simple awareness that depression, anger, jealousy, or whatever seem to be present. Then let that go and return to the feeling that is being expressed in your body. Now it is no longer depression but a feeling in your heart chakra that perhaps feels heavy and constrictive. The thought is not from the now, but the feeling is very much in your present. So, stay with the bodily sensations, following rather than leading. If you notice yourself trying to lead or alter the feelings, just be aware of that and return focus to the body. Leaving it to Spirit is accepting whatever is here now. What is here now are these bodily sensations. Perfect. Receive and follow. This is giving it to Spirit. These feelings won’t be here forever. Everything moves constantly in the now. Enjoy them while you can. Let them move. Let them amplify or diminish. Let them morph into something else. What is key here is the word “let”. This is Spirit’s gift to you. If you are struggling, you are resisting Spirit, not trusting the Divine. Spirit is always bringing you what you most need. Your only job is to open your heart in gratitude instead of resisting and thinking you know better. This is what giving it to Spirit is. Giving it to Spirit is realizing that you are actually giving nothing; Spirit has always had it. You have no need to create heaven on earth. You don’t have a clue as to what that actually would be nor how to bring it about.
That heaven is presented in every moment by Spirit. If you are wondering how this pain you are experiencing could be called heaven on earth, please reread the July message. When you experience discomfort, whether it be mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual, you do the counter-intuitive thing. Your mind wants it to stop, but instead you dive into it, immersing yourself in the pain. You do the opposite of what the ego wants. Instead of applying the brakes, you accelerate. You drive/dive right into what you want to have go away. If things terrify you, jump into your fear. Where is it in your body? Feel it. Let it go wild. It may feel like it will kill you. Find out if it will. The alternative is to live with that fear forever. It is time to remind you that none of this is real. It is all a fantasy, a dream – or a nightmare for some of you. Your ego mind takes it all deadly seriously. Nothing in the physical experience truly matters. What matters for you is your belief in it and the energy you give to the importance of the illusion. All of this keeps the dream alive for you. Whatever it is that you fear or that triggers other feelings you label as negative is not real. You won’t realize that by listening to Me. This awareness will only come through diving into it. Attempting, though of course unsuccessfully, to chase it away just makes it real to you.
All that is real is the You that is experiencing all of this. It will never go away. So, have your experiences. Enjoy the ride. Do you choose your experiences each day? Only to a limited degree. Truth be told, you never know what is coming next. Stop trying to control, change, or hide from what appears. Hop on board. The true You is indestructible. The Divine You has chosen for you. Whatever happens, when the dust settles, there you are. You simply are. As Spirit is, as God is, You are. Your mind thinks you are the body, you are less than Divine, and that you will die. Stop listening! Dive into the now. Dive into the feelings. Otherwise, there can never be peace of mind, nor can that peace come out of an intention or a goal. In that case you are busy trying to change what is.
Let’s come back to the original statement about peace of mind leading to stagnation. Have you ever had peace of mind for a long and sustained period of time? Have you felt that peace for weeks, months, or years on end? I would be very surprised if your honest answer was yes. If it is no, how can you think that peace of mind leads to stagnation? You have no experience to back up such a belief. That is just another crazy idea, one of thousands in the insane mind of humanity. So, let’s let go of peace of mind, of heaven on earth, of love, joy, and happiness as constant states of mind, of never experiencing “negative” emotions. Go for not going. Go for hanging out with or without lethargy with what is now. Your only goal is to have no goal (previous message), to be with what is. Does that mean that you don’t interact with the world? Of course you do, but not with the intention to create a certain result. You play because it is all there is to do. Whatever presents itself is the only game in town. If emotions are triggered in the playing of the game, then that is a part of the game. Play on. If part of your game is to try to change the game, I wish you the best of luck. We can talk again later. I am always a part of your game. Listen to your Divine Inner Coach.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How do I deal with addictions?
We’ve received several questions from individuals who find that dealing with addictions is a major component in their lives. Often this takes the form of having a partner and/or a parent who is an alcoholic. These people relate feelings of helplessness, being compelled to try to aid but experiencing a hopelessness that things will ever change. The first place to look, always, when it seems that another is causing you problems or you feel yourself to be the victim of their behavior, is at projection. Whatever you are seeing or judging in another is yours. It shows what you believe and judge in yourself. The ego mind will scream out, “No! It’s them, it’s not me!” Listening to the ego thoughts just continues the cycle, ensuring there will be no resolution and no change. The hopeless endlessness and futility of any attempts at solutions will persist. The cause of the challenge is never outside of you; it is always within.
Confusing cause and effect is the hallmark of the ego mind. When you accept that the addiction is yours, it becomes a whole new game. You can now ask yourself what you are addicted to. You will not likely face that if you remain attached to the belief that it is the other who is addicted. In the case of perceived alcoholism, some people are addicted to living with an alcoholic. Addiction is a patterned response when one doesn’t accept what is here now in their life. Of course, this is easily seen with alcoholics. They find life to be not acceptable. Depression or other undesirable emotions can be escaped through the consumption of alcohol. Addiction is simply avoidance; it is using some technique to not be in the now. It is an expression of wanting life to be other than it is. An awareness of the habit of rejecting what is in yourself makes it much easier to see your own addiction. You may be telling yourself that you don’t drink like your partner does, so you are not an addict. But do you reject your partner as they are, wishing them to display different behavior? That may be one of your addictions. You do not accept what is. Your mind might be asking, is it okay just to accept the drinking with no attempt to stop it? Has your disapproval, your judgment had any effect so far? Do you actually have the power to change the situation? For some of you this has gone on for decades. All your efforts have failed. What remains is the addiction to try to make a difference, to not accepting what is.
Let’s take this away from the stereotypical examples of addiction such as alcohol and drugs. Anything that you do to avoid being in and accepting the now is addictive behavior. Let’s say you are having an uncomfortable feeling. You may choose to meditate, because in your experience, meditating allows you to rise above uncomfortable emotions and go to another more peaceful place. This is addictive behavior. Though this action does not carry along with it the same health concerns that accompany drinking or drugs, it is like them in that it does not “solve” the problem. It simply avoids it for the moment. The feelings will return. The habit of choosing to escape uncomfortable feelings will continue. The relief is only temporary. You each have your addictions of choice for avoiding what you don’t want to see. Some go for walks, train or run, or eat (ice cream seems to be the recipient of much of the blame here).
What would it look like to actually face the demons in your life? To begin with it might mean to empty the mind of thoughts about the situation. Thoughts are an addiction. The need to understand is an addiction. Let go of that mental activity. You can’t stop a thought from coming into your mind, nor can you choose the next one. You can choose to not dwell on what arrives. You can stop following or acting on those thoughts. You can starve them through inattention. Where does the focus go if not to mental activity? Your awareness goes to the feeling you are wanting to escape. You probably have a label or a name for this feeling. It might be anger, envy, hopelessness, frustration, or anxiety. Let go of the definition; don’t give it a name. Don’t treat it like a thing and put it in a box. Instead ask how this emotion now expresses itself in your body. What are you feeling? Notice where in the body these sensations are felt. What are they like? Do not try to get rid of them or to have them change in a way that might be more comfortable. Even let go of any thoughts that your willingness to face the feelings will allow you to feel better.
All the preceding warnings are to help you avoid addictive behavior. The ego mind wants to choose anything rather than be with what is, so your job is simply to accept or face what is there and to experience it fully without any other agenda. As you fully experience the sensations, as you pay complete attention to them, you will notice that they change. Nothing remains constant in the now except your presence and awareness. The change that occurs is not due to your attention. Change is the natural course. Your attention simply allows you to be aware of the movement. If you try to use your mind to explain and understand or change the feeling, you lose touch with what is being felt in the now and, instead, will hold on rigidly to the previous feeling. This does not mean that the change will provide a lessening of the sensation. It might increase; it might move to other parts of your body. Again, your only task is to stay with the bodily sensation and ignore whatever your mind might try to tell you. So, you sit and listen to whatever is present in those feelings just as you might sit and listen to the birds chirping or the leaves rustling in the breeze or the scream of a siren in the distance. Those sounds are there. You can’t make them go away. You can cover your ears, but the sounds are still there. You can choose addictive behavior, but the feelings are still there. You can opt to experience the fullness of the feelings in your body without taking recourse to the addictive patterns of thinking about the discomfort. Let go of definitions and words. Find out what is truly there and allow it to exist. Let it remain as long as it wants to be there. Let it morph into whatever it will become, not because you wish it would become something else, but because that is its nature, and you are curious to see where it will lead.
Let’s return to something we touched on earlier. I can hear the silent screams coming from some of you, upset that We might call your meditation an addiction. The function of meditation is to experience and hear what is present, totally, including the guidance that is heard from your inner wisdom, from your Divine self. It is not to be used to shut out the world or to go to a euphoric place. That, again, is addictive behavior, avoidance. I am by no means discouraging you from indulging in meditation if you find it to be relaxing and enjoyable. But I ask you to be absolutely honest with yourself. What is your motivation here? Do you use it for escape? We would suggest that true meditation is letting the mind and thoughts go and being fully aware of what is transpiring in the present. There is an absolute purpose for the emotion you are feeling. The mind wants to figure out what the feeling is about. The mind is not capable of doing this. We could say that the mind’s thoughts and beliefs are responsible for triggering the feeling. How can the mind be cause and solution at the same time? It can’t. It can only continue to muddy the water. The mind cannot defeat the mind. You simply learn how to not pay attention to it. Your emotional response is likely the reaction to something the mind is holding as true. Changing thoughts is like electing new leaders. Nothing is solved. Your meditative process is to accept every feeling, all that is around you, without censure or judgment. It is not to shut out the feelings, but to amp up the reception. True meditation is not active or directive, but passive and receptive. As we talked about in previous messages, it is tuning into Divine Will, not personal will. You don’t have to change your mind; you just stop thinking. You don’t have to change your feelings. In fact you can’t, rather you pay attention to what is there. As the mind begins to stop creating poisonous lies, the body will stop reacting. In the meantime, it is good to know. There is an enormous benefit to listening to what your feeling has to say. You don’t blame the smoke alarm for the fire. Disabling it will certainly not leave you safer. Have gratefulness for your alarm system going off. Your feeling is showing that your mind is on a bender. It is not your task to figure all this out. You only listen to the feelings and allow them to lead you, rather than attempting to lead them. Follow them. They are not the problem. It would be closer to the truth to call them the solution, but the deepest truth is that there is no problem. This is a balancing energy to the confusion of the mind. Listen to these sensations and allow them to take you where they will. That ultimate place is deep within you. This is true meditation.
As you are releasing your addiction to the mind, your habit of escaping the feelings by attempting to change, ignore, or get rid of them, your mind is not simply going to wave a white flag and surrender. It might play some of the following games. It could go the route of justification through proclaiming your feelings to be good and right because anybody in your situation would be reacting as you are. If you listen to this, you have let the mind back in and withdrawn focus from the feeling sensations. Another mind game is to try and understand your feelings. Your mind will also try to defend the feelings, a close partnership with justification. You may try to make yourself feel righteous, while whoever has triggered the emotion is in the wrong. Feelings are not good and bad. They just are. Joy and ecstasy are not good feelings. Trying to hold onto “good” feelings while jettisoning “bad” feelings is another example of mind games. You will not be successful in holding those you want anymore than you are able to get rid of those you don’t like. Full awareness of your feelings speaks nothing about action or expression of the feeling sensations. Any need to express your feelings is an idea. Spontaneously something may burst forth, but that is just what is. Notice the expression and let it be a part of your now (though it will quickly recede from that stage). You may be guided to action, but no decision is involved there. You simply know and do, always then returning awareness to the present. These feelings are yours. Others have no need to know of their existence. In a similar manner to how you would not be likely to do your meditation on a busy city street with sounds of traffic and loud voices of pedestrians around you, facing your feelings is best done in a quieter setting and does not involve other people.
Let’s go full circle now and return to the initial question which dealt with the addictions of others, rather than personal addictions. When you stop projecting upon your partner or whoever the other person might be and own the addiction yourself, dealing with it as we have discussed in this message, interesting things will happen. Interesting things are always happening in the now. I want to remind you that your job is not to seek results, but to be with whatever is happening. The goal is not to end your partner’s alcoholism. All that is required is that you be present with what is happening and with whatever feelings are elicited from you. As you are staying present with these emotions, maybe you notice changes in your partner and maybe you don’t. That is not important. What is of significance is what is going on within you. Stay away from your thoughts so you can notice what is present. Whatever that might be, it is not static. The present is constantly moving. Stay with it. As you take full responsibility for yourself, you will gradually become aware that you are not responsible for your partner. As you stop judging yourself, so will you stop judging the other. As everything fully comes home to you and you accept your part in the game, noticing where your addictions lie and taking responsibility for where you do have power, one of two things will likely occur. One may be that you accept your partner as they are, whether they have stopped drinking or not, and are no longer negatively impacted and are guided to stay in the relationship. On the other hand, you may feel guided to leave the relationship, made aware that that mirror is no longer necessary. These are not right and wrong decisions, in fact they are not truly decisions but rather “knowing” that become obvious. Beyond that, no action or guidance is forever; it is for right now. Your job is always with yourself. When you listen to and take care of yourself, you are taking care of the world. When you don’t take care of yourself, you are serving no one. Be with your feelings in the now. Stop fighting what is happening and really listen to and welcome everything, rather than trying to change or improve anything. Let that awareness guide you and your relationship. That’s it!
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How can pain be a gift?
The following was taken from a recent group session.
Sanhia: If the now includes a feeling of pain … that is perfect.
Participant One: It should be nice. but it is not nice. It is painful. If perfection is pain, then maybe it is perfect.
Sanhia: If there is the experience of pain, and the thought appears and is held onto that “I wish I weren’t feeling pain”, there is pain about pain. The wishing away of pain does not make anything better. The thought that it shouldn’t be here doesn’t change anything.
Participant One: I feel so embarrassed of being overwhelmed by the pain.
Sanhia: You can not change the event that triggered the pain. You cannot stop the feeling of grief. You can choose not to dwell on thoughts that the event should not have happened or that you should be reacting differently. These thoughts do not change what is. They certainly don’t help you feel better. So, you notice the thought is there and let it go. Continue with the feelings rather than with the thoughts. Whatever is here now is real. The thoughts want to take you somewhere else. Stay here. If pain is present, remain with the bodily sensations. You will be better off not even labelling these feelings. Notice what is felt and hang with it. One thing about the now… it is constantly changing. Stay with the feeling until it changes and then continue with what comes then. If you notice yourself wanting the feelings to move in any direction, let the thought go and allow the feelings the freedom to express or move however they wish to. Your body is an amazing healing machine. It will do whatever needs to be done if you simply let it do its job. What happens if you just stop exercising that muscle that wants things to be different and refuses to accept what is? One thing is certain; if you try to change what is to what you want it to be, you will fail.
Participant One: But it feels like I am failing at everything.
Sanhia: That thought comes from the ego mind belief that you are running the show. If you are not running the show, how can you possibly fail? Things simply are as they are. You didn’t create them that way. Why would you have if you had that ability? How self-destructive would you have to be to create what you absolutely don’t want? That is a crazy idea! You cannot change things; you cannot make them better. You wouldn’t even know what would truly be better. What is now is perfect. We know that because that is how it is. Let the energy of the mind be filled with letting it be, with finding gratitude, or with experiencing whatever feelings seem to block gratitude.
Participant One: But it feels like I must have chosen this on some level. I can’t tell if it is a gift or a disaster.
Sanhia: Precisely. You are powerless to change the situation but able to be present with it, to see it as it is without your thoughts. This is giving it to God. There is no need to understand why it is happening, to be able to see it as either a gift or a disaster. It simply is and you experience certain bodily sensations along with it. If you fight it, you fight God. You will “lose”, that is you won’t be able to change what is and you will experience pain in trying and failing.
Participant One: But I am going to have pain anyway.
Sanhia: Then accept that you have pain. Try not to give it a label, but experience what you are feeling without trying to change it or make it go away. Leave your personal will out of it.
Participant One: I can do lots of things to try to not focus on it. I can go to work, watch a film, call a friend.
Sanhia: I am going to speak to a part of your mind that will recall this talk from time to time. There will be a moment when you realize that everything is as it should be, that everything is perfect no matter how it feels, that there is no part of you that would ever want things to be any different. You will have the experience that everything that is here right now, without exception, is here to support you. There is nothing but life. So, in whatever way in this now you are able to stop resisting and look at life in the face as it is, you are opening up to having this as your constant awareness. On the other hand, every time you push the now away, say “take this cup away from me”, or want something else, you are prolonging the period of pain and agony. Pain is transitory. If you simply feel it, it will last a little while, morph, and then disappear. If you don’t face it, avoid it, or try to push it away, the pain will just hang around. You will drag out the suffering for a long time. I am planting these thoughts so that in any now they may float to the surface. You might ask why you are shooting yourself in the foot and will instead embrace whatever is there.
Participant One: I like the picture of the water which accompanies my Life Path number in my numerology chart. I feel like I am on the shore watching the water rush past. Why don’t I just jump in? Maybe I can do that. I can feel both the joy and the fear of jumping in.
Sanhia: I have been sharing some “Michael” stories with you of late. One thing that you might notice from them is that the things that encouraged him to let go of ego mind more than anything else were the times that were so hard to accept. He did not grow nearly as quickly when things worked out as he wanted them to. There was always value in those experiences as well, but the benefits tended to be more temporary. The things that were the most painful, those he did not want to have happen, were the ones that proved to be the greatest gifts. Right now, you can express gratitude for the gift without having a clue what the gift is. You can take time to really look at it and feel it instead of pushing it away.
Participant One: I understand.
Sanhia; You can decide to stop fighting what is. A nineteenth century Indian chief from a north-western American tribe, known as Chief Joseph, after watching his people repeatedly lied to and massacred by the American government, finally surrendered, stating, “I will fight no more forever”. He stopped fighting and accepted what was. Spirit/God will remove everything that stands in the way of your awakening, if necessary. Nothing real can be lost. For some people a great amount of loss, pain, and suffering is required before they decide to fight no more forever.
Participant One: (tears)
Sanhia: You can fight for seemingly forever, but you can stop fighting in an instant.
Participant One: I can feel where that fighting spirit is; it is right where the pain is.
Sanhia: Let’s play with this a little. Let’s say that you feel something that you call sadness. If possible, let the label go and just notice the feeling. Now it is another moment, and you notice the feeling is still there and you feel it in your heart chakra. Your mind wants to take over and explain why you are sad. Your situation is horrible, and anybody would be feeling sadness. You have now lost track of what is present and are instead watching/listening to an endless loop of the story. This mind view is all you are allowing yourself to experience in the now. Nobody is forcing you to keep your attention riveted to your story. This is your personal will acting. Rather than experience the freshness that the present always has, you are stuck in this endless loop. It’s a little like holding your breath. This is not so good for the health. Try paying attention to the fresh thought that comes as well as the fresh feeling. Notice but don’t hold on to it. There is a children’s game called hot potato. A roasted potato is tossed to you. If you hold on to it you will burn your hands, so you lob it to another who flips it to another and so on. Your thoughts are like hot potatoes. In the now you would not hold on or you would be burned.
Participant One: People keep reminding me of my story when I meet them. It’s hard for me to speak about what I’m going through.
Sanhia: You don’t have to share with them what is there, but for yourself – notice. They are reminding you to notice your now. If they seem to treat you as a “poor you”, that is your mirror. In any case you can thank them for asking but share only if you feel guided. This is your now. There is nothing you must do. You do as you are guided. If you feel a need to decide, know that your personal will is acting. When Spirit is ready to act, you will know. There will be no decision to make. It is not your job to make others feel that you are doing alright. Your job is ever simpler. It is just to be present with what moves now. Otherwise, you will have nothing to give to others but your pain and your fear.
You won’t always have your pain, but if you are willing to have it, to experience it, and to go where it leads you, it will have served its purpose. The bright light of love is always on the other side. The pain is necessary to burn away the clouds of your illusions, the untruths you hold about yourself and life. Let it do its valuable, irreplaceable job. The gift is always there. You deserve to feel the truth of your Divinity, which can only be found in this now.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How can I learn to love myself?
We have a question that came in response to the previous message on co-dependency. It is paraphrased here.
Many of our problems seem to come from not being loved as a child, and then we feel we have a black hole inside that needs to be filled. All spiritual answers I have heard are saying the same thing, that you must love yourself. But how to love yourself if we don’t know how to do it or even know what love is? How do we get to know if no one shows us? I’m sure the answer is true, but I feel a big blaming towards the one who doesn’t have love. My feeling is that the ones who have love in their life should show the others love. I have read “You shall love others as yourself” from Jesus. He didn’t say, “You have to love yourself first,” as I often hear from spiritual books and teachers. That has always made me wonder, feel, or sense that this interpretation can make people more egocentric.
Thank you for that wonderful question. Hopefully we will deal with all aspects of it. I wish to begin by saying that not many, but all your problems come from wanting your personal will to have precedence over the Will of God. They germinate from your wish for what is to be different than it is. What is is the will of God. It is God’s gift to you in this moment, the perfect thing for you. It is given with love because God is Love and could give nothing else. It can feel painful to you because your personal will wants something else, contrary to what God is providing. If you maintain that separation, you will suffer and feel unloved. This has nothing to do with how you were raised. Your perceptions about your upbringing have everything to do with your beliefs and projections, in your separation from the Divine Love of God. I will tell you the absolute truth about your parents. They, Divine Children of God, were doing the best that they could. Mostly they were choosing personal will over Divine Will as all humans do most of the time. If you want to know how to love, begin by thanking your parents for not only doing their best, but for playing the role that needed to be enacted in your life to best support your awakening process. Your work now is to go inside and see where you hold your parents in judgment; that place where you do not love them is where you also do not love yourself. Ask Spirit or God to assist you in receiving the gift that your parents were and are for you. Wherever you feel less than full acceptance, that is the work for you to do. To be a victim is to say to God that “You are wrong”. It is to choose your personal will over that of God. It is to state that you think you know better. It is to condemn yourself to misery and separation from feeling the Love of God. While believing that God didn’t give you what you wanted, it was you who resisted and didn’t want what God gave you. Give up your separation. Give up your personal will. Stop fighting what is, while wanting things to be different. This is what being in the now is. Have the intention to accept God’s Will for you. Trust what is here now, knowing that it is the highest and the best thing.
The question about loving yourself, the spiritual teaching…I can understand your confusion. How does one go about loving oneself? How do we define love? What is it? Other good questions. It is said that the truth that can be written or stated is not the whole truth. Words cannot explain what love is. We encourage you to approach these questions using the process of elimination. What is not love? We have already provided one enormous hint. Choosing personal will over Divine Will is not love. If God is Love, then not choosing God’s Will is not choosing love. This likely means that everything you have ever learned about love is probably untrue. If it is about getting your personal desires met, it is not about love. Look at all the goals you have for your personal self. Wanting to feel loved is a goal for your personal self. Stop striving for those things. Instead focus on receiving the love that God is giving you each moment of every day. See what that is. Reread the last message and see all the aspects of co-dependency that are mistaken for love. Anything you wish to receive from anybody else is not an expression of love. Those are expressions of lack, of neediness. God provides everything you need in the now. Looking elsewhere is a refusal to accept the Will of God.
You are not a hole that needs to be filled. You are a Divine Child of God, perfect as you are. The human condition is belief in separation from God. That is the biblical fall. It encompasses not feeling loved or loveable, of feeling guilty. This has nothing to do with your parents. It has to do with you. This is not blame. This is the human condition. You share it with everyone on the planet. Everyone’s job is to let go of their personal will and to follow the Will of God, to accept the perfection that God is presenting in the ever changing and morphing present. Whatever you are experiencing now that is not acceptable to you is your creation. That is not blame; it is how it is. If you pretend this is not your creation, you give away all your power. When you choose to want your will to rule, you create these painful experiences to appear to be real. Use your power by surrendering it to God instead of pretending to be a victim. To say that others who have love should share it with you is an expression of victimhood, of co-dependency. You are saying that you need somebody else to do this work for you, but they cannot do that. You are in charge of your experience, not them. If they could control your life by determining whether to give you love, you certainly would be a helpless victim. Fortunately, this is not the case.
Nobody can show you love because others act as your mirror. If you are not loving yourself, if you are not accepting yourself as you are right now, then you will not find that love reflected at you from others. Oh, you might bask in it for a while, but the feeling of being loved won’t stick. To ask for others to show you love is not a realistic request. If another is living in love, they can only spread that love to everyone else on the planet. This is not even a choice. If others are not in such a space, they have nothing to give. In either case, the effect on the one who feels unloved will be nil. So, to ask for others to share love with you is a futile gesture. That can only start with you. Then you can begin to receive what has always been there for you. The irony, of course, is that when you are capable of receiving love you have no need to do so. Again, give up your personal will’s need to be shown love, and surrender to the Will of God who will always rain love down upon you. Again, in the final analysis, only you can do this work. Nobody can do it for you. That may sound frightening; it may leave you feeling helpless, but ultimately it is the most empowering thing that you could hear. To feel love, you do not need anybody else to do anything or to act in any certain way toward the world. You have the absolute power here. You are not and cannot be a victim because it is all in your hands.
Let’s go back to the statement about spiritual teachers saying that the first thing is to love yourself and your fear that this might lead people to becoming more egocentric, just thinking about themselves. If one’s interpretation of loving yourself amounts to looking at what you want to have in your life and feeling that you deserve to have these desires met, then that is an endorsement for following personal will. That is not surrendering to the Will and Love of God. It could be said that it is an act of thinking you know better than God what is best for you. It is an act of resistance to God’s Love. It does not demonstrate trust; it is not an acceptance of the now. If that is how “loving oneself first” is interpreted, you have a good point. Now, looking at the biblical statement from Jesus which is often interpreted as, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” there arises a curious question. If you are not loving yourself, does that mean not to love others either? Perhaps this is not a statement of putting yourself or others in the supreme position, but one of expressing the Oneness between you. You are encouraged to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, not so that you have a technique for getting what you want, but as a statement of fact. As you do to others, you at the same time do to yourself. It can be no other way. There is no separation.
Your job, as was mentioned in the last message, is to take care of yourself. As you do that, there is no problem with having the intention to give loving service to all others around you, not because it is the right thing to do, but because it requires you to be in the now and to pay attention to loving energy. As you do this you become aware of every place where you hold a judgment about another. You own that judgment, realizing it is one you hold toward yourself. You work with that in yourself until you look out and see nothing but loving acceptance of the other. Truly loving others is quite an accomplishment that should keep you busy for a while. If you hold the thought that your feelings of love are other people’s responsibility, that you don’t know how to love yourself so they have to do it for you, to teach you how, then I am sorry to inform you that you will remain unhappy and feel unloved and separate from God for as long as you hold onto that belief. This is not blame. This is how it is. Fortunately, you have absolute choice here. You can choose to follow the Will of God instead of your personal will. You can choose to accept and face the now to see what that is. Ultimately, we are not talking about a question of love, particularly in terms of what most human’s understanding for that term is. We are talking about will. Is it your will or is it God’s Will?
Let me bring this to a conclusion by reminding you about how you might go about surrendering to the Will of God while releasing your personal will. This is not a formula. This is not telling you the way to do this. This is not written in stone. These are simply pointers. Ultimately, your inner Divine Knowing will guide you. To begin with, you can notice two things. First observe your thoughts. Be aware of when the thoughts indicate that you don’t want things to be as they are or where you want the future to be different from the present. Notice when the thoughts are about being a victim of your past. As you are aware of these thoughts, do your best not to act on them. Just be conscious they are there in your present. Don’t allow your mind to follow long trains of thought along those tracks. These are thoughts from your personal will. Notice they are there and give them to God, to Spirit, to Me, to Someone Else. Holding on to the now as being unsatisfactory creates the illusion of separation from God, and therefore, from the Will of God. How it is right now is God’s gift to you; whether you understand it or not doesn’t matter. Your only task is to look at it as you release your judgmental thoughts. Try to really see what is here. Focus on that rather than on what is not here. As you become practiced in this you will notice that what is here is in constant motion, changing, morphing, reforming. Replace your thoughts about how it should be or about what is missing with your awareness of what it is.
I said there would be two things and that was the first. Secondly, notice that you might be having emotional reactions to what is in your now, both connected to the noticing of what is happening and to your thoughts. These feelings are your reactions to your beliefs in separation. You are reacting to what isn’t rather than to what is. Notice those feelings and stay as present as you can with them. If your mind wants to rationalize the feelings as being caused by this or that or feeling victim to whatever this or that is, notice and let the thoughts go. Whatever your mind is focusing on as a cause is not here now. If a cause should be here in your now, then action might be appropriate, but usually it isn’t present. A car headed directly at you is in your now. Your parents are not likely here now, nor are world events you have read or heard about. What is here right now? Your feelings are here, so accept them. There is no need to act on them, just let them be present and release any need to change them or to judge yourself for having them. Simply experience them until they are no longer in your now. Wherever your feelings or your thoughts try to lead you, do your best not to follow. Stay with what is happening. It is that simple, though not necessarily easy. Your habit is to follow the ego driven personal will, but God is in the now.
God’s Love is in the now. God is within you. You are Divine. You will never experience that just because I am telling you who you are or should other people share that with you. If you are feeling separate from God and lack trust in the perfection of what is being brought to you, you will not likely experience your Divine Nature. When you don’t accept the now, you are expressing distrust in God and choosing your personal will over God’s. If you want to follow God’s will, stop! Stop following your own will. You do this through practice, by welcoming and saying thank you to whatever is there, and by fully accepting your feelings without trying to change them. You can do this. You are Love. You are Divine. As your Creator is, so are you. One and the same. Could not be different. The awareness of this arrives as you stop resisting God’s gifts, as you let go of efforts to try to change things or to make yourself better. That’s part of the reason that We say:
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Can you explain to us about co-dependency?
This question surfaced in a group several months ago, but now the time has come to respond to it. We will begin by talking about what is referred to as the special relationship in A Course in Miracles. The special relationship is a co-dependent relationship. Since most human relationships are special, they are in most cases co-dependent. If your mind wants to limit the term co-dependency to extreme or diagnosable relationships, it is aiming a bit high. But first, let Us step back and define the special relationship. It has been some time since we have mentioned this, and likely before many of you began reading the messages. In the special relationship one person wants the other to act in a specific way, to play a certain role. For example, you meet someone and they make you feel special; they make you feel loveable. Whatever it is that they do that makes you feel good or special, you want them to continue. This is co-dependency. You have a need for them to keep on doing those things that make you feel so wonderful. Normally in the special relationship this neediness goes both ways, but let’s just stay with you for now. There is a flip side to the co-dependent relationship. This is where the words or actions of someone you spend a bit of time with seem to cause you upset, pain, or negative emotions. You blame them for your negative reactions. You point the finger; You think you are going through what you are feeling because of them. This is a co-dependent relationship. Special relationships usually have a mix of both the positive and the negative triggers. As we have talked about recently, these liaisons involve projection. We have focused more on the negative aspect there, where you don’t wish to see yourself as having a certain quality so you can then convince yourself that it is the other and not you who is that way. This is co-dependency.
The projecting goes both ways, though. If you are unable to see yourself as loveable, you let another do that for you. The biggest problem here is that, as with all projections, deep inside you believe it isn’t true. You don’t love yourself or believe that you are deserving of love. Sooner or later your denial surfaces and you prove your partner to be wrong. You will not be able to continue performing for them and they will not be able to always act as you wish them to. It feels so good to have someone tell you that you are loveable, but you don’t really trust that. You begin to resent having to perform for them. You become upset if they change in any way or show you anything but unconditional acceptance. The honeymoon is over. The flame of your relationship was based on the other causing you to feel in a certain way, but now that has blown out. The things that used to turn you on begin to turn you off. This is the normal trajectory of the co-dependent relationship. If you doggedly hold on to the need for them to complete you, the battle will rage on and on. The negative aspects of projection may grow to exceed the positive ones. At this point you may decide to pull the plug. Since the problem is with the other, you have obviously picked wrongly. You seek another relationship. Until you give up co-dependency, reclaim your projections, and take responsibility for everything in your life as your creation, the new relationship will go through the same cycle. In despair somewhere along the way, you may decide to stay with the relationship you have, withdrawing from your partner and settling for feeling separate and unloved, deciding on some level that is all you are worth. Even then, there is still the possibility that you can stop looking to your partner for the love you want. The only solution, whether choosing fight or flight, is to come to the point of recognition that this isn’t working and it is time to try something else.
Sometimes in this special relationship you feel that you must take responsibility for the other. This often happens for parents, but it can just as well be a part of a committed relationship. Now you are doubly trapped because the bond is not only unfulfilling, but you have too much guilt to be able to leave. The other person needs you, or so you believe.
So, what is there beyond co-dependency? The relationship that is not marked by specialness can be called a holy relationship. In this association you have no desire for the other to be or do anything different from what they are now expressing. You accept them as they are. You love them without conditions. It is not possible to express unconditional love for another unless you are already doing that for yourself. When you are fully accepting yourself, you notice where you have guilt, where you are judging, where you are unkind to yourself, where you are experiencing strong emotions, and you commit to loving, accepting, and forgiving all of that. You take full responsibility for what you are thinking and feeling about yourself. You own your projections mirrored in those who trigger you. You do not allow these projections to go unchallenged. Remind yourself that this is you. This is what you are not wanting to face in yourself. Notice what you are holding to be true about yourself from both your own thoughts and from your projections and ask if those thoughts are really true. Work with all of that. Own it all. Take responsibility and sort through it. Look nowhere but within for the love you seek. Where you find this challenging, give it to Spirit, give it to God.
Let go of those thoughts. Don’t hold on to them or follow them. Don’t act from them. Notice them and move on. If the thoughts return, be willing to stare them in the face. Look deeply to see if there is indeed truth there. I know they are not true, but you must stay with them until you too know it. You are the Divine Child of God, made in the image of your Creator, an entity of love. That’s all you can be. Anything else you are holding on to is not the truth. It stems from the belief that you have separated from God. That is not possible. That is an illusion. That is the illusion. The holy relationship is your relationship with the Divine; it is only about unconditional love. The only function of the special relationship is to show you where you are co-dependent and not giving everything to God. It is an opportunity to recognize where you hold untruths about yourself so that you can realize your Oneness with God. Your relationships with others don’t exist in order for you to get something from them, but as places for you to give love. You have no need to be completed. You are whole. It is never about changing another or yourself. It is all about accepting the Divinity which is the truth of all.
I want to remind you that co-dependency is not limited to the perceived negative aspects, to the places where you judge or feel yourself to be victim to another. It is just as significant with the things you perceive coming from others that you consider to be positive. When you know that you are love, created in the image of God, how can you have any need to hear that from another. The latter expression can only feel good to you, feel special, if you have doubts as to its veracity. Whether the reinforcement from others feels to be negative or positive, it is just a pointer to where you are holding yourself separate from God. Give silent thanks for the reminder, take it to heart, and go to work.
Over time you will find yourself unable to hold on to the praise of others. You will perhaps begin to doubt their sincerity. You decide they are just being nice or that they have ulterior motives, they want something from you. They’re buttering you up, “kissing your ass”. The bottom line is that you cannot receive from them something you don’t know to be true. If you know its truth, the praise is redundant. Otherwise, it may feel good for a moment but, like with any drug, the effect begins to wear off and you desire another hit. You start to do things to win other’s approval. Perhaps you do things to prove they are wrong in their praise. The bottom line is that you cannot receive from them something you don’t know to be true.
If you know you are love, you will have nothing but love for others, no matter what they might say or do. As you are practicing loving yourself unconditionally, letting go of all guilt, judgment, self-hatred – think about loving others unconditionally. Have the intention to give love to everyone you meet, rather than looking for what you can get. See their Divinity. Look through their pretence at being human and unlovable. Observe the truth of them. Know they are doing the best they can and offer whatever you can to lighten their load. Have a holy relationship with everybody. Above all, have that with yourself, particularly when you are aware of its absence. Be kind, loving, and gentle to yourself and ask for Spirit to come help you release your personal will and surrender to the Will of God, Who only loves you.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Is a long life something to be valued?
We had a question from a reader in Taiwan who wrote (and I am paraphrasing):
Life in its natural state is pure energy, so why do we call “life” a gift? Why is there an obsession with the longevity of life? Does Sanhia wish to return to the “solid body” and low vibratory life conditions again with all the uncertainty and challenges? I am aware that the Asian cultures – the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, at least – have a need to jump on the bandwagon of living long and being healthy, as Spock and the Vulcans said, “Live long and prosper”. Of course, one should take care of health, but as to how long one can live, who knows? Long life can be like longer sentences on “Death Row”. Sooner or later, it is all over; the body deteriorates; and we become a burden for others and ourselves.
It seems that the reader has a fairly good handle on the question, but we will go a little deeper. Since time does not exist, how can it have a value? Living long has no meaning if time is not real. What those of you who are reading this are doing now is living. Otherwise, you would have difficulty opening this message. You are in the now, and that’s all there is. There is no future. If you believe it exists, I will ask the questions, “Where is that future? Can you get there from here? How do you do that?” If somebody has an answer to these questions, please write back and we’ll have a conversation. The same questions arise with the past. All that is here is the present and in these few moments that you have been reading, how many presents have there been? As soon as you try to describe what is happening, you are referring to the past. The present is constantly moving and morphing. Any attempt to explain or understand it pulls you out of the now and into the past. You are no longer fully experiencing the present. If you accept that time is real and has a value, it might make sense to think that more time is a good thing. However, as the reader pointed out, if your experience of life in your body is hellish, then perhaps a longer life is not to be desired, and time instead holds a negative value; a shorter life might feel more desirable, less time in hell. Those who choose suicide might hold this negative view on time and earthly experience.
The reader asks if I would wish to return to a “solid body”? This is another crazy question, one that implies that choice exists. I simply AM. I do not act out of choice but flow with the Oneness. If you believe in choice, you are constantly pulled out of the now into your mind to search the archives for information to guide that choice. This is in lieu of letting yourself be present and going with the flow. It is a recipe for hell on earth. Less time or more time doesn’t matter. All that matters is now. Your reasons for leaving or staying all come from thoughts from your past, which, as you may recall, doesn’t exist.
Some cultures, in fact most modern cultures, place a value on a long life. They believe it is a tragedy when someone dies at a young age, the younger the person the greater the catastrophe. Even with somebody older, perhaps quite along in years, the death is still often held as a tragic event. All kinds of medicines, surgeries, and treatments are invested in, sometimes at great cost, to sustain the physical life. It is as if more days of life has a positive quality in and of itself. Rather than accepting that all will die, there is an attempt to fight what is, which eventually will be the person’s physical death. Why would one want to live longer? That idea can only come from a mind that is not in the present. In the now you are alive. You cannot live in the past or the future. If you are thinking about living longer, you are no longer in the now; you have stopped living. That is to say that the only place you can experience life is in the now. You can’t experience it in the future or the past. You are then pretending to be someplace else. You are in a dream within the dream. Whatever reasons there are for being in this dream exist only in the now. Having a focus to live long, means not living now. This connects with the words expressed in the last message about goals. I know that none of you are like this. but you might know of someone who denies themselves certain pleasures in the present out of the belief that this will help them live longer and have greater health in the future. Sacrifice today for tomorrow. Well, that’s a good plan. Perhaps if you deny yourself everything that might make the present more enjoyable you could live forever. Just kidding, well just a little bit. Seriously, if joy can only be in the future and you only can live in the now, your self-denial will be forever, and your joy will be for-never. .
There is only one reason why you are here and that is to awaken to the truth of yourself. The only place that you can do that is in the present. It doesn’t matter how much time you give yourself in order to wake up, that awakening will always remain in the future. But guess where you are. You are stuck in the now. How do you get to this future where you will be awake? Again, please write to Us if you can explain that one so that we can discuss it. If you know how to do that you are sitting on a gold mine.
We have another little matter here. Let’s just say that you could convince Us that having a long life would be a good thing, how would you go about creating that? We are assuming that you find life to be bearable enough that the thought of longevity doesn’t scare the hell out of you, or at least it scares you less than the thought of death. You must now have the belief that you can affect the timing of your earthly departure. Perhaps you are jogging every day, working out at the gym three times a week, eating a vegan macrobiotic diet, abstaining from alcohol, tobacco and drugs, fasting and purifying your body, doing yoga, meditating, and more. Are you certain that will lead you to living a longer healthier life? Are you sure that an object won’t fall out of the sky and land on your head? Are you sure that your electric car battery won’t explode? Do you know for certain that a terrorist won’t step into the store where you are shopping and blow himself and you up with his strapped-on bomb? Obviously, we’re just having some fun here, but wouldn’t it be ironic to come to such an end after giving your present over to guaranteeing a long and healthy life. The question again is, are you certain that no such present could happen for you?
The larger question is are you certain that you can control the future, that future that doesn’t exist? Are you sure you have that kind of control? How’s your track record? Has everything in your life come exactly as you have had it planned so far? Be honest here. This is your present you are thinking of sacrificing. If things always happen according to your hopes, go for it. When you celebrate your two-hundredth birthday, send me a postcard. I know, all communication will at least be electronic by then, but you catch my drift. The rest of you recognize that things don’t happen just the way you want them to. I will point out though, that if you are in the now, absolutely, and notice what is happening, you will know that all is occurring perfectly, and you would choose to change nothing. Your thinking, planning mind doesn’t have a clue what is in your best interest. What is in your now is absolutely in your best interest. It is necessary to see it, to not resist it but rather to welcome it in, opening to the wonder of it. You might as well. It is here and isn’t going anywhere. The last place to be is in the illusory future or wondering how long this now is going to last.
Let’s get on to the real biggie. Wanting to live longer is about the fear of death. If you are living in the now, totally present, there is no time. You are fully living. In truth, you are always fully living, but when you are not present you can become oblivious to that. Can you remember a time when you weren’t conscious, when you didn’t feel alive? If you can, please add that to your list of messages you can send to me. Tell me what that experience was like. Oh wait, how could you do that unless you had some consciousness in that moment. Not wanting to die is the fear of no consciousness. This is the terror that many do not want to face. The belief is that you are your body and when your body goes, so do you – down a black hole, into oblivion, never to exist again. The only way to deal with fear is to be totally in the present with it. Go right into that fear, that chasm, that void. See what is there. Feel where you carry it in your body. Use the five-step process with your fear of death. A famous songwriter once penned the lines, “He who is not busy living is busy dying”. Living is done in the present. If you are somewhere else, you are busy dying. Not only that, but you likely think that death is real. Believing in reincarnation is no different than affirming the existence of heaven and hell. It is avoiding the now, trying to mask the fear of death with a happy, or terrifying, picture of what will happen after your body dies. Everything you could possibly wish or hope for – all your dreams are right here in this moment. It has nothing to do with your body. The body is merely the form in which you are experiencing the now. The future and past have nothing to inform you of. In the now is the absolute knowing of the truth of you, of your isness that cannot be destroyed.
The script has already been written. Where, how, and when the death of your body will occur has been determined. You are only fooling yourself if you think you can have any control over that. When I say that you all share the purpose of awakening, that is not to say it will be experienced in the present incarnation. Those of you who are reading these messages or are actively focused on living in the present have a higher likelihood of such realization, but nothing is guaranteed by your efforts. You are all aware of people who think a spiritual focus such as we write about here is insane. They accept the world as real and want to either make it better, get their share of the pie, or are hopelessly despondent. Perhaps they believe there is no God or Oneness or whatever It might be called, or that it is just a random universe, and we are all victims of whatever might be coming down. Without any thought or intention toward waking up, it is less likely for them to experience that in this now. That is fine. It is written when that stirring will begin. It is none of your business. If their thoughts and actions disturb you, it is just mirroring the part of you that shares the same fears and beliefs. Thanks for the reflection. What is certain is your awakening. The timing is known, just not to you. It makes no difference in the illusion of time if it happens now, in ten years, or in ten lifetimes. It makes no difference. When you wake up, time stops. Past and future dissolve; there is just now. When that is your truth, it will not matter how long it took to get there, because there is no awareness of a past. Meanwhile, the more you can succeed in remaining in the now and not letting your thoughts lead you, the more possibility there is for peace and joy now.
I want to return to the very beginning of this month’s question. There seems to be a concern in the reader’s mind as to whether life is really a gift. Everything is a gift! Everything happening in each instant is a gift. It is only the mind rejecting what is given and thinking something else to be better that keeps this gift from being received and enjoyed. Only an unquestioning mind unled by past thoughts can achieve this. The questioner goes on to suggest that a long life isn’t something to wish for or wish onto another because it will just make your prison term longer. Yes, if you are not in the now, longevity may mean more time in hell. However, an early death is no reprieve; it simply postpones the awakening to another bodily experience. Nothing wrong with that, but equating being in a body with suffering comes from not living in the now. Seeing life as a struggle, as a negative thing, comes from not living in the now. Being in the present has nothing to do with how long you will live. It has nothing to do with time. The gifts are simply here now waiting for you to embrace them. Those things that are real do not deteriorate and break down. Death is a gift for the one who can go no farther towards awakening in this body. Your life is forever. The death of this body, like its birth, is just a story, just a movie, just an illusion. The truth is here in the now.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Why should my goal be to not set any goals?
A question has arrived from a member of a recent online group. I had lightly mentioned during the session that it could be your goal not to have any goals. A later discussion with the person’s family brought up many doubts about the advisability of such a course. Talking with family and friends is always an excellent way to have your doubts and confusion expressed for you. We’ll start with the word “should”, which I didn’t use. I suggest replacing that word with “could”, or “would”. “Should” implies a right or wrong, suggests that if you are “good” you will do it in this fashion. The statement that was made was not that it is wrong to have goals and good to not have goals. And, if you are following along at this point, how crazy is it to have the “goal” not to have “goals”. The statement was made in jest, but also in all seriousness. Duality requires that something be said, but not worshiped as absolute truth. What we wish to do is to investigate what is involved in the whole goal setting process.
One of the ideas put forth by the pro-goal faction is that there can be no progress without goals; for individuals or the world to improve, goals must be set and reached. Is that really true? Let’s take a closer look. To begin with, goals are set by the mind. The mind knows only what it has learned in the past. Therefore, goals can only seek to achieve what already exists. The mind runs on old stories. These goals can only reinforce old ideas about how things should be. People who are truly innovative, who help bring about remarkable change in the physical reality do so by ignoring their minds and what they have been taught. Instead, they observe what is and follow their inner guidance leading them to ideas that have not surfaced before. We could go back into history and witness those like Copernicus and Galileo who ignored what was taught to them about the earth being the center of the universe with everything rotating around it and observed what was to be seen through telescopes. They went inside to find explanations for what they observed. Or look at Einstein whose ideas went counter to everything that was taught in math and physics. He ignored all of that, in fact he was reported to not be a good student at all, being too busy seeing what he saw and going to his own intuitive guidance to find explanations that were not available in the world. New ideas do not spring out of old knowledge.
We could take a sidestep here and demonstrate the difference between being present, seeing what is there, and following inner guidance – all of which is not goal oriented. How can you have a goal about something that you know nothing about? Einstein developed theories that absolutely changed how we look at time, space, and matter. Later physicists have expanded upon these insights through their own observations and inner guidance. Parallel to this were goal-oriented scientists who chose to take these concepts learned from Einstein to develop a weapon that could be used to kill countless thousands of individuals. The old idea of war and destruction was a part of the justification for such goals. Even though centuries had shown that war never leads to peace, they took these old ideas and set a goal that allowed them to destroy two entire cities. It is very difficult to have a goal that doesn’t incorporate old ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, or should and shouldn’t. While humans continue to set goals as they have, nothing is learned. Past mistakes are repeated. War and poverty continue. Environmental degradation increases. There are fears that the ultimate result of human goals will be the annihilation of the planet. It could be. Goals are based on past learning and past learning is wrong and has never worked. Notice we didn’t say partially wrong. Past learning is all wrong – we are not talking of learning that allows one to function in the world, such as operating machinery and computers, cooking and finding one’s way around, but learning what life is about, what is important, and what is true. Something in the past may have been true for that moment in time, but it is not for today, not for now. Those answers lie in the present, not in the past. The past is not creative. It is repetitive. Repeating the same failing ideas will never make them work. A world that is not working cannot be made to work with the same old beliefs and ideas.
Why do you set goals? This is a place where being completely honest with yourself is important. Perhaps you believe that the realization of that goal will bring you happiness, peace, security, or love. I suggest that you look at your personal history at those times you have realized personal goals. Have they brought you any of that, other than the momentary high when the goal is first reached? Is that happiness, peace, security, or love sustained? Does that continue to be felt in your day-to-day life or do you compulsively set new goals to try to get that feeling back? Perhaps one sets the goal of being wealthy. Does that person ever have enough money? Is there a constant desire to accumulate more, perhaps more than could even be reasonably spent? So, the question remains of why the goal is being set. Again, honesty is important. If you are lying to yourself as to the true reason, how can you ever be satisfied? Is it because you want to feel that you have been successful in life? What is success? Who decides that? Whose approval is being sought? I suggest that you look long and hard for the true motivation for the goals you set. If you seek to feel at peace, then be at peace now. There is nothing that needs to be done. Peace is not earned. It is here right now, right in front of you. If you desire to feel loved, then love yourself now. Love everyone you meet today. Love what is happening now. Notice when you are not expressing love. Don’t decide that you need to be different in the future. Let go of unloving thoughts right now. Don’t feed them. One reason why goals fail is they are dishonest. You do not truly seek the realization of the goal; you seek something beyond that. What do you really seek? Where is it? Do you know exactly how to get there? My guess is that if you knew how to get there you would be there now. Why would you procrastinate for a minute? Instead, you have this belief that achieving a goal will bring you where you want to be. But it doesn’t do it. You don’t really have a clue. You are following somebody else’s formula for how your life should be. That formula is not working for them either, but it is what they learned.
Let’s take another sidetrack here. One of the greatest misunderstandings that most minds accept is that you have free will. You believe that you have a choice and your choices matter. You have no choice. It doesn’t matter what you do. Everything is predetermined. It is all planned. It is known exactly what you will do in each scripted moment. You will realize your Divinity, but you will have no idea where or how this awareness will come. Everything is in motion constantly moving you to that realization. You can go kicking and screaming, thinking that you know better than God, rejecting the Divine plan and trying to replace it with your goals. You can fail and suffer. Or. You can open your eyes and see what is before you. You can watch that plan unfold. You have no need to understand why things are set up as they are or why you are here. You are here. Nothing you could try to do will change that. The plan is far grander than anything you could imagine. You can welcome it and enjoy playing in it. Everything is offered right now, not in some nonexistent future. The past doesn’t exist either. Try to find your way to either place. Where are they? There is just the glorious now, all yours without even having to ask. There is nothing you can change no matter how much you might wish to. There is nothing you would wish to change if you truly let your thoughts go and accept what is here.
If there is something that is your special thing to bring to the world, it won’t come from the past and no teacher or teaching or idea can tell you what it is. If the past knew what it was, it would already have been done. It must come from the now. If it is yours to do, it cannot be anybody else’s. How can someone else tell you something that only you can know by being in the present, seeing what is there, and listening to your inner direction? How can anything you have been taught about who you are, or should be, and what kinds of goals you should or shouldn’t have be true for you? Is everyone supposed to do the same thing? Why are there so many different people then? That seems rather wasteful and inefficient. On the contrary there is something unique about you. You don’t discover that by being directed by your mind and all it has been taught from the past. That’s where you find how to be like others, rather than finding your own uniqueness. You learn how to be another crazy person in an insane world. So let that mind go. That’s what true creators do. They see what is in front of them in this very moment. They learn to hear and trust their inner voice, their inner guidance. This is about what to do right in this moment; it is not about goals for a nonexistent future. If there is a goal for you, you don’t know what it is. If there is a goal for you, it is for you and not for anybody else. You have a unique role to play in this awakening process. You find it, not by going where your thinking says you should go – as your thinking is faulty – but by listening and letting go of your mind to see what you are drawn to, what is drawn into your life. Everything is being provided; it is not your work to figure out what to do but rather to follow the trail that is being presented.
Everyone is here in a body with a common purpose. That purpose is to awaken to the truth of their Divine nature, to the truth of who they truly are. You are to be a loyal follower of your purpose. Your purpose is set. As long as you agree to let your life be led by your mind and old thoughts, you will remain asleep. Whatever goals you set are built on sand, not solid ground, and the whole structure will eventually collapse. You will be frustrated in your attempts to realize what you have dreamed of. Don’t take my word for this. Go ahead and set your goals. Give them everything you have. If that works for you…wonderful! If someday you realize this is not bringing you what you hoped for, come back and we’ll talk some more.
As you are awakening to the truth of you, which can only be experienced in the now with a silent mind; as you are now ignoring or no longer following the untruths that you have learned; as you see what is truly in front of you and you work with it rather than resisting it and attempting to create something different; as the Divine voice within you becomes increasingly clear – then you support others in doing the same. If you wish to end poverty on the planet, you let go of all beliefs you hold about scarcity. When you notice those thoughts arising, you do not act on them. You simply notice the thoughts and let them go. When you believe you do not have enough, you manifest poverty in the world. Goals emerge from a sense of not enough. That lack becomes your gift to the world. What is right in front of you is all you could ever need. Goals emerge from a belief that the world is not as it should be, and that it is your responsibility to change it. How has that succeeded? How many people have been trying to change the world and for how long? Every improvement that comes from human attempts is two edged. Every plus brings with it a negative. That is the nature of duality. Technological advances are used in war. Medical advances are used to keep people sick. It’s a big business. Money, rather than being used as a tool to help share what is there, is used for competition with winners and losers. Love is used to control others, to keep them where they are wanted. Again, be honest with yourself as to why you have your goals. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble. If you want to trust that you have enough wealth, do that right now. What do you truly need that is not before you now? Let go of the dreams of accumulation and the future. You don’t live there. Accept the wealth that is offered right now, the beauty of nature, air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and people to be with and to love. Go directly for what you want. Find it in the now rather than shuffling everything off to an imagined future that never comes. If you want to be happy, then be happy! It is right here in front of you. Look. Accept what you see. Welcome it. There is nothing to change. All that is required is to be present with it, to flow with the ever-changing moment. Notice the insanity of your thoughts.
We will go back to the original question, the humorously offered suggestion to have the goal of having no goals. That suggestion might be softened by saying to have the intention to have no goals. You notice when you have a goal and instead of trying to reach that goal you simply recognize its existence in your thoughts. Interesting. Is the goal something that can be realized now? No, it is off somewhere in the future. The goal is never fulfilled in the now. So where is happiness? Where are peace and love and fulfillment? They are all out there in the future. Where do you live? You can only live in the now. When does the future arrive? Never. Why sacrifice your now, the only place you will ever be, for, the future, where you will never be? But this is what you choose to do when you have goals. The insanity is in having goals. Sanity is living in and loving the only place you will ever be. Seems to be a no brainer, which is a fortunate state of affairs because you just might stop using yours.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How can I see ego as perfect?
In duality there is Spirit and there is ego. Most spiritual seekers label Spirit as good and ego as bad. In oneness there is no judgment; there is no comparison; there is no separation. We have spoken many times about accepting the perfection of the now. If your ego is speaking in the now and you wish to shut it up, to be rid of it, to be beyond it – are you accepting the now? Everything comes from the Divine. Notice that “everything” is in bold, italicized, and underlined. Everything comes from the Divine. Ego comes from the Divine. Spirit comes from the Divine. Everything is in perfection. Everything happens exactly as it should. Everything is already written out, has already happened. You, the reader, believe that it is happening now and that any possible outcome could result from this present moment that is being experienced. You believe that what you choose to do or not do will make a difference in that outcome. You think that the moment is not perfect enough so you have to roll up your sleeves and get to work to make it more perfect. The mind says that ego is not part of the perfection and needs to go, that ego tells untruths and fills you with fear. Since everything comes from God, He apparently made a mistake here and it is your job to correct it. As I love to say, “Good luck with that”. Only ego could suggest that you can do God’s job better. Only ego can suggest that you should try to get rid of ego. What you resist persists. The ego may be many things, but it is no dummy; it is not self-destructive.
So, let’s turn it around and accept the perfection of ego’s presence in the now, that its pronouncements are exactly what you should be hearing. I could just leave things at that; leave you to meditate on it, and call it a day. The last few messages have been rather long and we each deserve a break. But….I’m going to play with this a little longer. The only reason that you are able to hear the voice of ego is that part of you believes it is speaking the truth. You suspect there are some things you need to fear and that you have to protect yourself, defend yourself, attack, blame. Again, ego can only speak these things in your ear if a part of you believes they are true. One of the great ironies – and I love irony, which is perhaps all there is in duality where opposites exist at the same time – is that in duality you can’t have Spirit without ego. Spirit indicates where home is and ego reminds you of why you are both terrified of and ill-equipped for going there. If you listen carefully to Spirit you will hear that there is nowhere to go; you are home now. Ego screams out, “The hell with that! This doesn’t feel like home.” It then proceeds to reel off a litany of all the characteristics that your true home should have; it should be a heavenly place where there are none of the negatives, only the positives. The ego promises that one day if you work hard enough, you will get there. Other days in despair it cries out that you will never make it; it’s hopeless.
Your mind might ask why God would create such a thing as ego which fills you with such confusion, untruth, and suffering. Why does God want you to experience doubt and fear? One of the ironies is that at the same time that God has arranged everything and it is all fixed in the illusion of time, you are the God that has done this. It reminds me of the old questions, “If God is all powerful can He create a rock so heavy that even He can’t pick it up?” So here you sit, the Child of God, not knowing who you are. You are here for no other purpose than remembering that you are the Child of God, but you have absolutely forgotten it. If someone were to suggest that truth to you, you would not believe them and would probably shove them away, at least figuratively. You believe that you are something small and inferior and sinful and deserving of punishment. Sometimes you try to convince yourself that you are more than that. This whole argument is ego arguing with ego. But this is the thing…without the ego you will never find your way home. Ego is there as a nearly constant reminder of what separates you from the truth. Ego isn’t responsible for that; you are doing it. The truth of you is pretending to be the untruth of you. Ego has this wonderful job of reminding you of what you are doing to yourself, so that you can see it and feel it. Of course most of what ego says is false, what it tells you to fear is actually powerless. Yet, a small or big part of you buys the ego story and is convinced that it is up to you to take the bull by the horns and change yourself and/or the world so that the worst doesn’t happen. It’s just like in the movies; you can’t have an exciting show without a good bad guy or bad girl or both. You can’t have a hero without a villain. Jesus had to have the devil tempting him.
You can’t wake up without ego. Your job is not to make an enemy of ego, to try to blame or get rid of it in order to live in an egoless state. Welcome it. Listen to what ego has to say. These are the untruths you believe that are standing in your way. To banish the voice of ego is to shoot the messenger. It doesn’t change the message. Instead of asking for Spirit’s support in offing the messenger, listen to what ego is telling you. If what it tells you fills you with fear or other strong emotions, go right into them. Face them. If you suspect there might be truth in what it is saying, then look at it. Investigate the thoughts. Are they really true? I can tell you until I am blue in the face, though I have neither a face nor a color, that everything ego tells you is a lie and everything you are afraid of isn’t real. However that will do you no good at all. It is not for you to put your trust in me, but to do the work yourself. Ego has brought you your assignments, now it is time for you to get down to work. As you are facing fears and looking to see what is really true, ego is going to do everything possible to stay in the picture. When you have found that there is nothing to fear and you are certain that ego thoughts are untrue, there is little space for ego to come in. Even then you can welcome in whatever openings ego finds because they represent places that distract you from being fully present.
Love the ego. Welcome it into your life and allow it to do its special job. This does not mean that you allow your mind to go crazy following the path ego has laid out for you. Hear what ego is saying without following, without choosing to act as it would have you do. A politician was once quoted as saying, “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” Of course ego is not your enemy, it is your teacher. We are now complete with this message. If the ego is in your now, welcome that perfection and listen. See what you fear may be true so that you can let go of those false truths. If you aren’t aware of their presence, you cannot let them go. This is the invaluable service of ego. We may know how this will all play out, but you don’t and cannot. It is much more fun to be in the movie when you don’t know, and are simply experiencing the excitement of life in the now.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Why do you tell stories?
Now it is my turn to ask the question. Why do you tell stories? As you cannot hear the tone in my voice, please understand that this is not asked in a judgmental tone. The question isn’t one of should or shouldn’t you tell stories or are stories good or bad. This is an investigation that we can conduct together into what the story is behind your stories. There are some tales that you might just tell one time. Say for example that an interesting thing happens to you while you are out shopping. You come home and share it with your partner. You laugh or cry or scratch your heads about it together and it never comes up again. You have lots of stories like that. Something makes an impact upon you and you choose to share it with someone else. These are not the types of narrations that we are going to zero in on, though the same thought processes could be used with any tale. What we are concerned with today are the stories that you carry around with you like gems in a sack; you take one out and polish it and share it over and over with different people or perhaps just mull it over for your own entertainment. Some of them you have shared dozens of times and maybe more than once with a given individual. It may be difficult to remember who you have shared it with or how times the tale has been told. Some of these stories are about successes you have had, something you achieved, or somebody you helped. Sharing such tales may make you feel better for a while. Some of your sagas might be about victimhood, what someone did to you or some unfortunate occurrence. Perhaps they relate what a tough year you have had or even about something that you have never been able to recover from.
The first thing I would like to investigate with you is to look at the reasons why you share these stories. The purpose in this line of inquiry is to support you in being in the now, to encourage the awareness of your awakened self. So we come back to your sagas and view them from that standpoint. What is your motivation, your reason for telling your tale? I wish to begin by suggesting that you become aware of the thoughts you have around any story, as I have encouraged you to do with each thought that enters your mind – a story being just a drawn out thought. It’s a picture you have from the past that you are sharing in the now. First of all, the narration has nothing to do with the now other than the fact that you are presently thinking about it or relating it. I think we can agree that the tale is about the past, not about what is now happening. As we know, there is no such thing as the past. You cannot find a place called the past. There is only the present moment. So the story is something your mind brings forth in the present that relates to an imagined past. I say imagined, because it isn’t really there. What you are describing is not going on. When you are telling the saga about this imagined happening, you can’t even have certainty that your story matches what supposedly happened if, indeed, anything did really occur. You have your perception of this past occurrence, peppered with your projections. If another who was involved in this story was to be the teller, the “facts” would likely be quite different. This would certainly be true if the other was the so-called victimizer in your story. So, we are not talking about “truth” when we refer to these narrations. If you say to your children that you are going to tell them a story, they won’t be expecting the evening news. They expect the tale to be made up. Are any of your stories really any different from that?
Let’s say that you want to tell a story about something you think happened to you that you wish had not occurred. We’ll say that it was painful, whether physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially, or some combination. You still feel that you suffer some from what happened. What now is the motivation for sharing this tale? This is what I want to encourage you to look at. I can’t tell you what your motivation might be for sharing any particular story, but if you are unconscious of your purpose, you are unaware of what you are actually doing and what effects it may have on your present moment. As we mentioned in the last message, your actions are very important. Through the action of retelling this story you are expressing your belief in its verity. Do you want your listener to think “Oh, poor you” and give you at least a spiritual hug to ease your pain? If that is the case, you are asking for validation of your painful saga, for support for your victimhood. You are asking them for agreement that this event should not have happened. Not only are you carrying around an old story that keeps you from noticing what is in the now, but your old story is based on not accepting what happened. Instead of experiencing what is present in the now, are you choosing to fill your life with sadness and anger from a thought memory in your head?
You may not choose to have a memory come to mind, but you do choose to hold onto it and to feed it through retelling. Is there a benefit from this choice? Does the sharing of your narrative allow you to release it forever? Likely there is a tradeoff where you receive a short term relief from the listener in exchange for a longer term continuance of the pain and suffering. If you continue to tell the story it is like another drink for the alcoholic. The attention helps for a while, but the benefit wears off and you feel compelled to tell the tale again. Of course you are not limited to one story; you likely have a collection of them in your arsenal. Look at the different elements in your narration and ask yourself if you are sure that each one is true. Be honest with yourself. You have nothing to gain from trying to pull your own leg. What happens if you accept the absolute perfection of that event having occurred? If this presents a big challenge you can ask Spirit to help you accept the perfection of the now. This story is coming into your now, but why? Is this tale to be told, or is it to be released so that it no longer blocks you from being present? It is not being suggested that you pretend as if this event never happened to you, to go into denial, but what happens when you choose not to be weighed down by something that is nowhere in sight in the present moment?
Perhaps an old story that you tell repeatedly is one that was highly traumatic for you, such as experiencing violence, molestation or rape, or the death of a loved one. Part of the belief that your mind carries and society reinforces is that you not only are saddled with this event for the rest of your life, but that it is your duty to never forget. A judgment, a condemnation of the act must be expressed. Such actions are not acceptable. It is your job to ensure that the deed is never forgotten, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The perpetrator deserves condemnation and punishment. This is what mass consciousness teaches. Now, accepting the perfection of the now isn’t a justification for an action. It is not saying that it is okay to intentionally harm another. But the truth is that it happened. Right or wrong it happened. The truth is that whatever is in the now is happening. There is nothing you can do to change any of that. Asking Spirit to help you accept the perfection of what is happening or has happened does not mean you want to be shown that it was okay for somebody to do what they did. This is about you. It is about realizing that anything that is in your now has already been accepted into existence. Not accepting it is a denial that it has already happened. It is not changeable. Any attempt to accomplish that is a fool’s task, one at which you cannot succeed. Notice your pain; notice your emotions; return to the present and see what is there now. Pain and suffering are not constants. Everything moves and changes. Let it; watch it. The past is unchangeable. The future does not exist. There is just now. Do your best to focus here. This requires enormous will, but no understanding. It asks only that you persist in staying present, while noticing when you aren’t able to. Your job is not to understand. That is a gift that may or may not be brought into your now, but it is never the goal. There is no goal, only focus. Free will is not a matter of being able to choose what will happen; it is the ability to choose your reaction. Fighting what is or what has happened will lead to a life of pain and suffering, to war within you and with the world.
I want to remind you that every person out there, no matter how hurtful their actions might appear to be, is a Child of God, trying the best they can to find love, to find their way home, to find God. Like you they may not always be making the best choices in order to accomplish that, but they will always have the option to learn from the choices they make. Nobody will ever find the love that is the truth within them if their mind is consumed with victimhood.
The idea may be formulating now in your mind that telling stories might not be a wise course to choose to follow. However, it is always a good idea to look at why a story wants to be told. Perhaps you are listening to another tell their sad or angry story. That brings to your memory a similar type of story that you might have once told, but now you accept the perfection of what occurred and may feel a deep sense of gratitude for what happened. You are aware of how that event helped you to let go of a whole layer of victimhood and you feel freed by that acceptance. You might feel guided to share your story and what you have done with it. Rather than suggesting to them what they could do with their story or lecturing them on how it hurts them – usually not the best choice in any situation – you just talk about you. Maybe you tell your story in such a humorous manner that people laugh at it and that brings you enjoyment, because you have not elicited pity but have brought lightness to the whole situation. You may need to be able to laugh at yourself. Laughter helps to center people in the now. Stories can provide an absolutely beautiful, divine service. Jesus conducted much of his teaching through stories or parables. They can bypass the ego defense structures people have in place to fend off challenging ideas. Sometimes I “out” Michael by sharing some of his personal stories when I am talking with groups. He is hesitant to do this himself, not wishing to appear arrogant or superior. He gets to observe – whether it is a story about a time he fell flat on his face but learned much, or a situation when he acted in the way I was suggesting he go, despite great fear – that others can benefit and gain courage and inspiration from hearing them. Stories can help move people off the pedestal where you may have placed them. Such tales remind you of what you hold in common with them. They can show possibility.
Again, ask yourself why you want to tell a story. It might prove helpful to go on a story diet, severely limiting the number you share. Instead, spend that energy investigating the stories, checking to see if holding on to them is keeping you out of experiencing the now, looking to see what untruths may be promulgated through them. Always look at the motive behind your wish to share a tale. As a story comes to mind, remember to notice if you have told it before. Be brutally honest with yourself about why the story bears repeat telling. The ego can be very convincing in encouraging you to share a story because it would be “good” for someone else to hear it, when the actual purpose is to get stroked for how evolved you are. There is nothing wrong with wanting a little attention, but it is helpful if you are upfront with yourself about your motives. When in doubt, you might wait until the story seems to be dragged out of you. Do you find yourself being in a competitive situation with others, wanting to get your story in? Try being a good listener, perhaps asking them questions. Is there something there for you in another’s story? Do you find yourself in judgment of what you are hearing? What are you projecting onto the other person? Realizing that will likely benefit you more than having your fifteen seconds of glory from telling your own tale. If you truly listen and find common ground with another, there may open up a space for you to offer true support. Be compassionate with others with their stories as you are hopefully gentle with yourself and your old sagas. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Why should how I act make any difference if nothing matters?
Whoa! That was a somewhat long question, so I may give you a somewhat long answer. We’ll see how it comes out. I’m just in the now. I am here at the beginning of this message and so are you. So, let’s walk together through it. The supposition in this question that nothing matters is absolutely correct. Because this world is an illusion and is not real, what you do here, what anyone does here does not matter. Within this illusion, in a hundred years none of you will be here. Nobody will remember most or perhaps all that you have and will have done in your life. It will be nearly impossible to measure any effect, positive or negative, you have had upon the planet. Add another thousand years and you totally disappear. Any descendants are too far removed to have heard of you. Perhaps you left some work of art or book that can be traced to you, but those chances are slim. All vestiges of you being here physically will fade away. Nobody will know or care. It will be as if you never existed. You didn’t. Whatever you choose to do or choose to not do will make the world neither more real nor less real.
There is only one reason, as far as you are concerned, for your presence here – seeming to occupy a body – and that is to wake up to the truth. This body is not you. This planet is not real. It is a place where the truth of you is playing. It feels very real; it seems authentic. But your job is to wake to the truth of yourself, to find yourself in the eternal now, freed from the fantasies of past and future. When you think about what you should do and how it might make a difference, you are talking about past and future. You are talking of a past that has filled you with ideas about what one should do, or perhaps more specifically what the one called you should do, informed by parents, teachers, friends, religion, morals, and mass media. Often the question arises as to what a “good” person would do. You often act in a way that you believe can affect the future, to change it in a way that you deem to be better for others, for yourself, or perhaps for both.
Again we say that your action makes no difference for the world or for reaching your goals. When you follow your thoughts, which come from a past that doesn’t exist, to try to change a future which doesn’t exist – you are really spinning your wheels. The only certainty is that you will not fully realize the goals you have set and that you will likely not be content with whatever gains you may feel you have made. There will be a lingering sensation of failure and the thought that there is more out there for you to achieve. You might even feel that you are a total failure, and sink into hopelessness.
It may sound like I’m coming down heavily on the side of agreeing that it doesn’t make any difference what you do, but I’m not saying that at all. You are the one who is experiencing the pain and suffering that result from following the dictates of your thoughts. What you do does make a difference for you. When you fail to achieve a goal, you experience pain. If you choose not to have goals, so that failure is impossible, you likely feel guilty for wasting your life. A possible decision in either case is to hide in one or more addictions. So it appears that I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth. First I say that it does not matter what you do, but now I seem to be suggesting that your actions might cause you pain. It seems that no matter what you do you may suffer. Your choices and your goals will not make a difference in the world. That is because you are choosing from ideas and thoughts that come from the past, that are grounded in ignorance, brain washing, guilt, and fear, wishing to change something that you have no hope of changing. This is a textbook example of insanity. You are trying to change what cannot be changed, and then you will likely find a target to blame for your failure, but, remembering about projection, it will come down to blaming yourself.
We have been over this the past few messages. Your job is not to change the future; it is to accept the now. For most of you, your now is filled with fears. How many of you worry about financial support? Do you go off to a job each day that you wouldn’t leave home for if the carrot of a paycheck were not dangled in front of you? Some of you may wake up and go to that job because there is no greater joy in the world for you today? Perhaps some of you do have that satisfaction, so, let’s plow ahead and spread the net a little wider. How many of you experience the fear that you will not have enough money, that someday you might be homeless, unable to feed yourself or your family, or at least not be able to afford the things you would like to have? If you have those fears and allow yourself to dwell upon them, then you live your life with some foreboding about the future and allow those possibilities to have an entrance. I have suggested to you that should such fears emerge you do one of two things. Most importantly, don’t invest time and energy on the thoughts. Let them go and let the next one come. If the worries seem to be repeat visitors, or being felt so intensely, are hard to let go of, then look directly at the beliefs or thoughts and ask yourself if you are sure they are true. These actions support you in being in the now and in hearing your inner guidance. .
Dwelling on thoughts of lack and scarcity keeps you imprisoned in fear. If you look at the examples of Jesus talking about money that made it into the New Testament, you will notice that he never suggested one should worry about it. There were no recommendations to plan for your future. He said that you would be provided for; you would be taken care of. He said to leave everything and to follow him. This is the voice of Spirit. Leave your thoughts and fears and follow that inner voice. That quiet, Divine voice will always lead you to the perfect place. Everything is happening as it should. Your efforts to resist or change what is can only muck up your experience of the now.
Let’s bring this back around to action, to what you do. Perhaps you are ignoring the thoughts of lack and scarcity and are letting them go as has been suggested, but finding yourself confronted with a choice of actions, you may realize that your fears of lack are continuing to run the show. You don’t feel like going to work today, but your fears about money, supporting your family, and losing your job send you off on your way. Your actions speak louder than your words. This is where how you act becomes important. This doesn’t matter to the universe, to God, to Spirit, or to Me. It matters to you. How you act expresses what you believe to be true. Notice when you are acting out of fear and scarcity. This is driven by false beliefs that you hold as true.
If you want to accelerate this process of awakening, to shorten the time of experiencing the illusion of your separation from your Divinity, then it is time to fully face your fear. It is time for you to act in accordance with your joy and your inspiration, rather than from terror. Your finances are being taken care of. You need to let that happen or those fears of lack will be your constant companions. I hear some heavy breathing out there. Some of you are considering forwarding to the next email and ignoring this one. That’s fine. Your fears will be with you until you realize they no longer serve you. My only job is to shake you. It is your job to allow yourself to be shaken out of your false beliefs. You don’t have to wait to do this, but you are certainly welcome to hit the snooze button as many times as you wish. Either way, you are taken care of, but only one of those choices allows you to experience that safety. You can look into every area, every thought that comes into your mind where you notice you react out of fear. The fear may be that you are not responsible, not loveable, or not a good person. Perhaps you withhold your truth from others out of fear of their reaction, of being attacked, of not being loved, or of being abandoned. I’m not suggesting that you charge ahead saying every thought that comes to mind, as you quit your job and leave your partner. I’m not saying not to do these things either. The “counting to ten” rule might be helpful, that is waiting ten seconds before saying something to see if you are still guided to say it. Look to see why you want to say something. Do you feel hurt and wish to strike back? The end result of your speaking then will be that you are still in pain; you are yet driven by fear. Face this in yourself rather than projecting it on another. However, if you feel guided by your inner voice, go ahead and speak. Know that the other may not be ready to hear what you are offering. That doesn’t matter. Let your words go without expectation of any certain response. Perhaps it will take some time for your words to be heard. Maybe the ideas will have to come another time from another source. That is not your concern. Act fearlessly in the now and remain fearlessly in the now after acting. When you withhold your words out of fear, you are not trusting. Your inaction maintains a state of fear in your life. When you believe and prejudge that a certain type of behavior is necessary for you to exhibit in order to be a good person, you are living in the prison of the past. It makes it impossible to be present.
There are no good or bad people. There are just people. Some of those people suffer greatly and some don’t. Those who live from the untruths of their thoughts suffer greatly. The more certain they are in the dictates of their minds, the more they suffer. There is no way out for them. When cracks of doubt begin to emerge in the beliefs a person has been taught, then suffering can begin to lessen; then there may be a way out. Those who begin to suspect that everything they thought they knew may be untrue have a great potential for finding the inner voice, for living in the now. These possibilities expand exponentially when you “put your money where your mouth is”, when you act despite fear and uncertainty. You have been acting from things you thought were true; now you are acting in accordance with the release of those untruths. It requires courage and determination to follow such a path. The world will continue to spin around as the same insane asylum no matter how you act. All that will change will be your perceived place in it. Such action can bring you into awareness of the now that has always existed. The past can fall away and the future does not exist. What is present is love and peace, no matter what the outer experience might be. In the now there is no scarcity of money, food, shelter, clothing, love, friendship, or meaningfulness. You will simply notice the glories that surround you while listening to your Divine guidance, absolutely disconnected from the illusions of a past or concerns about a non-existent future. You will just be in this very moment, playing the game to its fullest, unconcerned by results. The absolute awareness of and perfection of action in the now only becomes manifest when the mind has no thoughts from the past. You flow with, rather than resisting everything that comes your way. Your words and actions are directed only by that quiet but sure inner voice.
Now we return to the original question. We could say that, yes, action is everything. You can lie and deceive yourself with words, but not with actions. You can be terrified by scarcity – that you won’t be taken care of – and that if you follow your inner voice your future will be endangered. You can have that fear but if you act as if you have faith you will find that you survive. You can realize that it is not only possible to live from the joy of your inner inspirations, but that you will thrive there. On the other hand, if you allow your terror to run your life, to limit your choices, it will always be there. Fear will rule your now in such a way that you will find it nearly impossible to truly feel life, to feel the now. If you act as if you trust God and Spirit, even though you aren’t sure that you do, and you persevere with such actions, no matter how many rocky moments you go through, you will reach a point of certainty that everything is being taken care of. You will realize that your little self does not have anything to worry about. That moment will never arrive as long as you try to take care of yourself, of course failing to do that adequately. For some of you it has taken, or will take, so much of being bumped around so hard and so many times by your failed attempts at control, that you are willing to let go of the reins and turn them over to Spirit.
Let’s tie this up now into a tidy little package that you will hopefully not turn into an idea, rules, and beliefs you feel you should follow if you want to wake up. Notice when fear comes into your mind, warning that certain actions are required in order to insure your safety. Be absolutely willing to look at that. As you look at these programmed beliefs that pop up, ask yourself if you wish to live for eternity in a world where this is the truth. If the answer is no, then you can trust that the thought is not from Spirit. Spirit’s thought is always to let it go, that We will take care of you. Do you wish to live in a world where you are free of responsibility, a world where you can just let go and know that everything is handled? If that’s not the case for you, I apologize. You have somehow stepped into the wrong room. The classroom you seek is down the hall. Look at your actions. Are they honest, or are you acting in a way that you would prefer not to? Notice where your fear is running you. Be willing to look directly at the fear. Dive into it. Do the five-step process. Act as if you are fearless. I will give this guarantee. Because you are not yet actually fearless, you will run into some bumps down the road. That’s okay. Letting go of thousands of years of conditioning is not an easy matter. As I mentioned, it takes courage and persistence. When the horse throws you, get back on. Act as if you are fearless, and trust until it is no act. Act as if there is nothing to worry about, because Spirit has it all handled in a better way than you have ever been able to achieve. This is the truth, but you will never experience that simply by hearing these words. It is required that you walk the walk. Welcome to Act I, the only one you can ever be in.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How should I deal with my strong feelings?
There is a significant difference between noticing a feeling that comes up in your now and defining yourself by that feeling and accepting it as the truth about you. In the moment you may feel grief. To describe yourself by saying that you are grieving expresses a thought from the past which will carry on indefinitely. This becomes your belief of who you are. The former simply means that you are aware that a feeling is present. You can then pay attention to the next thing that comes to you. Rather than holding on to the feeling, which then becomes an idea and identification, you simply allow yourself to notice and release each feeling or thought as it emerges into your awareness. You can tell when someone has defined themself by an emotion, because they hold on to that same feeling/thought for many years. Holding on to old feelings and judgments keeps you out of the present. You become a prisoner of those emotions, caught in a web of suffering. We would be the last to say to ignore the feelings. Acknowledge them! Then let them go and let the next feeling or thought enter. Be aware of where there might be roles you think you should play to accompany the feelings that come. Are you supposed to act sad, angry, or as a victim? Recognize when you are playing a role and then move on. It is also not for you to analyze, justify, or rationalize what appears. What stories have you been telling yourself? Are you certain they are true?
I want to suggest that whoever in your life, past or present, you feel you really know…you are fooling yourself about that. You have no idea who they are. You see your projection upon them, not them themselves. In a similar manner you are aware that nobody around you fully and completely sees you. Part of that comes from your hiding in the belief that invisibility provides you with safety; that if people really knew who you were it would be all over. They would reject you, wouldn’t love you, would see you for the idiot you are afraid you are, and would ostracize you – throw you into the wilderness to the wolves. If people knew you “warts and all” they would not want to be around you. Instead you want to present the image that you believe is loveable. This is not honest. It is not the truth of who you are in the now, and you become hostage to upholding that disguise. These false fronts might include that you are a good mother, considerate, spiritual, honest, intelligent, successful, and on and on. These are ideas, images. What is a spiritual person like? They never lose their temper, judge others, feel guilt, or suffer pain? If inappropriate feelings or thoughts arise, you then want to deny them. If they are too strong, you may succumb to them, go into despair and self-blame, and define yourself as an unspiritual failure. Meanwhile, you are free to be who you are in this moment, which might be angry, grieving, sad, happy, jealous, or guilty. Feel that fully without defense or thinking you should be different. Experience the full spectrum of emotions, and then let them go to feel the next item on your palette.
If it is not okay to feel those things, you either cover them up or succumb to them and they will run your life. None of these feelings or ideas about yourself has anything to do with the truth of who you are. They are experiences to be had and then released. If you try to understand or explain the truth, you will fail. These beliefs become a place to hide, but provide no real peace. As we said before, you can never truly know another or yourself or be known because there are no such separate identities. All those defining thoughts about self and others are just that, thoughts. They come from the past and have nothing to do with the now, the only place you will ever be. In the now you will have many experiences, but none of them have anything to say about who you are, only about what is happening. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. The only thing you can be sure of is that the now always changes. If you hold on to it you leave little room for the new that is constantly appearing. Pain can dissipate quite quickly, but suffering happens when you hold on to your pain. Notice your emotion; take a breath; let it go; see what comes next. Receive each moment fully, without resistance. Let the perfection of the now wash over you. Hold on to none of it, whether it feels good or bad.
Why are we saying these things to you? We are not telling what the truth is or what your spiritual practice should be like. Such things cannot be done. Whatever is suggested here can be considered as “pointers”, pointing toward the truth but never defining it. That work is yours. Reading these words is of little value if they are just taken as ideas, and is of no value if they are taken as the truth. If you are at peace with all that is present in your life, continue as you are. If you are not at peace but fear rocking the boat, look at that and let it go. The longtime habit is to be run by the past and fearful of the future. The only “truth” I would attempt to offer is that anything you think is true is not and that holding on to any belief will only bring you more pain and suffering. Truth is being brought to you each moment for that moment. Receive it and let it go. See where that leads you. It is one thing to experience a feeling of guilt. It is a whole different matter to hold on to the thought that you are guilty. I suspect that if all you focus on is the now you will eventually experience unconditional love. However, if you deny any present feeling that doesn’t look like it is unconditional loving, you will hold on to pain and suffering. The universe presents you with a feeling of guilt. Do you hold on to that guilt as the truth of you? Do you deny that you are guilty? Admit you have the feeling and let it go without analysis. If it sticks around you could ask yourself if you are absolutely certain of its truth. Do you have a thought or a belief that seems to justify the emotion? Do you feel guilty because you think you have done something wrong? There is an enormous gulf between emotion and thought. The thought likely triggers the emotion. Is that thought actually true? Do your words and actions determine what happens to everyone else on the planet? Are you that powerful? Are others helpless in the face of your will? Perhaps you believe that your thoughts, words, and actions affect only a few and not all. In that case, who is running the switchboard? Who determines which people are affected by you and how? Are these other people helpless in the face of your power? So, you are feeling guilty but can you say for sure that you actually are guilty? Do you see the difference between a feeling in the now and truth?
Question every thought that enters your mind. You don’t ignore the feelings, but you don’t give them a special value either. Notice them. Be aware of the thoughts. It is all just what is there right now in this moment. It is not right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable. What is the gift behind it? If your feeling of guilt actually stimulates you to investigate the truth behind your emotion, what a service it has provided for you. If you were to deny your feelings, those investigations would not take place. They also would not happen if you wallow in the guilt, holding on to it in your certainty that you are at fault. The negative emotion is a signal to you that you believe something that isn’t true but is running your life. With physical pain it is much easier to see what is to be done. If you touch a hot stove, you quickly pull your hand away. With psychological pain the lines aren’t as clear. You may actually believe that the thought that is triggering the pain is a good thought; one you should hold onto. Old thoughts are useless in dealing with psychological pain. When you listen to them, your mind is too busy to let true wisdom come in. If the past truly helped you to decide what to do now, we should have ended war long ago. Culturally, we would take nothing personally. We would not be in competition with others, fighting over the scraps that we believe are never enough. The old ways have never worked. Your spiritual practice and beliefs have also failed you. They don’t help you when you most feel the need of being saved. Thoughts can only come from the past, but you live in the now. When the point comes where you are only accepting what comes to you in the quiet space of the now, not listening to old thoughts from the past, then you will act with the same certainty and decisiveness that you employ instantly when confronted with physical danger or pain. Awareness of what appears to you in the now is similar to what happens when you do the five-step process. It might support you to check that process out.
We call it the perfection of the now and a gift because you have asked Spirit to support you in awakening. Therefore, everything that comes into your now is there to support waking up. If you are listening to your old thoughts, you cannot open the gift. There needs to be a quiet that comes from letting go of the old thoughts and the accompanying feelings. In that calm space you can hear the guidance for the moment. Nothing is your responsibility. You are carrying a weight you don’t need to bear. Let go of past thoughts. Give up worries about the future. Everything is happening in perfection. All you need to do is to let it happen. Your feelings are there to let you know when you aren’t doing that. Pay attention and then let go and notice the next thing that comes. It is recommended that you reread this message several times. Your ego mind wants to accept the validity of your feelings and to hold on to them. It wants to convert them into ideas of yourself that you can believe in and use to justify your pain and suffering.
Enjoy it all…or don’t. It doesn’t matter.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How do I deal with distraction?
We had a request from a reader to talk about the subject of distraction. What is meant by distraction? We could say that distraction is something that pulls you away from your focus on awakening. You have your intention or your awareness placed on one thing and something draws your attention in a different direction; you are distracted. To begin with, as with everything else, you are not a victim of distraction. In fact, it might be more truthful to say that you welcome distraction because it brings you back into safer territory. There is a fear that surfaces when you look deeply within yourself, a terror of releasing the lies and illusions you have lived with as well as seeing the things inside of you that you don’t want to admit are there. So, the distraction may be a very welcomed event. This is all part of the awakening process.
One type of distraction consists of things that happen in the outer world, and these events are constant. There is information coming to you from your cell phone, from television, from people that you meet, from world events, from governments and politics, as well as from wars, pollution and pandemics; all these things grab your attention and instill fear or other emotions. Am I saying that you should not pay attention to any of these things from the world? No, in fact I would say, “Good luck with that.” To try not to pay attention to them creates a conflict. You will bounce back and forth between the two in an unending dualistic fashion. Peace cannot come to you through conflict. We are coming from a basic assumption that you wish to experience your awakened state and that you don’t want to be torn by the craziness of the world. We have to admit that it is a pretty insane place. You could spend all of your time and energy noticing the craziness, mulling it over in your mind as you search for solutions. All of these efforts to fight it and to make changes are nothing but a fool’s quest. You will not succeed. The world is as it is. However, you can make use of the world’s distractions.
First of all, you can choose to pay less attention to them. Short of going to sit on a mountaintop, you won’t be able to escape the world totally. You can choose to not let your mind dwell on these distractions, to notice when you are, and to let it go and let the next thought come in. Secondly, as these thoughts do come into your mind, notice where your judgments arise, whether toward the world as a whole, a group, or an individual. As you find yourself upset and in judgment over what you perceive, I want to remind you that this is all projection. You cannot possibly judge others for something that you do not hold within yourself. You judge yourself for this, though you may be in denial, necessitating the projection. The ego mind wants to argue and say that you are not like that. As long as you hold on to denial, you will go on through your life, projecting, being incapable of doing anything about your projections, and experiencing sorrow, pain, and suffering. You will feel hopeless, until you finally just give up.
For instance, you see an example of violence in the world. You may feel sadness for those you see as victims of the violence and anger toward those you see as perpetrators. You might also feel anger directed toward those who differ in opinion from you about who is at fault. All of this you see as external to yourself in your thinking. You are righteous in your feelings. This is denial. Its opposite is acceptance, which might look like acknowledging that you are violent. This is the critical point. The ego mind does not want to take responsibility for its projections. This keeps you stuck. This is how distraction works. You are distracted from the truth of your own violence by the actions of others. Because you have little or no hope of changing anyone else or the world, you are helplessly stuck in a violent world. But, you do have full power to accept the violence within yourself. You can accept it without judgment, without labeling it as right or wrong. This is not about changing anything, including you. It is just noticing, just acknowledging. If you can’t get past your denial, you might look at where you have a secret wish for harm to come to those you are judging. Maybe you wish they were dead. That is violence. When you wish anything negative to happen to another, you are exhibiting violence. Are you absolutely certain there are no violent tendencies within you? Why do you avoid acknowledging the violence within you? Do you fear a punishing God? No such God exists; you are loved unconditionally. You are projecting your own belief in a need for punishment upon God. Are you afraid that you will not be rewarded with heaven, God’s forgiveness, ascension, enlightenment, or awakening if you admit to being a violent person? The only one standing between you and these “rewards” is you. Holding on to untruths keeps you separate from realizing the truth of God. Accept that you are violent. If you notice fear or judgment accompanying that, accept that also. Perhaps you also notice embarrassment or shame. Acknowledge that. The distraction is in believing it is somebody else when it is always you.
Connected with the outer distractions are those that come from your thoughts. Nearly every thought that you hold expresses a belief that is not true. Let’s say the thought expresses a judgment about your partner such as they hold you prisoner and don’t allow you to fully be who you are. There were events in the past that you projected onto your partner. Now you hold a belief that is “proven” by this imagined past. Today when you meet your partner, instead of being in the now – in this moment, you are living in the past with the lies you projected. You recreate something you never wanted to begin with. This is not your partner doing this; this is you. Your job is to not let yourself get distracted with untrue thoughts. Notice each thought that emerges in your mind. Ask yourself if that thought is really true. Is there projection involved? Is it my partner who doesn’t let me be who I am or do I do that to myself? Am I afraid to be who I am? Notice these things.
You are distracted by your beliefs that come from the past. Believing these thoughts keeps you from being present. This is not to say that the past and your thoughts hold no value for you. Technological information is valuable. You want to remember what you have learned about driving a car or using a computer. This value ends when your thoughts are about yourself, others, and what to do. Here the past can only confuse things. You know things about how to work with the physical world, but you know nothing about the truth of yourself and others, about divinity. You know something about how to survive in the world, but you didn’t come here to survive. You came to wake up. Thoughts cannot help you there. Finding the truth is a process of elimination. As these distracting thoughts enter your mind you recognize, one after another, that they are not true and you cast them off. When you have discarded what is false, all that can remain is truth. It is likely that every thought you have is not true, is a distraction from being present, from being awake. So, look at each one and then release it. If you give energy to a concept, you sustain an untruth and you remain in confusion. To paraphrase Socrates, “The only difference between me and those I meet is that, even though neither of us really understands anything, I know that I don’t know anything while they believe they are wise.” As long as you think you know, you cannot find the truth. You can reset your default reaction to each thought that enters your mind to be one of disbelief. Fears and hopes about what might happen in the future also distract you. These thoughts, too, keep you from acting in the present.
As you learn to ignore the past and the future you are left with the now. You ignore the distractions of your thoughts and notice what is truly present. As an example, say that someone stomps on your toe with their boot heel. You feel immediate pain. That is real. It is in the now. If you blame or judge the other for that action, that is not real. It is not a present reaction, but a thought about the recent past; it is likely a projection. As you release that thought and come back to the present you will likely find the pain quickly dissipates. What is real is the nature around you, the sun shining or the rain falling, the birds chirping or the dog barking. To wish that it wasn’t raining is to deny the reality of what it is and substitute your thought from the past about how the weather should be. You will never win that fight. It is insane to try. Accept what is. Release your thoughts. Analysis and interpretation are always misleading. Thinking you should or shouldn’t do something isn’t sane; these are just more thoughts from the past. You have been taught ideas by your society, your parents, your teachers, and your peers. You made a decision in the past and you believe it applies to the present. In the now, you never have to make a choice. Choices come from your mind and from the past. The now lets you know what to do. It is certain. You don’t have to decide what to do if a dog attacks or a car swerves toward you. You simply act. Knowing exactly what to do is sometimes called intuition. It is knowingness without understanding why you know. It is certainty that defies explanation. Sometimes this can feel perfectly natural. You eat when you are hungry; sleep when you are tired. You may want to sing or play an instrument, to draw or paint, to run or to swim. You do these things as expressions that move from within you, not because you think you should. If it is the latter, you will eventually meet resistance. The mind always tries to complicate things. It wants to dictate what and when you should eat, the proper position for sleep and the right time and purpose for creative activities. All of the craziness of distractions enters, keeping you from being present. This fills your time and saps your energy.
Finally, and we could have just as easily begun here, let’s look at distraction as simply not paying attention. This is a form of resistance. You have made the decision that you wish to wake up, to ascend. Most days you don’t focus on that intention. You go on living life as you always have, distracted by each little thing you encounter each day. You take your thoughts seriously without further investigation. Periodically you become aware of what you are doing and feel guilt, perhaps hopelessness. What is there to do? You can at least acknowledge how you are dealing with life. Intention for you does not seem to be enough. There needs to be a fire lit within. The whole world and all of your education and experience seem to oppose your awakening. There must be a passion to face all of this and to keep facing it. Without this passion the distractions will continue to control. Maybe you can generate such a focus. Perhaps things need to get worse for you before they can get better. Your situation might have to become unbearable. Spirit is always doing whatever it can to shake you awake. Your thoughts may judge this as good or bad. In the now it is always perfect. The process of getting there may be frightful and painful, but so is the illusion of the world. In the now there are no distractions. There is only the real-time perfection of what is happening and your inner guided response. Eventually the passion will come. It is your call, and your calling.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Why is it so hard for me to find my perfect relationship?
It is so hard for you to find your perfect relationship because you are looking, as the song goes, in all the wrong places. You are searching outside of yourself to find that relationship with another person, but your perfect relationship can only be with yourself. Let’s start at the beginning. When you are looking for your ideal or perfect relationship you are seeking completion, to be made whole. Perhaps, on another level, if someone else loves you, you just might feel loveable. All of this stems from the belief that you do not deserve love, that you are not a good person, and that you are not loveable. The grounds for your desire for a perfect relationship are in your belief in your separation from God and in scarcity, that there is not enough for you. This sense of lack rules every aspect of your life and the whole world around you. You think that you are incomplete, separate from each other, from Divinity, and from Spirit – that there is no Oneness. However, nobody can make you feel whole because you are already whole. No matter what relationship you might attract to yourself, your beliefs will remain unchanged. Though the relationship may seem to begin in the blissful fantasy of having found eternal love, as time passes the realization painfully descends upon you that, no, you haven’t. Difficulties and challenges emerge in the relationship. You were expecting that other person to come in and fix everything for you. That’s far beyond their pay grade. Nobody can fix anyone else. Whatever lacks, deficiencies, or problems you feel you have are your creation and not theirs.
This relationship you are looking for is the one you have with yourself. Whatever your mind tells you that you wish to receive from another – notice that. This is where you believe in a lack in yourself. Fortunately, the truth is that you lack nothing and that you are fully lovable. You are a Divine Child of God, created in the image of Divinity. You could no more be lacking in anything than could God be deficient in any way. The idea is pure insanity, but it is that craziness that got you stuck in this illusion to begin with. Nobody forced you into this illusion. You are here by choice – whether you remember the choosing or not – along with your beliefs of lack, guilt, and not being deserving of love. Your job is to notice that. Be aware when limiting thoughts arise. Notice when you have the thought that another person can be your savior, can make you feel whole and complete. It would not be an easy job to change those thoughts you now have; most likely that task is impossible. It is sufficient for you to notice that you have them, without trying either to deny the thoughts or to run away from them. Accept those thoughts. Own them. “I am unlovable. I am guilt. I am jealousy. I am lack.” Don’t divert your awareness from these thoughts. Notice them. Be with them. If you find you are blaming or judging yourself for these thoughts, then pay attention to that. Your job is to simply be alert as to what flows through your mind, if possible without any attempt to change what is there, but certainly noticing such thoughts if they arise. It is not for you to try to change your outer world, nor your inner world. All you have to do is notice and keep noticing. Accept what is there.
Remember always that your partner, as well as all other people, is your mirror. You project on them what you believe to be true for yourself. Often you do not wish to face these self judgments, so it feels safer to project them on another while denying that it is about you. This is usually done unconsciously. That is why it is so important to look at every thought that enters your mind. If the thought comes that your partner can be so selfish, look at that. “I am selfishness” is your belief. Don’t fight it. Don’t try to change your behavior. Simply observe and accept. Do not let a single projection live on without this kind of examination. As long as you deny this part of yourself and see it only in others, it will continue to be a painful and hopeless problem in your life. Your perfect love is you. As you truly realize that through accepting the perfection of you as you are, you will feel yourself engulfed in love with everyone you meet and every situation you encounter. Perhaps you may find yourself sharing your living space and/or your life with another, but this won’t be because they are your perfect partner or because you feel a need for their presence to feel loved and completed. They will simply reflect or mirror the love you have for yourself.
Let’s look at this from the perspective of how the mass consciousness has formed and fed you. You are not a victim to this, but have likely been an unconscious participant. Now it is time for full awareness. One of the ways mass consciousness works is to tell you that you should have a partner and also, most likely, children. It may say that your relationship is to be forever, that separation or divorce is wrong. To change partners can bring a sense of failure and guilt. Having more than one relationship at a time is also usually frowned on by that societal teaching, leading to further guilt. There is no right or wrong in any of your actions, but, again, notice your thoughts around these things. There may be contradictory messages that come to you from the “spiritual” realms. This guidance from teachers or teachings might tell you that you should not have a partner, that you should be celibate. You should not even entertain sexual thoughts. This is just as confusing as the judgment that you should have a relationship. Some of you are dealing simultaneously with both teachings. Letting beliefs dictate your actions in the hope that your separation from God will end or that you will awaken is not going to happen. Whatever you resist will persist. Your job is not to try to control or change your behavior, but to just notice what is there. Otherwise you are putting things outside of yourself, therefore not accepting what is. Any fight or struggle to oppose what is will leave you in the perpetual state of conflict. The peace of God is not there.
To be One with God, be One with Yourself. Perhaps you notice no desire for a relationship or you may notice an intense desire for a partner or simply for sex. It doesn’t matter what the thoughts and desires tell you. Just notice and accept the perfection of what you are feeling or experiencing. In your perfect relationship with yourself there is no judgment or need to change. You accept yourself exactly as you are. Will this acceptance be followed by a difference in the kind of thoughts that enter your mind? It is likely, but not if your “acceptance” is rooted in the hope for such change. Notice such thoughts and stay with whatever is present for you. You are becoming your perfect relationship. Lovely!
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How am I to deal with disease?
The message this month is perhaps going to be a little different. We are going to speak about sickness with a special focus upon Michael and Ulla. As we speak, Michael has experienced being sick for the past two weeks. We imagine that most of you have some kind of idea of what that might be like. For Michael it has been a long time since he has had such extended sickness, perhaps not since childhood. Ulla has known him for ten years and has never seen him sick for more than a few days. Part of Michael’s good health was fear based. As a young man he wanted to live as long as possible, a hundred – even two hundred years. He wanted to always stay in the best possible health. It was not just diet and physical practices, but most importantly mind over matter. Perhaps he believed he might need that much time to figure out how to ascend. Perhaps it was ego trying to show that it was stronger than the outer world. When others became sick he had judgment. It was their minds that created the sickness. They believed in seasonal health problems. They believed they could catch things from others. Several years ago I let Michael come down with a short sickness to help humble him. He was able to begin to release the health judgments he had been holding toward himself and others.
Now we find something quite different. For two weeks he has found himself to be of very low energy, though that is slowly increasing. There is some physical discomfort, though that is slowly decreasing. There is almost no appetite, though that is also slowly increasing. But still after two weeks, there is not a lot of energy or appetite. Ulla expresses that she believes there must be some purpose or reason for this sickness, and wonders what it is. She also expressed how it touches her fear of losing Michael. She is a little pushy with Michael, asking him what Sanhia has to say about it. Before giving Michael’s response, I want to talk a little about how our relationship has changed since his days of desired physical immortality, culminating in ascension. Michael has come to accept the illusion of the physical. He realized the insanity of wanting an illusion to stay alive. Michael surrendered his physical death totally to Me. He let go of any need to control the timing of any of it, trusting me to take care of everything in the perfect manner. Truth is, I had been doing that all along. So, Michael’s response to Ulla was that Sanhia says to just be here now, to accept the perfection of this moment without wanting it to be any different. I would be less than honest if I were to say that Ulla was pleased with this answer. There were two reasons for this, first it did not leave her any opening for suggestions, “You could take this supplement or follow this action.” My directions specifically said to accept what was. Secondly, this left her deepest fear exposed, death. What if Michael is in the process of dying? This was quite a trigger! I joked to Michael how honorable it was for him to sacrifice his body so that Ulla could face her fear of death. Just kidding, of course.
I will say that Michael did a fairly good job of doing just what I asked him to do, to be present with this. His attitude about death is very clear; this body will die. It’s not up to him when it happens. It is only for him to accept and live whatever is gifted in each moment. So he has passed these days fearlessly, if not always comfortably. His challenges have been to look at where he is feeling discomfort, accepting what is felt rather than wishing to change it.
Now, as they say, life goes on. During the two weeks there were two, two-hour online spiritual alchemy groups scheduled. There was also a four-and-a-half hour in person spiritual alchemy group. Michael had no energy for any of these events. For the longer group, he was pretty much strapped to a chair with a blanket hung over him. None of this had any effect upon the channeling. I communicated clearly to Michael that it is part of his purpose and agreement that he let me come through. Even though he was without energy, all he had to do was to stand back out of the way. Fortunately, that required no energy. I was able to come through powerfully, saying what people needed to hear. I was filled with energy; I was my normal witty self. People did not even need to know what their questions were, because I was already there. Now that has been the nature of my relationship with Michael. However this further clarified things for him, as to the difference in our parts. If he had fantasized that his part had anything to do with the wit, the humor, and the precise comments, he was quickly disabused of that. Had it been up to his energy, there would have been no groups. It was so clear what the channeled energy was.
Michael is aware that there are only two things for him to do, the first being to follow whatever My wishes might be – mostly as channel and as scribe, but also playing and performing music on the side. Otherwise, his only job is to take nothing seriously and accept the perfection of whatever is presenting itself now. It is in that light that we have encouraged him to hold this sickness. It is a bit of a wild card he has drawn here. As it is now, what is there energy for? Mostly that would be sitting on the veranda in the sun reading, listening to birds, and enjoying the greenness and life. It doesn’t get much harder than that. Are things backing up on his computer, things that he has taken some responsibility for? Little by little I reel out a little energy here and there so that different tasks can be accomplished. The focus is that it is under my direction, that I, not he, am responsible. The first week I did not allow him to do anything outside of “our” work. This second week I allowed time and energy for several things. Everything took him at least twice as long as the “healthy” him would have taken. I reminded him that time did not exist and that if I chose to kill his body, none of this would be accomplished. Is he moving into a world where he takes on much less? Again, I am not going to tip my hat.
There is always a reason and perfection for everything that happens. Sometimes it is valuable for the individual to have an awareness of that reason. In this case with Michael we have nothing to say. Perhaps at some point We will say more, but we are not promising anything. What is there for him is to simply accept and trust the perfection of the now. The thought enters his mind, “What if this is still going on two years from now?” He looks at that and responds, “That is an interesting thought: Now, what’s here now?” Tomorrow does not exist.
Up until this moment we have been commenting only on Michael’s two-week sickness, not about anybody else. I would not tell anyone who is experiencing a physical disorder of some kind not to seek out relief or support. Follow your guidance. There is nothing wrong with amelioration of pain. Also it may be quite obvious why you are experiencing a certain ailment. Perhaps your guidance is telling you that you have been ignoring yourself to take care of others, and the sickness is a wakeup call to notice what your body wants. Sometimes sickness comes to tell you that you are too stressed and busy, that it is time to relax. There can be many wonderful messages that can come to you through a sickness. Please don’t let anything I have said discourage you from looking at what that might be. Again, I encourage each of you to do what you are guided to do. It is important that if it is someone else’s pain or discomfort you are concerned with, the guidance is still for you. You don’t receive another’s guidance. Even if this is your child, the fears are yours. The death confusion is yours. One of the misunderstandings around sickness is that the only satisfactory end is in a healing. Someone is diagnosed with cancer and they choose whatever treatment modalities they are guided to, whether from fear or from Spirit. For some it is considered a failure if the cancer does not go into remission. This is not acceptance of the perfection of the now. Part of the process of every sickness is full acceptance of what happens. Death fears may need to rise to the surface. Sooner or later you will all experience a physical death. If you surrender your fear around that now, you can live peacefully in the now with whatever presents itself. Without fear you are fully aware that there is no physical death; it is just illusion. If you are invested in a personal history, a past, a body, a future, and a continuing story, you will not want to lose that identity. You will fear that death and live in pain and suffering. Who you are simply is, with no attachment to any stories. When you realize that the game is not to be taken seriously, though it is to be played fully, you play whatever hand is dealt you.
Michael is aware that it is not his job to feel a certain way all of the time. However he feels, that is the gift for today – not wishing it were different, nor that he had more energy. Not even wishing that he felt up to cooking. Ultimately it all comes down to trusting your inner guidance. If you give your power away, whether to the medical establishment or to alternative healers, that is not following your guidance. They all have their agendas. It is unlikely that their thoughts encompass encouraging you to listen to your own inner voice. The doctor’s goal is to fight the disease and win. There is no place in that for accepting the perfection of the now. Again, there are no right or wrong answers. Your guidance may say to follow the medical model. Listen carefully to see if your choice is fear based, the hope that the expert will save you. You cannot be saved. You already are saved.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Why can’t I hear Spirit more clearly?
When you have a situation where you think you might want to have outside support – from Me or from somewhere else – what would happen if you instead go to your own inner guidance? Some people say that the response isn’t as clear as what is heard from Me or from other sources. They often feel that their ego voice interferes, that there may be fear present, and that the information often can’t be fully understood. It sometimes feels like the answer is in the form of a riddle and they are uncertain just how to interpret it. There also may be a hesitance to trust their ability to hear Spirit, or a fear that they might just be crazy to listen to and trust an inner voice.
The first thing to trust is that the part of you that hears the thoughts coming from Me and recognizes their truth for you in this moment is your inner guidance. The process of keeping this always one step removed from you is what keeps you feeling stuck. I’m trying to work Myself out of a job here. I am telling you what you know to be true, but you are projecting that truth out upon Me, rather than accepting it as your own. It may be time to stop distrusting your inner knowing and to be willing to hear it more and more clearly. Part of the confusion is that your ego mind does not want to hear the fullness of what Spirit has to say. If you project that voice outside of yourself, you can fight with it and not take full responsibility for what it is communicating. Instead of directly following your guidance you can give yourself the “luxury” of being in resistance for some period of time. I am of course joking when I use the term “luxury”; this is simply a time for prolonging your suffering. When you accept the guidance now as your own, or at least ask Spirit to help you in doing that, you can move right into and through your fear. It is always easier than you feared it would be, because it was never a real fear of a real happening. All that is required is for you to face it. Your guidance will encourage you to do that. I am always willing to play the role of the bad guy by telling you what you don’t want to hear. Eventually you have to become your own bad guy. Everything accelerates when you take responsibility for your guidance. When you acknowledge the voice as your own and are willing to pay attention to it, it will probably never shut up. It will keep on you until you fully surrender to it.
One of the ego fears that leads you to project these voices outside of yourself is the belief that others will think you are crazy. Then you can play the game that Peter portrays when Jesus is arrested. You can go into denial saying that isn’t your voice; that is somebody else’s crazy idea. You wouldn’t believe such a thing. “You must have me confused with someone else.” You can say that you read it or heard it from Sanhia, but he doesn’t speak for you. Perhaps I don’t. That is an important question to ask yourself. If this voice is also your voice, it may be time to fully claim it. It is not the world; it is not your parents; it is only you – your projection and your ego – that fears you are crazy. The only way out of that fear is through it. Since We are not holding your fear, the way out is not through Us. It is through you; it is necessary to go within and face it. This does not mean that you must go cold turkey and stop talking to Us. We are always willing to speak with you. It is about taking these words and owning them. Acknowledge that this is your inner voice speaking to you. That is why you listen. That is why you trust it. That is why you act on it. If you are truly doing that, it is unlikely that you will return to Us with a question that you have already asked. New questions may arise, but the old ones have already been answered for you in a way that you trust. If it does not feel right to you when I speak, stop Me then and question Me further. Otherwise, take it as your own and work with it. If further questions come, by all means feel free to ask.
When I answer your questions, I may pursue a path of “beating the ego senseless”. This may leave you feeling a little disoriented. Repeated reading or listening may help the message to sink in. That’s when you may notice other questions arising. Feel free to follow up those questions with Us. Continuing to focus on these issues and dealing with the fears that may come up will take much time off of your period of pain and suffering. Such activity does constitute making the guidance your own. The ego will continue to protect its turf until it doesn’t. Repeated focus on the guidance will lead to a place of full integration. You can return to external sources such as Me for reassurance, but there is always a level of distrust of self, of Spirit, or of God in that. We are training wheels. Eventually you will coast without Us.
Meanwhile, there may be a fear of the Oneness, a fear of going it alone. There appears to be a safety in having the support of other people, of relationships. This is always projection. The only way to realize yourself fully at home with the Divine is through your own personal relationship with Spirit. The desire to share your spiritual process with others may stem from the fear that you are not loved or loveable. Take that directly to Spirit. You are Love. You will never find acceptance if you seek it outside of yourself.
When you don’t trust your inner voice it may be because you don’t trust God. You project your inner misuse of power onto the Divine. You fear that if you were to allow yourself to be powerful, then you – as you fear is true of God – would become absolutely untrustworthy. You are Power. When you give your power away, whether it is to Me, to A Course in Miracles, or to any person or teaching outside of yourself, this guarantees you the right to resist. Resisting might look like pretending to not understand. When you go directly to the source, to the Divinity within you, there is no wiggle space remaining. You can resist the words you hear, but the inner guidance goes beyond words; it is knowingness.
Ultimately, the sharing with others becomes absolutely unnecessary for you. There will be no need for anybody else’s guidance. Sharing then becomes something you are guided to do for Spirit’s purpose, not for your own need. If it is Spirit driven, you will notice no attachment to outcomes or even to understanding why you were guided to share.
Spirit is speaking clearly to you right now. It is only for you to listen “softer”, to quiet your ego mind so that you can hear. I am not separate from you. When you open up to hear these words it is your inner guidance; it is Spirit that is being heard. That voice is always there, perhaps only whispering now, but eventually it will be the only sound you will pay attention to. The ego will slip away. The thought that you and I are separate will slip away. There is only the One.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Is the illusion a mistake?
This time there is no easy quick answer to this question that wouldn’t require a lot of explanation. We need to take a good look at where this question comes from. We have talked a long time over many messages about how what is in the physical world, in the sensed universe, is an illusion. It is not real; nothing is truly happening. As long as you consider the physical to be real, you invest it with a power and feel yourself to be controlled and victim to this universe, but that has things reversed. The physical universe as it appears to exist is created from your inside, though you may not be in conscious awareness or control of this. Your ignorance does not change the fact, any more than the truth is not altered by your belief or disbelief in it.
Let’s take a step back also for those of you who have been students of A Course in Miracles, which is a wonderful teaching, chock full of valuable thoughts. Like all teachings in the physical world, it is not the truth; it simply points. When people read ACIM, it can easily be used to justify their own confusion and project that into the Course and say, “But the Course says this…” One of the things that many people do in looking at the Course, including some of its teachers, is to hold onto a belief something like the following: “We allowed a single mad belief to enter our minds that we could create something separate from God and so we dreamed up the universe. It is not real; it just exists in our minds. God knows nothing about this imagined separation. It was a mistake.” Let’s start by looking at those two thoughts. If the universe was created by a mad crazy idea, this might suggest that it was all a mistake. My question is, “Really?” This proposes that God, Who is all loving, all knowing, all powerful, could somehow have something going on behind his back that he is oblivious of. Is that a little bit crazy? Does that sound like Oneness? God is everything and all is God except for…well, this universe. He is then unaware that His Divine Son is living in self-created hell? This sounds like a limited God. God can do anything except create a physical universe. There is a little confusion going on here. This leads to the thought that God has nothing to do with this universe, that it is your job to recognize your mistake and to leave this evil place and return to God. How alone, how separate that feels.
We also have the voice that asks why, if there is a God, He allows such evil to exist on the earth. This other “Course” voice responds that God doesn’t permit evil; he knows nothing about it. Now it appears we are stuck having either a malevolent God or an incompetent God. Let’s continue. This is getting more confusing all of the time. If God is aware of all that transpires in the illusion, how can a loving God allow all the atrocities that appear to transpire here in the universe? Why is there dishonesty, hatefulness, jealousy, anger, cruelty, violence, disease, and death? Why hangnails, God? Why? Why? If the universe is just a mistake then everything in it would also logically be a mistake. Did God make an enormous mistake here, whether it was a sin of commission or a sin of omission? Let us, for the moment, take the point of view that by definition God is Oneness, excluding nothing, therefore including the illusion. Remember that we are just playing with words here. We are not trying to prove anything because nothing can be proved. The truth simply is. We are just playing with these different thoughts that might be going through the mind. We play with the thought that our definition of God would make it impossible for Him to be unaware of the world. If God is intentional with the world and God is infallible, then God could not have created the world as a mistake. If it is all One how can anything be wrong? Everything simply is. There is, therefore, an absolute purpose in you being in physicality.
The question then becomes that if it is a given that God created the world and it is also a given that God cannot make a mistake, why did God create this thing? This is a place where I am not going to pretend to give an answer. Go inside and see what your guidance tells you. Nonetheless, I will say some things. For some reason, humans find themselves believing that they are in this illusion and that it is real and their bodies are real. As long as those beliefs are held they will experience pain and suffering. Whatever goals they set, whatever they try to achieve in order to break out of this – they fail at. The peace and happiness they desire is elusive, it is not realized. Nothing in the physical world can fulfill that hope. Only awakening can lead toward such a fulfillment. Nothing but the realization that everything is an illusion can bring about peace.
As demonstrated by Jesus, and recently celebrated in the Christian churches, all will eventually ascend, will return to the Oneness. However, that doesn’t answer the question of why you are experiencing being here. Why are you going through all of this? I’m going to go back a little on my word, because I get to do that since they never communicate the truth. I’m not going to explain why God allowed this to happen, but I’m going to give some possibilities to play with, while not promising that they have any truth to them. In the Oneness of God, of Divinity, there is simply the Oneness. There is no place to express the Oneness, no place to express the Love. In order for the Love to be expressed, there must be a game played where duality appears to happen. There must be an other to love and feel loved by. So, you exist within that dream of duality as what feels like a separated being. Now the potential exists for God to express love to God and God to receive love from God. Without time, without physicalness there is no experience. Nothing happens. So, God wakes up one day, and of course there is no day because there is no time and there is no waking up because there is no sleeping, and says I want to experience myself today.
Perhaps as you are reading this it is, as Michael and Ulla are now experiencing, a beautiful warm, sunny spring day, perhaps with a cat sitting nearby looking out at all of it. The new growth smells of spring are present along with the explosion of colors from the newly risen flowers, and a greening that seems to appear everywhere. In the Oneness none of this exists. For God to experience these sensations as well as to have feelings, there must be the illusion of separation. There must be an observer as well as an observed. Duality serves this purpose admirably. Now God can have good sex. I’m just joking with you…a little bit. We are just having fun with this now. We can say with absolute certainty, this illusion is no mistake. There is clear purpose in everything, even though you might leave this body and never have an inkling of what it might be. However, as you surrender your ego to Spirit and you hear the Divine guidance within you, it will direct you as to how to spend the physical time. To the degree that you can give up your thoughts that you know better than Spirit or God about what will bring you happiness, about how to spend your time and energy, you will find yourself doing exactly as you want; you will find that your desires are absolutely aligned with God.
Let’s play this game in another way. What is more beautiful to the ear, the sound of a wonderful singing voice or that same voice with another in harmony with it? And maybe there is a third in harmony to them and a fourth in counterpoint coming in against the flow? Feel all the energy moving around that. How can there be harmony created without separation, without the physicality of sound waves and ears? What if God simply wanted to have television and you are the programming? God is just sitting there with his clicker enjoying the show. How about a comedy now? How about a drama? Click. Click. With your imagination you can create endless possibilities, knowing you are likely nowhere near the truth of it. But it can be fun, and doesn’t God like to have fun?
Did God put everyone to sleep in order that they could wake up? Is it like a game, like hide-and-go-seek? Everyone go hide and one by one We will find all of you. How much fun that was for you as a child! Is God playing that game? Again, I don’t know. God requires no justification or explanation. We know that whatever might appear to be imperfect in the illusion is indeed perfect. Whatever looks like a mistake is precisely how it should be. Whatever thoughts you have that things are not right keep you trapped in hell. When you are able to accept the perfection of everything happening in this illusion, you can experience heaven on earth. It is heaven because you are One with God, not because you have remade the earth according to your separated belief of how it should be. Again, we lovingly remind you that you haven’t got a clue. What would the purpose be in there being no value in something you are experiencing with your physical senses? Why would God co-create something with you that served no purpose? Believing this is possible can lead one into places of helplessness and despair. The value may not be the value you would attach to it. I can point out to you that some of the things that you have felt to have been the worst happenings that could befall you have turned out to be among the most valuable gifts you have ever received. They have helped you release untruth, fear, and confusion. Those events that don’t feel that way to you are simply gifts you have received that remain unopened. To complete that awakening journey (which requires you to go nowhere) nothing can remain in your thoughts as being a mistake. Instead you trust absolutely; you listen to that inner voice, whether you call it Spirit, God, the Divine Presence, Allah, Jehovah, Jesus, or Sanhia; you surrender absolutely to it and trust that it always has the perfect guidance for you. When you ask for support, it is brought to you in the most powerful and direct way possible.
In conclusion, there is a short answer. The answer is no. The illusion is not a mistake. There are no mistakes. It is all perfection. It is as it is preordained to be. You can choose to live in the loving trust of that perfection, or not. Even if you listen to your ego instead of to Spirit, it is not a mistake. You will realize the perfection at some point, no matter what you choose. You can choose it now. Finally, we offer this prayer: “Spirit, help me accept the perfection of the now”.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Is it good to have a support group?
Always! The primary value of a support group is to remind you of the truth. Most of the world is absolutely insane. Everything you experience day in and day out is crazy. There is very little truth expressed from your outer world. If you are able to find a group to meet with on a somewhat regular basis that is dedicated to the truth, such a meeting can remind you of what duality is. These people can help you remember to ask yourself the question “Is that really true?” about whatever you may be thinking. You can be supported in letting go of ideas of victimhood and separation. Such a support group is a wonderful thing to have. Again, most of your world will not reinforce your desire to awaken. Working by yourself makes it all the harder and will likely take a much longer time.
In a similar fashion it can be a wonderful support for you to read regularly – or watch videos, listen to recordings, whatever format works the best for you – things that reinforce non-dualistic thinking. That helps to train your mind to go there instead of into the ego knee jerk of bowing down to the mass consciousness and dualistic thinking.
So…Yes! Yes! Yes! Support groups and supportive reading material.
Now I have an enormous BUT. Notice that BUT is with only one “T“. I actually have no butt, no body, nobody. The BUT is this: The groups and the reading are supportive, but they won’t get you home. They won’t shake you awake. All they can do is point for you. Today we want to look at where they are pointing. If your group or instructional material is not pointing in the direction we are going to indicate, you might consider changing trains. For example if your support group’s leader says, “Follow me and I will lead you home”, it might be time to ask for a train schedule. If you are reading a book and it tells you, “These are the steps and processes that will wake you up”, there are plenty of other books out there. The pointers that come from your support systems should be leading you to go within yourself. They should point to that voice inside of you, your own inner guidance. Your inner wisdom recognizes the truth. That inner voice may recognize what you need to hear through these outer voices. You have asked Spirit for awakening. It might lead you to the truth through your mirrors. This is not to say that everything you hear in your group or your reading is for you. When you feel a resonance, you can trust that those are the words your inner guidance wants you to hold for the present. This truth is always inside of you and not outside. That is how you recognize it when you see or hear it. If you are not recognizing truth from your supports, it may be time to jump ship. The route home is in an inward direction. No groups, no source will do the job for you. You can’t read A Course in Miracles and expect to wake up; it’s a pointer, not the point. No person, group, or group of ideas can do that for you. They are all pointers and not the truth. The truth cannot be expressed in words. It is not a group of ideas. So take advantage of groups and other supports, but be eternally vigilant to see if you are letting them point you inwardly or outwardly.
Let’s take this a step farther. Wherever you think that something in the world is going to help you or save you, you are mistaken. If you think you will find fulfillment through seeking more money, a better job or relationship, or a more consistent spiritual practice, you are chasing your own tail. You are welcome to try it out, to prove me wrong. Most of you have been down that road, probably down many roads. You know what I’m talking about. Immediately you might get a lift, a high from these different sources, from these varying evasions from truly looking within yourself. Ultimately they are never enough. Nothing and nobody on the outside will ever be totally fulfilling. The truth of you, the Divinity, the home, the awakened state, the ascended state that you wish to be experiencing is within you. There isn’t anything to do except to recognize it. Wherever your attention is drawn outwardly, you cannot see it. It’s simply not there. Nothing there is really there.
Does that mean not to go to a group because it’s not really there? Good point. It’s not there, but that doesn’t mean don’t go to it. As long as you are in a body, you are going to go places and do things. Why not go someplace that will remind you that it is not real, that what is true is always inside of you? Most places encourage you to see the world as a place of victimization, of blame, of right and wrong, and to be angry. The trap is only in confusing the pointer with salvation. It’s your job not to do that. If the pointer encourages you to depend on it, get out that old train schedule. The group is there to remind you to look inside, not to provide you with all of the answers. You can also make a support group out of a close relationship with someone who you see daily, or often. You can act as pointers for each other, reminders to look inside to find the truth, prompters to not take the world seriously or to play the victim/blame game.
Recognizing that though the answer is not out there somewhere in the world does not mean abandoning the world. You deal with physical reality however you deal with it, but you are absolutely aware of when you are placing redemption in that outer world. You act in the world without attachment to results. You choose and participate from a place of guidance rather than from knowing. This can become the terrifying aspect of waking up. There are people you believe you need in your life. Not true. All you need is Spirit, your inner connection to Divinity. As long as you grasp onto your need for others you will fail to fully embrace Spirit. Let’s go another step. We want to remind you that nobody out there is real. Your relationships are all fantasies you are having with projections of yourself. You may have been going along with the idea that the world is an illusion, having read ACIM or other texts or heard different speakers. That is just an idea. In order to convert that from an idea to the truth will require you to act. You need to take the steps you would be taking if you knew all of this was true. You are no longer getting a free pass to let fear dictate your choices. This calls on you to be aware in every moment of what you are thinking and doing, and to see if it is based on the truth or illusion. If you are giving ultimate value to anything other than your relationship with Spirit it is time to stop playing spiritually immature games. The only reality is that One relationship. If you wish to end suffering, your priorities need to be straight. Nothing in the world matters. Nothing. You are the one who knows when you are not being honest with yourself. No teacher or book can do that work for you in the now. They can inspire you and redirect you, but the work is absolutely yours.
I encourage you to hold onto that focus. I encourage you to come back and read this again, to remind yourself that your only refuge is within you, never in others or in things or in events. Your only truth is within you. The only time is now. Bon Voyage!
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
It seems like the world is falling apart; how can I deal with my fear?
We wish to begin by returning to our definition of reality. It is quite simple. Something is real if it never changes. Anything that can change is unreal or illusory. When you observe anything going on in the world, change is involved. If everything in the world remained the same, no fear would likely be felt. Fear is of something different and uncontrollable happening. I suppose one could be afraid of the same horrible thing repeating forever, but your experience shows that the last thing you could say is that anything ever stays the same. The worst that could happen is that one undesirable thing mutates into another one. The only thing that ultimately matters is reality. None of the things that comprise “the world falling apart” matter in the end. Whatever is here today in the world will one day not be here. Everything that is presently in the world, was, at some time previously, not here – including the earth itself, the solar system, and the universe. All in the physical experience is transient.
You are. That’s it. Notice I have placed no words after are. I haven’t limited or defined you in any way. I haven’t mentioned anything about a physical body or a gender. I mentioned no nationality or religion. Nothing was said about a talent or vulnerability. I am only speaking of you. You are. That is reality. Any words that might be placed after are would not represent the true you. They would not be talking about anything permanent. This body will die, but you are. Beyond all physical existence, you are.
Every fear that you have is a child of your deepest dread – your death. When there is war on the planet, it is your own anxiety about death that is touched. If you feel worried about something happening to your children or other loved ones, it is all projection. It is your own demise that you don’t want to face. If you are worried about losing your job, behind that terror is your fear of death. No job, no money, no shelter, no food, and no health care – something will kill you. I can tell you the truth, or you can read it in numerous other places. There is no death. You are. You cannot but be. It is your Divine nature. You are. The part of you that is convinced that who you are is a body lives in constant fear of annihilation. You might be able to hide from it. You may bargain with the devil to gain immortality. Some do that by trying to be a “good” person in the hopes that God might smile upon them. Some try to leave their mark on the world so they might live on forever. Others hope to remain alive through their descendants. All of this is in the futile wish that you will be worthy, the hope that God might accept and love you, might welcome you back. This pointlessness is a wonderful thing. The attempt to be immortal guarantees a continuance of your sufferings. Behind this futility lies the possibility that you might finally say, “Enough!” You can’t earn immortality; you already have it. Trying to gain what you already have is a fool’s task. Not only is it unachievable, but it keeps you from enjoying your birthright.
Some years ago we spent a lot of time talking about fear in these messages. It is time to make a return. The only way that you can discover for yourself that your fear is not real is to fully experience it. Most people when confronted with fear choose either denial – pretending it’s not there – or indulgence – “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die”, which could be drugs, sex, overeating, surrounding yourself with friends, throwing yourself into a cause, or becoming a workaholic. If you want to overcome your fear of death, you must confront it. You must stare it right in the face. What you will find if you truly do that is that there is no fear and death doesn’t exist. This is not something you can ever deal with on a mental level. Your mind can only succeed in making death real and justifying your fear. Nor is it a question of overcoming fear, which would only serve to make it real. That is the game of duality, creating separation and then doing battle with an enemy. It is a fight that will never end. There will be a perpetual supply of threats in the illusion, each one more convincing than the last. How much toilet paper can you stockpile before there is an end to fear? It is not about overcoming fear. It is time to leap right into the mouth of your terror.
Ask yourself where in the body you feel this fear, where it is being held. Maybe it feels like a tight ball in your solar plexus. Locate it wherever it seems to be. On a mental level you may “know” that the fear is not real. But this is not about knowing or understanding. There is nothing to change, and nothing you can do to make it go away. The belief or idea that triggers the fear isn’t real or true. What is there is any energy that seems to be going on in the body that you are labeling as fear. As you are experiencing these thoughts and feelings you can use the pointer we gave recently of “Next, please”. Allow that thought to go and let the next one come. That might be all it takes. On the other hand, you may find that regardless of the thoughts you dismiss, the feeling persists in the body. If that is the case, go into this feeling, face it. Shut down your mind. Make no attempt to explain, understand or justify the feeling. Don’t try to chase it away or destroy it. Don’t make it wrong or right. All of those activities make it real and give it “life”. Look at it. Feel it. Fully experience it. Go deep into this “fear”. Do this thoughtlessly. We have given you a technique for doing just this, though it hasn’t been mentioned in a while. If fear seems to be present in any form, it may be time to either dust this off or use it for the first time. If you click onto this link for the five-step process, you will find an explanation of how to do it, as well as a download which guides you through the five steps. It is also available on another page in Swedish. Your job – you have only one simple job – is to go into any fear you feel until it dissipates. This it will do because if you focus on something that isn’t there, without any thoughts in your mind, you will become fully aware that it is illusory. There is simply nothing present but the Love of God. The supposed fear disappears into the nothingness from whence it came.
As you are doing that, why not go for the gold? Look at your fear of death. I predict that when you look at this worry and see that it is not real and that, therefore, death is not real, your experience of life will be quite different. As you face your fright and watch it dissolve, so that you go through your days fearlessly, you are going to find yourself living in a whole new world. One thing you will become aware of is how fear-based your daily activities have been. You will be acutely aware of when a thing is done out of fear rather than from the joy and love of doing it. Until you stop reacting to God’s Love with apprehension, you will not know who you are. You will have no clear idea of how to behave within this illusion. Allowing the presence of fear makes you feel not worthy, as if you don’t deserve Love or peace. You do not merit Oneness; you are doomed to struggle for everything you wish to have. As long as fear is present there will be suffering and you will remain asleep in that nightmare. Fear is not the opposite of Love. It blocks out the Love so that you can neither see nor feel it, just as the clouds are not the opposite of the sun. When they dissipate you notice the sun which was always there. Without fear you can only act out of Love, you can only be the sun, because that is who you are.
I am not claiming that he was a great spiritual master, but about ninety years ago during that period known in America as the Great Depression President Franklin D. Roosevelt came on his weekly radio talk to the nation and declared, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself”. Millions heard this message. How many took it to heart? Probably not so many, but truth was told to the masses through a new universal forum. This was coming from a man so crippled by polio he could hardly get up from his wheelchair. Despite this disability he became the longest serving president in American history. Whether people loved or hated him, and there were plenty of both, here was a voice of truth. That message is still there for you today. Go into your fear. Face it fearlessly or fearfully, but face it. You have nothing to lose but your fear, and it is of no value to you. You don’t want it. It protects you only from Love, from your Divinity. It serves you only as a wakeup call. It does not keep you safe or alive. Your life can never be threatened by anything. The body you are using has instincts born and bred into it that serve to protect the physical life. Instincts help you jump out of the path of a moving car. This is not fear-based. You don’t have time for fear to direct your escape. The anxiety comes afterward. It keeps you from ever crossing the road. Fear does not keep you safe; it sustains your pain and suffering. Terror deals with threats that are in the mind rather than in the now. Bodily death is inevitable. Fear cannot stave that off. But, the physical death, like the physical life, is ultimately meaningless. Facing fear will help you to understand that. Nothing stands in the way of your opening to accept the truth of who you are, except your fear.
Fear wonders how you can function in the world, taking care of yourself and your loved ones. Fear believes that is all on your shoulders. Fear does not trust God, Spirit, or Divinity. Everything is being handled on a level of perfection that is beyond comprehension, but fear is insisting that you have to be in control, handling everything, while at the same time knowing you are perfectly unable to carry out that task. You are afraid to trust and afraid of your own lack of power. What a double whammy fear packs. The only way out is through. Face your worst fears. Today. Now.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How can I be sure I am on the right path?
All of these questions are enjoyable, but this one is really fun. When you think about it, and I do know that some you of spend some time thinking, there are lots of paths out there. There are a multitude of choices with all of the major religions, minor religions, cults, disciplines, teachers, retreats, centers, ashrams, temples, and monasteries. On top of that is the plethora of books. You would be hard pressed to keep up with reading all of the spiritual texts dealing with the various paths to awakening, enlightenment, or ascension that have been published and continue to appear at an ever increasing rate. As we mentioned in the previous message, some of the authors/teachers claim to be enlightened and are willing to show you the way. If you study more than one of these paths, you will find there isn’t a clear overlay. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who can you trust? What’s a poor seeker on the path supposed to do? It’s too hard to sift through all of this. What if you spend years following a certain path and then find out you’re on the wrong one? Now do you have to go back and start all over? Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Fortunately, I can make this very simple for you, unless you would rather make it difficult for yourself. To begin with, you can’t know anything. No matter how much you study or learn, no matter how hard you work at trying to figure it out, you will never have certainty about being on the right path. You will never have full confidence that all you need to do is to continue down the path you are following, persevere with your practice, pedal a little longer and maybe a little harder, take a few more trips around the sun, and then – BINGO! You are home; you are awake.
The good or bad news is that there is no right or wrong path, or that if such a thing exists you will never know whether or not you are on it. Now comes the answer that you may have been eagerly awaiting, salivating over. When you hear about someone else’s path and have a reasonable expectation that what you’ve been told or what you are reading is a fairly accurate depiction of how they woke up, you can be sure that this is not your path. Does that mean you should study every possible path you can find and then see what is left? You could try that. Let Us know how it works. But, We can make it even easier. Your path is unique to you. Nobody shares this path with you. Nobody else will awaken in precisely the same manner. No one ever has and no one ever will. It is just yours. How, you may be wondering, can you figure out what this path consists of? You discover it inside of you.
You don’t find it by seeking out a teacher to tell you what the path is. You won’t find it in any book. You will only find it within yourself. The only thing holding you separate from realizing the truth of yourself, from fully experiencing your Divinity, your I am-ness, from the awareness that everything else is an enormous practical joke, that you are not this body, that you are not this anything which you could attempt to define, that you simply are – is within you. There is nobody outside of you in the world, in your house, in the neighborhood, in the metropolitan area, in the time zone, or in the universe that is holding a gun to your head telling you that you must stay asleep. This is absolutely an internal choice. The only way you can possibly experience your awakeness is by choosing differently. Everybody has their own unique set of untrue beliefs. If everyone shared the same beliefs there would be no wars or conflicts. All would be in agreement. But there are all these differing views about how everything should be. They are all false. They all cause personal suffering. They are all voluntarily held. All that concerns you are the ones you believe to be true. Nobody else knows just what you are holding in your hand. They can’t see your cards, so this process has to be your own.
When you ask the question or have the fear about whether you are on the right path, the answer is so joyfully simple. There is no right or wrong path. You are simply on your path. It is what it is. Does this mean you should never read another book, follow another teacher, or pay attention to the examples of those who apparently have awakened? Should you shut out all religious teachings? There are no shoulds here. Any should you hear is not coming from the true you, it is a voice from the outside. If your inner guidance draws you to read something, read it. Notice what aspects appeal to you or what games you want to try out. You may also find something from the same book, teacher, or source that pushes you away. Pick and choose. The truth of you will speak to you through others. Trust what is pointed out to you. If you miss something that might support you, you can be sure it will keep coming back around until it gets your attention. Maybe the pointer you follow today is the last piece of the puzzle and you realize the folly of all you have previously held as true, that you have taken so seriously. Maybe the latest piece of guidance seems to lead to an absolute dead end. However, following it may have been the best way to have that realization. We have placed a small bet that that is the case. The most important thing is to listen to your inner guidance and to follow it.
How can you know that you are on the right path? Are you listening to your inner guidance and following it? You can’t do better than that. Remember that your inner guidance is for the present. Nothing is forever except the true you. This now may last a short or long time. It is important to stay connected to that inner voice and see what is there for today. One thing that makes your path unique is that it is custom designed for you by Spirit, by Divinity. Whatever comes to you today is always the perfect thing to nudge you into awakeness. One of my favorite things about duality is that it provides a home for irony. It is so humorous that as long as you want to be special you will stay asleep – because that desire is based on separation, but at the same time your path to awakening is specially unique, different from all others. Your path is special, but so is everyone’s. You are One in your specialness.
If God wanted to create in his likeness a form that is capable of having sensual experiences, three dimensional encounters in this illusion – why didn’t he just make one form? Why not make one human instead of multitudes? We are not trying to speak for God here – that is certainly a fool’s task – but it is fun to play. One could guess that there are so many because each one plays out a unique aspect of the wholeness of God. No one aspect can reflect all of God, but taken all together they make up that Oneness. This is analogous to an orchestra, which depends on each instrument making its unique contribution. But, look at the magnitude of this ensemble! One instrument failing to contribute the sound it has been given keeps the whole from expressing its unity. So, we have a world in seeming chaos, but your only job is to play your note and allow others to find their own.
This brings us to the second, exciting part of this message. If you have the thought that it is all about awakening and that once you are awake nothing else matters, keep reading. Most likely the awakened you will look around and notice that the body is still here. The realization will be present that this body is not you, but it remains to be noticed and “lived” in. The world is still there, too. It is an illusion and is not to be taken seriously, but you are still observing it, sensing it. In that awakened state where you have learned to listen to, trust, and follow your inner guidance, you will continue to do just that. What now is the purpose? That information is also outside of my job description. It is not for me to tell you what your purpose will be in your awakened state. You will have no need for that. You will be guided. I will set the stage though. Is your brother awake? Is your sister awake? Will you look about and notice those that are unconscious of their awakeness? You will be aware of the sleepwalkers and your guidance will suggest what to do about that. I have been telling you that other people’s illusions are none of your business. Your only job is you. Now that you have disappeared, you no longer have a job; you are unemployed. Since there is no you, there are no goals, nothing to be pleased or satisfied. In this uniqueness that is related to the “specialness” that formed your unique path of awakening, you will now have a particular path of expression. You will play your part in this cosmic symphony, and many have been waiting to hear your song. It is all connected. It is all planned. You will touch those other beings that the Oneness, that the Guidance, that the Wholeness, that Spirit, that God, that the Divinity – whatever you wish to call it – wishes you to reach.
That now is your function. That is between you and your creator and is none of my business. My only job is to point the way toward your realization. I am not your guidance. Your guidance might lead you to my voice. It might lead you elsewhere. It doesn’t matter. All roads lead to Rome. It doesn’t matter if you ignore information that could have shortened your trip. Time doesn’t exist. The destination is certain. Your decisions are preordained anyway. No matter how hard you try to be the captain of your ship, you will eventually surrender. Whatever you choose is perfect. Spirit will give you as much line as you need. When you make the decision to surrender to your inner guidance, you will hear it more and more clearly. It will direct your path until you realize that there is no path; there is nowhere to go. There is just the eternal now. No other place to be, no other place existing, and you are there and always have been.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How will I be able to tell that I am awake?
It is fun to be back to a question this month. The short answer to this query is that you won’t be able to. You won’t be able to tell if you are awake. Now, perhaps you have at least figuratively thrown your arms in the air and are screaming, “What now? If I can never know…..what meaning is left?” To further muddy the water We will add a corollary. If someone comes up to you, or you are reading what they have written, and they tell you they are awake, or enlightened, or ascended – walk, don’t run, quietly but quickly in the opposite direction. Why do We say this? To say that “I am awake” is a statement of separation. Who is this I? If one were awake, there would be no more identity for them as “I”. Though they might use the name they have been known by, it would mean nothing to them.
One who is awake would see that awakeness or Divinity in everyone, regardless of whether the “others” could see it themselves. In that sense to say “I am awake” is perhaps to really express “I am awake and you’re not. Nanny, nanny, boo-boo.” It is creating a separation, which is not the expression of awakeness. This smells just a little bit like having an ego attachment, superiority. Perhaps they want to keep you as a student so they can hold an identity as a teacher. If somebody claims to be a teacher who can teach you and bring you to enlightenment, turn around and quietly, but quickly, walk in the opposite direction. This is not your teacher. This is not to say that you cannot have a teacher. I speak to you not as a teacher; I speak directly to the awakened you who knows who you are. That true you recognizes truth. It is not by following me or anyone else who is providing information or pointers that you experience your awakening. That you will experience yourself in your own way. You will experience through focusing inwardly, not on outer examples, however helpful these might be. If in this process you think that you are now awake, keep going. You are not there yet. If you are still experiencing an I, a you, and a them, there is still separation.
You might think that I am now saying that there is more work for you to do. You don’t work your way to awakening. It might be more accurate to say that you unwork your way. Awakening is noticed after you have let go of every false belief you have. As long as you hold on to having to work at that, you are holding on to a belief. If this sounds like a Catch-22, that’s because it is. Remember that the truth that can be explained is not the whole truth. So you work at not working. You believe in letting go of beliefs. You stop searching for what you most want to find. You will know that you are there when you realize there is no you there. If you are thinking in terms of having an “I”, notice that and go on to your next thought. You are still holding on to a separate identity. When you try to do something, you are reinforcing a you who is trying to change your experience in the illusion. Every thought in duality has its opposite. “I am awake” is opposed by “I am still asleep”.
There is no place to start other than with intention. Eventually the intention gets lost. I cannot tell you how this process will work for you. You will find direction as you seek different guidance, different pointers from different places, and play with them. If your life is consumed with this process of letting go of process, then perhaps you will get lucky one day. I can offer a few pointers. There have been a number of them in the last few messages. Notice what is coming in to your mind. While being aware of your thoughts, notice that you have very little control here. Most of your thoughts appear, unchosen. Suddenly they are there. Where did that thought come from? The illusion is that you are the creator of your thoughts, which would make your thoughts a product of separation. But if you are the generator of your thoughts, you should have absolute power over determining the next one. Play with that and find out how helpless you are to control your next thought. As your body is being breathed, your mind is being thought. You don’t know where they are emanating from. You think you are thinking thoughts, but the thoughts are thinking you. Life is living you. Rather than taking ownership of these thoughts and taking on the fool’s task of trying to herd them, just notice them fly by. Notice the thought that is now in your mind and then say, “Next, please”. Let it come. Look at it and say, “Next, please”. And so on. Give the thoughts no particular value; don’t judge or evaluate them; just watch them pass by like clouds on a windy day. The true you is the noticer of the thoughts, not the thinker of the thoughts.
The you that believes it has a separate identity – that exists, that has a name and a body separate from other bodies – is living in an illusion, in a fairyland. That you thinks it has to do something, go somewhere, or know something to become awakened. It believes it is separate from its awakened self. And of course you will be right, because that will be your experience. That’s why following any particular practice, discipline, or teaching will help you to stay asleep. Your awakened self is not somewhere else. Your awakened experience is not something else. It is right here, right now. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing to believe. No one to show you the way. It all comes back to the noticer and the noticing. See what is here. Accept whatever thoughts come. Nothing to change. Nothing to improve on. Nothing to figure out.
Meanwhile, here is a game you can play. It is not the game. It is not the path to awakening. It is not a must or a should. It can simply help you to notice the separate self you think you are, that is…..to separate you from your separate self. The irony of words is just too much. You can play this game for any period of time. You can try it for a minute, for five minutes, for a day, for a week, for ever. It doesn’t matter. Just have fun with it, or struggle. It doesn’t matter. Here is the game. You eliminate in your thinking and conversation all first person pronouns. There is to be no I, me, my, mine, myself, Instead refer to self in the third person. Use he/she, her/him, his/hers, or herself/himself. You can also identify self with a name. Instead of saying “I am happy”, say “Emma (supply your first name) is happy”. Little kids often do that: “Johnny thirsty”. Practice being in the third person. This helps to take away the direct identity and ownership of this personality. It helps one to be the observer rather than the observed. It is as if you are talking about someone else, a place where you already have separation. Now you can begin to feel a separation from your ego identity. It can help you to loosen those chains. No guarantees here. It’s just a game. If it does cause you to awaken, write and let us know. Of course we’ll know you are not telling the truth. If you wonder how we will know that, please return to the first few sentences above. The game might best be played when you are alone with your thoughts, but if you have others who are willing to play along – go for it. Embark on a third person diet, abstaining from the first person.
There is no randomness to the thoughts that come to you, no randomness to anything that appears to you in the illusion. Everything is scripted and planned out. Everything is in perfection. Everything is there to support the awakening process, or more precisely, the awareness of the awakened state. Where do the thoughts come from? They come from Spirit, from Divinity, from the Awakened Self. Whatever you choose to do with the thoughts is also scripted. Sometimes you have to go down a road and beat your head against the wall for a while before you can realize that is not the way. You are guided to take these steps, though your separated mind likely believes the guidance had a different purpose and may be disappointed by the destination you find yourself arriving at. Your goals are not realized. The Divine purpose is realized. There is always method in the madness. What you might hold as a failure is actually a success at eliminating another untruth from your mind. The experience was necessary to the letting go process. As you become more aware of the workings of Divinity, you will find it easier to accept the perfection of what is here and to give up the false beliefs – remember, all beliefs are false.
We have been filling Michael’s head with thoughts since he was young. Some he resisted, some he pondered over, and some he acted on. None of those choices is the correct one. Whatever you do is the perfect response. It was what We knew you would do. Most of these thoughts are not designed to trigger an immediate awakening to the total knowing that it is all an illusion and the separate you doesn’t exist, though one of them will do that. The thought you are having now will probably just lead you to the next step. The number of steps is finite. So, pay attention to your thought, and then say, “Next, please”. At some point it may be obvious that there is nobody there thinking those thoughts. You will be awake, but there will be nobody there to notice. There is just life living life – the eternal joy of the moment, no matter what it is filled with. There might be pain or a flash of anger. Like everything, this will be present and then leave. That is the nature of the illusion. Nothing lasts, unless you make up a story about it and hold on to that. The awakened you won’t do that. There is nobody there to hold on. There is just the observer, experiencing what is there. Immediately that is replaced by something else. Zero attention span. “Next, please”.
So, We have a bonus for you this time with two games you can play. First is the third person diet and second is the “Next, please” game. Enjoy! Then let go. Perhaps in mid-game you notice nobody there playing the game and just laugh. Nothing left to do. Nowhere to go. No responsibility. No weight on no shoulders. No job. No purpose. As the man sang…there is “nothing to do but today”.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
What if there is no question?
If there was an order of difficulty in the illusion, which of course there isn’t, this would be a slam dunk set-up. This absolutely is the easiest question to answer. If there is no question, there is no answer. So, we will have an answerless message. All questions come from the ego mind, from separation. They come from the mind that is trying to figure out what to do in order to awaken. It wonders what practice it should be following. It wonders how to handle certain situations. It wonders what stands in the way of being fully awake. Questions are the realm of the seeker. A self-identified seeker will always be a seeker. To say that you are seeking is to say that you are not awake. That can never change as long as you remain identified as such. In the awakened state there are no questions, except perhaps, “What’s for lunch?” Obviously, therefore, there are no answers.
Sanhia, you might be thinking, are you saying that we should stop asking questions? No, I won’t ever tell you what to do or what not to do. Try to stop asking questions. See what success you can have there. My guess is that you will find it difficult to accomplish. You might sustain a question-less state for a short period of time. But after, say, thirty seconds – a little humor here – you will likely find questions popping back into your mind. The mind that can ask these questions, wonder about them, and then search for answers is the mind that believes in the reality of the separation. It thinks that it has to figure out how to cross this chasm that separates it from its awakened self. How does one get back home? The answer is that you can’t get back home because you never left. Just click your heels together three times, Dorothy. [1]
You notice yourself having questions. The mind wants to believe there is information that will free it. Information only imprisons the mind. The less you know the closer to truth you are. If you reach the point of knowing nothing, you may be in touch with absolute truth, though you would be at an absolute loss as to how you might explain it. Meanwhile, you are probably not going to stop having questions. Notice that you are entertaining a question, but don’t make a conscious choice to look for an answer. Just notice that the questions are there and then ignore them. Were you ever told when you were a child that if you just ignore the kids who are teasing you, they will stop? Try that with the questions. They may eventually disappear.
So, you may be thinking – if you are already home, though it doesn’t feel like you are and if asking questions or accumulating knowledge will never get you to the point of that awareness – what the hell are you supposed to do? Far be it from me to state the obvious, but you just asked a question. Any answer I might give you to this question could not be the truth. There can be “pointers”, thoughts that can point toward the truth, but nothing that explains to you what you want to hear. Give no energy to your questions. Give no energy to possible answers that might come to you, other than a quick listen and then letting go – a catch and release routine with your insights. Instead, notice what is here now.
You wake up in the morning – some of you that is, certainly not you rock stars – and everything around you is new; it has never happened before. Everything! This is the only day like this that you will ever experience. Notice with your senses all that surrounds you. Experience it. Enjoy it. Don’t think about it. That last one is a toughie. Don’t think about a monkey sitting in a red upholstered chair eating a banana split with a cherry on top. It’s hard not to think about an idea that has come into your head, particularly when it is dangled in front of you. Every thought that you have about everything you experience around you, as you are waking up in the morning, is not about what’s there; it’s about a memory you have around your experience. Notice that; let it go; and be in the now with what is present. What you are now sensing, you have never sensed before. The memory may bear similarities, but it stands in the way of noticing the uniqueness of now. Even these recollections are not really from the past; they are happening now. You are not traveling back in time; you are having a present time thought. Whatever memories or sensations that you experience are not right or wrong; they are not good or bad. They simply are, and they are happening now. If you start thinking about them, you are no longer aware of what is happening now. You will be missing the brand-newness of this moment. Everything is unique. Nothing repeats. I will repeat that. Nothing repeats. Words are so much fun to play with, especially when you are aware that they truly don’t mean anything. When you laugh, an invaluable and absolutely unexplainable event is taking place. We are putting this message into written words, which you are reading now. If you come back to this message tomorrow, you will not have the same experience of it. You will encounter different thoughts, feelings, and reactions. It may seem like it is the first time you have read it. If you give yourself additional time, a month or more, it seems that you have never read this message before. You may find sentences you don’t remember seeing and have difficulty finding the one that most stood out to you. What is really true?
If you want a game to play while “waiting for Godot” – waiting to realize that you have always been awake – pay attention to everything around you. If you notice your mind bringing in past or future concerns, notice that is part of your now and refocus on what is here now. Your job is not to change how you are doing today; it’s to notice how you are doing it.
Now, let’s approach things from another direction. As you are observing everything, notice how miraculous it all is! There is this whole apparent world surrounding you, just as you were engulfed in another world in your dreams last night. The mind wants to say that that was a dream and this is real. Are you sure about that? Real or not it is a miracle. There is a bird chirping outside your window! What a miracle! Did you make that bird? It’s just there. It’s a gift from life for you. Do you need to understand what kind of bird it is or how it evolved, how it came into being in order to enjoy its presence? And how about you? This thing you think is you. We have often talked about how the body is not the truth of you, but without it how can you experience this illusion? Did you make this body? Do you know for certain how it came into existence? You may have an idea, but are you sure that is the truth? Yet here are all these systems in operation. The heart keeps beating. Are you responsible for maintaining that? It just operates on its own. What a miracle! What a gift from life! Your breaths just keep happening without any need for you thinking of it. Imagine if forgetting to breathe would lead to death. What a pressure that would put on you! But, no, life takes care of all of that. It goes on and on. The body tells you when to eat. The earth provides food. The body transforms it into fuel and distributes that energy throughout the system. All you have to do is to avoid foods that might kill the body and garner satisfaction from those that are tasty. Life maintains the life-force so that you can be a player in the drama without any knowledge on your part of how all this is done. These miracles continue through every moment. No matter how learned a scientist you might be, you don’t have a clue how these miracles came to be, nor why. Where did this spark of life come from? Who is running the show here? Does it matter? Do you have to understand? Would that increase your ability to experience life in any way? Would it help you to be here now?
Instead of enjoying this absolute miracle of being here, your mind wants to be somewhere else, so that you can wake up (or be a rock star, etc.). It’s a little humorous. As life presents life, it also presents experience. Your mind thinks it has to figure out how to handle life, how to organize and direct it. The thought is that if you don’t stay on top of things, life is going to run you over like a truck crushing a squirrel in the road. Just as you haven’t a clue as to how to direct the body, you haven’t the slightest idea of how to direct the outer world. As it has with the body, life has it all taken care of. Life presents you with whatever is perfect for this moment. There is no need to figure anything out. All that is called for is paying attention. Notice what is happening right before your eyes. Be aware of what life is bringing to you. Notice it; play with it. If a response or a decision seems to be called for, look inside and see what life suggests to you. It’s not rocket science. There are no traps or trick questions. There are no wrong choices. Questioning is looking outside of yourself for the answers. There is no need. Everything that the situation could possibly require is provided. Life is an IKEA project with all the parts included, just lacking written instructions. They are hard-wired within you.
The awakened person is an idiot with no idea of how to take care of the self. This one has no idea what is supposed to be done or who the self is. In the natural conscious awakened state, that self just lets life do what it is going to do. Life knows. Life does it whether you choose to flow with it or put up a fight. You are just along for the ride. Sit back and enjoy the show that life has prepared for you. Forget about the questions. Forget about where you are headed or about where you have been. Those thoughts have no importance for you. Everything necessary for your adventure is right here, right now. Notice what life is presenting. Do more than notice; play with it. Enjoy it. Be a child.
If you find yourself having no questions, embrace that empty space. How wonderful! It might mean that you are here now. If you do have a question, We have an answer for you. The answer is, “It doesn’t matter.” It’s a wonderful answer because it fits every question. One size fits all. That’s all folks. That’s the end and the beginning and the totality of the story. You are here. It’s a miracle. Enjoy your miracle.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
[1] For those who are unfamiliar with it, that reference comes from the film The Wizard of Oz.
What part do my old relationships play in my awakening process?
More likely than not, all your relationships could be called “old” relationships. You have a story about each one of them, from those recently formed to the ones you have had since childhood. More accurately, particularly with those bonds that are long standing, you have a multitude of stories. Within these narratives you define who that other person is to you: what they are like, what they provide for you, what you like and dislike about them, and the particular role or roles that you play in the relationship. You might be aware that you don’t seem to be the same person in each relationship. Perhaps you like the role you play with some acquaintances better than the person you find yourself to be with others, and so are more likely to seek them out so you can like yourself better.
Why do I call all relationships “old” and what does all of this have to do with awakening? Your natural state is to be awakened or absolutely in the now, taking nothing seriously as you are fully engaged with what is in front of you. In the now there are no old relationships. There is no history. If you are with another or even thinking about them, and you have any expectations based on stories or histories, you can know absolutely that you are not in the now. That means that you are asleep. You are not seeing the truth as it is. Your mind is creating scenarios about the other person and about yourself that have nothing to do with the truth of this moment. That’s what the ego mind does; it likes to create little dramas. What might it look like to be in the now with a relationship? We have talked recently about observing the observer. You have an observer who is looking at this relationship, at the other person, and at yourself, whoever this self is. It simply observes. Meanwhile your ego mind is making judgments based on what is observed. The truth of you, however, is the observer – not the analyzing mind.
It is not a question of needing to let go of old relationships that keep you stuck. Stuckness will then be created with any new relationship you attract, no matter how “spiritual” it might appear to be. It is also not a question of becoming a recluse and having no relationships, so there is nobody to create stories with. The ego mind will always find a substitute; you will find some place to project. Rather it is a question of stepping back to the observer, focusing on the noticing rather than your analysis of the noticed. As you are able to do this, you will see that every story you have about other people is false. If you are purely observing another from your true self, rather than from your analyzing mind, you will simply see their Divinity, and be absolutely in love with it.
This is a process that We invite you to play with in each and every relationship. It doesn’t matter if it is a relative or family member, a childhood friend, a longstanding friendship, an enemy, an old or present lover, a co-worker, a clerk in a store, a stranger you pass on the street, a celebrity you have never met, or a character from a movie, show, or book. This observing can be applied in the same way to every scenario. If you are in the physical presence of another person, recognize when you are doing more than just noticing. Pay attention to where there are any thoughts, expectations, judgments, likes or dislikes related to what is being observed with the other person. Just notice it. Be aware if a part of you wants the other to change in any way. Discern if you want to receive something out of the meeting. Notice that. In this awareness, the job is not to change yourself; it is not for you to stop having these thoughts. Just notice. If you have thoughts about changing your behavior, acknowledge that. Who is noticing? Your mind will likely keep active; your only job is to try to remember to recognize what you are doing.
By doing this you will, one by one, destroy every old relationship. These associations are based on stories. With them you tie yourself and the other up into specific positions and roles. The absolute freedom of the now is denied. Your behaviors and your perceptions are limited by these beliefs. In addition, your happiness likely is dependent on the other acting as you wish them to, leaving you upset much more often than you might wish. In the now there are no old fossilized relationships. Each moment is brand new. It has no history and is connected to no future. For some reason that is beyond the understanding of the mind, another person is brought into your presence. What a curiosity that is! Why? What is this all about? The only way to find out is to watch and see what happens. Whatever it is has never happened before and will never happen again. It is absolutely fresh. It is now! It matters not if this is a person you have never encountered before or a partner you have spent decades with. Let everything else go and allow yourself to experience this now.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. To the ego mind it feels more difficult to deal with the older relationships in the now, to hold them in a different way – particularly those with family. How do you view your parents, or your children? Most of you no longer live with your parents. One or both of them may no longer be living. With or without their physical presence, you still have a relationship with each of them. All you need do is to pull up the memory of an old story. You find yourself having a physical reaction, perhaps your heart beats faster or you are flooded with emotion, and all this with no physical presence. A parent may have done something that felt hurtful to you when you were seven years old. Now you are fifty and you pull the story up and feel hurt all over again. This certainly is not your first bout with this memory and will likely not be the last. Can you join me in appreciating the humor in the situation? Any outside witness could testify that your parent is not at the present moment doing anything to you. It’s just you doing it to you, while projecting blame on your possibly senile or dead mother. This is not living in the now. In the now you have no relationship with anybody who is not in your physical presence. But, since you already have the story pulled up, why not take a step back and watch it from your observer self. Look at it. Again, if there is any judgment or emotional response, that is not the watcher. Notice that. Who is noticing that? Keep stepping back to the watcher who sees the story, sees the child and the parent, and sees the adult replaying the whole scenario. The observer doesn’t take any of it seriously. This watcher doesn’t believe it is real or unreal. It doesn’t blame or take pity. It just notices.
For those of you who have such stories with your own children, let’s look at this from the viewpoint of your “home movies”. As they are growing up, your mind perceives all their vulnerable, fragile places. You feel a need to help them survive in the world with these deficiencies. Perhaps they are now adults, living on their own. These old stories keep being projected in your mind and you worry about them. Based on a story that was never true, but just a projection, you carry with you a constant pain. Then, just to add even more humor to the situation, your children probably react negatively toward this interference in their lives. They don’t want your story running their life. They may hide much of their life from you. The story keeps you from a now relationship with them, with another adult. As with the stories with your parents, notice all of this from the observer. A few laughs can usually be helpful in this process. Be aware of the fear, judgment, and guilt. Step back and watch from your observer self. You may be experiencing your noticer if you find yourself having feelings of absolute love for your family members. This love doesn’t worry about them and has no concern over whether you have done enough or done the wrong things. All that is experienced is a loving acceptance of what is.
This applies to every relationship. What stories are you still holding about any romantic relationship that broke off? Look at any specific groups of people. What stories do you hold about the other gender, about certain generations, about specific educational or intellectual levels, about financial status, about race or nationality, about religion or the lack thereof? The stories are endless that the mind creates. Each one locks you into a place where you are not free in the moment to truly be with others, whether in your thoughts or in their physical presence.
Having read all of this, you may still feel helpless in your ability to get to your observer self. How do you stop looking from the ego mind? You start by paying attention. If you simply stand still and accept all your mind stories, you will remain in the same cycle. Begin with a willingness to observe from your watcher self. It might sound trite, but where there is a will, there is a way.
There is a conundrum here. We are talking about a difference between Oneness and duality. You cannot hold the two simultaneously. The ego mind can only operate from duality. The truth of you can see only Oneness. How do you leap this chasm from duality to Oneness? The answer is that you can’t. The only thing you can do is to be aware when the ego mind is operating. You can notice that you are creating and operating from a story. Who is doing the noticing? That’s a good question to keep asking. You have no ability to control and change the mind that is creating stories, judging, and being overcome with emotions. Rather than futilely trying to become the noticer, you might ask yourself what qualities the noticer wouldn’t have. As you notice your mind or emotions acting in certain ways, ask if those are traits of your noticer. Ask if what you perceive is actually true. If you keep looking at these activities and are brutally honest with yourself the answer will eventually be no, these are not qualities of the observer. It is not possible for the noticer to change the noticed, nor would the noticer have any desire to do so. All that you can do is to slowly increase the frequency with which you are able to notice. At some point there may be a synaptic leap from duality to Oneness. You can’t make it happen any more than you can make a seed grow into a plant. You can nurture it through cultivation, but you can’t force it. At some point you may suddenly be fully aware of the absolute insanity and humor of the ego mind and stop using it.
Meanwhile, you have one simple job. Notice. You don’t have to change yourself, anybody around you, or the world. Just notice. There is no better place to focus this awareness than with your relationships, so that they can all become new relationships. Each meeting with another becomes like good improv theater, flowing with what presents itself, enjoying the spontaneity of the interchange, and allowing your guidance to carry you. There is no question of where it’s going, only an enjoyment of where it is.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
How can I see the world through Spirit’s eyes?
Often in the past, which of course does not exist, We have talked about the difference between how your ego perceives the world and how it is seen through the eyes of Spirit. You have been encouraged to learn how to do the latter. It is time to discuss this in a little different way. You are. You have no memory of not being nor can you conceive of a time in the future of not being. That is because you are. That is the truth of you. Anything you might add to that description is not the truth. You are not male/female, mother/father, worker/retiree, scholar/athlete, musician/artist, happy/sad, smart/stupid, brave/timid, or any other descriptor you might come up with. You simply are. Everything else is not the truth. When you look at the world and see yourself or others in specific roles, and evaluate, judge, set goals, or attempt to change what you perceive, that is all done through the eyes of your ego. Today let’s talk about looking through the eyes of Spirit.
The part of you that is notices what is there in front of you, whether that be the seeing of physical objects or people, or things perceived through the other senses of touch, smell, hearing, or taste. Using your senses, you notice everything around you. Nothing that crosses your awareness has any particular value of being better or worse than anything else, nor of having good or bad qualities. Whatever you perceive simply is a part of the world you are noticing. We will identify you as the noticer and whatever is perceived as the noticed. If you desire to see always through the eyes of Spirit, be the noticer. Simply notice what is in front of you. As soon as you label anything, whether it is through naming (for example calling something a chair), or qualifying (what a nice day), you have left behind noticing and are now evaluating, classifying, or separating. You are back to seeing through the eyes of your ego. You are now noticing the noticed instead of the noticer. Go back and notice the noticer. Be the noticer. Who is noticing?
That may feel like a very difficult thing to do because it is not your accustomed behavior. You haven’t been trained in this manner. Your education has always been to analyze and evaluate. When you begin those mental activities, you stop noticing. You make decisions as to the specific qualities the noticed appears to have. You decide that you know everything about that. Say you are sitting outside and watch a bird land on your lawn. Your ego mind wants to identify the species of bird, know what its habits are, be able to recognize its call, and find out about its diet, mating practices, and migration patterns. You may feel concerned that your cat will snare it or worry that it might have a hard time surviving winter, and think perhaps you should put out a feeder. The noticer, however, uses no names, does no thinking, and simply watches. This noticer has no thoughts that what is seen should be different in any way.
You may be thinking that this sounds like a pretty difficult thing to do. How can you possibly shut down this process that is always on, always busily at work judging, wanting to understand, and looking out for personal advantage? Besides just being the noticer may sound boring. What kind of fun can you have just doing that, you might wonder, if you are not reacting to the world? Let me start with some motivation. If you think that you can ever truly understand anything, you are sadly confused. If you think you know something, you are wrong. If you think science has answers, science knows nothing. The individual you might consider to be the most brilliant person on the planet is an idiot. I am not picking on anybody here. Only the ego mind can “know”, and it is a mental cripple. Any truth that can be known by the noticer could never be explained in words. To know is to separate, divide, and label. As soon as you begin doing that you are seeing untruth, because the truth is all One, indivisible [under God for you Americans :)].
You say that you want to awaken. This can only be accomplished while looking through the eyes of the noticer. You notice through those eyes what is there. You can notice when you have stopped noticing the noticer and are now noticing the noticed. Notice that the ego has taken over again. The noticer has no horse in the race. It has no desire to change or reject any part of the illusion. It simply notices. Your ego thinks you have to accomplish something, go somewhere, or do something in order to awaken. You don’t awaken by doing something, but by stopping doing things. You stop paying attention to the noticed instead of the noticer. You stop placing attention and importance on the effect rather than the cause. Your job is to notice. You are doing this all of the time. There is never a time when you are not noticing, but in the midst of your awareness you try to jump in and interact with and modify the noticed. You do this for whatever reason: to make it better, to protect yourself, to protect someone else, to deliver justice, to get revenge. You stop noticing that you are noticing. Your job is now to notice what is transpiring, to notice that you are now identifying with the ego, with the noticed. Who is noticing that? Bring your focus back to the noticer. The ego mind wants to punish you for the transgression, to try to change and do better in the future. Notice that and go back to the noticer. You don’t need to change, Nothing is wrong. Just go back to noticing.
The noticer has no stories. They belong to the ego’s realm. The noticer is only aware of the now. You cannot see the past. Only the ego mind can hold stories from the past. In front of you is only the now. There is no future to be seen either. It is not in sight. Any projections of hopes or fears are only in the ego mind. The noticer is absolutely unaware of them. Neither past nor future can exist in the now.
How does one go about only noticing the noticer? The easiest way to explain this is to describe what is not part of the noticer; things that belong to the ego mind. The noticer does not have words: names, labels, thoughts or ideas. If you picture an infant looking at the world, lacking language, you can have some concept of what that might be like. You are simply observing what is there. There is no name for cat. There is no memory bank. There is no experience based expectation of how a “cat” might behave. You observe “black” but have no word for it. Those labels belong with the ego. The ego mind creates terms in order to separate. The ego may prefer black cats or, on the contrary, believe them to be bad luck. The noticer just sees what is there, thoughtlessly. Your ego mind will come in and attempt to interpret what is observed. No problem. Notice that. Notice that you are noticing the noticed instead of the noticer. If you judge yourself for analyzing, notice that that is also the ego. Notice that. If you are trying to understand, again the ego is taking over. Notice that. Think of a movie camera. All it does is record what is noticed. The download of what has been recorded includes no explanations, judgments, evaluations, or opinions. You only see and hear what the camera sees and hears. Your inner camera adds the other three senses, but smelling, tasting, and feeling also add no interpretive qualities. The sounds, sensations and tastes are not evaluated, simply noticed.
I encourage you to play with this. Take some time and notice the noticer noticing. Be very kind to yourself, recalling that the noticer never judges. Replace the self judgment with noticing. You will likely continue to notice your ego self analyzing, categorizing, comparing, classifying, dividing, or judging – that is fine. You noticed the activity. Now return to pure noticing. These things that you wish to achieve for yourself: spiritual awakening, peace, unconditional love, and being in the now – you may begin to experience when you are only noticing from the noticer and the ego is inactive. There will be no past or future, just the glorious infinite now. There is nowhere to go to awaken; you notice that you are awake. There is no time. There is no illusion. You have always been and always will be awake. You have simply been pretending not to be. You have pretended to be your ego, separate from others, knowing something, having wisdom or knowledge, needing to defend and protect yourself, striving to fill your needs. This is what Jesus meant when he said that to realize the kingdom of heaven you must become as a little child; just observing, just noticing the now.
You may find some parallels with what I have been talking about and meditation, though in the latter you are often trained to close your eyes and shut out the world. You might have an intention in meditation: to calm yourself down, lower your blood pressure, find peace, become enlightened, draw things to you, or leave your body. Any of these things might occur as a result of observing, but only when that is not the intent. If there is intent, the ego is right there in the middle of it all. Again, the observer doesn’t have a horse in the race. There is no focus on changing anything. There is only noticing. Your ego mind screams out against this. It goes against everything you have been trained to do. It tells you that you should be active, doing, working, and focused. It asks what can be accomplished if all you do is just notice without any interaction whatsoever.
Obviously, it is not possible to stay in that absolute observing mode indefinitely and stay in a body. At some point you must eat, drink, move, and do something. There is also a reason why you appear to have a physical body. There is some action to be taken with that body. However, you don’t have a clue why you are here or what the purpose of your body is. You also don’t have the ability to figure that out. When you practice noticing the observer and let go of holding importance for the observed, you will be guided into action in the illusion. It may be in order to take care of your body. Your first job, however, is to notice the noticer, to let go of placing importance on the noticed, on your body, and the world around it. When you realize that, you are awake. There is nothing very special about it. It is the natural state. As you are focused on the observer you accept whatever is shown to you. There is no resistance. It simply is what is. You will feel a natural knowing as to what to do with each thing that comes into your awareness. You won’t know where it will lead or why you should do it, but life simply becomes an experience of playing with each gift that comes in that moment.
If your ego mind is telling you that you came here to make a difference, it knows neither what that difference is nor how to affect it. The observer flows gracefully with what is, doing exactly what is called for in that moment. We can say that in the endpoint of this dance, everyone realizes their observer. This Oneness cannot happen without you, nor can you stop it. Your part is to notice. In that noticing comes the end of suffering, not because you are noticing with that goal in mind – we have already pointed out the impossibility of doing that – but as the natural byproduct of being present. Notice that you are here.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Do I create my reality or does Spirit?
It seems that this month’s question is one of those chicken or egg quandaries. Let’s begin in this manner. When you say “I”, that means the question is emanating from your ego. The ego “I” is the only one you can relate to because there is no true “I”. Only your ego can be asking this question. Then we have the dilemma of deciding what the hell is meant by “reality”. If reality is defined as how you perceive the world, then of course you are the creator. Everything you see in the illusion is your projection, is your creation. Your body, the people around you, the physical world, the weather, the drama, the governments, sports…..it’s all your creation in terms of what you perceive. The important question now is do we want to label your perceptions as reality. I have told you many times, including earlier in this paragraph, that all this is an illusion. Yes, your ego self creates these illusions. I can hear the wheels spinning inside your mind and you’re thinking “Sanhia, you are really not answering this question for me in a satisfactory way.” “Do my thoughts affect this “reality” I’m in, or is Spirit running everything?”
That’s a very good question, but I want to return to what I have already stated. If you are speaking in terms of this illusion being “reality”, you are absolutely in charge because you choose your reaction to each moment. You choose how you perceive; you choose to judge; you choose your emotional response. If you are asking if you have the power to absolutely control this illusion, to make it exactly what you want it to be, the answer is yes, to some degree, but no, not really. If you have a child whom you perceive as lazy, never helping around the house, leaving messes all about, and so on, do you have the power to change this behavior in your “reality”. Those of you who have been in these shoes are laughing and thinking, “Not a chance”. What you do have the power to affect is in how you choose to react. Here the only limits are the belief structures you restrict yourself with. You might tell yourself that any rational person would react in a negative way to this behavior and try to change it. If you are cut off in traffic by another driver, the “natural” response is to honk your horn and display your middle finger. Otherwise, they will never learn proper driving etiquette. I ask again, how successful do you think your expressions of anger are in changing the other driver’s habits? So, if “reality” is what is happening in the outer world, you probably have little power to affect change. You do have the power to stop thinking you should be changing this “reality”, you can give up the thought that it should be different. It is insanity to believe that if you honk your horn loudly enough and thrust your finger far enough out your window, suddenly the highway will be a peaceful place filled with courteous drivers. Maybe the thousandth time of asking your child to clean up after themselves will magically work. Maybe this is why the illusion is referred to as a dream. You have the power to accept how it is. You have the power not to be upset by what is.
The question now comes back that if you are actually not creating this “reality”, who is? Is it just random? Does Spirit create everything that seems to be happening? My answer is “absolutely”. Then you ask me if Spirit has a screw loose? Why would Spirit create this mess? You cannot even begin to grasp the answer to this question without accepting that nothing going on in the world matters at all. I am not saying this metaphorically; this is as close as we can get to expressing the truth in words. Nothing in this world has any value or importance. The only purpose for anything in this dreamscape is in assisting you in waking up. You have no other function or purpose other than awakening. This is not to say that Spirit won’t use you in the master plan of awakening everyone, but while you are asleep you can have no awareness of how Spirit might be using you. When awakened, you are aware that your only function is to do as Spirit asks. Again, this function is not one of saving the world; the universe is going to disappear. It is only in supporting others in awakening and you will not have the responsibility of figuring out how to do that. Spirit will guide your every moment. Everything that happens is guided by Spirit. Everything is planned. Not only is everything planned, but Spirit knows exactly how you are going to respond. Therefore, it is impossible for you to make the wrong choice. Self judgment and guilt are absolute wastes of time. Spirit/God can hardly hold you responsible for doing as you are expected to do. Spirit creates the situation and you respond. If you are in resistance to what is presented and think it should be in some other way, the lessons continue to be presented until you realize that all is as it should be. Maybe that happens in this body and maybe in another. None of that matters because none of this, including time, is real. Eventually within the dream you will have that moment when you realize you have been rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic, trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. You will laugh at your own insanity, let go, and accept the glorious perfection of everything you are and have been experiencing.
You, and here I am speaking to your ego self, fortunately cannot control this illusion that you have been projecting outside of yourself, this dream world. If you could, you would choose from your ego and remain forever asleep. But that’s not in the cards; you won’t be able to accomplish that. On a good day you may fool yourself into believing that you do have that power and want it to continue indefinitely. Ultimately, the weather will change. That’s the nature of duality, of this illusion. Every up is followed by a down, and vice versa. They may not seem to be in balance but neither of them can fully disappear. In Spirit, in Divinity, everything is perfect. There is nothing you would consider changing. The stubbing of your toe, the kiss of the sun, the sting of a bee, and the laugh of a child are all part of the perfection of the now.
I want to repeat that as you are dealing with your life each day, you cannot do it in a wrong way. You are just following the plan. The end of the plan is the awakening and the awareness that it has always been a dream. There is no way you can make that happen today, nor is there a way to stop it from happening now. It’s simply not in your control. The plan is all there. The perfection of it is beyond ego comprehension. The enormity of the seemingly infinite interconnections of Spirit’s plan should be humbling to your ego thought system. If you are reading this message, if you are taking it in, if you have been choosing to listen to Spirit and to let go of your ego mind, all of this has been planned. None of it happens by accident. If you seem to be either ahead of or behind another in your awakening process, take no credit and leave no blame. All is going according to plan (not to speak of the fact that your placement of your “growth” in relationship to others is likely to be faulty). Your reaction to what you are reading here is also planned. You cannot make a mistake.
Those of you who feel all alone, who think nobody understands you, feel that God has abandoned you, or believe that you can’t hear Spirit – know that Spirit is with you at every moment. Your consciousness of this has nothing to do with it. Spirit is always whispering in your ear, whether you are listening or not. There is never a time when you are alone. You are truly One with Spirit and with each other. Absolutely One. Ego believes in your separateness. Again that is why there is a call for gratitude for your inability to be able to control the dreamscape “reality”. The ego can only use its power to maintain the sense of separation. Otherwise your ego disappears. For the ego to make such a choice is not in the cards. Ego dies from a lack of attention.
In truth, this is not a chicken or egg question. There is only one answer and that is that Spirit creates the “reality” of your dream world. Spirit controls every aspect. Spirit does this through a loving, connected “spirit” of Oneness, leading you step-by-step to stop listening to your ego and to hold Spirit’s hand and experience the Love and Oneness. Your ego wants you to believe that you can and should take control and make the world the way you want it to be. It’s never going to happen. When you experience being One with Spirit, you will find that you do “create” your own reality, but this is a co-creation with Spirit; Spirit speaks and you act. There is an absolute alignment. You would never want it any differently. There is nothing you would rather do.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Why is it so difficult to accept everything that happens in my world?
I agree with you. It does feel hard. The ego way, the way you have all been taught in one form or another, is to be ruled by negative emotions. However, it does not serve you or the truth to point fingers at the outer world for your difficulties. You brought all of these challenges in with you. You manifested in your world what you believed to be true. Your ego tells you that it is good to have negative emotions. It serves you to get angry with those who do what you think is wrong. It benefits you to complain about what you don’t like. Your ego supports you in feeling yourself to be a victim; this is so much better than to be a victimizer. In this the ego helps you perceive things in such a way that you are always innocent and the other is always guilty. We could draw up a long list of ego supported negative emotions, each one being a subset of fear. As long as you allow these negative emotions to rule your life, of course, they will. You will remain asleep and out of touch with Spirit.
The world around you, your creation, will slap you on the back and tell you what a fine job you are doing, that you are all in this together dealing with an unfair and painful existence. Waking up is leaving the way of the world. Why is it so hard? Because it is so hard. If it were easy We wouldn’t be writing these messages and you would all be awake. It is hard because you still have a strong belief that your ego is right and most everyone around you seems to be in agreement. Mostly it is difficult because you can’t find anybody else to do this work for you. You have to take responsibility for choosing to awaken and then you have to do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile the world, to the degree that you show your hand, thinks you are totally nuts. You can’t blame anyone else for your failure to awaken. It is totally up to you. I understand the enormity of the challenge, but you have no other choice but to remain asleep. And that isn’t much of a choice because you have already begun to distrust your ego and there may be no going back. Rather than having a foot in each world, you will find no place to call home. You will awaken if you “keep your eye on the prize”, but it is going to take time. It will not happen all at once.
Let’s begin with negative emotions. If you were to decide to eliminate them from your life, it wouldn’t happen quickly . Even if you choose to jettison anger, you will keep getting angry. Your fears won’t quickly dissipate. You cannot effectively drop these negative emotions by making a mental decision, but everything starts when you have that intention. The next step is to pay attention to your behavior. Notice the negative emotions. Do your best not to judge yourself for having them, to not throw more fuel on the fire. Your job is not to judge, simply to notice. The goal is to be constantly aware, but, again, this won’t happen overnight. That is all there is to begin with, so let’s play with this a little, take it for a walk in the park. You go outside in the morning and find it to be either warmer or colder than you would like. You silently complain, or to another if you have a companion. “Why isn’t it warm the way summer is supposed to be?” or “It’s too damn hot!” This is not accepting what is. It is having a negative emotional response to the moment. You enter a store and run right into a person you don’t want to meet. “Why do I have to see him? Oh, no, he’s coming toward me! He’s going to want to talk. Why does this happen to me?” Little things happen all day long. “Oh! I dropped my favorite cup in the sink and it broke! I got it from my grandmother! I am so upset”. Little things. It doesn’t need to be bombs dropping in Ukraine, viruses, or governmental actions. Any little things you react to each and every day are what you are to notice. Your job is to be aware of your negative responses to them. You can come up here and sit with Us and observe, “There I go”. Together we will look without judgment. You notice that it happened. Then you see if your perceiving was judgment free. The more often you are able to catch yourself, the more often you will be able to do so without judgment, or you will at least be aware of the negative emotion of judgment. Again, this is not about changing your negative emotional responses; it is just about awareness.
Let’s look at your negative emotions from another point of view. What possible benefit can you reap from having a negative reaction to a situation? Is your reaction to the weather going to change it? Is getting upset with running into that man in the store going to make him disappear? Will your upset over the broken cup put it back together? You may have been told that there is no use crying over spilt milk. That may be true. Your negative emotions do not help to eliminate undesired outcomes. They do succeed in helping you to feel bad. How would you feel if you didn’t have the negative emotional reactions? How would it be if you simply accepted what is? “This is what the weather is today.” “I guess Spirit wants me to meet this man today.” “It’s just a cup. I have others.” Why not let go. Why choose upset when peaceful acceptance is a viable and more productive choice? You can be joyfully in the now or you can be consumed with negative emotions. This is why I tell you that everything that happens is perfect. I have designed everything to support you in awakening. In your awakened state you will understand and welcome this perfection. Negative responses do not allow you to be present, to receive the gifts, to feel the Oneness. When you choose fear over love you cannot experience the Divine Now.
This lack of efficacy in your negative emotions may help motivate you to do this work. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose, except the fleeting pleasure that sharing your pain with another brings. If you think your negative emotions bring something of value to you, I encourage you to spend some time with that thought. Look deeply. Is it really true? Is this something that you want? See exactly what the benefits are to you. As long as you find plusses there, you will surely stay with them. Otherwise continue to pay attention. With the intention to leave behind your negative emotional responses, for now you merely observe. The transformation will happen in stages and only as quickly as it can. How can you be free of negative emotional reactions if you have one when you notice you are still having them? That may be a little convoluted, but think about it. Nothing more is asked of you than the awareness of when it happens. Noticing is what you do in the now. Negative emotions are never about the now. Someday you will be fully aware of how silly they are.
It is Our job to assist in the transformation. If you set the course of awakening and then begin paying attention, We will bring you everything you need in order to let go of these habits. We will take you step by step at the pace We know is right for your awakening. As we’re sitting up here together in the clouds, looking down on the battlefield, We will assist you in the noticing. Feel free to ask Us why We brought something and to ask for support in receiving the gift. Listen. You might hear a response. Sooner or later it will happen, and then it will happen more frequently. You may not be able to hear Us over the loud chatter of your ego, so it helps you to quiet yourself as you climb up next to Us. If you can’t silence your ego, then simply notice that and the accompanying feelings. Waking up does not require finding the holiest place on the planet, or going there and falling at the feet of the holiest person on the planet and saying, “Show me the way.” You do it right here, right now. You notice; you pay attention, and you listen for the inner voice. No special place, no special person, no special practice. One way you might recognize the diminishing of the hold your ego has over you occurs when you begin laughing at yourself as you notice your negative emotions being expressed.
In conclusion – and of course there is never a conclusion because there is no beginning or ending; there is no time – what makes it so hard is two things. First is when you believe in your ego and trust it is telling you the truth. It is when you justify the righteousness of your negative emotions. “Anyone would react this way to this horrible world!” This makes awakening nearly impossible. There must first be a willingness to stop surrendering to the negative response. Most of you are more likely involved with thing two. It feels so hard to change your ways. The answer again is that this is not your job. Changing behavior in the outer world is not what awakening asks of you. A little willingness is all that is needed. That, along with a commitment to paying attention more and more often, is all that is called for. It becomes a matter of persistence. Nothing sexy or “woo woo” about it, just showing up and noticing. Then, like Michael and Ulla’s cat when she catches a mouse, you bring it to Us and set it down at Our feet as an offering. We know what to do with it and are always grateful. We will do the heavy lifting and present you in turn with your next gift. If you have difficulty fully receiving what appears – no problem. You still have your intention; you are still trying to notice; and We have an endless supply of next gifts for you. Another time you will notice or you may have no negative reaction. Celebrate! Pop the cork! More will follow. Here is Our money back guarantee. If you express an intention to leave your negative emotions behind and pay attention to when you don’t, they will begin to fall away over time. As they do, you will find yourself increasingly recognizing the perfection that each moment brings to you.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Can I learn how to channel?
The short answer to this question is yes, anyone can learn to channel. The first extension to that response comes in the form of another question. Why do you wish to channel? Let’s talk about what this channeling is. I would describe it as directly hearing Spirit’s Voice. It is your job as a human desiring to awaken to learn how to hear Spirit speak within you. That is everyone’s job, a task that you will all eventually master. It may or may not be your job to share that with others. That is none of your business. That is up to Spirit’s plan; it is My business. If you have a desire to be a channel for others, if that is a goal, know that that comes from the ego. That wish sprouts from the ego need to prove that your separate individual self has some special value. This stems from your imagined separation from God, your fear of God, and your hope that some specialness on your part might invite His forgiveness and that you could now be welcomed home. As we have mentioned many times before, all of this is absolutely crazy and unnecessary. The only separation that exists between you and God, between you and Divinity, between you and Heaven is in your imagination. Your return home is a consequence of your self-forgiveness, not any choice of God’s. If your intention is to channel – even if you were to have some success – the focus of the channeling would be to maintain the separation. Your ego mind is not capable of truly choosing to return home; it will always hold the illusion of separation. However, you can still set the intention to return home and ask Me to intervene. And if I wish to come through you as a channel as a part of your return, I will do just that.
Let’s take a little detour. Some people have approached Michael about their desire to channel as he does, perhaps channeling Me. They ask for guidance in doing this, or in some cases believe they can just step in and begin. I would like to tell you some of the story about the channeling I do through Michael. To begin with, this was an agreement made before Michael began the illusion of this incarnation, though he did not consciously remember this promise. However, I often whispered in his ear and he was open to the spiritual direction in which I was guiding him, though he was often quite confused and had no idea where it would lead. I exposed him to the idea of channeling through books about channels and books that were channeled. He became aware that some of the best information available was channeled, though certainly that was no guarantee of quality. I put him in the physical presence of people who were channeling. Nowhere through any of this did Michael have a conscious intention to channel nor did he have any belief that he was a person who could channel. Quite the opposite was the case; he did not consider himself to be intuitive or to be in possession of “psychic” abilities. What happened was that I continued to speak into his ear and he heard me without any idea where the voice was coming from and followed the guidance as it came. He took steps that the mass consciousness of the world considered as absolutely insane. He accepted, though not without resistance, what I brought to him. I don’t tell this story to in any way suggest that Michael is special. He was simply keeping his word with me, holding to – despite fears and uncertainties – the pact that he was barely conscious of, following a course that he was constantly surprised by.
I told Michael as much as he could receive at any given point. Though it sometimes felt to him that it was a little bit too much, I only stretched but never broke him. I know exactly what is necessary at each stage. The stretching is required for there to be opening, for the awakening process to progress. When it was time to stretch him into an awareness that he was actually channeling – something that had felt to him to be just a conversation in his mind – I asked him if was willing to let me come through. He asked “Who?” I replied, “I think you know.” He responded, “Sanhia?” I never answered the question, but simply repeated, “Will you let me through?” Though he wasn’t absolutely certain I had answered his question, he assumed that I had and that allowed him to say, “Yes, but I don’t know how to do that”. And it went from there. At that time it was an enormous stretch for him to accept that he was channeling the ascended master Sanhia with the accompanying stories of the Apache lifetime where Sanhia ascended and his previous incarnation as the disciple Thomas in the Jesus lifetime. These stories were not actually true because none of the stories in the illusion are true, but they have their value. If I had said to Michael as we began our conscious channeling activity that this is Spirit speaking to you and through you, this is the Divine Voice, it would have been more than he could have handled. He had his hands full trusting that he was channeling Sanhia. In the beginning My message was diluted because Michael was not ready for the full power of God to come through. That time has passed. It is time to come fully out of the closet. This is and always has been the Voice of Spirit. You may continue to refer to me as Sanhia. It makes no difference. This is the voice of Spirit coming to you. As I speak, Michael doesn’t exist. There is only this Divine Voice guiding you home, a beacon, a lighthouse. I am speaking in this manner through Michael because he agreed to it and has now fully surrendered to allowing My expression. That is his job. He is happy to do it. He performs this task, now, fearlessly. He has no other function and is aware of that.
This is something that is there for each one of you. I am constantly speaking to each of you. You have the choice to listen or not (as you have done for lifetimes). There is no problem if you can’t hear me within yourself. Ultimately you will. If you are hearing/listening to what I am saying, you have the choice to follow or not. Channeling ultimately entails the willingness to listen and the courage to follow, nothing more, nothing less. This does not mean that you will operate in the way that Michael does. You will be led to your unique expression. I will use you to touch others, as you are being touched now. How that will be is none of your business. That is My job. Your job is only to surrender, to allow yourself to be led. Any fear you have of surrendering and to giving up the idea that you know what to do comes from the ego. This is not a battle between Me and your ego. There can be no conflict between truth and illusion. As you listen to and accept truth, illusion simply disappears. As you develop your ability to channel me and to follow my guidance, the voice of ego will grow dimmer and dimmer.
The form that the communication with me will take will vary for each of you. For some of you it may be more visual or using other senses than the verbal. What will be consistent for all is that the message you receive will pass the test of truth. If anything that you are receiving is fear provoking or causes pain or a feeling of separation, it is not fully Me you are channeling. This is not to say that you won’t ever have fear about following the guidance. At any rate offer the fear or confusion up to Me and ask for help in seeing the truth. That truth is always centered in the absolute and unconditional love of God, in the Divine. It is always about your total innocence, that you have done nothing wrong and could not do anything wrong. There is never anything to forgive. You are the Divine Child of God. When My Voice reaches you, it will reinforce all of that. Anything outside of that is not My Voice. Ask Me to lift you up so that We can look down at the illusion together and see the truth. My guidance will always lead you to your next step.
None of this matters. None of the experiences you are having have any value, except as support in your awakening process. If you think anything does matter, ask for support in seeing that it doesn’t, and in seeing what does. You all will become channels of love and truth through Me. It can be no other way. Let go of any thought that it should appear in a certain way or at a particular time. Release any thought that you should be a “channel” for others and simply channel the messages that are for you. I will take care of everything else.
Good Now
Sanhia/Spirit
Can you give us some inspiration?
It is always fun to take different approaches, to look at things in different ways. Sometime during the past year we looked at the question of whether forgiveness is still important and we have also spent some time in the past talking about old stories. I want to revisit those themes today, but I wish to throw into the mix a couple of examples of individuals who have given absolute and full commitment to their awakening processes through addressing these two techniques.
Let’s start by taking a look again at stories. Everyone has their stories. It might be one about your upbringing and how it has affected you. It could be a tale of your unfair treatment at the hands of a friend or an employer. Maybe it is a story about who you think you are (or are not), about your strengths, or weaknesses. Your saga likely contains descriptors concerning your gender, nationality, race, age, religion, or political party or beliefs. These all might be a part of your story or, better stated, your stories. The only thing you can be absolutely certain about with your history is that it is not true. It does not represent either the truth of you or the truth of the world. These memories are all fantasies, illusions. It is not my purpose today to go into more detail about why these are illusions. If you would like to explore more about stories and dealing with them you might want to read this message.
Stories are absolutely connected with forgiveness. In your story, particularly if it is not an absolutely happy one, there are some “bad guys” and a “victim”; the latter is likely you. If you believe the story to be true, forgiveness becomes nearly impossible. You are trying to forgive something that never happened, to undo a wrong that was never committed. The forgiveness process is then primarily a task of recognizing that you are holding an untruth and letting it go. Whatever it is you incorrectly perceived as happening to you was a projection of your own guilt. The “other” has nothing to do with it. The forgiveness process has only to do with yourself, and you are innocent; there is nothing to forgive. As long as you hold on to the untruth that you did something that requires forgiveness, or had something done to you, that requires forgiveness, you will never get there. You have simply judged yourself for no reason, thinking a story was true.
What I want to do now is to provide you with a little inspiration in the form of two very different models coming from different paths who likely awakened through the process of releasing stories and through forgiveness. The first one may be familiar to some of you. His name is, or was, Bill Thetford. In his story, he was a highly educated and successful clinical psychologist and the head administrator of the hospital connected with Columbia University in New York. The reason you might be familiar with him is that he, along with his employee Helen Shucman, was responsible for the scribing of A Course in Miracles. For seven years they worked in secret with this project. The information came as an absolute surprise to them though they had asked for another way to live with the chaos of their professional world. Though the pair was fully committed to completing the transmission of the material, they were otherwise usually at each other’s throats. Bill and Helen completed the process and then drew to them those who would help edit and then release the book to the world. At this point Bill chose to retire, to leave the intellectual confines of New York where he had lived for 25 years, and to move to a more relaxed scene in California.
Bill had chosen to become a full time student of the Course, perhaps its first. At the same time, Helen said that she could not do that. Bill moved alone to Tiburon, north of San Francisco, finding himself mostly surrounded by Course students. He began to work with the forgiveness process. Bill had a lot of work to do. His life had never been spiritually focused and he had innumerable stories to clean up. After five years of fairly intensive focus, he chose to move to an even more relaxed and supportive community near San Diego. Now, nothing else mattered but letting go of all judgments, all blame. He focused on everybody from his former life. Bill was relentless in clearing the slate with all, with taking full responsibility, with forgiving himself. He made contact with some people from his past stories and apologized for his former behavior. Those who knew him during this period reported that he became more playful, happy, fun-loving and egoless. Bill completed that process and then in one moment on one day he left his body. The world perceived a physical death, but the doctors reported it as being painless and instantaneous. Bill spent ten years with this process. He pretty much started from scratch. Though he had spent ten years helping to bring the Course to the world, his work did not really start until he retired.
The second example is quite different, though he did share with Bill similar professional work being a doctor of psychiatry. Hew Len was a Hawaiian and a practitioner of an ancient island spiritual tradition called Ho’oponopono which teaches, among other things, taking personal responsibility for everything in one’s environment. Dr. Len began a job as the psychiatrist in a hospital for the criminally insane. Most of the inmates were locked up all day because of their violent tendencies. These were men who were not deemed to be sane enough to stand trial for their crimes. The staff he inherited had low morale, with many sick days being taken. On his first day Dr. Len greeted his staff, entered his office, closed his door, and did not emerge until the end of the day. He repeated this behavior daily while the staff grumbled about their lazy and incompetent new boss. But here is what went on behind closed doors. Hew’s office had a filing cabinet containing records on all the inmates. He began by pulling out the first file and reading everything concerning the man’s biography, diagnosis, and offenses. When he had a reaction to any information in a file, he took responsibility for it, realizing he could only see things that were his projection. Hew’s job was to work with his own personal forgiveness on the issue until no judgment remained for the inmate. He would proceed in this manner until he finished the file. Then he would go on to the next file and the one after that, eventually going through the entire filing cabinet. He did no one-to-one counseling. The staff meanwhile was going nuts, but here is what began to slowly transpire in the hospital. One-by-one, patients began to become less violent. Not as much medication was required. The inmates were able to spend more time out of their cells, being allowed into the common rooms. Staff morale began to rise. Workers reported greater job satisfaction. The patients began to be released, deemed to no longer be insane nor threats to society. After a couple of years the hospital was closed; there were not enough patients remaining to justify its continuance.
You may be sitting there saying to yourself, “Sure. How could that possibly happen?” This is the power of absolute forgiveness. This could come about only because in his heart of hearts, Dr. Len knew that only agape love is real and all else is illusion. He refused to entertain the falseness of his projections, choosing instead to be fully responsible for them, shedding the untruths for the underlying Divine love. His unconditional self love spread to all those in the institution, patients and staff alike. They did not even need to be in direct contact with Hew to feel his energy. It was not his job to heal his patients, but to heal himself. The most selfless thing you can do is to take care of your own process. In doing so you cannot help but to touch everyone around you.
So these are two stories. As you are choosing whether or not to make this kind of forgiveness the centerpiece of your life, I want to remind you that no story is in the now. They are all from the past, and the past isn’t real. When you hold on to a story, however that might manifest – non-forgiveness, blame, victimhood – you are living an illusion. You are not experiencing the now. Whatever happened in that story is not happening now, unless you bring it into your now. What these two individuals did was to notice when they were tracking mud on their carpet, to be aware when they were bringing in old stories and acting as if these were actually part of their now. Your job in the forgiveness process is to be absolutely present. In the now there is nothing to forgive. Even if somebody were to walk up to you and hit you in the eye – though you might have an immediate response of pain, anger, judgment, or desire for revenge – it is now, now. That event took place in the past. It has become a story. Actually it always was a story. It is all your creation. As you are able to release the story, everything surrounding it dissipates: the pain, the anger, the judgment, and the desire for revenge. It will be as if it never happened. And it never did. Don’t take my word for this. Try it out for yourself. How valuable would one punch in the eye be if it led to your awakening, if it supported you in always being in the now, in living fearlessly? What if it taught you to always take responsibility and to know that everything that happens is perfect?
All that you need to do is to start with one person and one story. Stay with that story until you have fully assumed responsibility and forgiven yourself. Stay with that person until no stories are left, until you have released them from all blame and judgment, until all projection has ended, until you accept the untruth of the story and have only gratitude for its part in your awakening. You will probably be ready to move on to another person to continue the process. Enjoy!
Good Now
Sanhia
What stands between me and my awakening?
All of these questions come from the ego. There is a certain irony involved in this in that the ego is asking questions about awakening when it does not want to wake up. The first place to look with this question in mind is at this fact that it is your ego which is leading the inquiry, so where is the duality that is always part of the ego? Your question assumes that there is something outside of you that is blocking the way. You can spend the rest of your lifetimes searching for what is outside you that needs to be moved without finding it. The obstacles are always within, not without. This is a trick question. Perhaps I could rephrase it. What are you placing in front of yourself to prevent your awakening? Now things become straight forward. I would turn this around by asking the following question, “What is more important to you than awakening?” If your answer is that nothing is more important to you, I will reply with, “Now tell me the truth.” If there was nothing that was more important to you than awakening we wouldn’t be having this conversation; you would be awake. The ego may be hiding from you what you value more highly than awakening, but more likely you are fully aware that other things are more important for you. It will be a while before your full focus is on awakening. Check back with me next week, or month, or year, or lifetime.
What is more important for you? Maybe it’s your relationship, or your children, or your career, or your home, or your dreams for heaven on earth, or your need for love or approval, or your need to be a part of the group, or your personal identity. Maybe it is your need to have a quest. If you awaken, there may be nothing left to search for. It is time to be honest with yourself. What is it that you value above awakening? Until you have satisfied that need, it will stand in your way. This is the block you have placed in front of you. I will say that whatever your ego mind is telling you about the importance of fulfilling this need is a lie. It is an excuse. It is fear based. This is never Spirit guided; it is always the voice of the ego. The ego will unfailingly come up with reasons, with excuses. It does its best work when it convinces you to be justified in following it, particularly if there is some sort of sacrifice involved. You believe that somebody else needs you. Your children or your family depend on you. Your workplace needs you.
Right now you are in one of three places. The first place you might find yourself in is one of recognizing that there are things you place more value on than awakening and don’t desire to switch your priorities at the present. A second place you might find yourself in is one of being really confused. You thought you wanted to wake up, but now you are not so sure. The third place is one of reaffirming that you really want to wake up, but realizing that you have some work in front of you to see what you have been placing in the way. If you are in the first position, I offer you congratulations on your honesty. Go after your dreams or continue carrying out your responsibilities and check back later if they leave you unfulfilled. If you are in either of the other two positions – it may be hard to distinguish between them – we will talk further.
I want to remind you of something we have mentioned before. There are just three simple steps to the awakening process. The first one is to have the awareness that at any moment you are listening to a voice, either that of the ego or that of Spirit. If you don’t realize you are listening to a voice, it can be assumed that you are hearing the voice of ego. That is the normal chatter inside your head and out in the world. Without being aware that you are always listening to one of two voices, you likely go on nonchalantly listening to that of the ego. When a voice enters saying that you want to awaken but ………….. (fill in the space with one or more of the various things we talked about in the second paragraph), that is ego’s voice. This first step is the hardest one. It is a constant training to be aware that at every moment each thought that enters your mind comes from either ego or Spirit. The default is to think that things are as they appear, that they are true and real, and that there is no other way to hold things. That is ground zero. You are to train yourself to take a step back and to examine each thought. Rather than simply accepting the thought as a true perception of the world, recognize that it comes from either ego or Spirit. At this step you are not even determining who you are listening to, just being aware that you are listening to a voice as opposed to observing “reality”. The heavy betting, however, is on your thoughts being dominated by ego.
Now comes step two, where you attempt to discern whose voice you are listening to. If you are serious about awakening, you are eternally vigilant; you are looking at each and every thought. It is most likely that the thought is from the ego, but ego has the ability to hide in Spirit’s clothes, to convince you that the right choice, the moral choice, the responsible choice is the one it is promoting. One of ego’s favorite games is to say that you have responsibilities to others that take precedence over your own desire to awaken, which perhaps is a little selfish. Spirit never asks for sacrifice. It knows that your own awakening is the greatest gift you could offer to anybody else. If ego cannot tempt you with earthly goals like special relationships, wealth, or reaching personal goals, self-sacrifice will often do the trick. However, your awakened self has so much more to offer your family, friends, and world than your puny ego-driven self that it would be a “crime” to deny it to others. Jesus said to teach others how to fish rather than just giving them a fish. You must learn how to fish before you can do that. The second step is the one where you discern which voice you are listening to. Be brutally honest with yourself. Are you absolutely sure you are hearing the voice of Spirit, or is it an ego game and trick?
If you want to awaken, and some thought or reason comes to you as to why you can’t do it now, you are listening to the voice of the ego. Spirit will never encourage you to maintain a false separation from yourself. What is it that your ego is manifesting in order to pull your attention away from waking up? Sometimes it might be health issue; other times it may be tasks that you feel compelled to undertake; friends or family may be tugging at your sleeve. This is not to say that awakening should come first; it is a reminder that if you are telling yourself that your ascension is the most important thing, the only important thing, in your life – nothing else will get in the way. If it does, you are not being honest with yourself. You are left in the dark; you are left in suffering and in a sense of failure. Since we have made it this far together, I must remind you that any choice other than to awaken is fear based, is grounded in untruth, and is a disservice to you. Again, the second step is only about noticing which voice you are listening to. You cannot go on to the third step without this awareness.
It is only with the third step that any action is suggested. Where you discern the voice of Spirit, you follow it. Where you ascertain it as the voice of ego, stop listening or ignore it. This takes practice. It requires discipline. The ego mind will go crazy and throw tantrums. It will litter your path with obstacles. Your ego mind thoughts stand in the way of your awakening. The obstacles will be specific to you. Though some will be shared, nobody else is presented with exactly the same obstructions. When you commit to Spirit you begin to relinquish these ways of the ego. Of course you won’t always succeed. Notice yourself following ego insanity. Release judgment; just watch. Come up here with Us and observe your crazy little ego self’s games. Nobody can just shut down the ego mind. Notice as quickly as you can the ways you have responded. Don’t feed the ego by beating yourself up. Whenever possible, join us in laughing at the folly. You will begin to sense the difference between the actor and the observer. The you that observes yourself acting in the world is not the you that acts. The awakening process is one of becoming aligned with the observer instead of the actor. You begin to realize that the actions do not matter, that what transpires in the world of illusion truly is of no importance. The observer is just watching. The unfed ego will slowly starve.
To return one last time to the original question – nothing stands in your way. There is no place you have to go. You, the observer, are home. All that there is to do is to notice what goes by in the world, you included. As you hear your true inner voice, the one we call Spirit, you will find it encouraging you to action in ways that you are totally aligned with. Your focus will just be in the acting. Results will not matter. The world doesn’t matter, but it is the only game to play while experiencing self in a body. Somewhere in the midst of this, with the grace of God, lies your full awakening. So stop pretending there are things standing in your way. Rise above it all and enjoy the show.
Good Now
Sanhia
What do we do with the war in Ukraine?
I have been asked to address the war in Ukraine. The first thing to notice is who is whispering in your ear and triggering fear. The answer without exception is that it is the voice of the ego. If you have been listening to the voice of Spirit you would be filled with acceptance and peace. Looking at this war would be no different for you than watching the sun rising in the morning sky. The ego voice asks, “Sanhia, how can we be in peace in the face of war?” You have the question reversed. It could better be stated, “How can there be peace in the world when there is war within me?” That is where the war exists. The world is never the cause; it can only be the effect. The cause remains within you. If you support one side over the other, you are creating war. You are filled with judgment, separation, and the perception of differences. You are guided by anger and blame. You are seeing a world populated by victims and victimizers. This is all projection. It is your guilt, your helplessness in the world, your fear of God. It is your fear of having no control over what might happen to you, of your own victimhood. It is your fear of death. All of this is ego projection, every bit of it.
The big question is, “What is real?” What is it that you fear happening? Is it your fear for what might happen to others, or is it really fear for what could happen to you? The ego voice wants to convince you that your concern is for others, for the victims of the bombings, for the refugees, for those who have lost family members or their own lives, for the loss of homes and the destruction from the bombing. There is no way to be gentle about this. The ego is whispering bullshit into your ear. This has absolutely nothing to do with anybody else. It has only to do with you. This is your fear of death, of loss, of victimhood. This is all your projection. Corona did not do a complete and thorough job of relieving you of your fear of death. Of course it couldn’t; that is your job. Spirit can supply you with the classroom and the lessons, but only you can take them to heart and search for the truth. Death as you know it, the death of a human body is not real. It is no more real than the body itself. The body and the death of it are your creations, not God’s. The fear of death is the fear of something unreal happening to something that doesn’t exist. The fear is your creation, so only you can release it. There is no change that can happen in the world to release you of your fear. The movement can only take place in your own mind. Now you have been presented with another opportunity to do that. For those of you who are in Sweden the pot is sweetened as the war is closer and the refugees are at your door. For you in the United States the pot is sweetened by having your old nemesis, Russia, the evil empire that vowed to bury you, once again rearing its “ugly” head. How much fun is this? The illusion of the pandemic has been replaced in one fell swoop by the illusion of war.
As long as you believe that who you are is your body, you will fear death. All around you will appear to be violence or the threat of violence. When you absolutely realize that you are not your body – that you are not a physical being but are Divine and eternal; that you simply are – the death of the body will have no meaning for you. In this awakened state it will not matter; you might even be looking forward to the leaving. There is no in-between place here; either you are a body or you are. If you hold on to the reality of your body, your fears will remain with you until you become so tired of it that you finally choose to focus on Spirit and the truth hard enough to break through the wall of untruth. How do you do that? Stop feeding the illusion. When you realize your fear is being projected, whether it is upon those who seem to be victims or those who appear to be the perpetrators, notice what you are doing. Take responsibility. Your only job is to release untruth until all that remains is the truth. Seek the truth and it shall set you free. The existence of fear indicates you have work to do. Bring that to Spirit. Come sit up here above the battlefield with us and observe your ego self operating in the world. Watch without judgment, simply observing the “human condition”. You are not asked to change how you act in the world, only how you hold those actions, whether they are your own or those of your mirrors.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. You believe that certain individuals or groups are controlling what is going on with this war. Whether you hold Putin, Russia, or hidden forces or conspiracies within other countries as being the responsible party for the hostilities, it is actually Spirit that is bringing everything about. There is only one reason for the existence of these events and that is to help each one of you to wake up. That is the only job for you to take on in the wake of this war. When you feel badly for what is happening to others and wish to change those outcomes, you are expressing an arrogance that is far from the humility that can lead to awakening. This “caring concern” is an expression that you can do Spirit’s work – God’s job – better than They can. You are acting as if you know what’s best for everyone. Yet, you haven’t even figured out what is best for you. Is it good for you to live in fear and guilt? If you were correct that the world should be peaceful, you are stuck in a bit of a quandary. The world has never known peace. If peace is what we should have, why has it never happened? Are you going to spend the rest of your human existence in a futile battle against what is? You think that we should not have war when the earth has always had war. You think that governments should tell the truth and serve their citizens when they have always lied and served themselves. You believe that brute force should never be used by the strong over the weak, but it occurs daily. So, what planet are you living on? If you think you can change “reality”, you are holding on to an enormous illusion. The world is exactly as it is. For any step forward for mankind there will be a step backward. It is not, never has been, nor ever will be the purpose of the world to be perfect, to be heaven. It was created by you as a place to hide from heaven. Your job is to wake up to that and to find the kingdom within, not try to do the impossible. Wherever you try to take on the work of Spirit you have everything turned around. You are clueless about how to wake up, perhaps even unaware that you are asleep in a dream world, yet you think you know what other people should have in their lives?
Now you may find yourself in absolute confusion. You may be wondering if you shouldn’t at least be feeling sorry for the Ukrainian people. These “people” don’t exist outside of being your projections. It is for yourself that you are feeling sorry. It is you who is both the attacker and the victim. It is time for you to stop attacking yourself. It is time to stop blaming God and to start taking responsibility. It is time to stop waiting for a savior and realize that you are the only one who can do that for yourself. Spirit can help you, but only to the degree that you will allow. If you think the problems lie outside of you, Spirit can do nothing other than use your belief as a club to beat you into submission. It is you who have to call off the dogs. So, we return to the vital questions. What do you believe that is not true? Look at where you are in competition with God, thinking you know the best plan for others. Notice where you have refused to take responsibility for your part in the creation of the illusion, pretending you and others are victims to it. Look at how you take the world seriously as if it were real and the truth of you and others were actually these bodies. See how you think that material things actually matter.
The bottom line is that the war is within you, not out there in the world. If you desire to be responsible and caring, bring peace to the war you are waging. Give up all your attacks and blaming of others, which are acts of war. Stop holding others as helpless victims unless that is truly what you wish them to be. See Divine children of God. Hold yourself in that light. It’s a big job, but not so big a work as trying to create heaven on earth or stopping a physical war in the illusion. This challenge is one that you can actually succeed at. Since it is you who have started all war, you can also stop it. Nobody else can control what you do with your next thought but you. Nobody has power over you. What is going on in Ukraine does not matter. What is going on inside of you is everything. Spirit has brought you an enormous gift, right on the shirttails of Corona. You have an opportunity to choose love over fear, to awaken. It is not your last chance, but your life will remain driven by fear and helplessness until you decide to grab on to the horns and wrestle one of those monsters to the ground. Now is as good a time as any.
Good Now
Sanhia
Are any beliefs sacred?
Every spiritual path has beliefs built into it. Religions are filled with doctrines that are “written in stone”. Most of the less formal groups or teachers likely have certain practices and tenets that are to be followed. What can you trust? What can you believe? Wars are fought over differences in creed. Usually there is at least an intention that there be a connection between belief and truth. What you are asked to believe is to be accepted as the truth. The crucial question is, “How can you be sure that it is true?” If your response is that you simply believe that it is true, you may put up blinders to prevent yourself from seeing anything that might question your “truth”. You are certain you know what the truth is. If you really want to know the truth, instead of blindly grasping on to ideas, you must be willing to take the blinders off. Is there absolute truth? If your answer is no, my question is, “Are you absolutely sure there is no truth?” If you agree that there is absolute truth, we have a situation. Some believe the truth is one thing and some another. Often these truths are mutually exclusive. Even if you are to let go of any attachment to being right about your beliefs, how can you figure out who is right, if anyone? How can you know absolutely that any belief is true?
A good place for us to begin as we wander into this minefield is by establishing that whatever the truth is, it makes no difference whether you believe it or not. It is what it is and is not affected by you belief or unbelief. The truth could care less. However, it would seem that it might be to your advantage to be aligned with whatever this truth is, rather than working counter to it. You might have difficulty navigating life if the manual you are following is a false one. That leaves us with the question of how to go about finding this truth. Your ego mind is not capable of succeeding at this task with certainty. Since the ego has been your teacher up to this point it might be a good starting place to assume that everything you have ever believed is wrong. Throw them all out, but we would suggest that you handle these beliefs one at a time. If there is something that is particularly hard for you to release, it is time to do some inner inquiry. Find out if there is absolute proof for the belief. Stay with it. Either way, if you are brutally honest with yourself, you are going to have a difficult time coming to a place of absolute certainty. If while doing this inquiry you are not able to distance yourself enough from your opinions, you might invite somebody else to play the questioning role for you. If the ego attachment to this belief is very strong, we offer another test. Does it upset you to have another person attack your belief? If that is disconcerting, ask yourself why. If your belief is the truth, what would it matter what another thinks?
Usually when a person goes deeply into questioning the veracity of a belief, they find it can’t be proven. As you investigate more “truths”, they will also likely fall by the wayside. That can be a scary place. Beliefs can be a comfortable place in which to hang out, but they don’t bring you knowingness; they help you maintain your slumber. Even if by some fluke of the universe, your belief is actually aligned with the truth, you would still be unable to prove it. Believing is not knowing. A belief is like a key that goes into your mind and locks it shut. Nothing else is allowed in or out. Knowing has no doubt and asks for no proof because it is directly experienced. Belief is a theory, a postulate. It is a thing that is assumed to be true so that other conclusions may be drawn. Let’s just play with this a little. Let’s say you have the belief that if you are good you will go to heaven and if you are bad you will go to hell. The first question is, “Do you have first-hand experience of that?” How, then, can you know it is true? If you live your whole life based on ideas that you don’t know the veracity of, what kind of existence is that? It is probably one filled with judgment, guilt, fear, and blame. We don’t want to pick on this one example; most any principle will lead you to act in ways that increase tension and unhappiness in your life. The only thing you can be sure of if your life is steered by doctrines, is that you are headed in the wrong direction – that is if the right direction is truth and awakening. It is not a question of changing beliefs, but one of investigating the ones you have. The new ones won’t hold any more water than the ones you have got. Find the untruth in your beliefs, or the places where you can’t be absolutely sure. This investigation won’t likely unveil the truth; it will simply eliminate one more possibility. Keep looking at all these ideas you have stored in your head, and one by one try to shoot them down. Your marksmanship will improve with practice. It can become a fun game.
This is all still an ego game. Knowingness is of Spirit and comes only with awakening. Untruth realization is merely clearing a path for Spirit to operate on. Upon having an awakened direct experience of truth, falseness will be humorously obvious to you everywhere you look. It doesn’t matter how much you study, read books, or follow different teachings; you won’t find the truth through a mental search. The best you can do is to blow up the ones you already have. Searching out new “truths” will just leave you with more detonation work down the line. Finding the untruth of your cherished ideals opens up a space where the grace of God or of Spirit can nudge or propel you into a direct awakening experience. Should that day come when your eyes are opened, you will want to share this truth you know with others. Mostly, they won’t believe you; more likely they’ll consider you to be crazy. That won’t bother you because the knowingness of truth cannot be threatened. The truth you will have discovered cannot be adequately communicated through words or even through modeling. Your students will have to do their own work and find their own path, just as you did. You can help point them in the right direction, kind of like steering a blindfolded kid toward the piñata*.
We would suggest that you have the following as your one and only belief. Here it is. If you set an intention to awaken and thereby know the truth, and maintain your energy and focus steadily upon that intention through untruth realization, you will be blessed with the experience of awakening. No part of the belief addresses the nature of the truth or the awakened state other than through negation. Without that kind of commitment, you will wander perhaps for many more lifetimes before finding your way home. Your steadfastness and dogged determination will invite the support of Spirit. You will not be alone. Let me conclude with one final thing. Please don’t take anything I have said here as the truth. Do your own inquiry into absolutely everything your mind encounters. The ball is in your hands. It is all up to you.
Good Now
Sanhia
* Piñata: A decorated figure of an animal containing toys and sweets that is suspended from a height and broken open by blindfolded children as part of a celebration.
What is freedom?
If you are an American, you have been told since you were young that you live in the land of the free. Freedom is the watchword for America. But what does freedom mean? For some, perhaps, it means that you are able to do whatever you want to do. Within a society, that could become a problem. Perhaps exercising your “freedom” gets in the way of somebody else exercising theirs. Am I free to take your car? So, it seems we need to journey further to discover what true freedom is. There are certainly limits on what any person is free to do, or we are left with a lawless society where the strongest take what they want.
If you think that your freedom depends on controlling things outside of you – such as other people’s behavior or world events – you will always fail and feel frustrated. You will be unable to control those factors, setting yourself up for misery. There is also the fear, the confused belief that you have to protect your freedom; you have to fight for it. This is the idea that others will try to take your freedom away from you, so freedom comes only at the price of eternal vigilance. Where is the peace in that? What is actually transpiring here is projection. The only one who is coming after your freedom is you. Nobody else is capable of doing that to you. I am going to pick on America a little bit here with its ideology of being the land of the free. Why are children forced to go to school? Does that teach freedom? How many people go to work each day out of freedom? How many of you look at your partner each day and see “the old ball and chain”? Where is the freedom? You are free to choose whatever you want each day, but you choose to wake up next to your jailer. Is this freedom? That’s a rhetorical question. This is living life from fear. This is thinking you have to sacrifice to hold on to the little bit that you have. Of course this is not freedom, and it is not just an issue for Americans.
When you say that you want to have something or to do something, is that actually your true desire? Perhaps in the mass consciousness of your society you have been taught that you should pick a goal and succeed at reaching it. Within the scope of that, the goals you have to choose from may be narrowly defined. Maybe you are told that you should find a job that provides you financial security. Perhaps the teaching includes having a nice home and providing for your retirement. So, based on this you choose your goals, but do you really select them out of free choice? Are you listening to what your deep inner self really wants or to what the mass consciousness tells you that you need to have? The first question to ask yourself when you insist on your freedom of choice is, “Is it really true that this is what I wish to choose?” Is this somebody else’s wish for you? Is it a wish that comes out of fear? Is it a wish that comes out of a desire for approval? If you were to say to a child, “I’ll bet you can’t wait to grow up so that you can get up and go off to work every day!”, you would likely not get a positive response. It is unlikely the child will exclaim, “Oh, I can’t wait to do that!” To the child such an action more likely would feel like a loss of freedom than something they would want to choose. Freedom for children is doing what they want to do each day; it is playing. By the time most children grow up they have been brainwashed into believing that doing what they want is not an option as an adult.
So, there appears to be a great confusion about what freedom is. My guess is that if you have not done a lot of internal inquiry here, then what you think you want is not what your inner child wants at all. You do have the “freedom” to choose as directed by the mass consciousness and to find out that it doesn’t bring you satisfaction. Maybe the mass consciousness belief is that if you have enough money you can choose to do what you want. The conundrum is that no matter how much money is accumulated, it will usually not seem to be enough. When is it safe to stop? Never. Money does not buy freedom. The accumulation of money is based on fear. If the fear is not confronted, no amount of money is enough; the fear persists.
Let’s go in a different direction. Many of you are familiar with the song lyric that says “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” This is sung in a sad, plaintive manner from one who appears to be at the bottom and not so happy about being there. On the other hand, those of you who have hit that bottom may have found a freedom there. As long as there is a desire, a hope, a goal, a relationship, money, the possibility of success or of a better world, or anything else you could have attachment to – and the thought that such achievement is still within reach – you are not free. Without realizing the object of your attachment, you will not be happy; you will not be fulfilled. Nothing left to lose can mean “no attachment”. There is nothing else that can be lost. Is that freedom? If it isn’t, we might be getting warm.
In the awakened state there is no attachment. There are no goals. That doesn’t mean that you live without anything in your life, it simply does not matter what is there. It doesn’t follow that the life is void of meaning or activity. Whatever appears or happens is perfect. We are getting closer to a sense of what freedom is. One cannot be asleep and free. True freedom requires being in the awakened state. If that is true and you wish to be free, then you will choose to wake up. This choosing, however, becomes a goal and so there appears to be a vicious cycle. You cannot wake up without intention, but the very fact of choosing this goal keeps you in attachment and asleep. This is what we call a conundrum. The part of you that is trying to figure out how to wake up is absolutely incapable of succeeding. Only the ego can have goals. Spirit has no goals. The ego can only succeed in self-sabotage.
How can you possibly navigate this duality? One solution is to give your freedom of choice to Spirit. Spirit both has and knows the plan. When we talk about giving it to Spirit, letting Spirit guide you, many have the fearful reaction that surrendering to the voice of Spirit means that you have to give up your own free will. Isn’t that a loss of freedom? You would have to sacrifice your desire for the dictates of Spirit. That’s an interesting point of view. To have freedom, you must give it up. You surrender to Spirit, letting It direct you, trusting that whatever is presented into your life is the perfect thing, and accepting it rather than fighting, resisting, and wanting to change things. This is what will bring you freedom. You give your ego’s free choice to the One who can choose for you. This process will certainly be accompanied by terror. The ego, which has chosen to wake up, doesn’t really want to. It does not want to relinquish the sense of separation, whereas freedom absolutely demands that you do so. Ego will throw tantrums as well as all possible obstacles in your path in an attempt to derail this surrender. The irony of ironies is that if and when you totally surrender your freedom to follow Spirit’s will, you will discover that what Spirit wants you to do is totally aligned with what you want to do. What will have changed is that you will have total joy in the doing and not a thought for the outcome.
Freedom is having zero attachment to results. In the duality you cannot always succeed in reaching a desired outcome, so any attachment you have will bring about a sense of loss, unhappiness, and you will find yourself on a rollercoaster. The outcome is not in the moment, so any focus on results brings you out of the eternal now and into the slumber of the ego. When you are awake nothing matters, with the exception of the moment, and it is joyous. Think of the freedom of a child at play. The joy of the sand castle is in the making. Tomorrow it will likely be gone and the child will be making something else. There is no freedom outside of the eternal now. If your behavior is being controlled by anything from the past, you are not free. If your thoughts are in the future, trying to bring about some particular outcome, you are not free.
Freedom means you are free of responsibility. When you hold the thought that you or others are responsible, you are chained by that thought. What is the truth here? It is absolute insanity to think you are responsible for someone else. How can you determine what they will or will not do? How can you decide what will happen to them? That is all Spirit’s job. It’s none of your business. What an enormous freedom you will feel when you take the step of giving up the thought that you have responsibility for others. Feel that. Now you are responsible only for your business. Is that the truth? Are you truly responsible for all that you do? Probably not since most of your actions are conditioned responses you have not freely chosen. It is your thoughts that matter, not your actions. More importantly, Spirit has a plan for you that is better than any you could ever come up with. What you have been calling responsibility is actually irresponsible. You are trying to take over the work of a master, and failing completely at the task. You don’t need to be responsible and are absolutely incapable of doing the job. Feel the lightness that comes with relinquishing that work.
Wherever you look out on your life and see a place where you don’t feel free, that is where you have chosen to give your power to something outside of you. Freedom happens when you take your power back, bringing it inside and giving it to Spirit. In truth, Spirit already has it. You simply stop working at cross purposes. Most people think of freedom as trying to hold on to something they desire, but it actually is letting it go. If you wish to choose freedom, letting go of all attachments and following Spirit – how do you go about doing that? The first step is having the awareness that if you are feeling distress of any kind, whether it is fear, physical pain, disease, or emotional discomfort; it is a sign that you have given your freedom away. You have an attachment to and have made yourself a prisoner of some belief that is not true. Pay attention and notice what situations are triggering that for you. You have a belief that you need to control something outside yourself to be happy. You have given someone or something power over you. Ask Spirit for support in letting that go. Your behavior won’t likely immediately change, but as you watch yourself taking these self-destructive acts, as you sit there with Spirit and observe the craziness of your patterns, as you remind yourself that you have nothing to gain by them, the activities will naturally begin to lessen.
Whatever you think you need to have in your life situation to make you free leaves you a prisoner. Real freedom comes when you release your attachment to absolutely everything. Am I saying that you should all quit your jobs and leave your spouses so that you can be free? Changing the outside will not give you freedom; it is how you look at it from the inside that sets you free. What would you choose today if you were really free? If you have been acting from fear you probably don’t have the slightest idea what you would choose. It is a gradual process you will go through when you give the wheel back to Spirit. It requires you to investigate each belief that is driving your behavior and look for the untruths. It is in feeling what it is like to no longer be a victim of anything, to no longer need anything or anyone to change. Perhaps in a future “now” you will be guided to make a big jump. This will neither be a jump away nor a jump toward. It will simply be your truth in that moment, your guidance from Spirit. There will be no second guessing. There will be no guilt. You will not be chained to your choice. Each moment will bring another. Each one will be guided. Each will be an exercise in freedom.
Good Now
Sanhia
Will you speak to us again about the Coronavirus?
It is time to revisit our friend the Coronavirus. It has been nearly two years since I last devoted messages to this subject. I encourage you to go back and read these two: What is the meaning of the Coronavirus? and How long will the Coronavirus last? As we mentioned back then, this is a wonderful opportunity that Spirit has presented to all of you to notice whether you are choosing love or fear, to see if you are listening to the voice of Spirit within you or to the voice of ego. We’ll start by reminding you that the world is an illusion that is not real; nothing that happens there has any lasting importance. It is all part of a dream, or a nightmare – depending on your personal experience of the moment.
Having reminded you of that, I am going to diverge for a bit from where I normally go when I speak of the illusion (I also suggest you read the message If the world is an illusion, why does it matter what I do?) . While you are in a body as a human it feels very real; it is your classroom for waking up. When you are in that unawakened state you are in the realm of the ego – and if you have any issue whatsoever with what is going on with Corona or Covid-19, you can be certain that is the state you are in. There exists what can be labeled as truth and falseness within the illusion. These of course are the two sides of the coin of duality. Even though it ultimately makes no difference, while you are in the illusion there is a value in noticing the distinction between truth and untruth. For example, if you walk outside on a clear blue sunshiny summer day and somebody tells you to prepare for the blizzard that will be here any minute, will you say to yourself that you had better go back inside and put on your warm winter clothes to be ready for this avalanche of freezing weather? Now, that’s a little crazy isn’t it? What you would likely do would be to use all of your senses and some rational thinking, perhaps checking the weather on your phone, and come to the conclusion that that person was not telling you the truth. You don’t cancel your picnic, put your snow tires on the car, or swear at god for wrecking your plans. If you did act on the lie, you would experience some difficulty navigating through the day. There is a difference between truth and untruth in the illusion. How can you tell the difference? You use the same techniques of untruth realization we have mentioned to help you awaken from the dream. The process is one of accepting nothing as the truth that you hear or observe from the outside world. Instead you ask yourself if it is really true. You investigate, follow threads, and persevere until it is proved or disproved. Often the place where this investigation breaks down is in the presence of fear and terror. Here humans tend to become paralyzed, not trusting anything and looking outside of the self for protection.
This is exactly what we observe happening in this age of Corona. I am going to lay out before you a few of the untruths about Corona/Covid-19 and then we’ll go on to more “important” topics that relate to the awakening process. Many of you are accepting things as true that are absolutely false. Each of these things can be proven by you as false by doing a little research. You don’t have to take my word for it, in fact, please don’t. Do your own untruth realization. The things I will share are not wild theories from half-crazed conspiracy nuts, but carefully researched information from experts, including scientists, doctors, and economists. To begin with, there is no pandemic. That is an untruth. By any acceptable definition of a pandemic (before the WHO changed its definition last year) a pandemic is not happening. Is there a virus on the loose? Yes, of course, but a virus is not a pandemic. Flu viruses come through with great regularity. Some are worse than others, but they are not pandemics. Pandemics bring about a large number of excess deaths over the statistical norms. This has not happened over the past two years. Why are we being told that this horrible thing is happening that requires us to totally alter our lifestyles and to curtail freedom for people, both in mobility and healthcare choices? That is a good question. That is a question that I encourage you to explore at great depth for yourself. Our suggestion is that the ultimate reason for this “plandemic” stems from those who wish to have control over the planet. Now let’s take a step backwards. Why has there been no reasoned, calm discussion in society or in the media about this virus, about what it is, about how best to treat it? If you have not asked yourself those questions, why haven’t you? Why has there been only one voice, one opinion to be heard and to be taken seriously? Why was there not a debate to look at the reasons for and possible effectiveness of actions such as lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and treatment? Why has there been no public forum? Why is it that any voices that disagreed with the “party line” have not been allowed a place in the mass media and, in fact, have been ridiculed and their proponents labeled as lying, dangerous, and destructive conspiracy nuts? Why has this happened? As I am bringing up these various questions, I remind you that you can easily do your own research and see what you find. See how you react as you hear or read the words of these reasoned, educated voices who have quite different points of view about all the actions that have been ordered by fiat, without democratic participation.
The voice that has been declared as the only acceptable one has stated that everyone should be vaccinated two, three, maybe four, and probably eventually more times. There are three very good reasons why this is not a viable solution for handling this virus. The first is that the vaccine is neither safe nor effective. For a vaccine to be trusted to be safe or effective requires a minimum of three years of testing; some experts would say as many as ten years. This amount of time is necessary in order to trace the side effects and to check out long term effectiveness. Yet, in six to eight months these vaccines were produced. Where is the testing being done? It’s being done on those who are taking the vaccine. You are all guinea pigs. This, in and of itself, is illegal by international law. Some vaccine developers who are not in the employment of the companies selling you these products are in serious disagreement with their use. There are severe potential side effects, so it is better if the vaccine is used only by those who are most at risk. It is probably not a good idea for those who have little risk of Covid-19-related death to take the vaccine. Secondly, the Corona virus is not deadly. What about all the Covid-19 deaths that are being reported? These people are not dying from the virus; they are dying from preexisting conditions that are being aggravated by the virus. Why are these conditions not being treated, rather than fighting the virus? Some doctors are having great success in approaching the situation in that manner. The official line however, discourages any other approach than that all must be vaccinated. Treatment programs are not to be considered. Many are dying because their symptoms are not being treated in the best possible manner. The result is that more “Covid-19 deaths” are reported and the reason given is because some are resisting vaccination, even when the majority of new infections are among the already vaccinated. Thirdly, most of the weapons being recommended and used are wrong-minded and doomed to fail. You cannot hide from a virus through lockdowns or social distancing. The virus is in no hurry and will wait you out. Masks are of little help because viruses are too small to be contained by them. They do allow you to re-breathe the waste air your body wants to release and limit the amount of oxygen that can get to your cells; so there is a definite downside.
If following the ordained guidelines is not an advisable approach, then what? The first line of defense is to have a healthy immune system. That can take some time to build if you have not been conscious of taking good care of yourself. The next best line of defense is to get the virus and receive excellent care from day one. You will likely survive if you are not one of those highly at risk people. Once you have recovered you likely have lifetime immunity, not only from the strand you caught, but from all the variants that might mutate. Vaccines try to mimic the effects of this natural immunity with limited success. As they are providing you only partial immunity, they bring with them serious potential side effects, have limited effectiveness over time, are much less likely to have any effectiveness with the variant strands, and hamper your immune system from developing. There are reports that the vaccine may have even more sinister long term effects. I encourage you to do the research.
Lockdowns are an effective way to keep people from comparing notes, but they also have a negative effect on economics, similar to what happened with the banking crisis. People living on the edge lose their houses or are evicted. Jobs are lost. Small businesses go under. The corporations roll on (continuing to eat each other up), and pick up the remains of the dispossessed for pennies on the dollar. Lockdowns also are physically, emotionally, and psychologically destructive. The cumulative effect of lockdowns is to prolong the time life of the virus. Like all of the other “protections”, they primarily do the job of distracting your attention from the truth. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. Another major result is accomplished by the age-old technique of “divide and conquer”. People are being encouraged to blame each other. It is all the fault of those who refuse to vaccinate, or our rights and freedoms are being threatened by ___________ (fill in the blank).
The pharmaceutical companies were financed by governments to develop vaccines that were then rubber stamped as safe and effective. The companies have the perfect product. They were paid to develop it, get to keep all the profits (immense), are granted absolute freedom from liability, and have governments pressuring and even forcing people to use their goods. Not a bad deal. The “plandemic” benefactors are willing to share the profits with the drug companies, but they actually have bigger fish to fry. They want all citizens to need to have vaccine passports. Those who don’t will have their rights and freedoms severely curtailed. The requirements for holding on to your card will continue to escalate until every aspect of your life is controlled. Are you beginning to wish you had read the fine print? If you think that your passport is giving you freedom, it is time to think again. Freedom cannot be given. It is something that you must take for yourself. The first step is to start doing your own thinking. Today they come after the “anti-vaxxers”; tomorrow they may come after you. Many of you decry the absolute lack of freedom in China today. You might be looking at your future. Why is all of this not being discussed on every street corner, in every newspaper and magazine, on every news show? With many experts trying to explain what is going on, how do you come to be so ill-informed? Your first line of community protection and communication has been compromised. There is no more free press. All mass communication is controlled by a surprisingly small group of people. It doesn’t matter if it’s Fox News or CNBC or public television. It doesn’t matter if it is the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times. Nothing is allowed to be printed or said that doesn’t pass muster with those who have an interest in having a pandemic and you becoming vaccinated. Again, please feel free to trace down the ownership of all the major corporations in the world. Do the research yourself. Find out what is true and what isn’t. Before taking any action, however, I suggest you read the second half of the message.
Now that I have perhaps filled you with fear and anger (possibly directed at the bearer of the “bad news”), let’s take an enormous step back from all of this and look at the spiritual aspects. When you accept anything as the truth, whether from me, from the media, from the government, from the World Health Organization, or from any outside source you are listening to the voice of ego. You are giving your power away. You have become a victim. You are living in fear. Nobody can awaken by following the mass consciousness. If you want to remain asleep, sleep away. If you are choosing to awaken you act not from fear, but from love. You listen to the gentle voice of Spirit, not the threats and warnings of the ego. If you are deciding whether or not to get a vaccine, you don’t do that from fear but from clear guidance. Spirit has the perfect plan for you. That plan might include you getting Covid-19. That plan might include guidance for staying healthy. If you choose the vaccine out of fear, that fear will continue to rule your life. The vaccine will bring no true, lasting peace or sense of safety (witness those who have been vaccinated, but still fear the unvaccinated). Some of you claim to have no fear of the virus, but believe you have taken the shot for other people. Perhaps it was due to pressure from a fearful family member, or from not wanting to get sick and add to the overtaxed hospital situation, or simply not wanting to be responsible for passing the disease on to another, particularly the elderly. These are all voices of the ego. Spirit never asks you to sacrifice anything. Sacrifice comes from the assumption that you know better than God, that you know what is good for other people. As I have reminded you many times before, you are doing well if you can figure out what is best for you, let alone for another. How do you find out what is best for you? You listen to Spirit; you go to the place that is beyond fear, and you trust what is brought to you. Spirit will take care of others. What you are calling “doing for others” is always fear based. Look at the fear. Own it and don’t hide behind “sacrificing”. The ego is very skilled at co-opting “spiritual” language. It will talk about “solidarity” and “selfishness” when trying to convince one to be vaccinated. The ego accuses you of endangering others by refusing the needle. It plays on your guilt. The big ego lie is that Jesus sacrificed himself for us. We were so bad that he had to give his life to save us. Rather than seeing the truth of the Spiritual gift of his awakening and ascension – of his modeling for us the potential for what we would all choose someday – the ego offers us a model of pain and sacrifice. Coming into the physical world against your wishes and living as a human would be a sacrifice. Going back home is a dream that we all share, whether we are aware of it or not. If you truly want to do for others, the only path for you is through waking up.
You may now be going into reaction thinking “Oh my God! What have I done? I never should have taken that vaccine!” Perhaps you are concerned about the ongoing negative health effects it will have for you. The fear is that this step is irreversible and you will be punished for your stupidity. However, the vaccine has no power. Neither do those who wish to control the world. The power is in you. There is no action that you could ever take that could not be changed. Everything going on in the world is a part of your classroom for awakening. When you have awakened, all previous choices and actions will make absolutely no difference. Bring your fears about your choices to Spirit. Look at each fear until you find the untruth in it. I want to mention here that you might be one who chose not to get the vaccine, but also did so out of fear. Perhaps there was fear of death or disability from the vaccine. You, too, have your work cut out for you. This Corona situation is an enormous gift for everyone. It is turning up the heat. It is pressing you to choose love or fear. There is hardly an in-between place to hide out in anymore. It is almost impossible to go on with “business as usual”. There may never again be a time of “business as usual” for you in this body. You may have only the choice to wake up or to become a part of the new world order, which will control every aspect of your life. Fortunately the choice is entirely up to you. In truth, there is no difference between the new world order and the old world order. If you have not chosen to wake up, your life has always been directed by fear. The only difference is that now it is much harder to avoid noticing how everything is run by fear. It is never too late to make the choice. When you choose to leave the ego behind and to dwell in the eternal now, time will stop being a factor. The choice is going to become quite clear now; be a part of the new world order or wake up, noticing that the emperor has no clothes.
You will no longer believe the mass consciousness and the mass media, but will find the truth inside of you, along with Spirit. That is the only place where freedom exists. It will require brutal honesty on your part to confront every untruth, but freedom is never bought by fear-based actions. That makes you a prisoner of your fear. There is a part of you that believes that freedom means being the decider of everything in your life in the illusion: where you will go, what you will do, and when you will do it. Now come all of these regulations affecting travel, shopping, workplaces, entertainment, meetings, and more. Terror comes in over how to maintain or regain your freedom. This is an ego fear-based response. Spirit is bringing you the perfect thing. If Spirit is restricting your travel, there is a reason to stay home, or at least nearby. As you become aware of the lies that you have been told by the health authorities and the human damage that is and will continue occurring because of vaccinations, passports, lockdowns, masks, and so on – your job is to not go into anger, blame, and attack against them. Remember that all of those who want to manipulate the system for their own benefit or agenda, as well as those who cooperate out of fear, are asleep humans, unaware of what they are doing and even that they are asleep. They are all operating out of fear and terror. Any attack upon them is projection on your part. Your job is to take responsibility for your reactions, to work with forgiveness, and to bring it all to Spirit. Remember, none of this is real! If Spirit has presented you with extra time by limiting your choices, use this time to wake up. You are a victim to nobody and to nothing. Your fear and anger are all truly aimed at yourself. Face them and see through them to the truth. Accept Spirit’s gifts to you and use them.
The “plandemic” is a mass call to awakening. There is no difference between accepting the mass consciousness belief in this being a pandemic with all the trimmings, and the mass consciousness sayings that you don’t deserve happiness or love or that there is evil in the world which must be fought. They are all the same. There is no difference between the belief that there is not enough to go around or the idea that you have to work hard to survive, and the acceptance of the doublespeak about the pandemic. It makes no difference if mass consciousness thoughts have been passed down through the ages or seem to be the creation of a modern day cabal. When you give your power away to what seems to be a truth outside of you, therefore placing yourself into a victim role, it is never the truth. Keep looking until you find the truth and that will set you free. This will never come about through taking actions in the world, because the world is not holding you prisoner. Getting the vaccine will not set you free from anything. If you are guided there by Spirit, by all means go. Go fearlessly without expectations or attachment, without the thought that the guidance is for anyone but you. Either way, Spirit has your best interests at heart. Death is not real.
Good Now
Sanhia
Is there a difference between awakening and ascension?
This question has come up recently. We have been using the term awakening quite a bit lately. People are wondering if that word means the same thing as ascension. Are the terms interchangeable? I can understand the confusion, and it is time to clear things up. Not only will we clarify the information, but we will give you some valuable insights that I have not previously presented. Now it is time for you to receive them. We dealt with this question some years ago using still different terminology and I highly recommend that you click here to read that message as it provides good information on this subject without specifically focusing on most of what I have to say now. So, with no further ado, let’s speak of awakening and ascension. In that previous message we used the term enlightenment. We’ll deal with that word right now so that our focus can be limited to the two terms in the title. Enlightenment and awakening are synonyms. They have the same general meaning as I use them. You are welcome to substitute the word enlightenment any time I say awakening, but I will only use the latter term for the rest of this message.
Now, let’s go back to the beginning. In this process of dealing with the subject of pure non-duality – the realization that any time we are dealing with opposites we are dealing with illusion, with things that are not real in that they do not pass the test of foreverness – we are dealing with questions of truth or untruth. In truth there is Oneness. Of course it goes without saying – though I am saying it anyway and have said it before – we are using words here and words never express the truth. They are by nature dualistic because your reasoning mind can only work in the realm of separation. When we speak of Spirit and ego, we are speaking dualistically as if these are two different things that truly exist, when in truth only Spirit exists. Spirit is connected to the Divine and ego is not. This process that we are talking about in using the terms awakening and ascension has two steps. This is the new information for you, or at least for most of you. The first step is what we have often been dealing with in these messages. That is the letting go of the ego. This process is what we have been calling awakening. When you are awakened you are in an ego-free state. This means that you have no attachments; you no longer hold people or things as special; you have no personal goals; you have no horse in the race – whatever happens is perfect. What you do is to simply listen to your inner guidance, to Spirit, and follow it in absolute trust and love without a need for understanding. When the ego is dropped there is no judgment, no competition, and no right and wrong; there is only love.
Let’s go deeper into what this ego-free state is like. I won’t cover all of the many questions you might have about it, so feel free to send any that linger with you to Michael and we will visit them in future messages. When you are in this awakened state there is nothing that limits you. This physical illusion is now your playground instead of your classroom. You know that whatever happens is perfect, so the thought of anything possibly being upsetting to you is insanity. It does not compute. It will not happen. You know that everything that does happen is on purpose and as it should be. Your part is to play your role, following your guidance, doing something that will be a joy for you. You know what to do because you feel guided. You are being told what to do, but there is no separation between you and the guiding Spirit. Your wills are one. That is non-dualistic. There is no limit to the possibilities of what different services you may be asked to perform. You might be teaching others through your words, written or spoken. You might be led to artistic expressions. You might be building things or growing things. Again, there are no limits to what you may be inspired to, other than you will be filled with love and joy in the doing. Results will not matter; only the doing itself has value for you.
You may be wondering how long this ego-free state goes on for. The answer to that is up to the Divine. We will say that as you are performing the services that Spirit is asking of you, which you are doing with love and joy, you are still aware of yourself. You notice the world. You have consciousness, even though the ego has disappeared. There is the observer and the observed. You are in an in-between state. Perhaps we could say that you are not ruled by dualism, yet you do not have the full experience of Oneness. It is not possible to have a self and to be One at the same time, so your non-dualism cannot be pure. You are still experiencing separation from God. The longer you are in this state of egoless self, the more you will feel the separation blurring. As you do all of these Spirit inspired things you will gradually realize there is less that you are motivated to do in the illusion. Ultimately, you come to the second step which is the letting go of the self. When this occurs you no longer have an identity; you no longer have consciousness. There is no you remaining that can observe. You are One with all, One with God. There is no longer a physical experience, a body.
There is an important understanding that accompanies the two step ascension process of first dropping the ego, and second dropping the self. Some of you have been afraid to drop the ego because you thought that ascension was in one step. You feared that dropping the ego meant you would immediately – poof! – leave your body, the world, everything! But that is not the case. When you awaken, everything is still there, except the ego. You are now experiencing the illusion without an ego. That’s it! Then you will have a long run – or a short run, depending on what Spirit has in mind for you – of playing with the illusion from an egoless perspective until you are complete with that. You cannot be forced into letting go of the self, nor can you force it to happen. You will stay and play in the illusion until you have had your fill. What we call ascension is the point where you willingly and through the grace of God let go of the self. Then the illusion absolutely disappears. There is no separate consciousness, and you are One with God. Of course the truth is that you are already One with God, even as you are experiencing the illusion of a separate self and an ego, but that hasn’t been a part of your conscious awareness.
In the awakened level of letting go of the ego, you know that it is all an illusion so you are able to play in it without attachment to anything. In the second level, or ascension, there is no more you. You have let go of the self, of consciousness of any separate awareness. Both of these ascension steps happen with the grace of God. Your ego will not choose to let itself go, so you ask Spirit to do that for you. You, therefore, cannot control the timing, though you can maintain a clear focus and continually face the untruths you are holding. Your awakened self also cannot decide to let go of itself because that would be an act of consciousness. Only Divine energy can dissolve that illusion of separation to allow the self to be submerged into the Oneness. It is analogous to falling asleep. You cannot will yourself into sleep. The more you try to sleep, the more you will remain awake. Sleep comes when you let go, which allows it to happen. When you have left the ego, your awakened self may still have a lot to do. Let it run its course. Your ascension occurs when the self has nothing left to do and can let go, simultaneously free of any need to stay or to leave. When this happens, we call it “by the grace of God”. This was demonstrated by Jesus. This was not demonstrated by the Buddha, though he did demonstrate awakening.
We have today, and in all of the messages talked about the egoless experience, how to achieve it and what it is like. To talk about the self-less experience is not possible. There is nothing I could say that would give you the remotest feeling for what the Divine experience is, not even a sniff. I have given the following analogy before. It has been said that the human mind only uses five per cent of its potential. What would the experience of using the full potential be? The awakened egoless self has a similar relationship with the experience of the Divine. Notice we’re not even bringing the ego consciousness level into this equation. And in saying that the awakened self experiences only 5 percent of the ecstasy of Divinity, we are being very generous. When the self has a “divine” experience, this a projection of the self, not a true experience of the Divine. The most glorious earthly experience with perfect weather, fantastic nature, smells, sights, sounds, loving people, and the feeling of a divine connection with God would, from the Divine perspective, be a descent into hell. The highest dualistic heaven would be experienced as hell by the Divine. So much for your ego attempts to create heaven on earth.
For most of you reading this, the information about leaving the self is academic. Your work is in leaving the ego. If there is anyone in the audience who is egoless, your job is to enjoy creating in that place as long as you are so inspired. Leaving the self is not a focus of any importance. Back to the rest of you, there will likely be a gradual transition where you are less and less influenced by your ego and more and more listening to the guidance of Spirit. If you still can get upset, there is work remaining. Again the final letting go of ego is through grace, not your efforts. It is not earned, but there is clear intention. For all there is never a rush. Everything happens in Divine time and order. Go set your alarms for awakening, but without selecting a time.
Good Now
Sanhia
Why not now?
Usually with these messages I’m answering a question that someone has asked, or I’m dealing with something that came up in a discussion or conversation with an individual or a group. But, this time I take full credit for the question. It is my question to you. Why not now? Do you look at your awakening process, your ascension, or your spiritual path and think that someday you hope to wake up? Do you assume that, sooner or later, you will drop your ego? If those are your thoughts I guarantee you that you are right. Someday it will happen, but it will not be today. And guess what kids, today is the only day you have. No matter how much you might wish it to be tomorrow, or even yesterday, it is always today. To say “someday” is to say “never”. It will never be someday. It will only be the eternal now. Why not now? The choice is now or never (fortunately in the eternal now you can always re-choose). Those are the choices you have. There is no tomorrow. There is no next year or next lifetime. There is only the eternal now. Everything else belongs to the ego. If you wish to release the ego, the only thing you can do is to be 100% in this moment.
There is a wonderful English term called procrastination, which means “putting things off”. This is not considered to be an admirable quality by the mass consciousness. The popular saying is, “never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”. My suggestion to people has always been the reverse, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”. Today is for what is really important. If there isn’t a significant reason for action, such as inner guidance or a strong desire, why give it time in your present? Put it on the back burner until it is time for action, if ever. Is waking up really important? If it isn’t important enough to give your full focus to it today, admit that and stop playing games with yourself. Acknowledge if it is not so important to you to ascend, even though it might be a fun game to play around with. Be honest with yourself and say that you are not choosing to awaken at this time. On the other hand, you may realize that you really do want to drop your ego, but you don’t know how to do it, so you wonder how it could be today. If the latter represents your thinking, you are at the right place at the right time. The purpose of this message is to explain to you what the eternal now means and how to always be here.
The eternal now means “this very moment”. Nothing else matters. If you can successfully stay in the eternal now, you will awaken. So, you commit yourself to waking up, to remaining in the eternal now. Nothing is of greater importance. With everything else you can procrastinate, except this – if you want to awaken. There is no “should” about this. It cannot come from guilt; it must come from a deep desire or even from total desperation. This is not a comfortable process to go through. It is easy for the ego to find a way for you to skip out on it. If, however, you are aware of the pain and suffering that the ego always brings and you wish to drop it forever; if you want to let go of the specialness, the victimhood, the neediness, the emotional swings, the grief, and of feeling unloved and unlovable, and you realize there is no other way, then go for it. You do that by being vigilant with every thought and feeling you experience. If you sense or recognize that the thought or feeling is ego driven, ask the hard questions. Is this really true? If it isn’t really true, what changes does that bring to what you do and feel?
Being committed to the eternal now and to awakening means that you embrace and welcome absolutely everything that comes into your life. You don’t reject anything; you don’t push anything away. You don’t say to yourself that this isn’t what you want. You don’t judge anything that happens as wrong or bad. You stop pretending that you are in control and that you know how your life should be. You realize that if you knew how to awaken, you would be awake. How silly would it be to know and yet to stay asleep. Obviously, you don’t have a clue what is good for you. Admit it. You have expressed to Spirit your wish to awaken, your wish to understand and live the truth, your wish to leave your ego. Therefore Spirit brings to you that opportunity in every moment. Are you embracing these gifts? If not, why not? Those are the questions to ask yourself. Is this the place where you think you know better than God, that you realize what would wake you up?
To awaken is to be enormously humble, the humility that comes from realizing that you don’t know anything. You don’t even comprehend what is good for you. In that humility, a place of trust is allowed. Everything that happens is for your greater good, no exceptions. Is it required that you understand the meaning of your gift? If it is for your good, would understanding really matter? It is acceptance, not understanding, that you seek. If it is for your greater good to understand, then explanations will be provided. It is that simple. If acceptance is hard, you have directions for your task for today. You believe something to be true that is not true. What is it? This moment is the time to do this work, not tomorrow, next week, or….. The alternative is to face the fact that you don’t really want to wake up that much; you only want a fun game. You will be able to enjoy the ego illusion more if you don’t pretend that you want to leave it behind. In that case, you will have a constant, lingering sense of failure, of not being good enough. You will have another reason to beat yourself up. That is the ego’s game. If you are honest about it being a game, you can possibly have fun, win or lose (but of course you will lose). In Spirit’s game, Spirit takes your hand and asks: “Why not now?” Tell me one good, true reason why you cannot awaken right now, one excuse for why you have to stay attached to the ego illusion and to take it seriously. Give me one proof why things have to be a certain way in order for you to be okay. Why not now?
An important awareness to have is whether or not you are presently in the eternal now. If you are thinking about something that happened in the past, no matter how recent or far back, you are not in the eternal now. Your job is to notice that your mind is traveling in the past and be aware of how that affects you at this moment. Are you angry? Do you feel victimized? Are you guilty, blaming yourself for past choices or actions? There is no way to be living in the past and also to be in the eternal now, awake, and free of the ego. One choice is to ask Spirit to help you let go of the past and to bring your focus back to the present. Maybe there is something you are holding on to that you believe about the past that it is time to release, to change that belief. For example, you might think that because your father treated you in a certain way you are left emotionally vulnerable. Is your father there in the room with you in this moment? Probably not. Maybe he is not even in a body anymore. Yet, are you inviting him into your present to control your life? Why do you choose to do that? In truth, what power can a memory of another person have on you in the present moment? The answer is none. You are doing this to yourself. How crazy is that? An idea has been planted in your mind about yourself that is not true and you are still repeating it to yourself. Look at this thought, this untruth. Whatever it is, it isn’t true. Look at it until you understand that and then choose your thoughts. If you are in the eternal now, nothing matters except what is in this moment. Your job is to do whatever it takes to release the past. Change your mind. When you realize, accept, and trust that everything that happens to you is perfect, that includes the past. It was absolutely perfect that you had the father you had. Spirit could not have done better. It was precisely what you needed for your spiritual growth. Your job is to feel gratitude for that, to feel love for all that your father did for you. Your vision widens when you see through Spirit’s eyes. Ego looks at the past and sees self as a victim. Spirit points out where your eyes were closed and helps you to open them to see the truth of what really happened. It doesn’t matter whether you opened them then or you do it today. Time isn’t real. The eternal now is real. What you see in this moment is true for all time. You can choose to carry your pain with you through all time or release it. The past is an enormous venue of not being here now. You can’t be two places at once.
Then, of course, there is the future. What if this happens? Am I prepared for that? All the fear that you feel over what you should be doing to create your best possible future takes you out of the eternal now. And what about all of the things you believe you have no control over: accidents, disease, death, world events? This is all ego insanity. There is no future; there is just the eternal now. If you are taking care of the present, you are taking care of the only place you will ever be. All happens in the eternal now. Anything that comes into your experience is perfect. Remind yourself that you have no conscious awareness of what that perfect is. All you can do is receive what comes with humility and gratitude. When you notice you have a fear about the future, your only job is to look at the truth of that belief. It is never your job to change the world. Your only task is to change your mind, to release untruths. If you are fully in the eternal now you will have no time for tomorrow. This moment will keep your hands and mind full. One of these days you will notice that all of those old fears about the future are gone. That day will be the one where you finally find yourself firmly rooted in the eternal now.
It is an enormous habit to be in the past or the future, rather than to be in the eternal now. It requires willingness, an intention, and finally a discipline to be here. Ask Spirit for support. Ask to be gently reminded when you are drifting. There may be work for you to do concerning your beliefs about the past and the future. The work you do with them is in this moment. If you are in the past or the future, you can be sure that you are not dealing with truth. Leave your little confused ego mind and go sit with us above the battlefield. Look down at your silly little you with loving acceptance. Enjoy the humor of your running around with your head cut off. Each moment you are a little more in the eternal now. You are willing to be shown the next step. That step is being shown to you at this very moment. In the scope of time, this challenge seems enormous. In the eternal now it is just one step. To return to the beginning, your only job is to be present. If you are not there, do whatever it takes to release time. Thoughts of hopelessness or helplessness are not in the eternal now. Neither of them is true. If the thought comes that someday, probably, everybody, including yourself, will wake up, my question is “Why not now?” Why do you want to put it off? You feel incapable of doing it right now. Why? Why stop yourself with an ego lie? Don’t give up on yourself. Why not now?
Good Now
Sanhia
Should we still be doing the forgiveness process?
I know how some of you react when you hear fingernails being drawn along a blackboard. The sensation is immediate and leaves you shuddering. If I were capable of having such a reaction, which of course I’m not, it would be triggered every time somebody said the word should. The answer to any question that begins with should is no. There is nothing that anybody should be doing. We would want to rephrase today’s question into something that allows me some scope of answers. You could say, “Sanhia, you haven’t talked about forgiveness for a while. You’ve been speaking of I Am, that we don’t know anything, and searching for untruth. We were just kind of wondering if it is still a valuable thing to be focusing on forgiveness as a healing technique.” That is phrased in such a better way, that is, if I believed in better or worse, that would definitely be better. Underneath it all with this question – and I am not singling out the person asking the question, it is simply a human ego thing – is the desire to check to see if you are doing it right. This is looking outside of yourself for validation. I want you to know that if your intention is to awaken, there is no wrong way to go about it. If your intention is not to awaken, it matters not what spiritual path you follow, you will not get there. The road that you will be traveling is already tough enough. Without intention, you will stop somewhere along the way and call it a day (or a life). Now, coming back to the question, the short answer is “of course”. Forgiveness is always a good idea. Forgiveness is based on the truth that you are not a victim of anyone, including yourself. Since nothing has happened to you from the outside, who do you have to forgive? The only true forgiveness comes from the realization that there is absolutely nothing to forgive. If you think there is something to forgive, it doesn’t matter how hard you work at it, you’ll never reach forgiveness. The thought deep down inside is that they are guilty, guilty, guilty, and in need of punishment. That is your deepest thought about yourself. You are guilty and need to be punished. Yes, forgiveness is always an excellent choice, and would you like fries with that?
Having said this, forgiveness is a very hard thing to do because most of you, no matter how hard you try to convince yourselves otherwise, don’t buy the truth of non-victimhood. A little inner voice whispers “bullshit” every time you claim you are not a victim. There are few satisfactions within the prison of the illusion that can equal that of seeing the “guilty” punished. It is so nice to see it happen to somebody else instead of to you. That’s a lot to give up. It takes a lot of courage to accept that you can only be doing these things to yourself and that it is all about your imagined separation from Divinity. So again, the shorter answer is of course, keep on keeping on. But there is a longer answer. There might be an easier way to be successful than working directly with forgiveness. I am not saying to forget forgiveness and seek vengeance for all of your “enemies”. I’m not suggesting you start your own little inquisition. It’s not time to reinstitute the rack and the thumbscrews. When you find yourself judging, being a victim, or lacking forgiveness, it is always a good idea to notice that and to choose differently. What I am saying is that if you think that truly forgiving is a hard thing to do, I am here to say that it is even harder than you think it is. Absolute forgiveness is a very advanced thought. You can repeat over and over to yourself that everyone is innocent, but that won’t make you believe it or quiet the little inner “bullshit” voice.
It might be an easier and a more direct route for you to take the happy idiot approach. By that I mean that you acknowledge that you don’t know anything. If your mind is going in a direction of judgment, the questions become: “Is my judgment really true? Am I really a victim of that person? Does that person really have power over me? Where did they get that power? How did that happen? Can I take it back? Did I give it to them? Were they just born holding power over me? Is all of this really true? Is that person as selfish as my mind is saying? What does selfish mean? If I give up everything in the world to pursue truth, is that selfish?” If you follow your lines of thinking, as I am modeling here, when you are in the judgmental process – rather than jumping to the end of the line and pretending that you know there is nothing to judge – you have a chance of changing your mind. Right now you haven’t earned that. You still believe in guilt and punishment, right and wrong.
Rather than sticking your head in the sand and pretending you are judgment free, look hard and deep at your thoughts. Is there anything wrong with affirming innocence and freedom from guilt? Of course there isn’t. But is it really true for you? Spoiler alert: if you are even having these thoughts it is not true for you. Are they absolutely innocent? Are you not a victim? Don’t look away. Keep investigating the truth in these thoughts. How enormous is it to give up victimhood? You will have looked at all the places where you feel yourself to be a victim, whether of another person, of nature, of your own body, of disease, of governments, or of the economy. You will have to follow many of these threads before you can unravel the untruth of victimhood. And this is just one aspect of judgment. Perhaps you are judging yourself and others for one of the “seven deadly sins“. This is an enormous work and it is one you must do if you wish to wake up. Hearing me say it or reading it in A Course in Miracles isn’t enough. You have to do the heavy lifting. You have to analyze every last thought that comes into your mind for its veracity. Let your mind follow these thoughts wherever they might take you. Wherever your mind finally rests, is it resting on the truth or do you need to go deeper? You may be wondering if your mind will ever get to rest. When you reach the truth you will be able to rest in the truth forever. At a certain point of following your thoughts, the remainder may just tumble of their own weight to join the debris of untruth you have realized. As we mentioned in the last message, you arrive at truth by eliminating all of the untruths until only truth remains.
It might not be easy for you to follow your mind, to stay with it, when you have been acting as if and believing that an untruth was true. What you will find if you stay with the process is that you know less and less every day. Getting smarter means unlearning untruths. Knowing more requires knowing less. Piling up more untruths cannot lead to wisdom. It is said that you shouldn’t believe half of what you read or hear. The wise person knows which half is which. The wisest person knows that the true half is infinitely smaller than the untruth portion. When you reach the point of absolutely knowing that a thought of judgment or victimhood is not true, how could you possibly still hold on to that thinking? So maybe the quickest and most direct way to release judgments is to go directly into the untrue beliefs you are holding. Then the judgment will fall away of its own weight. Without untruths there is nothing left to support judgment. The lack of forgiveness has been propped up by false beliefs.
A “should” question will never lead you to truth. Chase it down and find what isn’t true about it. As you are following the strands you may realize that you don’t do some things because you should, but because you want to. There is no “should” about breathing, you desperately want that next breath. Check out your “shoulds” and see if they are actually desires. Forgiveness is a wonderful concept and to whatever degree you are able to embrace it this is a great guide for you. However, if you desire to be fully successful at forgiving, look at the untruths you are holding. This includes any beliefs you have that you do things because you should do them rather than because you want to do them. Untruth realization is the easy way to forgiveness. You have enough of a challenge without making it any harder on yourself. You have your work cut out for you. If you haven’t arrived at the place where you realize the untruth of any belief or thought, you have another think coming. Have fun with that!
Good Now
Sanhia
Can you give a few more hints on how to go about finding the truth?
In the last message we talked about what you can trust and about finding the truth. I gave you some hints as to how to go about finding the absolute truth. As I say this, I want to remind you that this is a work you must do yourself. I cannot hold your hand through your internal investigation, nor can anyone else. It is your job to do, or not. But, I have been asked if I can’t, please, give just a few more hints to help guide the way. I’m a nice guy, so I say, “Sure, I can do that.” I want to begin by suggesting that it is not so much a search for the truth as a dedication to realizing untruth. When you finish the job of untruth realization all that can remain, if you have done a good job, is truth. You find truth through the process of elimination, the releasing of untruths. The hints I will give to you are designed to help you do just that.
Probably the biggest thing that gets in the way of releasing untruths is they seem to be connected with things that you want to be present in your life. You have resistance to seeing the untruth because it might require letting go of something you would rather hold on to, something that provides some comfort in the midst of your pain. Your ego is never going to make it easy to wake up. Because you are giving importance to these things, the illusion becomes more important than the truth. The illusion is built upon untruths. Let’s look at what some of these things might be.
We could start by listing three categories of untruth encouragers found in the illusion. The first one we will simply call stuff. Think about how much of your time and energy goes into dealing with your stuff, your material possessions. The time you spend dealing with your stuff is time you are not spending with untruth realization. It’s a diversion. You think about stuff you have right now. You think about stuff you want to have. Maybe you think about stuff you used to have. There are numerous ways that you have to deal with your stuff. Stuff breaks down. Your stuff stops working. Spirit has brought in planned obsolescence so stuff breaks down faster and faster. Now you have to deal with fixing it or having somebody else do that for you. Maybe it’s time to buy newer stuff. In the meantime you have to figure out how to live your life without that particular stuff. Maybe, you decide one day that you need the latest model of your stuff, because yours is outdated and not good enough anymore. When you get new stuff you have to figure out how to operate it. All your stuff requires attention. It may need cleaning, maintenance, and protection against the elements and from theft. You worry about your stuff. You alter your behavior for your stuff. So much of your energy, your time, and your mind are devoted to handling your stuff. If you want to be dedicated to untruth realization, that will require plenty of space in your life. Having less stuff can free up this time. This can be part of your process. When you realize that a piece of your stuff is demanding a lot of time or is adding to the stress in your life, you can look at the truth of your need for the object. Follow that line of thinking all the way to the end. I am not suggesting you live your life as an ascetic monk with no stuff. I am not telling you not to do that either. If you really wish to wake up, to release the untruths that you believe in, you will not be able to avoid looking at the addictions you have to the stuff in your life. You will also find yourself dealing with the fear that you might lose any or all of your stuff.
The second category is people. Do I want you to let go of all the people in your life? I neither suggest adding or subtracting people from your life, but untruth realization will require you to examine the attachments you have to your relationships. Like your stuff, your relationships require maintenance and time. How do you alter your behavior because of the people around you? This is a profound question to pursue. You will find it nearly impossible to realize untruths while hoping to obtain approval or agreement from friends, family, and other cohorts.. How much of what you choose to do, how much of how you spend your time is determined by what the people around you seem to want from you (realizing that this is often your projection)? The implication may be that if you are really my friend or if you really loved me…..you would do what I ask of you. Do you fill your life with people so you don’t have to look at your mind? Is it a way of keeping busy? Is it your fear of being alone? This aloneness is exactly what is required of you to have the space for untruth realization. If you really wish to let go of untruths, it can only be accomplished by going deep within your own mind. Talking to or being with others will not help; that can only stand in your way. Part of your process will be dealing with the fear that you might lose any or all relationships.
If you truly focus on truth/untruth it will come ahead of the people, the friends, the family, the stuff, the money…..everything. This is some serious shit we’re talking about. Again, it’s fine if you admit to yourself that you are not ready for that kind of commitment. It’s okay to just play around with these ideas without jumping off the cliff. But, I am talking to those of you who do want to get that serious. Let’s talk about the third category…..goals. What goals do you have for your life? What do you hope to achieve? What do you want to have success with? What do you wish to accomplish? What do you want to be known for? What experiences do you wish to have? What do you hope to realize? All of these goals stand in the way of your untruth realization…..unless your goal is untruth realization. There is a saying attributed to Jesus that I’m almost embarrassed to repeat here because it is often used. However, it is used so often because it resounds of truth. Here we go, “You can only serve one master”. You can serve the illusion or you can serve the truth. The illusion is not true. Yes, you seem to be living with it and need to deal with and find your peace with it, but it is not true. If you want to know the truth, the focus cannot be on the illusion. You can only serve one of these. They are mutually exclusive. Pick one or the other. If you choose truth, then stuff, people, and goals go out the window, down the toilet, or wherever you get rid of things. Am I suggesting you have to get rid of absolutely everything? Take one thing at a time and look at it. Find the truth or untruth about it. You cannot be in a body without stuff, people, and goals. The question is one of function. Are they there to serve your awakening, or are they there to try to make the illusion more fun and to shield you from the harsh glow of truth?
What happens as you release the excess stuff, people, and goals from your life is you clear the decks so that you deal with what really matters, untruth realization. The process is very simple. Whatever thought or feeling comes to you, ask yourself if it is really true. Follow your thoughts about this down the rat hole and through the maze until you find its untruth. If you haven’t found the untruth, you haven’t followed far enough. Perhaps it’s time to make a minor revision in the saying, “Find the truth and it will set you free” to “Find the untruth and it will set you free”. These thoughts and feelings that arise are likely to be connected to the stuff, people, and goals that you are in the process of relinquishing. Let’s say thoughts arise about your car. It is not the car that is the issue; it is the thoughts and feelings you have about the vehicle. What is the purpose of your car? Let’s play with this a little. Does your car make you feel better about yourself? Will others think better about you because of the car you have (or worse)? Is that really true? Does it really matter? Does the possession of an object change who you are? If you didn’t have that car, would you be someone else? Who are you? Is who you are affected by how others think about you? Do they have the power to affect the truth of you? Who would you be if you didn’t (or did) have a car? Would your experience of the illusion change with a change of vehicles? What is necessary in order for you to maintain your existence in the illusion, for example, getting food, doing the work you are here to do, meeting with the people that it is important to get together with? How would this affect all the different things you do while in a body? How important is each of them? What absolutely needs to be done? If a car is found to be necessary to continue your untruth realization, what kind of car will suit you? These answers are not outside; they are within you. Nobody can tell you what kind of car will satisfy your needs; at best they can project what they believe would suit them. We have just scratched the surface of all the possible roads this car question might lead you down. On the one hand you can look at the amount of your energy that is consumed by your mode of transportation while on the other hand ask why any of that matters. As you investigate fully you will come face to face with looking at the actual importance of everything you have held to be of value. If the bottom line is that only untruth realization is important, how will this piece of stuff help you get there? Where is it in the way and where does it support? You will only know these answers through relentless self examination.
This is only one of a multitude of possessions that you might have. This process of untruth realization will take you quite a while. If you seriously look for your answers, you won’t have so much time to spend with other people and you probably wouldn’t provide the best company. You won’t have time to be dealing with all of your stuff. You won’t be able to accomplish your goats while trying to figure out if they are worth reaching or even having. This is why Jesus is also quoted as saying that, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. You can only serve one master. If riches are important to you, you will hold to them rather than surrender them for the truth within you. You cannot pay attention to your stuff and to the people who look after your stuff and still have enough time to follow your thoughts all of the way to the end. That will be even less likely if you suspect that untruth realization will lead you to give up all attachments to your stuff. There is nothing evil in stuff; it is only the addiction to it that causes a problem. Does more stuff really give you power? Does it free you? Do your relationships support you in untruth realization or do they enable you to hold on to prejudice and victimhood? When you are afraid of the truth, you attract those equally committed to untruth to join together in protecting your right to ignorance, to spiritual childhood. No matter how many goals you reach, you will never feel you are fully a success. What success brings is an emptiness that can only be filled by striving for another goal. Accumulating money or stuff leaves you still wanting more. There is never enough of anything in the illusion to fully satisfy you. No matter how many friends you might feel you have, you know inside that they don’t love the real you. It’s all conditional and you have to maintain a façade just to hold onto what you don’t even really have. Stuff, people, and goals are drugs. They are addictions. A drug can be used in an appropriate way to support you in untruth realization, but addiction never does that. You can serve untruth realization or your addiction, but not both.
This is where the pedal hits the metal. The more dedication you have to untruth realization/truth realization, the more time and energy you will focus there and the less important the addictions will be in your day to day life. Everyone hopes to be able to have their cake and eat it too, but it doesn’t work that way. I’m here to rain on your parade. There isn’t room to hold on to the illusion and grasp for the truth simultaneously. There is a moment where you will have to let go of the illusion but will not have yet fully grasped the truth. The bottom falls out from beneath you. There is nothing left to hold on to. This has been called the dark night of the soul. I wish I could tell you differently, that your transition to truth will be a smooth ride. Everyone fears facing this abyss. Addiction feels like a safer, more comfortable place. This is part of the package. In the illusion you believe you need to fulfill the three categories to be happy, but they will never bring you there. They can’t because they are not built upon truth. Only untruth realization can bring you what you desire to experience. If you maintain your commitment, you will move through the dark night into real freedom. You will know when it is time for you to make the choice for untruth realization. Maybe it’s not meant for this trip. Eventually you will find yourself there. Bon voyage.
Good Now
Sanhia
Sanhia, how can we trust that the things you are telling us are true?
Wow, that is a question that gets right down to the nub! How can you trust that anything you are reading or hearing from me, or from any spiritual teacher or book, or from your own mind is true? Scary! What if you act as if something is true and it turns out to be a false teaching? Now you may have wasted your entire life or at least destroyed major parts of it for no reason, losing along the way the other opportunities that might have presented themselves. Life as you know it is over. As you may have noticed, there is usually a short answer to the question. The short one is that you can’t. As Bob Dylan said, “Don’t follow leaders; watch your parking meters”. You absolutely cannot trust anything or anyone. The second short answer is that whatever you may think the truth is – you are wrong. Is it the truth that whatever you think is wrong? No, wrong again. Boy this is fun. We are, nonetheless, winding our way toward where we want to go. I will continue by jumping in with both feet, which is quite a feat because I have no feet, by saying that there is only one truth. That truth is I Am. I could also say You Are, but I won’t because it is not for me to speak for you. I have no idea if you are. You are free to declare the one truth for yourself, I Am. As you think about that you can ask yourself if there is any way it can be refuted. Can you say I am not? Can you say that you have no awareness, no consciousness? You might think that your awareness is only connected to this physical body and its brain. In that case, when the body dies, which by all evidence will be the case, you will not be any more. Maybe that is true. I guess you will have to kill yourself to find out if there is still an I Am. Or, you can start with the truth of your I Am-ness as a working basis for looking at everything else you think is true or that you think is false.
We call this considering of something as true or untrue – belief. The thing that separates I Am from all the other beliefs we are going into is that you do absolutely experience your being-ness. There is no time when you don’t experience your being-ness. A hypothesis for you to test out for yourself is that any qualification you might add to I Am is not true. Again, I am not telling you that everything else is false; I am asking you to check it out for yourself. The hypothesis is that any qualification you might put on anything in the world around you is false. That is what I suggest you test for yourself. You will likely find yourself in one of three places right now as you read this. One place is that you are holding the thought, “Sanhia, you are so full of shit. I can smell you from here.” From this position you believe that there are obviously diseases like Corona, extreme weather, falling rocks, and all other types of things that are dangerous to humans. You can provide endless items to add to this list of things you know are true. A second position you might take is that this is an interesting way to look at existence and you might want to think about it some more and see what you can make of it. In the third position you might think I am correct with my hypothesis, but you still experience your body as very real and have physical and emotional reactions to things going on in the world. It makes absolutely no difference where you place yourself on this spectrum. I could care less. It doesn’t matter. All three points come from a place of being asleep and not awake. The question you could ask yourself is, “Am I content with my state of slumber?”
If your answer to the slumber question is that you would like to wake up, the question now becomes one of what you need to do to shake yourself awake. It is likely that if you are still opening these messages you have some level of desire to wake up. On the other hand, maybe you are just fooling yourself. Maybe you like being asleep and it is just a fun game to entertain thoughts about non-duality, but you don’t really take them seriously. That’s fine. As we said, none of these ideas are true. I Am is all that is true. But if you are saying to yourself that you really want to wake up, then my work is done. My only job was to rattle your cage a little, to offer you the possibility to make that decision for yourself, or not. I cannot tell you what to do. It is absolutely your job, your responsibility to follow the road to truth. Nobody can do that for you, nor can you do it for anyone else. But, you ask, can’t you even give us a hint? Well, if you twist my arm – which I also don’t have, I am unarmed – I will say a few things, but don’t write them down in stone. Don’t make commandments out of them or a Bible or a religion. These are only general guidelines; your truest direction will come from a voice inside of you that will set your course if you allow it to. It will not come from a voice outside of you – hello, that’s me. You can listen to me until the cows come home, as they say, and you will still be fast asleep. You might laugh a bit because I can be amusing, but you’ll be laughing in your sleep, which might be less objectionable than snoring. If you want to fully awaken, the ball is in your court. You make that happen.
Okay, here are some of the promised hints. First of all, keep in mind that whatever you think is true, beyond I Am, requires deep examination. Look at it and look at it and….okay, you’ve got it. Question yourself about it. Ask it questions about itself. Do this in writing if you choose, or maybe speaking out loud. Stay with it until you either can prove it to be true or until you realize it was just an illusion; it is not really true. This truth is to be beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is to rely on no outside “experts” for validation. This can be aided by asking yourself how you can be sure that any “expert” is right. Most of what you believe is something that somebody taught you. How likely is it that one would open their eyes one day, look around, and out of the clear blue say that there is a pandemic around and it would be a good idea to take a vaccination? That is probably not an idea that comes to one through an inner guidance. These ideas of pandemics, disease, vaccinations, and death are all ideas you were taught. Perhaps the “authorities” that you give power to in your life said these things: doctors, scientists, media, governments, or friends.
How do you know absolutely that any part of what you “know” is accurate? If you actually look and look and question everything until you have irrefutable proof for yourself that a belief or statement is true, you will end up finding only untruth. If you commit to follow each trail to its bloody end, I guarantee you will go through terror, fear, and pain on every level. All your comfort areas will disappear. You will find yourself alone. Even your friends who feel like spiritual buddies will not be there with or for you. The cozy, warm beliefs you shared will not stand the test of truth and your co-conspirators will not be willing to walk this path of blowing up truths with you. You will find yourself separating from them and nearly all of society. Perhaps, if you are really serious about your pursuit of truth you will eventually find others who are similarly drawn. This will likely only happen when you have already done the heavy lifting and no longer require outside life support. If you are hoping in any way that your salvation will come from some place outside of you – like the second coming of Jesus, aliens from more advanced planets, or a master teacher – you will simply fall back into deep slumber. If you hold the belief in a savior, look deeply into it until you see your way through. You will have to kill the Buddha. As long as your actions are based on beliefs of how the universe is, you will remain asleep to the truth. On the other hand, if you grab that bull of “truth” by the horns and don’t let go until you are aware of the untruth, these beliefs will one after another fall away until all that is certain is I Am.
When everything but I Am is gone there will remain an inner voice which guides you in each moment. You will be aware of a Oneness and a perfection, that there is nothing that needs to change. You will accept your role in the human drama and carry it out without question and without attachment to results. You will simply love the game. Now, perhaps some of you are thinking that these last sentences sound like beliefs. Wonderful! You are on the road to truth realization. I agree with you absolutely, absopositivily. There is no way to jump directly into the awakened state to see if this will be your experience. All you can do is to unwind the untruths to see what remains. Holding these thoughts as beliefs while you are still sleeping will leave you still asleep. I am simply suggesting that as you release all the false beliefs you have and go to your inner core, your Is-ness, your I Am; your experience may be something like that. But it is practice, not belief that will take you there. Look at everything. Question everything. Doubt everything, including all that I say to you. Believe nothing. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
As we let this entertaining discourse draw to an end, I want to again remind you that the words I am speaking to you or that you are reading are never the truth. I can only hint, and talk around the truth, and sometimes speak out of both sides of my mouth, even though I don’t actually have a mouth. I have said in the past that you are not really in charge of anything, that Spirit is in charge of everything and that all will happen at the perfect time. I still hold with that as I ask you what choice you are going to make here. Mostly, those who feel like they are making the choice to absolutely and fearlessly face the truth are not doing so because they got out of bed one day and said that it seemed like the time for truth realization. More likely they got out of bed (or couldn’t) and realized there was no other choice. “The world is hopeless and useless, and so am I. I have to do something to end this misery.” That’s a common beginning. There is a saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I’m going to make a slight modification and say that when the student is ready the shit will hit the fan. That is when the student chooses to act. Yes, perhaps a teacher appears at that moment, but it is not the teacher that is important. All depends on the actions of the student. It is all connected. There is a Oneness and a perfection as you let go of what is not true and allow your inner guidance to lead you to the truth of I Am. You will find yourself acting in the world in a way that impacts others. You will do this, not because you know the truth, but because there is a perfect plan we are all a part of. When you are truth realized, you would never choose any other course than the one being presented to you. Your part in the perfect plan today might be to continue to play the loyal opposition, holding on to your “truths” and thinking everything else is bullshit. Everything has its purpose. Maybe your perfect place is to suspect there is no truth in your beliefs but you aren’t ready to act on it. Perfect – that is Spirit’s plan for you today. When it is time for you to wake, it will feel like you have no choice. Spirit will provide a swift kick in the ass and you are off to the races.
What is true is true. No amount of belief can make anything true or untrue. What is true is I Am. The rest of it is all illusion, nothing but smoke and mirrors. Within that dream you will awaken. It can be no other way. You will never accept this truth until you follow every untruth to its logical end and destruction. How long it will take for you to choose this makes no difference. Your level of intelligence makes no difference. Your spiritual discipline makes no difference. When the moment comes, it will happen. Is that time now? There is no correct answer to that question. You may make a start and be satisfied with whatever distance you come toward letting go, telling yourself that you are through for now. You may say that you are not ready now and then find things happening in your life that make any other choice impossible. As I said, my only job is to rattle your cage a little, to shake things up. Maybe something falls on your head or your toe stimulating you to take some sort of action. Maybe not. Maybe you are just left with the thought that Sanhia is full of it. I certainly am. I Am.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can I get control over my ego?
Wow, what a fun question this is! There are so many different aspects to it that I hardly know where I want to begin. Let’s start with this. We want to talk about the truth of you, which I will call your I Am consciousness. We mentioned this in the last message. You Are or, as you would say it, I Am. That is the end of the story. I Am. It is not “I am spirit” or “I am ego”. It is I Am. But here you find yourself in this story, this movie, this illusion. You appear to have a body. It looks as if there is a physical planet. You seem to be interacting with other people. There appears to be this ego, this craziness, convincing you that the whole package is true, and, as we talked about last time, you are having a lot of emotional responses to the drama being presented. So, you wonder what you can do to reel in this ego. The shortest, most clear, direct, and honest answer that I can give is that you can do nothing. Trying to do something about the ego is on the same level as trying to create heaven on earth, which is on the same level as rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic. You are on a fool’s errand in which you cannot possibly have any success. You will be wasting energy and ending in more confusion than you began.
Having said that, let’s come at this from a totally different point of view. Your mind has a habit of holding onto thoughts or beliefs that are not true. You often begin these thoughts or statements with the words “I am”. For example, you might say, “I am depressed”. That cannot be a true statement. There is a difference between your divine I Am that always is and this illusory physical self, that we could call your “me”, which experiences all of this fear, doubt, and guilt in the world. Your me and the events it encounters are all temporary, while the truth is always true. When you find yourself feeling depressed you can say to yourself, “I am noticing that my me is feeling a little depressed right now”. This is a far different statement than saying to yourself “I am depressed” which suggests a permanent and unchangeable truth of who you are. Instead, you acknowledge that this little me is experiencing depression. Interesting! All you do is notice. The process of waking up involves the realization that your me is not real and what it is experiencing is of no lasting importance. Your job is to develop your awareness of what your me is doing.
The process can happen something like this. You have, or more correctly You Are, a Divine I Am. When we have spoken of taking things to Spirit we could also describe it as taking things to your Divine I Am. As a visual, you can picture yourself high above the playing field, the game, the battlefield, the physical plane. You are looking down on your little me. Oh poor little me, depressed, angry, jealous, horny, happy, sad, head-over-heels in love, heartbroken and so on. All that this awareness amounts to is that you are separating your true self from your me. You look down and observe your me, not with the idea of changing its thoughts or actions, simply being aware that this is not the truth of you. Your I Am is just watching and noticing what your me is going through right now. If you try to change your me, that is if you try to control your ego, you will fail. You are then making the experience of your me real. You are giving it an importance and an existence that it doesn’t have. That is a big one to get over, because your me thinks that everything that happens to it is so important. But the experiences have no meaning beyond being the description of your self-created prison. Your job is not to stop feeling whatever your me is going through, but to simply notice what is going on from a detached separate space, from your I Am. You might lovingly notice without judgment or guilt, “Oh isn’t my little me cute”. That is called being aware.
As you are able to simply be aware, the behavior will begin to dissipate. You have likely heard before that what you resist persists. Your attempts to bring about change are only empowering and encouraging the craziness of the ego to continue. When the behavior is given no attention, it has no further reason to hang around. So, it is not about controlling the ego; it is about ignoring it and instead focusing on your I Am, which doesn’t have a horse in the ego game race. Of course, ignoring does not mean sticking your head in the sand, pretending you don’t see what your me is doing. Notice everything, but don’t identify with it. Give it no juice. That little me is not You. Of course, you will forget to step back at times. You will find yourself again caught up in the ego games. This is not because you can’t control the ego; it is because the ego still has control of you. This is not a fight over who has control. The ego will win every fight. All you need to do, as often as you can remember to, is to become aware of the situation. Separate out and rise above to your I Am and watch the spectacle taking place. “There I go again.”
One of the most persistent me fears is around death. It might look like your fear of losing somebody close to you, or the reaction to just that having happened (as we talked about in the last message), but it is always the fear of your own death. Your awareness job is to notice yourself having that fear. The I am does not know death. It is not real. I am is only life, consciousness, and awareness. Death is the perfect vehicle for your me to ride in and for your I Am to look down upon, observing yourself dealing with your fear. When your fear of death dissolves, which it will do if you persist in watching it in awareness without judgment from your I Am, you will for the first time realize life. Your ego mind thinks life is all of the things that are not real, all the dramas and emotions.
Your ego mind looks at the possibility of awakening and asks what is left when all it values disappears. If the drama is gone, what remains? There is no good answer to that question. The I Am is what is left when all that is not real is gone. The best I can do is to tell you what the “I Am” is not. I Am not depression. I Am not sadness. I Am not fear. I Am not hate. I Am not anger. I Am not jealousy. I Am not boredom. I Am not death. We could say that everything that you do not want, everything that causes pain and suffering is a part of what I Am not. I Am also not special love, heaven on earth, or any idea you have ever had. The only way for you to realize who You are is to jettison everything that you are not. I Am is what is left. What I can tell you is that while you are in this awareness process of separating your I Am from your me, watching and slowly allowing those behaviors to dissipate – not by trying to change anything but just by noticing – you will begin to have less of your me operating. You will experience less depression, fear, jealousy, worry, and so on. You will experience yourself as living more and more in the now. In this disappearing act will be the guilt about what you have or have not done and the fear about what might happen. Fewer thoughts will run through your mind about what you should be doing, to be replaced by thoughts of what you could be doing. In the now there exist none of the emotions we have been talking about. In the now there is guidance available from a Divine intelligence that is directing everything, perfectly.
This is what happens when you move to the I Am consciousness and simply observe. Your I Am does not pretend to know everything, or perhaps even anything. It simply is. So, gradually, bit by bit, your little me begins to exist just in the now. The separation between your I Am and your me slowly dissolves. You realize that whatever is supposed to happen in this illusion is exactly what is happening. There will not be a thought that things should be any different than they are. You will simply know how to react to whatever presents itself. You will be guided. That’s all there is: no drama, no confusion, no fear, no past, no future. So, returning one last time to the opening question, there is nothing to control. It’s about letting go of control and replacing that need with awareness, noticing how your me is acting and reacting. There is no battle. You get to sit back and observe the absolute insanity of the ego world. You will grow to appreciate the humor in this absolute insanity. It is permitted to laugh. Sit back and enjoy the show.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can I let go of grief?
To begin with, you can never let go of anything by pretending that it’s not there. You don’t get over grief by acting as if you’re not feeling it. It is a very human thing to experience grief, whether it is over the death of a loved one or the loss of something that feels important to you in your life. I encourage you to fully face the grief, to go into the heart of it and feel it totally. Doing the five-step process could be helpful here. Only by going into the fear behind the grief can you discover that it doesn’t have any true reality. There is a great deal of confusion around emotion, and grief is certainly a strong emotion. There are those who would say that your emotions are what are important, not your mind and what you are thinking. Along these lines, the highest value is in expressing these feelings. There is nothing either good or bad about expressing, but emotional release will never lead to awakening. Emotion is not divine; it is not real; it is ego based. The emotion that you feel is connected to something that happens outside of you in the world – a person or a pet appears to die, you lose your job, you lose your favorite earring. What the grief is saying is that you believe that what was lost was real. Emotion comes out of belief, or more correctly, out of false belief. There is no other kind of belief, but that is an idea for another message. Emotion is not some pure thing that comes from Spirit though the heart, but a self-sabotage coming from the misuse of your mind. You believe that what happens in the world starts in the world, that you are a victim to it, that it reaches out and affects you. This is not the truth; it is a belief. Belief has no effect upon truth. It cannot change it in any way. When you act as if your beliefs are true you experience emotional responses.
If we come back to this question of how to let go of grief, you can never let go of it if you believe it is real. If you believe that person died and therefore you have a hole in your life that can never be filled, that the loss is irreplaceable, then you will have grief. And though it might subside somewhat over time, it will never fully go away. So what do you do with your grief? Let us go off in another direction. The question you want to ask yourself about your grief or about anything else that seems to be out there in the world, impinging upon you, is this: “Is this really true?” I am going to start at a basic level with the question: “What can you absolutely know is true or real?” You find yourself to be in this body and in this world. Do you absolutely know that either is real? As you are looking at this question, you can think about watching a movie. You are aware that what is happening on the screen is not actually real, but emotionally it may feel very real. You may react as if it were actually happening. How do you know that what your thoughts or your senses are telling you, what you perceive going on in the world, is actually happening? Beyond that, how can you know that something your mind tells you happened in the past actually occurred? How can you absolutely know that? Can you fully experience something that you perceive outside of yourself? You can know that you are having the perception, but how can you be sure that your perception is real and true?
While you are thinking about this – and if you seriously take on this line of thought, you will be busy for some time – here is another curveball for you. Who is experiencing this so-called reality? You know that you exist. You know that you are. You know this because there is never a time when you aren’t conscious. You are always aware. Can you remember not having awareness? There is a consistent flow through the illusion of time, no matter what happens or where you are, that you are aware of your beingness. There is absolutely no doubt that you are conscious. Can you have the same certainty that the person next to you exists? Can you experience their consciousness? If we were to call your state of consciousness “I Am”, can you know they are having an “I Am” experience? Can you even be sure they are actually there? Can you be absolutely certain that anything outside of your mind exists? You may be thinking that I am asking absolutely crazy, off the wall questions. In the insanity of the dualistic world those are the only kinds of questions I can ask. I challenge you to question everything that you think exists. Ask yourself how you know that something in the world is actually there. As you look at what I am suggesting, and you continue to look at it and to look at it, perhaps your certainty in the illusion will begin to crack. This won’t come easily. You have a great deal invested in the illusion being real, in the importance of things existing outside of your beingness. It is a painful and scary thing to let go of. I can guarantee you it is equally as scary to hold on to it. The difference is that the fear never leaves you as long as you grasp on to the world as real, while the other side of letting go leads to a fearless state. Let’s look at grief. If you believe in the truth of another’s body, then you will experience grief when the body dies. If you only know for certain that you are, what difference does it make what is on your screen? No matter what might appear to happen, you are.
Ask yourself that question. Look at everything that you think is true and ask if you really know that it is true. The ego mind will put up a great fight here. You may think, “But wait, I can see it, so it exists”. What actually happens with vision? Within the illusion there is light. Something comes into the eye. The image is upside down and your brain makes a correction. You now have a picture, a moving picture. Is your picture the same as another’s picture? How could you know? How, for example, could you know that your idea of a color is the same as someone else’s? Is the green that you perceive the same as what another claims to see? How could you possibly be sure? Yet you think it is real. And what about a blind person, if they cannot see something is it not there? Virtual reality shows you that you can experience things through your senses that don’t exist. There is always at least one step which separates you from an actual experience of the physical. Your mind does not touch, smell, taste, hear, or see anything.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. One person looks at another and claims that person is the greatest human alive, while another says the individual is evil incarnate. What is the truth? It is all about perception, not about truth. All your grief, all your emotions emanate from this place of believing that what you perceive is actually true. You have no way of knowing that anything you believe is true. Yet you allow these misperceptions to rule your experience of life. A good rule of thumb is that anything you believe is true is false.
This is what waking up is. This is what enlightenment or ascension is all about. It is becoming fully aware that the only thing you can truly know is that you are. Nothing else can be known to be real or true. The ego voice then comes in to ask if all that is true, then why does the illusion appear to be here. That is a really good question. It probably requires another whole message to deal with adequately, but briefly the answer is that you don’t know and probably never will. But, what does it matter? If you are, which means that you always have been and always will be, and nothing can change that, it can make absolutely no difference what you do or what happens within this illusion. You will still be. Instead of trying to figure out the right thing to do, let yourself flow and play with the game that is here. Just enjoy it. We could say that there is a larger intelligence here, a Divine intelligence if you prefer, that is running the show. Your only job is to trust in the perfection of the show and to flow with it. Nothing could be more perfect than what is presented in each moment. Let’s say that someone is removed from your physical perception through the illusion of death. That is perfect! Absolutely perfect! Play with it. Let us hypothesize that some, perhaps all, of the other entities that are out there, that you call human, have the same “I am” consciousness that you have. Then they too always are. Their existence has nothing to do with their bodies. If you perceive them going through a bodily death, they haven’t disappeared out of existence. They simply are, no matter what is happening in the physical illusion, just as you always are. The body is not real. Nothing has been lost with this “death”. Nothing real or true could ever be lost. So they are fine? How are you doing? Your thought is that you miss them. Is that really true? How can you miss something that was never really there? You can only miss it if you go into the illusion, which seems to have a past and a future.
In this illusion of time there is an imaginary past where you have memories of this person and an imaginary future where this person will play no part. Meanwhile the only thing that your “I am” consciousness can be aware of is the now, which doesn’t include this person. The past is only in your thoughts. All you can experience is the now. We are beginning to get a picture of what insanity is. You are looking at what is in front of you and making yourself sad over something that isn’t in the picture. You could spend all of eternity concerned with all the things that could be present, but don’t appear to be and allowing these perceptions to make you sad or worse. Or…..you can see what is here now and accept it as perfect, with no grief for what is missing or hope for what could be there. It is not a question of what seems to be present being any more real than what doesn’t seem to be here, but it is simply what is here for you to play with. If the higher intelligence wanted you to be playing with the one who is “dead”, they would still be here in a body. But they are not here. There is something better for you. You are always presented with perfection. Part of this process is to give up this idea of thinking that you know better than the Divine intelligence what you should have in your perception or what is good for you. Is it really true that you know best? How is your track record with that? Have you always been successful in making the choice that has brought you peace, happiness and love? Of course you haven’t; you don’t have a clue. Everything you believe to be true is false.
Your job is to give up trusting in your perceptions and your beliefs and accept your experience as perfection. Then there can be no experience of grief. Nothing is lost or could be lost. There is only the eternal now. As long as you believe that something real could stop existing, you will have grief. That is absolutely an ego choice. You are welcome to let it go. Be free in the now. Accept the blessing that is here instead of mourning for what is not here. Give up everything else. That is just a weight to lug around as you experience emotional suffering. Easy to say, but your work is cut out for you. It’s the only game in town.
Good Now
Sanhia
Can you explain more about others being my mirror?
We will start at the beginning here, well not all of the way at the beginning, but at the beginning of the story about mirrors. The idea of mirrors is a very simple one which the psychologist Freud discovered over 100 years ago. It is the idea that when people doesn’t wish to look at something in themselves because they have so much judgment about their guilt, they will project it upon others in hopes of making the others guilty and deserving of punishment. This is called scapegoating. It is now the other who is the problem rather than the self. You are off the hook…..except for one thing. The self judgment is still there, though buried into the subconscious. It doesn’t go away. Therefore, nothing is really resolved or healed. Let’s look at this process. The way that you can identify if someone is acting as a mirror for you, that you are projecting on to them what you don’t want to see in yourself, is that you will have some judgment about them. “Whoa!” you exclaim. “I can sometimes see that this projection thing is true, but I am certainly not a mass murderer. Are you saying that I am a mass murderer, but am projecting that on to someone else?” And I reply, “Yes”. But this idea of mirror sometimes requires looking a little deeper. First of all, this scapegoating is an attack on others, wanting God to kill them instead of you. That sounds at least like mass attempted murder. More importantly, the guilt that all humans carry and the real belief underlying it all is this idea that you have killed God. There is no truth to this; in fact it is totally insane to think that God could be killed. But you think you destroyed God in order to create an individual self so that you could be the creator of your world. This could give you a separate identity. Of course you didn’t kill God. You are off the hook there. You didn’t do that, couldn’t have done that. Nor did you create a separate identity, couldn’t do that either.
A part of you, however, believes that you did all of that. You do not want to look at that part of you. Nothing could be more terrifying. So you project that murdering part of you onto others and you feel like you are off the hook. You are not a murderer like they are. You would never kill someone. You hide from yourself the guilt you have for believing that you killed God. What would the consequence be for Deocide? That would have to be swift and severe. In addition to that denial there is a part of you that knows that it is crazy and insane to believe that God could be killed. But, if you wanted to do the deed and failed, that means God is still out there. He knows what was in your heart and He is out to get you. This is another insane idea – that God who is only love could want to hurt his only Son, created in His own image. But, nobody ever accused the ego of being sane, except for the insane.
It is so absolutely believable that there are evil people out there, because in this illusion that the world is real, you are its creator. You don’t want to look at your fear, so you create a world of diversion with plenty of targets to play the scapegoat. You have written this entire script and hired actors to play these villainous roles so that you can be innocent and maybe even a savior. In truth, nothing is happening. It is exactly like a movie. There are actors, a script, a director, special effects, and it is being filmed. What is actually happening? Nothing, it is not real. That is the truth of the physical universe. It is simply not real. You may think that I am exaggerating or trying to make some kind of metaphorical point with this. Not at all. I am totally serious, and that is not often true with me. As long as you believe that the world is real you will continue to hide out here and to pretend that you are not responsible for any of it. You will go on finding scapegoats and projecting your guilt and fears upon them. You can do that, as you have been doing, and there is no judgment about it, nothing is actually happening. It is all your drama, having nothing to do with anybody else. It’s all in your head. You can do that and suffer the consequences of guilt, fear, and feeling separate from God and from all others until you stop playing that game. The pain is self inflicted and ceases as soon as you stop administering it. Sooner or later you will stop the game. It doesn’t matter if it is sooner or later, because time is part of the game; it is not real. When you wake up you will find yourself in timelessness with nothing real around you. You won’t take anything in the world seriously. It’s a fun place to be.
One of the quickest ways to wake up is to stop projecting, to realize that whenever you judge another in any way whatsoever, it is yourself you are judging. If you don’t understand how that can be the case, it is your job to go inside and find the truth. Find your own guilt and self condemnation so that you can forgive yourself and release the lie of your guilt. You can’t forgive something you believe is real. You cannot forgive another whom you judge because you really have convinced yourself of the reality and wrongness of what you see them doing. You believe in your righteousness in judging them. End of story as long as you are stuck in that cycle. The first step is to accept that it is yourself you believe is wrong, guilty, and cannot be forgiven. Short of that there is no way out. You can have all of these “wrong” people executed and erased from your illusion, but the guilty one will still walk free. So, more perpetrators must be created in order to maintain your disguise. It is like the zombie movies. You can’t kill them; they keep coming back. As you are beginning to have the mental awareness that another is your mirror, even though you may have your doubts or not understand why, you can take that inside of yourself. Ask yourself what it is that is triggering you; what are you judging? Whatever you discover is what you are judging yourself for, what you don’t want to look at. Ask Spirit to help you look at that. Look right at it, through your fear. There is a terror here, a dread of being punished for doing this horrible thing. In truth you are innocent and you ask Spirit for support in that vision. It is only when you see the purported guilt as being your own that you are able to let it go, to reclaim your innocence. As you practice doing this, what will begin to awaken in you – likely drop by drop, perhaps in one grand explosion of awareness – is the realization that there is no “other” there. There is no other person doing these things you have been projecting. It’s all you; it’s all your creation. By doing this internal work you truly see that the world does not exist, it is just something emanating from your mind. You are creating something that you don’t want out of something that you don’t want to look at, and projecting it into the physical world. At the same time the ego convinces you that you are going to create heaven on earth somehow from your fear-based denial. How crazy is that!
When you take responsibility for your projections and forgive yourself for these judgments, you will stop creating places to blame in the illusion. Finally, all you create in the illusion is forgiveness, love, peace, and support for following Spirit’s plan, everything to gain and nothing to lose. The only way to experience a sense of heaven on earth is to create it within you. Absolute self love, forgiveness, and inner peace will lead to a projection of the same. No amount of affirmation, meditation, or wishful thinking will change your mirrors in the world. The only real change you can affect is in changing your mind. That is where your world is created. If you don’t face your beliefs and your fears, they will continue to manifest in the world. You are never a victim of the world; you are master of it. It is your creation. Look at your world and see what you are creating. See what you don’t want to face in yourself. Face it or continue to run up against it. Stop pretending it is someone else’s fault. That is good news. How can you possibly control and change them? You have probably tried. It is so much easier to realize that you have all the power. All you need to do is look within and claim it. Otherwise you will have to kill everyone else, and then there will be more at the door. It’s like the five-headed hydra; chop one head off and two more appear. It is so much easier, not to speak of effective, to face your inner demons. You can’t change the action on the movie screen; you have to go into the projection room. The projection room is your mind. What happens on the screen/in the world is not real.
This transformation from victim to master has to begin with the intention to do just that. However that intention, in and of itself, is not enough. If you decide to wake up by educating everyone around you as to how an enlightened person should act, you will not wake up. It is not others that need to change; it is you. This does not require one single other person to change their mind. No matter what your intention may be, if you do not face your own fears you will either be in fantasy, hiding from the world, or in frustration. As I have said before, eventually you will wake up, regardless of your intention. If you desire to wake up, but don’t find things too horribly bad right now, facing your fears may seem like a less than inviting idea. You won’t do it now and that is fine. Those who are willing to take full responsibility and go inside to face their fears, admit their projections, work with forgiveness, give everything to Spirit, and trust Spirit to guide them and to bring the perfect lessons are probably willing to do so because they don’t feel they have any other choice. They are experiencing too much pain to keep trying to hold up the illusion. Perhaps they have tried to change the world and have given up in utter frustration. It may take a feeling of having nothing left to lose before you are ready to confront your own mind. Why would you attempt this enormous work if you thought there was any alternative? Facing your fears and confronting the unreality of the universe is a frightful task. It can be done and it eventually will be done, but I won’t try to kid you into believing it will be easy. It requires you to face the guilt you have for having created this hell of a world. There is the dark night of the soul to be experienced. There are the forty days in the desert. For many that feels like more than they wish to take on right now. For those who have said “Enough!” there is support as you go through your transformation of awakening. Spirit is always there with you. You are never alone, though you may feel that way. Other humans will likely be of little use for you and will probably act out your projection that you must be nuts. There is no wrong decision here, but if your intention is to face and accept your mirrors and you are willing to stay with it, We are willing to be with you every step of the way.
Good Now
Sanhia
If the world is an illusion, why does it matter what I do?
That is a very good question, though all questions are very good questions. It sounds as if it might be a question from the ego to try to trip me up, but it isn’t really. It is a very profound, important, and deep question. We have been talking about this world being an illusion; that nothing here is real; that nothing is really happening. If that is the case then why should it make any difference at all what somebody does? What difference does it make if you help or hurt others, if you love them or kill them? None of it is real, so there is no consequence for any action because nothing happened. Why not just do whatever brings you the most pleasure in each moment, no matter what the illusionary effect upon another?
Since this is the world of duality there are two answers to this question. The first one is that you are absolutely right. It makes no difference at all what you do. It doesn’t matter what happens here. It is inconsequential if you appear to make situations better or worse. You’re right. It is not real. Nothing is really happening. The part of you that believes that it does make a difference is trying to do one of two things. First, you may be trying to create a heaven on earth. If that is true with you, I will just say “Good luck with that, love”, and suggest you read this previous message. Secondly, the whole idea of thinking that anything you do here makes a difference is motivated by an attempt to win the approval and forgiveness of God. The thought is that if you can do the right thing, if you can guess what God wants you to do – which is the entire basis for how the Bible is interpreted – you can get back in God’s good graces. Of course the Old Testament shows that if you fail to do this all hell will break loose. You will be punished and probably killed, or worse, if you don’t do God’s will. This is your ego’s teaching about why what you do in a body matters. On that level, on the level of God caring, it doesn’t matter. God is not going to love you more or less based on what you do or don’t do here. God has no idea that you are even here. This is purely your dream. It is your belief that you have separated from God. He does not have a horse in this race. God loves you unconditionally. You are his beloved only Child and there is nothing you could possibly do to make Him love you more or make Him love you less. That is the end of it. Again, on that level it makes absolutely no difference what you do here.
Now for the long awaited and eagerly anticipated dualistic answer, the other side of the coin. Yes there is a difference here. Here’s what the difference is. You don’t always want to face it and it doesn’t always feel this way, but you are in hell. What you do or don’t do here makes no difference to the illusion. It does make a difference to your experience of the illusion. If you treat yourself in a loving way, if you notice where you feel guilt or pain or where you are suffering, and you bring all of that to Spirit, what happens is not that you create heaven on earth, but you create a space of experiencing less and less pain. It’s only about you. That might sound selfish to you, but it is only about you. Everything else is your creation, your reflection, your mirror. You think there is a world out there to fix, but it is your mind that is creating that world. The only fixing that can be done is in your mind. That adapting means aligning with Spirit instead of with ego. Back to the original question that sounded like an ego trap, well, it can be. The ego may be yelling in your ear that since this is all an illusion and nothing really matters that you have permission to do anything to anybody without consequences. You can do anything and get away with it. That’s one way the ego can talk to you. This is a ruse; it’s a trick; it’s a magic show. Whatever you do to someone else you do to yourself. If you hurt them, you hurt yourself. If you steal from them, you steal from yourself. The only reason to take from another comes from the belief that you don’t have enough. If that is your belief, no amount of taking from others will change this conviction. Your lack is in your mind and not in the world. Now, in addition to still not having enough, you are building up more guilt. The part of you that believes you are being judged by God fears that your hand is getting worse and worse. When the game is over you will be slaughtered by God. Remember, this is not about God; it is about you and your experience.
The difference it does make is that if you act from the guidance of ego, your experience in a body is going to be painful. If on the other hand you act on the guidance of Spirit, your experience of being in a body, of being in the illusion, is going to become increasingly pleasant and enjoyable. This is not because the world is likely to change around you, but your way of seeing it will change. It matters to you what you do in the world. If you want to experience the peace and the love that are your birthright, then what you do is to listen to Spirit one hundred percent of the time. You listen to ego zero percent of the time. Now you are laughing! Of course you’re at times going to listen to your ego, but hold the intention to always listen to Spirit. When you notice yourself acting from ego – stop! Bring it to Spirit. Beyond that, become proactive. Don’t wait until the shit hits the fan before you ask Spirit what to do. It’s very hard to hear Spirit when you are in chaos….and you’ve got shit all over your face. It’s very difficult to be aware of Spirit at that time. Get in the habit of talking to Spirit before you get into the deep doo doo. When you wake up in the morning, ask Spirit what He would have you do today. Get into the habit of asking Spirit “What would you have me do?” Listen for the response and then do it. If you can remember that one time a day it is enormous. And then it will be twice a day, three times a day; it will become more and more a constant way of being. As you develop this habit of asking Spirit for guidance and following it, Spirit will communicate to you more and more clearly. Your ability to hear will sharpen. You will develop the capacity to anticipate those moments that would have previously been quite troublesome for you, so that you can ask for help before the flame is ignited. Remember that what you are always asking for is to change your way of thinking and your way of seeing. You want to see everything through Spirit’s eyes; you are not asking Spirit to intervene and change the world. Spirit sees the whole picture and is bringing you exactly the world experience you can use in order to awaken. Asking Spirit to interfere implies that you know better how things should be. It goes back to believing your actions make a difference.
So, to return to the question, does it make any difference in this world of illusion what you do? To God, no; to you, yes. Allow yourself to be freed by the first answer we gave. Remind yourself whenever you are feeling guilty about anything you have done or not done, “sins” of commission or “sins” of omission, that it doesn’t matter. Your job is not to change your behavior but to change your mind. Ask Spirit to remind you that you are innocent, that there is nothing you need to do or anything you could do that would be wrong. You don’t even need to ask Spirit for help. God will not judge you, period. What makes a difference is choosing an action that is aligned with Spirit, not because it is the right thing to do but simply because it is aligned with truth and love and helps bring you the experience of peace. Such alignment can take hours, days, weeks, months, and maybe years off this period of being in hell that you have been experiencing. Both the time and intensity can be reduced. You can feel yourself to be moving off of death row. Ultimately time is an illusion, but while you feel yourself to be here it can feel infinite. It feels like it goes on and on and on, like the only end to it is a graceful death. But even death brings no conclusion, because it, too, is not real. You cannot be killed. You go on. Awake or asleep, you go on. In agony or in peace, you go on. All that is certain is that your pain will not go on forever because forever is eternity and in eternity you are One with God. The illusion has a beginning and an ending. Both have already happened; in fact they never happened at all. All that seems to keep your separate life alive is your belief that it is real. By asking for Spirit’s guidance in every moment that you remember to do so, you come closer and closer to realizing a freedom from the prison you have created. The ego mind that created this illusory jail cannot end it. That is why you must ask and listen for Spirit’s help.
It is very simple. It is easy. You have the choice to listen to and follow the guidance of Spirit. There is no duality in that there is only one thing to do, one choice to make. The more you do it, the better you get at is; the easier it becomes. The better you get at it, the more you will do it. Everything becomes lighter and easier. The truth is always simple – and beautiful. We are always here at every moment, whispering in your ear. “Come this way. Come this way.” All you have to do is to allow yourself to become quiet enough to hear. If there is too much ego chatter and noise, give that to Spirit, and ask again to hear with Spirit’s ears and to see through Spirit’s eyes. Nothing else. Act from that place with trust and love. And peace.
Good Now
Sanhia
If the world is an illusion, why does it feel so real?
The ego is many things, but one thing that it is not is dumb. Your ego is very clever and incredibly fast. It has convinced you that it is something separate from you, as it has convinced you that you are separate from God. It seems as if what the ego shows you and tells you is not coming from within yourself but is simply obvious truth that the outer world is presenting. The ego convinces you of your victimhood, pain, and suffering, while hiding the truth that everything springs from your own mind. We are not going to go back over the creation story now, though you can click here if you wish to revisit it. The bottom line of this creation story is that somewhere along the line the ego voice wanted to create a place for you to hide. It had to be a place that was so well hidden that you could not only hide from God, but also from the truth of yourself. Your ego needed to create such a compelling, convincing scene that you could totally believe in it. I am saying that the ego created this, but of course the ego is a part of you. The human mind assumes that only God could have created such an enormous and complicated universe, but it was you, the Divine Son of God, created in God’s image, who accomplished this. So through your ego you created this world with its laws that appear to have a consistency about them – although physicists for years have realized that this “consistency” does not hold up when they look at macro and, particularly micro structures. Neither time nor matter are what they appear to be. So ego-you created, or miscreated, this physical earth and placed your Divinity into a fragile, limited body, convincing you that this is the real you. Seemingly unable to hear the still, quiet voice of Spirit within, you live as if this is the truth. And when one suggests to you that the world and your body are not real you pound the tabletop and yell, “That sure feels real! The cold air feels real, and so does water and my thirst, and what about the animals and plants? These rocks and erosion, and our history and evolution, and the love/hate I feel for others – all of this feels so real. How can it not be real?” I can remind you that the last dream you had might have seemed very real as you slept. Now that you are awake do you for a moment seriously believe that your dream actually happened? Perhaps some of you do, but most probably do not. You will have a similar experience as you awaken from this dream of your body in the physical universe.
Let’s come back to story of everything seeming so real. The ego did a brilliant job. There is enough beauty here that you can say, “Oh, this is God’s creation:” It also has enough destructive qualities, pain, and confusion that you might say, “If this is God’s creation, He certainly doesn’t seem to like us very much does he?” This generates a great discussion. Is there a God or not? If there is a God, why would he create or allow such pain and suffering? Why would he create war or children starving to death? There must not be a God. Or, perhaps God does exist and He created those things because we are bad and have to learn how to be better. Whether you decide on no God or angry God, you are led into a place of helplessness and hopelessness. Either we are guilty and deserve to be punished or there is no God, no meaning to anything. We live, we die – end of story.
The second part to this is that your ego created your physical body, making it seem so real. You can feel the heart beat and panic when you can’t breathe. It seems as if this body is who you are. You are surrounded by other physical bodies and they are they and you are you, and you can’t be one with them. It can’t happen no matter how much you might try to merge with another. You can have communication and relationship, but you remain separate, unable to bridge the physical chasm between you. Fortunately, you have evolved in your civilization to a point where you have the technology to create scenes on video that also seem so real. When you watch these shows you really believe that these things are happening before your eyes. Even your thinking mind knows that nothing is really happening – that it is all a play; it’s all staged. Much of what you see was actually put in to the background by technicians after the scene was shot. It’s all fantasy. Yet you still react as if it is actually happening. Your bodies and this world were created in the same way, to appear to be very real. What are you to do with that? Having the awareness that the world is not real, you can bring your experiences to Spirit. You can ask for help in seeing the world through Spirit’s eyes rather than the ego’s eyes. Gradually this will happen.
In the meantime, the larger part of you believes in the illusion, is convinced of the reality of your body and the physical world. This is the classroom you are to learn in. If you pretend that the illusion is not there, while actually believing the world is real, you are going to have some problems. If you cross the street telling yourself that the cars are just illusions so you don’t have to look both ways… there may be a BAM moment! You are not there yet. There is no expectation that you should be there yet. So, you can do several things. First, you accept whatever lesson is being presented to you in this so real-feeling illusion. Remind yourself that it was chosen by Spirit to help you wake up. Your classroom, which might feel more like a battlefield, is there to help you move past the idea of the illusion to the full realization of it being illusion. We do not encourage you to pretend that you understand, that you do have an experience of the unreality of your body and the physical before that actually occurs. If there is pain in your suffering, you are being asked to look at something that is uncomfortable. Don’t pretend it isn’t there. Look at it. Ask Spirit to look at it with you. This discomfort is your belief in your separation from God. It is your guilt. Bring this to Spirit and ask to be able to see the situation through Its divine eyes. Then let it go.
Constantly have the awareness that what you are seeing or experiencing may not be real. Give up your attachment to how things are working in the world; stop pretending you know how things should or shouldn’t be. It is the ego voice that thinks you know. Your ego has an investment in keeping you tied into the illusion. So you are both in the world and not in the world at the same time. You face and fully accept the lessons that are presented to you. You then turn and give whatever pain, guilt, and confusion there is to Spirit, asking for help in seeing it for what it really is. You ask to be able to forgive, which is only possible with the acceptance that there is nothing to forgive. Bit by bit you become aware of the illusion. There is no rush. It is not your job to see through the illusion, to have the realization that the world does not truly exist. Spirit will do that work for you. Your only job is to be aware that any pain or discomfort you feel is always sensed through your ego’s eyes. With that awareness, you then bring it to Spirit. Looking through Spirit’s eyes, nothing in the world could cause you any distress. You would be filled with love and peace.
As you feel love and peace in your day…..wonderful! If other feelings arise, it is not your job to pretend that all is perfect, that you are more advanced in your process than you are. Notice that you are being presented with a challenge in your classroom. Your guilt is manifesting in form, but you have an opportunity to notice and give it to Spirit rather than crumbling into self-flagellation or finger pointing. This challenge is a great gift of Spirit to assist in your eventual awakening. You are taking seriously something that is actually kind of funny….Divinity pretending to be hapless. Your only job is to notice and then to ask Spirit to help you with seeing the truth, with forgiveness. Either Spirit or ego is active. Which one is it? Notice. If there is anything other than love and peace, it is not your responsibility to see it differently, only to ask for help. Spirit in its own way and in its own timing will bring the awakening to you. Gradually, you will find the pain, the fear, and the discomfort melting away, no matter what transpires in the world about you. It is never your job to change what is happening in your classroom. This is not about behaving in a different manner. It is only about noticing and being willing to have Spirit work through you. Everything is happening exactly as it should. No change is needed except the changing of your mind. Change your mind.
Good Now
Sanhia
Are love and hate opposites?
One common question when looking at this world of duality, this illusion of opposites, is to ask if hate is the opposite of love. That’s a very good question. The answer is that love has no opposite, because it is not a part of the illusion. Love is absolute; it is truth; it is Divine. Love is the true nature of God and the true nature of you. So, you may be wondering, what about this love and hate that people are always talking about? They certainly seem like opposites. Yes, you are right about that because when humans talk about love they are usually not talking about Divine love, which we could call “holy love”. Holy love is unconditional. It is not something that can be earned, nor can it be lost. There is nothing you could do to change the unconditional love of God. Nor is there anything you could do to earn that love because you already have it. But in human terms love has many conditions. We will identify this conditional love as “special love”. It does have an opposite, which we can call “special hate”. Hate is absolutely a part of the illusion. There is no concept of hate in Divinity; it doesn’t exist. You could say that special love and special hate are opposite sides of the same coin, heads and tails, good guy and bad guy. They are part of the world of judgment and separation.
Let’s explain it like this: In this belief you have that you are separate from God and that God has disowned you, has cast you out, is angry with you and wants to punish you – in this absolute untruth which is nothing more than a projection upon God of your own guilt and self-judgment – no one wants to face that guilt and to feel that badly about themselves. Even those of you who are depressed and self-deprecating are not that depressed and that self-deprecating. There is no pain that could equal that of fully feeling the imagined separation from God. You don’t want to go through that and therefore do not want to take responsibility for having caused that separation. What you do then is to project that pain. When you project it upon another, they are now at fault for your pain and discomfort. That is called special hate. It might be an individual who you see as your enemy. Maybe you blame your mother or your father for your pain and troubles. Perhaps it is your ex who ruined your life. What happens is that through projection you make somebody the bad guy. Sometimes this projection is not so personal; it could be a politician, or a race, or a country, or a religion – but you create multiple evil ones. The, perhaps, unspoken direction you are giving is: “God! Get them. It is their fault, not mine. Look how I suffer at their hands. Punish them. Condemn them to hell. Bring me home with you. I am the innocent victim here.”
This creation of enemies and special hate is an ego game. It permits you to not take responsibility and look at your own creation of the illusion with all its pain and suffering. It allows you to hide from your guilt that you separated from God – which you never did – and to pretend that the guilt isn’t even there. That all may sound confusing, and it is! There is a double bind. You have guilt over something you never did, but you can’t get rid of this guilt because you refuse to even look at it or admit that it exists. How can you forgive yourself for something you never did if you refuse to face the fact that you believe you did it? Your ego convinces you that the way out is to find others to blame. This ruse is destined to fail because they are not at fault either. There is nobody to blame because nothing ever really happened. This is why forgiveness is so crucial. You cannot forgive yourself and blame others at the same time. Forgive them and yourself. Nobody is at fault. There never was a separation from God. God loves everyone unconditionally.
On the other hand, because you don’t want to go through life just hating everybody, you create special love. You create those who agree with you. They sympathize with your victimhood – “poor you” – and agree with all of your judgments. These friendships are built upon common enemies. But it can go much further. When you don’t believe that you are a good person or loveable, you create these people to come in and tell you how wonderful you are. This especially emerges in special romantic love. Here two people agree to hold each other up on a pedestal. In the end special love cannot work because it is created from fear. No matter how much your partner might tell you that you are loveable, deep down inside you are sure that you are not. You cannot fully trust their love because you don’t believe that you deserve it. This means that you don’t fully trust your partner either. And that is just the beginning. Special love is always conditional. You love the other because of how they make you feel, so you want them to always continue to make you feel this way. Change is a dangerous thing. Strings are always there. “If you loved me you would…..” Each person wants something from the other. At first it is so wonderful to feel wanted, then it slowly dawns on you – at least on a subconscious level – that you are codependent. Without them loving you as you wish to be loved you are not happy. That dependency slowly turns into resentment. What you used to love about your partner now drives you crazy. What used to be cute is now irritating. You rebel against the codependency. Having to be a certain way to keep the other’s love makes you a prisoner. You cannot be who you are in the moment, in the NOW. That is special love, which can gradually turn into special hate. They are opposite sides of the same coin. It is possible for two people to hold on to the special love through holding common judgments and enemies and friends, but this is at the cost of denying their Divine selves, being unable to look at their own or their partner’s guilt.
When one holds guilt, there can only be special relationships. The purpose of relationships is to project the guilt away either through special love or special hate. Ultimately all special relationships keep you stuck in the circle. The exit from this vicious circle always lies in forgiveness. You can begin by forgiving those for whom you feel special hate. You can only do this by accepting that this is all an illusion, that they have done nothing, that there is nothing to forgive. This illusion is all your creation. They are merely acting out your orders. For those whom you feel special love, set them free. Look at your expectations. What do you want from them? What is their part of the agreement that allows you to continue loving them? Notice also the places where they don’t seem to be holding up their end, places where you are already beginning to withhold your special love. Again focus on forgiveness. Bring all of this to Spirit. If you want to wake up, if you want to follow Spirit’s guidance which leads you to experience the truth of your Divinity and of the holy love that is you, it is absolutely necessary to give up these special relationships, the special hate and the special love.
It is a given that as a human you will have both special love and special hate relationships. That is part of your classroom, part of the battleground. If you did not have those relationships you would not be in a body. If you always saw every human through the unconditionally loving eyes of God – asking nothing of them, not judging them, seeing their divinity – you would also be holding yourself as Divine. If you were holding yourself in that way, you wouldn’t be here – at least not for long. Remember not to judge yourself for having special relationships. They are necessary to your awakening. Notice them and bring them to Spirit. Your intention is always to replace the special relationship with the holy relationship. The holy relationship is one where you have fully forgiven the other for what they have done – or more precisely for what they have not done. It is a knowing that everything in the world is illusion and that the truth of them is Divine. The holy relationship demands nothing on the part of the other. It doesn’t even matter if they have intended to cause you pain. They might be filled with judgment about you. Your job is to see them as Divine, though perhaps asleep. You take responsibility for any pain, knowing that only you could create any suffering, out of your own guilt. The other has done you the Divine favor of pointing out that you have guilt so that you can bring it Spirit for release. Through Divine eyes each relationship becomes a holy one. Reciprocation is not required. It is absolutely irrelevant whether the other has any commitment to realizing holy love. What is there is your mirror. If they seem to be denying you unconditional love, that is your creation. That is what you are denying to yourself. This is never about them. It is about you. Go to Spirit. Ask for support in releasing your guilt and accepting your innocence and the full love of God. When you only feel love coming to you from all others, you are realizing holy love. Only you can block holy love and only you can ask for it to fill you.
This does not mean that you need to throw yourself to the wolves by surrounding yourself with those who most challenge your ability to feel holy love. Spirit will bring you the lessons you need to learn. You can even learn these lessons alone by allowing your memories to come in to your mind, looking for where special love or special hate remains. It makes no difference if the specialness feels minor; love is either special or holy. That would be like saying to God, “I don’t hate you, but you’re not my favorite god.” There is no in between. There is the absolute unconditional love of God and there is specialness. This may seem to be an enormous gap and you are likely wondering how to cross it. It will probably not be in one big jump. This is just like we have discussed before when we have talked about choosing to stop listening to ego’s voice and instead listening to the quiet gentle voice of Spirit. You begin by noticing when a relationship is expressing either special love or special hate. This is the most important step. Your ego has convinced you forever that there are good people and bad people. It is a big deal just to notice that you are playing that game. You are halfway home. Great job! Congratulate yourself for noticing and bring it to Spirit. Remember the forgiveness work is Spirit’s and not yours. Your job is to notice your illusion, bring it to Spirit, and listen for any guidance. You do this over and over. There are no special people, neither especially good nor especially bad. There are only Divine children of God, asleep and in the process of waking up. Again, your job is simple. Notice when you think somebody is special, whether you experience it as special love or special hate. Bring it to Spirit and ask for help in converting the specialness to holiness. There can be no greater trade off for you then exchanging special love for holy love and experiencing the full love of God.
Good Now
Sanhia
Do I have to surrender my personal identity in order to ascend?
In the past few messages we have talked a little about the subject of one’s personal identity, the sense of self. The questions come flying in, “Sanhia, do you mean that I have to give up my identity, my individuality, my self if I want to wake up and to ascend?” First, take a deep breath…..relax….. We will start by taking the “have to” out of the equation. There is no force here, no coercion. You are free to hold on to anything you wish to hold on to. This is not to say that there are not consequences with your choices. Remember that this is an illusion. This world and the identity that you hold are absolutely your creation. Within your dream you are free to create any way that you want. For each and every one of you the day will come when you choose freely to let go of your personal identity, as each of you will wake up to the truth of your innocence and divinity. Because time is a part of this illusion, how long this will take is just a part of the dream. Time doesn’t exist. In awakening, all of this disappears. None of it ever happened. It isn’t happening now. This is but a dream and the truth of you is home with God.
Let’s return to the beginning, to the crazy, mad idea that you entertained for a moment, but forgot to laugh at. You played with the idea that you could have an identity separate from God, that you could be the creator of yourself. You thought you could choose whatever you wanted, creating your own separate existence. That was the idea, the plan. It was a mad idea, not mad as in angry, but mad as in absolute loony bin crazy. It is simply not possible for you to create yourself. All is created by God in the image of God. There could be nothing existing outside of God. That would be inconceivable, impossible. The only way that you could create this self, this individuality – which eventually became a physical universe and bodies – was in your mind, in your dreams. It could exist only as a thought, not as a reality. That is how it stands right now. Your body and this world are just a dream in your mind. You want to project, to pretend that something outside of you has created your self and this universe. Then you want to blame God for everything. Why did you create this horrible universe with all of its pain and suffering, and this body which just gets sick and dies? Why, why, why did you do that God? God didn’t do that. You did that. Of course, since nothing here is real, you didn’t do anything. Perhaps you don’t want to face up to blaming God. In that case you merely project all of the problems onto whatever scapegoats you can find: parents, exes, bosses, politicians, the wealthy, the poor, and so on. As long as you live in the world of projection, victimhood, and denial, you will suffer, experiencing pain and discomfort. Finally your physical body dies. You find yourself with another body and another body and….seem to be trapped endlessly in the illusion of time. The only way to wake up from this cycle is to take responsibility, to realize that you are the cause. You are the god of your nightmare. The good news is that it is nothing more than that. It is just a bad dream and you will wake up. And that nightmare will just be gone.
You will each slowly grow tired of the pain and suffering of being human, of having a personal identity. You will grow tired of it. You will ask to be shown something else. You know there must be another way. That opens the door to Spirit to guide you home. Spirit will remind you that you are not a victim to anything, that it is all your creation and you can stop this miscreation anytime you choose to. But, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t say that you want to let go of the illusion, but still hold on to being you. You can’t let go of the illusion and experience your Oneness with God and at the same time hold on to your personal identity which keeps you feeling separate from God. If you hold on to your individuality you have to keep the whole shooting match along with it. Letting go of the illusion will require relinquishing your individual self, because it is part of the illusion. It is not you. It is not the truth of who you are. Part of the good news is that the truth of you is so far above and beyond the limits and poverty inherent in your personal identity, that you would have to be crazy to hold on to your individual self when you could be experiencing your Divine nature. That statement is redundant, because holding on to your separated self is an act of craziness. It is that mad idea that you could create separately from God that made possible your illusion of an individual self.
Let’s come back to this idea that you have guilt because you believe that you “killed” God and now He is seeking revenge as we discussed in the previous message. That is the deepest, though usually unconscious, fear that you have, one that perhaps you have done some work with during the last month. If not, eventually you will face this fear and guilt. Almost as deep and all encompassing, but more conscious for most of you, is the fear that without your personal identity you would not exist. You would simply disappear. You are like the river becoming one with the ocean or the drop of water becoming one with the stream. Does that drop of water cease to exist? It has become part of the oneness of the ocean, no longer having a separate existence. The fear that you hold as an individual is that you don’t exist separate from your identity. It is connected to the belief that you are your body, so that when your body dies, that’s it. You are gone. But, it is even bigger than that. You might have a trust and faith that when this body dies, you will come back in another body. Perhaps you are able to move into altered states and remember some of these different dreams in different bodies. Your ego may have pride in some of them and there might be speculations about those still to come. All of these thoughts about reincarnation still hold on to the idea of a continuity of the individual self. The idea of absolutely surrendering your separate identity is terrifying. That’s why it is never forced on anyone. It is not Spirit’s job to terrify people. You have enough fear on your plate already. We don’t need to add to it. It’s fine. Hold on to your personal self as long you wish to. Squeeze as much joy and pleasure as you can out of it, midst the tears and fears. It will be fully your choice when the price is no longer worth it for the pleasure that can be obtained. Sooner or later you will make that choice, but it will be your choice.
For those of you who are ready to begin moving in that direction – and I say “begin” because you can’t make that jump all at once; it is like leaping over the Grand Canyon; it’s too big, too enormous – you will do it step by step. Each time you notice yourself with judgment, anger, victimhood, or guilt – bring that to Spirit. Ask for help recognizing that what you are experiencing is an illusion, that there is nothing to fear, that you are not a victim of anything, that you are the innocent Divine Child of God. Ask for help in remembering all of that and each time you do that you chisel off a little piece of your separate identity. The more you chisel off, the less identity remains, the easier it is to let go of still more, the easier it is to recognize the ego’s separation choice and the pain it brings. The more you become aware of the pain of separation as you experience it and the unnecessariness of having that pain – that you are not being forced to suffer, that it always comes from your guilt, from your choice – the easier and easier it becomes to bring each of those moments to Spirit and to release them. That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to figure out how to let go of your identity. All that is needed is for you to bring each illusion to Spirit as you are aware of it. Spirit will take care of the rest.
One thing that helps hold you in your personal identity is having a sense of importance, believing that you have a significant role to play. It may seem that you are here to help to create heaven on earth in some way – to make the world a better place – or that you are here as a savior to help others; perhaps it is that you have a special gift to share. This is a way your ego tricks you into valuing your personal identity. If you, in separation from God, think that you can help others, you are absolutely hearing the voice of your ego. In separation from God all you can help others to do is to maintain their belief in their own separation from God. You are helping them to hold on to their pain and suffering. If you think you are doing God’s work here, the kindest thing I can think to say is that you don’t have a clue. God does not need you; you need God. Save yourself. That is all you can do. If you want to help others, then do whatever you can do to extricate yourself from this hellhole of a nightmare. Wake up! If you are staying here to help others, what you are teaching is martyrdom. If there is any part for you to play in the awakening of your fellow dreamers, it will not happen out of you consciously knowing and choosing the right thing to do or to say to another. It will come through your absolute surrender to Spirit. That means that you give up your personal will, recognizing that your will and God’s will are one. You allow God’s will to work through you, hearing His guidance. That can be tricky. Your ego can easily convince you that it is God speaking, that you are God’s favorite, the chosen one who is to act for him. If you have a plan, it is yours: it is of the ego. Spirit will speak through you in the moment. Spirit’s use of you will feel spontaneous. You won’t think about what you are going to say. It will simply come through. If it is truly of Spirit and not from your separate self, you will have no attachment to how it will be received or to what the larger plan is. Your job will be simply to deliver the mail, not to decide on the importance of the contents or how the receiver should act upon opening (or not opening) it. You are just the middle man, a delivery vehicle where you set aside your separate self and allow the Oneness of God to speak through you. If you are in doubt about the purity of your transmission, then the ego is likely involved, either in the transmission itself or in casting doubt about your ability to surrender and trust. Let it go and bring your doubt and fear to Spirit and receive whatever comes from that.
I will guarantee you one thing. Letting go of your personal identity and taking on your true identity as the innocent, unconditionally loved Son of God is such a trade up in experience that the difference is immeasurable. It is in the scope of the infinite. Those of you who are in the process of letting go of your ego and of victimhood, of letting go of pain and suffering and guilt are beginning to feel what I am talking about. But you are getting just a taste, just enough that you could never choose to reverse course and go back to just listening to your ego. There are always those days when you feel that you have moved absolutely in retrograde, rather than inching slowly forward. That’s okay. When you have clutched onto your personal identity for so long and valued it so highly, it will usually only leave accompanied by much screaming and kicking. This transformation will not take just a few days or even, probably, just a few years. That’s okay. It is not your job to be perfect. Remember that nothing that happens here will be remembered. It is not that important. Your only job is to take the next little step. Spirit will take care of the rest.
Good Now
Sanhia
How do I deal with my fear of death?
There is a popular saying that goes, “There is nothing certain but death and taxes”. Within the illusion we would agree that death is certain. Taxes….well….perhaps they are also, unless you can figure out how to avoid them. Just kidding…it is not possible to avoid them all without marooning yourself on a deserted island. We are going to look at death a little differently today. Most of you have a fear of death. I want to question the way that you look upon death and ask you to entertain the possibility that you truly hold more of an attraction toward death than a terror of it. You might be racking your brain right now and come up with the thought that at least those who commit suicide must feel some attraction to death, since they have made that choice. Perhaps you are questioning where the attraction is for those who seem to die from accidents, disease, old age, violence, war, and so on. I want to remind you that all death is suicide. It is all chosen. There are never victims.
So why – let us say you are willing to give me a little rope here to hang myself – would people want to kill themselves? Now we are starting to get somewhere. We will return, as we have done several times over recent messages, to what could be called the “origin story”. This is where you had the crazy, mad idea that it would be fun to create an identity, an individuality that was separate from God. This of course was not possible, it was just an idea – it never really happened; it is just a dream you find yourself in the midst of, believing it is real. You have no conscious memory of this creation, but what you thought at the time was that you killed God and took His place. Instead of God being your creator, you held yourself as your own creator of the new individual you, and as the creator of your experience. Now this means that you came into this illusory experience with blood on your hands. You believed that you had killed God. Spirit has a good laugh at this idea; it is a funny concept. However, God is all there is. God is the Creator and Isness of all and could not be destroyed, nor could anything be created outside of Him. But, you convinced yourself that you had actually carried out this violent revolution. You then created these bodies and this physical universe to disappear into. You covered your trail with a figurative branch of leaves to hide your tracks, not just from God, but from yourself. So now you fully believe that you are just these bodies, that you actually are these humans, and that this dream is real. In addition, you covered your tracks so well that you are in denial that you think you killed God. That guilt is just too scary, so you either project it on others (Jesus killers!) or naively go on killing Him (there is no God).
At the same time, deep inside you in your mind that is one with the Mind of God, you know that this murder did not happen. Your true mind knows that you are One with God and that you are Divine; that part of your mind – which we will call Spirit – does guide you and will eventually lead you back home out of the dream. However, the louder part of your mind – which initially came up with this crazy, mad idea and which we call the ego – encourages you to hold guilty over this patricide. “You only exist,” says the ego mind, “because you successfully killed God.” Your true mind knows that this murder was simply not possible. The ego mind provides the additional fear that you only tried to kill God, but he is still ALIVE! And he is coming after you!! Out of this guilt and fear you have created a body that is not really such a hot item. You may complain about companies that sell products with planned obsolescence, things designed to fail or become outdated, so that you have to buy a replacement product. That is just the kind of body you designed. It is designed to break down and die. Bodies are programmed to get sick, broken, old, and finally stop working altogether. Not to speak of the world you set it up to “live” in, which is certainly less than ideal much of the time. The bad news from this ego point of view is that death is certain. But the ego mind has also convinced you that death is necessary in order that you could possibly be forgiven by God. Maybe by losing this “life” you stole from God, He will forgive you. In a more perverse turn, your “death” proves that you are “alive” and have a separate existence. To the ego mind, without death you have no individual life. At any rate the deep fear is that God will get his revenge because He is more powerful than you. And so the insane lead the insane. God has already and has always forgiven you. There was never any judgment to begin with, nothing to forgive. You could not possibly have killed God. He has no part in this nightmare of yours and only sees your Divine presence. The part of you that is in the dream really wants to wake up.
The attraction to death is one part a hope for God’s forgiveness and one part a hope for help in waking up. But these are mostly not conscious thoughts. It’s also one part desire to get out of the hellhole you have created. Death can appear to be an escape from your pain and suffering. The truth is that the body is not real. There is no such thing as death. Life and death are not opposites. Death does not exist; it is just a part of the illusion. Only life exists. Anything that can die or end or change is not real. It has no life. Again, the body is not real, so it has no life. This event that you call death is something that has never happened and could not ever happen. Only form changes and form is not real. All form is illusory. That’s why we call the body and death illusions. You have set up this illusion so that it is necessary to die. In the illusion it may appear that you get another body and play this game again, and again, and again. Meanwhile the truth of you simply is. The human you has two choices. You can listen to Spirit about death or you can listen to ego about death. Ego tells you that death is either something to fear or to welcome, that it is necessary and inevitable. Accompanying the ego picture is the terror of absolute nonexistence, the fear that there is no continuation of you after the body dies. For many humans, that is the belief. That’s all folks. Poof! It’s over. Finito. End of story. Ego tells you that who you are is your body. From that point of view you begin at birth (or in utero) and then you are busy dying. You are on a trajectory, and the bull’s eye is death. This is what happens in the illusion of believing that you have a separate identity. A separate identity means you are separate from God. God is Life, which leaves you with what? Sooner or later the separate identity has to die. The whole idea of having a body is centered on death. Death gives the body meaning. That is why you have an attraction to death. Without death, the body has no meaning. You may have heard people say, or perhaps thought yourself that death is what makes life worth living.
Spirit, on the other hand, reminds you that you are not your body and beyond that, you are not a separate identity. You are One with God. You are One with each other. You are One with Spirit. All that can die is the separate identity, the dream. You cannot die because you are alive. You are created by God in the image of God. You simply are. There is no time; there is no space; there is no physicality. You simply are. Your only job while having the experience of being in a separate body is to wake up to the truth of Who you are. When you fully awaken there is no longer any function in having the illusion of a body. It might look to the world as if you have died, but for your consciousness it is awakening; it is ascension. It is leaving behind the illusion and personal identity, and consciously accepting your true place as the Son – One with God. Each one of you will do this.
Part of the good news is that it makes absolutely no difference if you die, because death is not real, your body is not real. The truth of you always exists. Perhaps part of the illusion seems to be the creation of another body, but that will not be any more real than the one you let go of. The only thing that is certain is that at some point in the illusion your eyes will pop open and you will go, “Holy shit! None of this is real.” And you will absolutely know it. You will absolutely know Who you are, that you are innocent and forgiven and unconditionally loved. There is no fear; there is no pain. There is no death. Death is just a part of the classroom that you are in. When you come to an absolute peace with death, neither feeling fear nor attraction, you are free. It doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter what happens to you or to anyone else. In the meantime, as you are working with your “death” energy, look around. Notice where you see victimhood connected with death: victims of Corona, victims of pollution, victims of substance abuse, victims of physical violence and war, victims of cancer. Wherever you see this victimhood, recognize it for what it is, that in each case the individual has chosen death – they have an attraction to the death process. If any of this is troubling to you, then you too have a similar attraction. Knowing that, you bring your victimhood and your fear/attraction of/to death to Spirit. You keep bringing it back every time it pops up. You ask to see death and victimhood through Spirit’s eyes rather than those of the ego. For those who in the illusion of your life have died…let them go. The truth of them was never who you held them as being, whether it was mother/father, son/daughter, brother/sister, spouse, or friend. That was not who they were; it was a part of the false personal identity of separation. Holding them in that earthly role is holding you in your role as a human, dealing with death, and in pain and suffering with just enough pleasure to keep you hooked into the cycle. On the other hand, as you are able to let go of this fear/attraction relationship with death you will find your time in a body to be increasingly peaceful, loving, and safe. If the meaning of life for humans is eventual death and you have no fear of death, then “life” as you have known it has no meaning. If staying alive no longer matters, how can anything else be of true value? What a step into awakening is provided by the realization that the only reason for anything in your so-called life is to help you wake up.
In conclusion, your job is to heal your issues with death. Deal with the guilt you feel for believing you killed God in order to have life, and come to terms with having hidden that belief. Your job is to remember that life and death are not opposites; they are mutually exclusive. You cannot have them both together. Life is eternal and true. Death is an illusion, having no reality. You do not lose your life when you die because your body is not alive. Your eventual awakening may not mean that you will immediately leave your body to die in the eyes of the world and abandon your separate identity. You may stay in a body for an indefinite period, with the awareness that none of it is real, as Spirit uses you as a pawn in Its plan for waking all of the Sonship. This never means that you ask Spirit for support in guiding another. Such a request can only come from the ego. Healing others is not yours to do. Recognize that your desire to help another is always your call for help and take your cry for help to Spirit. In an awakened state, Spirit will simply use you. This does not come from a place of a separate you knowing what should be said or done. You surrender fully to Spirit and are guided. It’s none of your business. Whether you stay in the illusion upon awakening or leave it is also not your call. Your only part as a seemingly separate individual is to wake up. Awake, you can have no thought separate from Spirit. I’ll set the alarm for you.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can I deal with my feelings of hopelessness?
Everyone while on their spiritual path experiences moments of hopelessness. It can feel like a terrible thing, something that can never be overcome. It’s just too big, too much; it’s not possible to ever deal with it. “What do you mean that this world isn’t real? It feels so real to me. I don’t know how I can ever not take it seriously.” We have talked about bringing it to Spirit, and, of course, we always encourage you to do that. But I want to give a little different perspective on hopelessness today. By the time I finish, perhaps you will be viewing hopelessness as a wonderful thing rather than as a curse. Hopelessness is such a gift from Spirit! Thank you Spirit for making me so hopeless!
Let’s start by looking at what hope is. Hope is a dream, a wish, an expectation, a desire that somehow the future will be better than the present. We could say that hope is directly connected to the idea of heaven on earth. “Oh! I hope I pass this test. Oh! I hope the weather will be good for our picnic. Oh! I hope I find my perfect partner. Oh! I hope that someday I will wake up.” Hope is never about the now. It implies separation by its very nature. It is going into the future which is not real. How can you let go of the illusion if you attach yourself to the future? As long as you have hope, you have one foot firmly planted in the future, which is part of the illusion that is not real, that keeps you separated from the experience of your Divinity. As long as you have hope you will find it impossible to let go of the illusion – which ironically leaves you feeling hopeless. As long as you have hope, you want a change in the illusion so that it works better for you. You are taking the world seriously. Even hoping to wake up someday is a separation. The only way to awaken is to be absolutely in the now, but the hope to awaken takes you somewhere else. You are not here, now. If you can only awaken in the future and there is no future, how can you ever wake up? That is hope. Hope is an anchor that keeps you rooted in the physical illusion, rooted in duality, rooted in the ups and downs and uncertainties of an ever changing movie that may sometimes feel somewhat heavenly and other times certainly feels hellish. Those are the fruits of hope.
Part of letting go of the ego, part of letting go of the illusion, is to let go of hope. By the way, who do you think is whispering these hopeful thoughts into your ear? Of course! This is the voice of ego which wants to keep you here in the illusion and not in the truth of your mind that knows you are a Divine, innocent Child of God. Ego can even safely have you hope to wake up, because it knows that that hope will keep you asleep. What a wonderful win/win for ego! It gets to pretend it is Spirit while, at the same time, protect its turf. Now you may be starting to see that hopelessness is not something to despair of, but rather something to welcome, to be grateful for. To be hopeless is to let go of any possibility of the illusion ever satisfying you. You can never make the physical be what you want it to be. It’s hopeless. “Yeah, can I get an Amen?” whispers Spirit. How wonderful to realize that. So what do you have left when you give up all hope? All that remains is the truth. You are left with just Spirit, with unconditional love, with complete innocence. You are in the eternal now.
If you are walking outside on a beautiful sunny day, the sun’s rays shining down on you, feeling warm and comforted and loved – you don’t have the thought of hoping the sun will shine today. That would be crazy. The sun is shining. It is equally crazy to say that you hope that God forgives you or you hope that you are innocent. Why would you hope for something that already is? Everything that is true is, not because you hope it will be true, but simply because it is true. Hoping can never change the truth. God loves you. You are innocent. You are One with each other. There is nothing to hope for. Everything is already yours that is worth having. This process of waking up is one of giving up hope and accepting what is already here now. Hope is that carrot that is strung out ahead of the donkey. The donkey keeps going for the carrot, but can never reach it. When you give up hope you have nothing left to lose. Instead of hoping for something else, your focus is on fully accepting what Spirit has brought to you in this moment. See the world that Spirit is showing you rather than looking through the eyes of the ego.
As you communicate to Spirit your strong desire to listen to Its voice and to close your ears to the ego’s temptations, Spirit will support you in becoming hopeless. The part of you that thinks it still has something to lose, that there is some salvation in the world, will suffer fear, terror, and hopelessness. You must go through this. There is no other way. You only get to determine the speed. Hold on to your hope and the pain will be dragged out and your hands will be bloody. Let go and the suffering is minimized. Be absolutely honest with yourself and look at every aspect of the illusion and ask what you are still afraid to give up or to lose. What is it? Whatever it is, you face that fear and give it to Spirit. The state through which you realize your Divinity is the state where you have nothing to lose. You will try to hold on to any dreams or images, no matter how meager, that you still have any attachment to. It is not unlike staying with an abusive partner – at least things are familiar and maybe someday they will improve. Hope is an abusive partner. The world is an abusive partner. If you are still afraid to lose the little that you have left, you will hold on to it and continue to suffer in the illusion. You will keep yourself separate from true peace, love, and joy…..and God and Spirit. Are you ready to be hopeless? Welcome your hopelessness. Take this as your challenge for this month. Be willing to lose everything in order to realize Everything.
Good Now
Sanhia
What part, if any, should prayer play in my spiritual path?
Prayer is both more and less than what you think it is. That’s how it is in duality, folks. There are two sides to every question – and to every answer. The Rolling Stones were quite prophetic when they sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you nee…eed”. That is very connected to how prayer works. But, let’s start at the beginning. In the beginning you are One with God. At the end you are One with God. You are always One with God. Obviously, we need to find another place to begin. Going a little bit further down the imaginary timeline, we will say that in the beginning of this lifetime you were probably introduced to prayer in some way. Those of you who had any sort of Christian upbringing were likely taught prayers. You were to recite them regularly, especially if you were Catholic. You might say the “Our Father” or the “Hail Mary” or some other prayer you had memorized. Perhaps it was suggested that you pray to God or to Jesus and ask for what you wanted. Maybe you were told that all your prayers would be answered. If you did actually see results, congratulations are in order. If you did feel you had results, it was more likely from a personal request than from a rote prayer; that is, it was from a specific wish from you not from a form letter. These form prayers could not come from the heart; they were more of a duty, a ritual, which if performed correctly might win God’s approval, or at least cause him he to throw you a few crumbs. But, prayer does not operate that way.
Let me remind you that God doesn’t have a horse in this race. He isn’t even watching the race. God is unaware of this fiction you have created. It is not real; it is a dream. When you pray, you are praying to Spirit, who does have a relationship with your separated self and your dream. God doesn’t hear your prayers; for Him you are together in heaven and this world is non-existent. Even if you send prayers to God, Spirit receives them. If you sent letters to Santa Claus at the North Pole, it was Spirit who opened your request. All entreaties go into the same letter box. Spirit hears every prayer and always responds. Always, nothing is ignored. However, as the Stones remind us you will get what you need. If your prayer asks Spirit to do something specific for you which affects the chess pieces on planet earth in order to make things happen the way you would like them to, you might feel that your prayer is not answered. It is not Spirit’s job to help you to create heaven on earth. There can be no heaven in duality, and attempts to make heaven happen in the physical help to keep you rooted in the illusion. Spirit’s task is to help you wake up from the hell you are in. Therefore, the most powerful and effective prayer is one where you ask Spirit for help in waking up. This might take the form of asking for assistance in transforming fear, releasing judgment, anger, blame, or guilt – asking Spirit to take those things from you. It becomes even more confusing if you ask Spirit to do something for somebody else. Spirit would not likely grant such a specific request for your own problems or dreams, but your friend’s “problem” is none of your damn business. One reason that you don’t always get what you want is because you don’t know what you really want. Most of what you think you want is what your ego desires, but your ego wants to keep you stuck forever in a body in hell. When you are asking to make your world a little more heavenly, you are asking Spirit to make the world real for you so that you can stay asleep. Why would you want Spirit to be an enabler for your ego addiction? Fortunately, Spirit is clear about Its job and will not reinforce your illusions without good cause. Spirit’s job may be more to shake you than to placate you. Maybe your problem or perceiving your friend’s problem is just what you need to help you to awaken.
When I say that your prayer is always answered, I mean that Spirit gives you exactly what you need, exactly the perfect thing in this moment to help you open your true sight. The clearer you are with your intention to awaken, the more likely Spirit will be in not giving you what you think you want. The truth of what you want is to reclaim your rightful Sonship of unconditional love and innocence. That is your true desire, not the shiny new bicycle (or Mercedes Benz, Janis). If you take this message to heart you will begin to realize that everything that happens in every moment is the answer to your prayers. Whatever is happening is the gift from Spirit that most supports you in this precise moment. This is how it has always been working, but how often have you said no to what comes, expressing your dissatisfaction or even contempt for what is happening? Your mind is constantly asking for more of this and less of that, as if you actually knew what would lead you to infinite bliss. While you are in fear and resistance, Spirit is offering you pure gold. All you have to do is say thank you and roll with it. How easy is that? The most effective prayer, again, is not the one where you direct Spirit in how to change your earthly physical world and experience, but the one where you ask Spirit to please take these blinders away from your eyes and help you to forgive, not take things so seriously, release your attachment to thinking things have to be in a certain way, and let go of fear and guilt. This is what you deeply long for, but don’t know how to achieve – so you pray for help from Spirit. If you have no fear, no guilt, no projection, no blame, and no anger – then what is left? Just the real you and your love, that’s what you truly desire. Your ego mind may be screaming “bullshit”, to not listen to this, that you don’t really want to surrender all the nice things in life or not heal your physical ailments. Empty promises, the ego never fully delivers because the illusion and separation can never bring you peace and satisfaction (yes, you can’t get no…).
In the duality, in the ego world where you feel like you have to figure out your salvation, this is such an enormous task, and one that you can never succeed at. You never will. There is just frustration. We are back to Sisyphus and the mountain and the huge rock. That’s the job. You never get there. You may feel closer one day and then the next you find yourself back at the foot of the mountain. Fortunately, there is no mountain; there is no stone; there is no job for you to do. There is nothing to decide. Receive the gift from Spirit. If there is anything that blocks you from doing that, ask Spirit to lift it away. You don’t have to do anything; just ask Spirit to do the heavy lifting. You don’t have to earn or deserve anything; you don’t have to figure it out. Ask and you shall receive, but ask for what you truly want; don’t sell yourself short. But even if you ask for what you don’t truly want, you’ll find out soon enough because you will likely get something else, or you will actually get just what you asked for and find it brings no lasting satisfaction. What you ask for is not as important as is receiving what you get. If you don’t know what to make of what you receive, again ask for support in accepting.
You don’t have to figure out what to do with today because you have already prayed for Spirit to bring you what is of value. All you have to do is open your eyes and go with whatever is presented into your moment. You don’t have to know why. It doesn’t matter. Understanding will come when the time is right. Not understanding makes it no less perfect. You have only one job today and that is to receive what Spirit brings. Your only prayer is that Spirit lifts any resistance from you. You may go through a period of insanity before the resistance lifts. Ego will not let go without a fight. You will only go through that “death” once. The only other choice is to go back to the struggle of living in hell on earth, returning to being Sisyphus in the attempt to reach the unreachable. It has been said many times to “let go and let God”. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “let go and let Spirit”. As long as duality exists for you there is truly no space for God, but the linking presence of Spirit is always there. A reason that we talk about the importance of prayer, even though Spirit is always bringing you the perfect thing, is that it can help you overcome your feelings of hopelessness and helplessness to feel that there is someone out there listening and responding to you. Yes, Spirit is supporting you whether you ask or not, but your active involvement nurtures a sense of Oneness and a release from the separation that all humans feel. Beginning to feel that a dialog with Spirit exists is enormously reinforcing. What develops is that you begin to move way beyond ego needs into playfulness with Spirit and the universe. As you welcome what is presented you find what it is that you are going to play with today and it will be fun. Enjoy!
Good Now
Sanhia
Is compassion an important tool for awakening?
Many people would say that on their list of the qualities of a spiritual person, compassion would be near the top. If I were making the list, there would be no top….or bottom. Actually, there would be no list. To describe a spiritual person would be to describe somebody who does not exist, so the only item on my imaginary list of the qualities of a spiritual person would be non-existence, an awareness that they don’t exist as a separate person. But, let us go ahead and look at this term compassion. A common usage of this word is that one feels another’s pain, that there is a loving concern for and/or action in support of those who are suffering. This is usually considered to be an admirable thing. I want to remind you that in duality every action engenders its opposite. Compassionate acts are balanced by “inhumane” acts. This is not mentioned to discourage compassion, only as a reminder that the real changes happen on the inside, not in the world.
There is a great confusion around compassion. If you were to say to another that you are sorry for what they have experienced, that it must be painful and difficult for them – the result can be a reinforcing of the “reality” of the pain and suffering for both of you. Instead of focusing on the mind, driven by fear and guilt, as the true creator of the physical illusion, the resulting manifestation in the world is perceived as the cause of the pain. Everything is reversed. The inmates are running the asylum. If compassion is defined as doing the highest thing to support others in being free of pain, we would be helping them to wake up and realize their Divine nature. We would be supporting them in letting go of the illusion, the ego, and the world. The last thing we would want to do would be to agree that they are poor victims and to make the world real for them. The question then becomes one of wondering what the highest action is that you could take in that moment. The first answer to this, if you are human, is you don’t have a clue. You observe only with your senses. You see with eyes that tell you that objects are really there. Your other four senses also reinforce the “reality” of the physical. The only way to come to any knowing is to admit that you don’t know anything. You give it to Spirit. Let Spirit guide you.
To begin with, if you are seeing somebody as a victim….stop! That is never compassionate; it is an attack. They are saying they deserve punishment and you are in agreement. The last thing you want is for them to hold on to their victimhood, pain and suffering. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you point out how self-destructive they are being. That often won’t help them wake up, but may help drive them deeper into helplessness and stimulate them to take a poke at you. No, your first job is to not see them as a victim. If you are perceiving them as such, bring that to Spirit for forgiveness (remember nothing has really happened here, so there is nothing to forgive). Notice that this is the classroom they have been presented with. This is part of their wake up call. Nobody wakes up without facing their fears, without going through painful experiences. If you try to diffuse their painful experience and deny them an opportunity to face their false fear and wake up, how compassionate is that? Not only are you willing for them to stay in hell, but you are offering to accompany them. It is not a choice between reinforcing their suffering or educating them that there is nothing to worry about. The realization for you to have, as a human, is that none of it is your business. It is not for you to figure out how to be compassionate; it is only about how you can wake up. Whose eyes are you looking at all of this through? This is not about their situation; this is all about you. This is your projection. What ego part of you is seeing your projection as real? Are you feeling sorry for the other, and therefore for yourself? Or are you looking through the eyes of Spirit and seeing that none of this is real; it is not really happening. Nothing needs to be changed or fixed or healed. The only job is to stay there with Spirit looking at everything from above the battleground. What you end up doing is of little importance. How you hold what you do is paramount. Let Spirit guide you. Have no attachment to results. Remember, it is none of your business. You are at best an ignorant messenger.
As long as you think it is about them and not about you, you will not hear Spirit. Ego will be your guide. If you think you are doing the compassionate thing, that is just ego telling you how you are special – which keeps you separate from the unconditional love of God which knows no specialness, makes no judgments, sees no differences or separations. An alternative definition of compassion might be to feel Oneness with another. This can only be achieved by eliminating all separation. If you feel that they have a problem but you don’t, that is separation, not Oneness. Oneness would recognize that what you perceive in another is what is truly in you. If you see another being in pain, it is you who are truly in pain. That is Oneness. If you can take it to the next level and realize that we are all One with God, then none of this pain or separation is real. You can recognize the Oneness you share of being Divine beings who are asleep and believing in the illusion, that you are both in the process of awakening. The true use of compassion would be that realization, the knowing that their pain and your pain are not real, despite the “reality” your physical senses report. So let go of trying to be compassionate and instead try to see the truth. Try to see through Spirit’s eyes.
The most important point for you in this discussion is the encouragement to give up the ideal of compassionate behavior, of either being or having a savior. You cannot wake anybody else up. Only Spirit can awaken you. It is hard work letting go of the ego. Nobody can do it for you, nor can you do it for anybody else. Heroics are an ego game. You have but one job and that is to wake up. As an awakened being you fully know that none of this is real, that there is nothing anybody needs to be saved from. Short of that awareness it is a case of the blind leading the blind. Don’t be looking for a compassionate savior. You don’t need saving. You need to face the truth. If somebody rubs your face in that need, try to be grateful. It was a conscious or, more likely, unconscious act of compassion. It is your classroom.
If you were fully awakened, you would not likely be in a body, nor would you be reading this. Most likely you are looking through ego’s eyes. Not to worry. You have noticed what you are doing. Bring it to Spirit to help you forgive and let it go. Let Spirit guide your next step. Maybe Spirit guides you to an act or to words that don’t feel compassionate to you. Not feeling compassionate is of the ego. Worrying about how others may perceive and judge you is of the ego. Let it go. The most compassionate action in any moment is the one that most encourages awakening. Remember, you don’t have a clue what that action might be. The ego is not to be trusted, but it is the first voice you will likely hear. So, bring it to Spirit. Ask for help in releasing your judgments and in forgiving. Deal within yourself with all of these thoughts of victimhood and victimizers, pain and suffering. That is all yours. It is a heavy load to carry. Spirit will take it off your shoulders. If you succeed in giving it all to Spirit you will look at another and see only a Divine Child of God in the process of awakening. You would see yourself without judgment or guilt. You would surrender to that Oneness and allow yourself to be used without thought of what that should look like. No attachment to the action/inaction, the reception of the action/inaction, or the end result would register. If that isn’t happening just bring everything back to Spirit – over and over. You are already home with God. Your full realization of that is inevitable.
Good Now
Sanhia
What is the nature of power?
One of the greatest concerns or questions of humans is about the nature of power. Most of you, probably all of you, have some issues with power. As you look out at the world it seems that power is being used inappropriately, selfishly, and destructively and that there are victims and victimizers. Such a story! I want to talk about power and about how to be absolutely powerful. You can begin by letting go of every belief you have about what power is in the world. If you define power as the ability to affect your will upon your experience of the world, you may have an above average chance of succeeding at bringing some of your dreams into fruition. At the same time, it is unlikely that these achievements will bring you any lasting sense of peace or joy. If realizing those creations is your intention, you may as well stop reading now and find another source that will support you in being successful – there are many of them out there. You may have to go out and prove this for yourself, but I will tell you why succeeding won’t bring you peace. Quite simply, reaching your goals will not bring you peace because you haven’t a clue what will bring you peace. You are shooting in the dark. If you did know, you would manifest peace right now, because you are that powerful. If you think that finding the right partner, following the right career, reaching financial success, developing your art or talent, making the world a better place, or being in service to others will bring you peace, I encourage you to go for it. If you find you are still not at peace, come back and we’ll pick up the conversation right here.
The reason that none of these endeavors will work for you is simply that if you knew how to find absolute and lasting peace, you would have already done it. You wouldn’t be here in a body. The truth is that you don’t have a clue as to what to do to bring yourself a permanent sense of love, joy, and peace. If you want to act powerfully upon the world in such a way that it will bring you, and perhaps others, permanent love, peace, and joy – you don’t know what changes to make. The ones you have tried so far have been less than effective. You cannot change the world because the world is the effect and not the cause. The cause comes from your mind. You cannot change the world except through changing your mind. Your mind is real; the world is not. If you want to be absolutely powerful in the world, the first step is to give up your power, absolutely surrender it. Give it to Spirit. When you are trying to change the world you are also giving away your power, but in that case you are surrendering it to the ego. The ego promises that if you achieve a certain something you will be happy. Ego is a good salesman, but not so good at leaving the customer satisfied. Whatever is delivered is not enough. It cannot be because the ego is not capable of delivering pure love; it is rooted in fear. Now, you may wonder how you can possibly feel powerful if you give up all of your power, especially if you stop trying to make the world a better place. This may just sound like everything is hopeless and you are helpless and have to accept whatever shit comes your way. It sounds like you have to give up your free will. Actually, you don’t because you never had free will to begin with. You have nothing, so you have nothing to lose.
Now I am going to reverse myself. You do have free will to choose which voice you are going to listen to. Any attempt to change the world comes from listening to the voice of the ego. You can choose to listen to the voice of Spirit. Spirit has a plan. Spirit knows exactly what you should do. Each moment of each day Spirit brings to you absolutely the perfect opportunity for you to realize love, joy, and peace. That is all Spirit does, constantly – 24/7. At the same time ego says that this isn’t what you want; that isn’t what you had planned; that doesn’t seem to be the dream – 24/7. Only waking up from the dream will bring you love, peace, and joy. Ego cannot tell you how to do that. When you stop giving power to the world, the ego begins to die. It is so simple. Your only job is to say yes to whatever Spirit brings you in each moment. Yes, thank you! If you have any other reaction, bring that to Spirit for support. If nothing looks like what you thought it would, ask to have your doubt released. Request help in healing your judgment and guilt. Spirit is bringing the perfect event to support you in those healings. It is not the world or your body or your emotions that you want to heal, it is your mind – your mind that still wants to choose ego over Spirit, wants to hear the voice of fear instead of the voice of love. The only thing that stands in your way is your free will to choose the ego. The only thing that can help you is your free will to choose to give it all to Spirit. This is what free will truly is, your ability to accept or reject what comes to you.
You are not here to accomplish things in the physical world. Your only reason for being here is to wake up. Everything that happens in the world occurs to support you in that quest. Nothing has any other meaning. What happens has no other importance in the context of the world to you or to anybody else. It is all a dream. Again, the only thing is waking up. When you say yes to Spirit in response to everything, even if you don’t understand how it serves you, when you ask for acceptance, ego slowly loses its grip over you. Allow yourself to be reminded of your innocence and of how you are loved unconditionally. Forgive yourself and everyone else for these things that have never really happened. This is the true nature of power. It is unconditional love; it is forgiveness. Power is oneness with Spirit, with God. When you say yes to Spirit, when you accept whatever is happening, you align yourself with Power. When you resist what is happening and want things to change, not only do you feel the pain of fear and resistance, but you choose to go to battle with the Power of the universe. If there were such a possibility as victory in this imaginary battle, on which side would you place your bet? How can you possibly believe that you can confront the Oneness, the Power of God and come out on the other side with love, peace, and joy? How can you find love by flying in the face of the Isness that accepts you unconditionally? How can you feel joy by choosing the voice that says that you and the world are not enough, that demands that you prove your worth? Choosing the ego is insanity, but it was listening to a single mad idea from the ego that brought about this dream.
True power is acceptance without exception. As you move through your resistance, your projection, and your disassociation and bring true acceptance to everything or, at least, bring it to Spirit for support, peace begins. Out the window go the prayers to change what is happening or might happen in the future. This is the end of “I don’t like this, fix this, make me healthy, settle my financial problems, or bring me my soul mate”. Instead you have but one response to life: “Everything is perfect. This is exactly what will support me in waking up. Thank you. Help me to accept.” This is absolute power. This is absolute simplicity. This is a no-brainer. You don’t have to figure anything out. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to be talented. You don’t have to be beautiful or handsome. All you have to do is to accept. Just say yes. This is an absolute leveling of the playing field. Everyone has the ability to choose Spirit over ego, to accept rather than resist, to trust in Divine guidance rather than thinking you know better than God.
You may be thinking that this seems like an enormous mountain to climb. How can you develop this trust? How can you be certain that this is true? And even if it is true, it seems so hard to be able to actually accept everything. How can you possibly succeed at that? I don’t expect you to trust that whatever I say is true. On the level of words and thoughts, nothing is true. They cannot express eternal truth. You can only trust your inner guidance. If it wants you to go out in the world and make this better, for yourself and/or for others, to help those in pain, to save the environment, to find your own peace and purpose on the planet, then by all means do that. You cannot serve two masters. Follow the voice you most trust. If you have tried to create heaven on earth, have failed over and over, and feel a bit like Sisyphus, then push until the weariness and the hopelessness and the helplessness overwhelm you. Maybe then you will realize that you have no choice but to give it to Spirit, and will find inner strength to do just that. Let Spirit push that rock. Once you have made the decision for Spirit it is merely a question of execution. You pay attention throughout the day and notice where you are having an ego knee-jerk reaction of resistance to something, forgive yourself and give it over to Spirit. The more often you remember to do that, the more automatic it becomes. If you notice that you are still holding resistance, give it over again…and again…and again…as often as necessary. Not only will it get easier but you will feel this gradual sense of love, peace, and joy descending into your experience of the world. There is a tremendous freedom in the realization that the things you thought mattered so much don’t matter at all. Peace will replace fear regardless of what is going on about you.
You may still be guided in the moment to react to what is going on around you, to offer support and love. What will be missing is the attachment to the outcome of your actions. Spirit is always leading you down the quickest route home. Follow Spirit’s guidance and accept whatever outcome is presented. Always remember that if you are not experiencing peace you are resisting rather than accepting. Give it to Spirit. Claim your birthright, your peace and joy. Spirit holds the keys for you. Listen, trust, surrender. Experience the full Power of God.
Good Now
Sanhia
Is the ego part of me or is it separate?
We talk about the ego a lot. People are sometimes a little confused about what the ego actually is. Is it a real entity? Is it like the Christian devil? Is it something outside of us or inside of us? These are all very good questions. We will start by saying that the ego is neither inside you nor outside you because, in truth, it does not exist. Neither do you, not the part you think of as an individual and separate from others. The ego has existence only in the sense that the world has existence, and your physical body exists. It is part of the dream. We could say that the birth of the ego was that single crazy, mad thought that came into the mind of the Son of God that said “Maybe we could create something separate from God”. For an instant that idea flashed through and the mind of the Son of God entertained it. The thought was absolutely insane, impossible. Nothing can exist outside of God. Part of the Son’s mind found the idea to be fun and wanted to run with it. A second part of the mind of the Son recognized the insanity and dismissed the thought immediately. Since the idea was not possible, it could only manifest as a dream. What instigated the idea for that dream? We call that insane voice the ego. Still, there was yet a third part of the mind of the Son of God that found itself in the middle. It realized that the idea was crazy and couldn’t happen, but felt a need to rescue the first part of the mind. This validated the dream for both of these parts of the Son. Meanwhile, the second part simply held that the dream didn’t exist. This part warned the third part not to go after something that wasn’t real. You, the reader, are this third part of the mind of the Son. You came in to rescue, when there is nothing that needs rescuing. So it appeared that there was a split in the Son of God, in the Oneness, but nothing really happened.
You came attacking an enemy that doesn’t exist. You came to protect God who needs no protection. You came to take God’s place. This enemy is what we call the ego. The ego is the voice that tells you there is some meaning to this dream. It is the part of you that believes you can be separate from God. The ego is the voice of insanity. It only has the reality you have given it. If you were to ignore that voice and listen only to those who never entertained the illusion – which we call the voice of Spirit – it would disappear because it is not real. In truth, neither the ego nor Spirit is real. They exist only in the dream. In truth there is only Oneness. It doesn’t matter whether you consider the ego or Spirit to be a part of you or outside of you. None of the players here are real. What part of your dream last night was you and what part was separate from you? That seems like a crazy question. It was just a dream. Today it doesn’t exist. What difference does it make if that was part of you or not? It wasn’t real. Welcome to your life, to your dream. It is no more real. We could say that it is all part of you, because you are creating the dream, but that doesn’t make it any more real. No part of what you consider to be your separate self has any true existence.
Meanwhile, as you are experiencing yourself being in this dream, in this world – which I like to call hell, for lack of a better term – there seems to be both an ego and Spirit along for the ride. The important question is not whether an imaginary ego is inside or outside of an imaginary you, but whether you are listening to its imaginary voice or the imaginary voice of Spirit. Even though neither exists, ego keeps you in hell and Spirit guides you home, that is, toward the place of peace, love, and joy. This is a choice that I call a no-brainer. You may think that it is not that easy. Yes, that is the voice of the ego. The ego says that you are stuck with the world. It is real. The best you can do is to make it better. Is that voice within you or coming from the outside? If you are crazy, is that craziness from within you or from the outside? If the answer to a question you are asking yourself seems impossible to determine, you may be asking the wrong question. The right question is easy to answer. For example would you choose love or fear? Do you choose peace and joy or pain and suffering? If you tell me that you want love and peace, but choose to listen to a voice that can only lead you to more pain and suffering – isn’t that crazy? We call that dissociation. The important question is not this “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” query about where the ego is located, but whether the decider part of you, the part that is your mind, is going to listen to that ego – or not. As a human you have this illusion that you are separated from God and from each other, but that is not true. The truth of you is One. How can you be two places at once when you are not anywhere at all? There is no inside and outside. This question is an ego question. The truth of you is not even separate from the ego. The ego simply does not exist. The only question is “Are you going to listen to this insane voice?”
You all will wake up. You all will come home. It is a matter of time and time is also not real. It is only the way in which you measure your pain. It is certain that you will go home, because you never left. You are there now, if there was such a designation as “there”. This is only a dream from which you will awaken. Spirit and the ego are there with you in your dream. One softly invites you to awaken; the other encourages you to dream better. Where you are, even in the dream, is in the now. If your now encompasses listening to the ego, now feels like forever, is painful, and is hell. How painful does it have to be before you choose Spirit? Is it hot enough for you yet? Should we turn the heat up a little more? This is not a question of good or bad – Spirit good, ego bad. Ego is not the enemy. The world is not evil. It is just a question of truth. Spirit speaks truth, knows only truth. Ego lies, know only untruth. Your mind recognizes truth and will eventually choose it, resulting in the disappearance of the lie.
Let’s look at the elephant in the room. Your fear of God is so enormous concerning your alleged separation from Him, the ensuing guilt, and your hiding from his imagined retribution. Not only does this feel bigger than you can handle but also as something you can’t deal with by yourself. It amounts to a gigantic feeling of stuckness, magnified by the fact that you have a difficult time even facing the fullness of your guilt. Ego, like a good politician, promises all kinds of ways to avoid the wrath of God. Its promises are equally empty, providing at best a temporary reprieve from your guilt, pain, and suffering. Spirit makes no promises. Spirit only asks you to listen and to trust. Spirit holds your hand while you face your fear, rather than distracting you from it. Spirit faces your fear with you, whispering the truth of your innocence in your ear as you stand together. Spirit doesn’t ask you to confront more of your fear than you are able to handle. Will it be scary? Yes. Will you get through it? Yes. Eventually, all of it disappears: the ego, Spirit, fear, a separate you, and the world. Only your Divine Self is left. The truth of you remains as it has always been: One with God, One with the Son, in Eternal Love. The trip begins as you commit to listening to Spirit rather than the ego. Bon voyage!
Good Now
Sanhia
How long will the Coronavirus last?
Interestingly, in the past five years there were two messages that drew the greatest attention. First was the perspective on the election of Donald Trump and in a close runner up position (and the polls are still open) was the previous message on the Coronavirus. It seems that what draws our attention is the biggest fear, which is not in the least surprising. Fear is mother’s milk for the awakening process. I now hear the question voiced as to how long the Coronavirus will continue to be appearing to run the show on the planet. Is it ever going to fully go away? Will it fade away only to return? Is it just the first in a wave of epidemics still to come? Is this to become a permanent part of life on earth now, like airport security and terrorism? I love these questions. First of all, it is not my job to make predictions about the future. I only predict certainties such as that you, the reader, will wake up. When that will happen is a prediction and that is none of my business. My only job is to tell what there is for you to hear in this moment about the truth of yourself and the events going on around you. The choices that you make with that information are your business and not mine. I know that you are coming home, the timing is not important – unless you are experiencing severe pain or fear. Then it may be time to take a bigger step. Thank you, Coronavirus.
We have recently talked about the psychological subjects of projection and dissociation. Projection, again, is where you pretend that what is actually going on with you is being expressed by another. Dissociation is where you have spiritual intention but conveniently live your life as if it weren’t there. You have awareness of the truth, but continue to make the old, comfortable choices that fly in the face of what you want to achieve. Everyone does both of these things; it is human nature. Fortunately, you are not human, but Divine, and are thus fully capable of overcoming both of these habits. There is an aphorism which states that there are no atheists in a foxhole. A foxhole is a trench a soldier digs to hide in and shoot out from at the enemy. We don’t wish to argue for the veracity of that statement, but rather to notice its suggestion that when the bullets are flying and death feels near, people tend to look at the subject of God and prayer in a different light, often making profound changes in their lives. So let’s replace foxhole with pandemic. The greatest gift that is coming now is that this virus is forcing each and every one of you to face your fears. Ultimately behind all fear is the fear of God, but that is not necessarily the one you are directly confronting. More likely you may be facing the fear of death, but it also might be felt as fears about financial support, scarcity of food, bad health, or separation from loved ones and on. The greatest gift that you can ever receive is the one that triggers the most fear. Maybe you don’t want to hear that. The part of you that dissociates wants to believe that this world is real and that it can be made livable if not heavenly. You want to believe that what happens here really does matter. The Coronavirus and the election of four years ago are here to remind you that things here don’t matter. If they did, it would all be too hopeless. So, maybe if the scariest thing happens and all of your buttons are pushed, you will wake up and realize that none of this matters, except as stimuli for awakening.
If you are asking the question, “How long is this virus going to last?” you are asking the wrong question. What then is the question? Perhaps the question is, “Why do I fear it lasting?” This is the gift. This is why Corona went viral! Come on, laugh with me here. What most scares you? You can choose to disassociate and listen to the ego. You can try to fight and hide and resist the fear or to pray that God/Spirit will come in and rescue you. Or, you can look at your fear with Spirit, asking for help in staring right at it. Ask Spirit to help you welcome the fear in. Look at all the extra time you are being given to do this. Thank you, thank you Coronavirus for all this time. You just never stop giving gifts. All the things that you thought had to happen every day turn out to not be essential, whether it is your work, entertainment, sports, or whatever else has been disrupted. Yet here you are – alive and still breathing – dealing with your fear. And the illusion of the world goes on. And you go on. Eventually the world will no longer go on, but you will always go on. Even that is a little misleading because going on suggests the passage of time, so it is more accurate to say that you always are. You will always be. Your fear will disappear, but it will persist as long as you resist. It will not leave by pretending it is not there. Face your fear. Go right into the heart of it. Do the five-step process. Embrace your fear. It will dissolve. There is nothing there; there is only love. You won’t know that until you are courageous, until you stand up to it and look it right in the eye. The Coronavirus is here to encourage you to do just that.
Though you share many of the Corona gifts with others, some are special for just some of you. Perhaps you have been working too hard at your job. You have been too busy, too stressed. You haven’t allowed yourself to have the space to be alone, to be silent, and to listen to your heart. There has been no peace and little time to be at home. Now you have this gift. Perhaps this space is terrifying. If so, face it. This is an enormous gift for you. On the other side of the fear are countless treasures. Nobody will go back to business as usual if and when the virus winds down. All has changed. Those of you who have reveled in this free extra time will not relinquish it easily. You may choose to hold on to the more relaxed and free pace, to the peace. Some of you have found value in places where you did not hold it before. All of you have experienced some changes in your values. You may have found that you can live without and even thrive without things you thought were necessary. Spirit is here to remind you that there isn’t anything you can’t live without. You are dependent on nothing. I encourage you to take some moments today to think about the gifts the Coronavirus has brought to you, and to feel and express gratitude for those things. Take some time also to acknowledge the fears that remain. Give thanks for being made aware of those fears – they have nothing to do with the virus, you have simply projected your own fears there – and face them. What an invaluable gift the Coronavirus will have been if you wake up on the other side fearless; if you wake up trusting Spirit and willing to listen and follow. What a gift if it helps you give up your addiction to the ego.
Countries have had varied responses to the pandemic. You may have found yourself upset with the way that your country has responded. Perhaps you have judgment with the hoarders, whether it is of toilet paper or other products, or with those who are trying to cash in on the virus. I encourage you to let go of that victim thinking. See the perfection of what Spirit is bringing. These actions you judge are expressions of fear. Your judgment makes them real. Have compassion. On one hand trust Spirit to provide you with what you need when you need it. More importantly, remember those whom you judge are your mirrors, your projections. You have taken the last bit for yourself in the past, even if it was just the last piece of pie. You have done something that went against your heart to make money. That is you. Do you want to keep yourself in hell? Ask Spirit to help you forgive yourself, to realize your innocence, and to feel the absolute love in which God holds you. The love is real; the toilet paper is not. Which do you want more? Is it really more important to win a tug of war over toilet paper than to release your guilt, pain, and separation? Wake up. Forgive. Bring everything to Spirit. Give thanks to the virus for encouraging all of this movement.
Some of you are feeling bored with being home, feeling confined and restless like a prisoner. Remember that there are no accidents and there is no such thing as punishment. You can look at this experience from the perspective of Spirit. What does Spirit want to communicate to you? Deep down inside, what do you want to be doing? Now you have the space to find this and to act upon it. What is it that you have denied yourself that wants to emerge? For some this awareness is clouded over by the guilt over not being productive as the ego dictates that you should be. But now you have this gift of time and space. Nothing is expected of you. You are free. You don’t have to prove your worth. You don’t have to earn your way. Be a child again. Before you can unwrap this gift of time you may first need to face this fear, this guilt over being “inactive”. This is also a wonderful place to use the five-step process. Let your fear and guilt dissolve so that you can hear Spirit’s loving, guiding voice. Imagine the joy in feeling free of the burden of guilt, of feeling your true innocence, of the ecstasy of following your inner voice. That is where you are headed. The Coronavirus is giving you this glorious opportunity to choose Spirit, love, joy, and freedom over the ego, fear, guilt, and imprisonment. The ego is not evil; it is not something to fight. It is simply something to not give energy to because it does not lead you to love, joy, and freedom. There is no better time to fully commit to this choice in each moment of your quarantine. Stay home forever in the heart of God.
Good Now
Sanhia
What is the meaning of the Coronavirus?
With the Coronavirus everybody is on the same page. You can search through your memory banks and be unable to find another time when the whole world was on the same page. Americans of a certain age remember the time when all of that country was on the same page following the Kennedy assassination or 9-11. Swedes had a similar unity around the assassination of Olof Palme. However, outside of your respective countries the effect was not so big and it became still smaller when extended to other continents. But here, now, everyone in the world is touched by the Coronavirus, no matter what continent, race, religion, or age. This is, indeed, a very interesting time. Look at what has been manifested here. Everyone has, seemingly, no choice but to focus on this phenomenon. It is affecting every aspect of your life.
As always, there are two voices that you can listen to, the voice of love or the voice of fear – the voice of Spirit or the voice of ego. You are surrounded by the voices of fear. There is no need for me to repeat the fear scenarios that are present. You can turn on the television, go online, or pick up a newspaper and be inundated with fearful stories and fingers pointed at those who can be blamed for causing, spreading, or failing to slow or halt the virus. My job today is to speak to you from Spirit, to remind you that there are no accidents and that everything is in perfection. You have a heightened opportunity now to choose love over fear. We have spoken often of the advice, and you have heard it many other places (thank you Ram Dass), to be here now, to be present, and to be in the Now. When you are absolutely present, you are with Spirit. When you are not present, you are with ego. All that truly exists is this moment. It exists forever. In this moment you are One with God; you are One with Spirit; you are One with me; you are One with each other. All there is is love.
The Coronavirus has been given to you by Spirit as an enormous gift to help you let go of the ego and be here now. Many of the normal distractions of your earthly experience are denied to you in this moment. You don’t feel the freedom to go where you want; you can’t watch the game on television or even read about it. You are likely at home most of the time, some of you not able to go to work. Your opportunities to socialize are minimized. What you do have is this enormous gift to help you let go. You can choose to be with ego, to be lamenting and sorrowful about what you are asked to give up, fearful or terrified about what the future might bring – or – you can receive this gift. You can revel in the stillness. You can take this as an opportunity to communicate with Spirit, to give all your fears, all of your judgments, all of your anger, everything that takes away from the peace that is your birthright – and give all of that to Spirit.
Now is the time to let death die. In the eternal now there is no death. Death is of the ego. It is not real. Yes of course, bodies die. You are not your body. You do not die. You cannot die. Jesus demonstrated that for us. This is a time given to you by Spirit to release and let go of all your fear of death. Give your death to Spirit. Know that if Spirit has use for you in your body to help all to awaken, you will stay in your body. If Spirit says that you have done what you came here to do and now it is time to come home into the Oneness, then you will let go of your body in love and joy, not in fear. That is not a death, but a full awakening. Invite Spirit into your heart today. Use your quarantine to be with Spirit. It is just the two of you; your challenge is to make it the One of you by surrendering your fearful, ego-based will. Ask, “What is it that you wish me to do with this space you have provided for me through the gift of the Coronavirus?” You now have this opportunity that you would not normally have. You would be so busy with your daily life and with what the ego says is important to do. Now this intervention precludes business as usual. Not only is there the space to listen to Spirit, but also the motivation to deal with those fears the Coronavirus has triggered in you. Besides the fear of death, you may be experiencing financial worries, loss of opportunities, fears about losing loved ones, uncertainties about the future, anger, or blame. This just might be the perfect storm that gives you the gentle shove that encourages you to let go of your attachment to the drama and finally surrender to Spirit. What an opportunity for healing! Now is the time to give all that fear, judgment, and projection to Spirit and listen to the message and guidance that are there for you.
While everything that has been said here goes to the core of what this event is truly about, we don’t suggest that you ignore the recommendations of health officials. Unless you are personally guided in a different direction, quarantine yourself, use proper cleaning techniques, pay attention to your own health signs, and strengthen your immune system. If you fear you may have may draw something your way, be conscious in protecting yourself. On the other hand, whatever happens is perfect and is in Spirit’s hand. Trust in God and tether your camel.
I want to encourage you to feel an enormous gratitude for this gift of the Coronavirus and for Spirit bringing this potentiality for awakening into your now. Take this opportunity to hold each of your mirrors, every other human, in a place of loving acceptance and kindness. Part of the magic of this gift is that you are all in it together. When you find yourself talking with another about this situation, ask Spirit why He has brought this person to you. Are you to receive something from them or is there something that you are asked to give. Allow whatever it is to happen. If you meet your neighbor and they are in pain or fear, remember he is your mirror. He is reflecting that part of you which may be hard for you to see. Give silent thanks for that gift and take your pain and fear to Spirit. Perhaps you have a gift to share with your neighbor about the perfection of what is unfolding, about his Divinity, about his safety – but first take your concerns to Spirit and see what you are guided to say to the other. It is not your job to heal them. That is Spirit’s work. If you are to be a tool for Spirit, He will let you know. It is your job to bring all the fears that are triggered by the Coronavirus and others’ responses to it to Spirit to be lifted to love. Always thank Spirit for this opportunity to awaken.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can I become One with God?
A common statement or intention expressed through many spiritual disciplines is that of becoming one with God. People ask me,”What in the hell does that mean, Sanhia? And even if I think I have some idea of what it means, how could I possibly achieve that?” There are so many fun ways we could answer this question, so let’s see how many roads we can go down (How many roads can a man go down before they call him God?). “How do I become one with God?” is one of those nonsense questions. To be horribly trite, it is like asking a fish how to become one with water. You are now one with God. You have always been one with God. There is no time, no past, no present. You simply are one with God. You could not be anything else. That’s just how it is. Well, that was a short message! ….. Okay, we’ll go on to the next part. Being one with God without being aware of being one with God is not so desirable. When you have a fight with your partner it does not feel like you are one with God. When you are stuck in traffic it does not feel like being one with God. When you listen to or read the news it certainly doesn’t feel like you are one with God. So, I ‘m guessing you want to know a little more about the realizing side of this reality.
We have told this old story before, so I’m not going to go into great detail about it, but let me give you just the outline. The story goes like this: God created you in His own image…..which makes you an angry old man. Wait, that’s not the right story…..that is the one about you creating God in your own image. This means that you have no physicalness; the truth of you is absolutely one and in unity with God. At the same time you are not God, but are the Son. You did not create yourself. Like God you have no beginning or end, because there is no time. You simply are. In your infinite creativity you had a thought, a crazy, mad thought. “What if I could create something separate from God, something apart from God, something God didn’t know about?” That thought took off like a runaway train. Part of you disappeared into that idea. That part decided to create an identity, uniqueness, specialness. That all seemed like a great deal of fun; it seemed absolutely fantastic. The truth, however, was that no, you couldn’t do that. You are one with God, You are absolutely connected. There is no part of you that isn’t a part of God. God is everything; nothing could be created separate from that. So that mad idea couldn’t create anything real. It remained an idea. The universe it spawned was not real, only an idea. As you birthed this idea, you, the One Son, splintered into millions, billions of pieces – each one with an identity separate from the others. This allowed you to create this imaginary universe of specialness. Well, we all know how that worked out. It’s so funny; you have to join me in laughing at all of this. You created your specialness, your individuality, your separation from God and you discovered it was a terrifying place to be. Alone! In pain! Having to defend yourself constantly! That’s how it feels for the human believing he is separate from God. So the question is not one of how you become one with God, it is one of how to remember who you really are – that you are one with God. You cannot create what already is; you can only deny it. You have spent eons in that denial out of the fear of God’s anger. You project that He wants to get revenge for your abandonment of Him. Some of you take this denial into a place where you convince yourself there is no God, therefore nobody to punish you. This only frees you to stay here perpetually in the hell of your creation with no way out. This is the planet of free suffering. I hope you are still laughing with me here.
Now we come to the really meaty part of this message. You know about this work. You have an understanding about the importance of forgiveness, stopping the blind adherence to ego, listening to that soft, gentle, humorous, loving voice of Spirit, and letting that voice guide you home. To some degree or other, with whatever amount of dissociation (remember last month’s message) that is involved in your process, you are slowly waking up to the awareness of this truth of yourself as one with God. I want to tell you about the biggest crevice you have to leap over, the largest challenge you face. Some of you have felt this already. For some it is so scary I almost hate to tell you about it. You might not sleep well tonight. But, then you probably aren’t sleeping well anyway. If you look this fear straight in the face, you might begin to sleep better. Well, here it goes. You came into this illusion, into this dream or this nightmare, with your own personal identity. The only way out of this dream or nightmare is to leave your personal identity at the door as you exit. You can’t take it with you. Your personal identity is your separation from God, not to speak of the rest of the Son-ship. To realize your oneness with God you have to abandon this illusion of having a separate identity. Otherwise you keep cycling around in this place that feels so distant from heaven, so far away from home. You remain with the pain, the suffering, and the guilt that we have talked about so many times, that you are so familiar with. But! And here is the crux of the matter. Giving up your personal identity feels like a permanent death, not death as in death and rebirth, or reincarnation. This is the black hole death, the void. This is the nothingness, the terror that the ego feeds in you. Actually it is the ego that will die, because it exists only in separation. This fear tells you that you have no existence outside of your personal identity. The truth is just the opposite; you have no real existence in your personal identity. You want to feel nothing but love, but that is not possible here. You want to feel unconditional acceptance, to experience that you are absolutely guilt free. That cannot be accomplished without releasing the separation of your personal identity. Each one of you will do that eventually.
You have had other lifetimes where you had different names and different bodies, perhaps a different gender, race, or religion. None of those things are you. You are not this name that calls you to dinner. It has nothing to do with you. It is like you have come to a strange planet knowing nothing about it and you pick up a foreign object wondering what it is and you make up a name for it. Let’s say you call it glook. So, to you it is a glook, but it is not. That is simply a name you have given to something that doesn’t really exist. You are not your name. You are not your body. You can keep trading these bodies in. There is only one thing you truly carry with you from lifetime to lifetime; that is your guilt. You can be certain that as long as you hold on to your identity, your guilt will be waiting for you in the next infant version of your separation that comes flying down the tube, or more likely is reluctantly pulled from the womb, from not your true mother into not your true home. The guilt and the fear will be right there with you. That’s all that you carry with you. This identity that you hold as so valuable is your pain and suffering.
Sooner or later the weight of that will be so strong, you will be so exhausted by it, that you will be ready to let it go. If that day is approaching for you, I can give you a few hints to make it easier. Whenever you see another and see them as different from you, remind yourself that they are not. Remind yourself that there are only two things that all humans ever express. They either say “I love you” or “Help me”. That’s all they do. That’s all you do. You are all exactly the same. If you meet somebody today and you do not feel “I love you” coming from them, they are crying out for help. If you have a hard time receiving that plea it is because they are your mirror. You are projecting your cry for help onto them. Thank them for being a fellow traveler in pain. It’s not your job to remove their pain; your job is to remove yours. Thank them for the reminder and stop the separation. Give up pointing at them, making them to be the one in pain. Don’t blame them. Don’t make them the asshole. Don’t make them the cause of their problems, or yours. Don’t feed the separation. Don’t allow yourself to feel superior…”well at least I’m not as bad off as they are”. Every time you choose separation, you choose to remain in hell. Every time! Pretty silly isn’t it. As we look at it together, isn’t that a really funny thing? You think it is somebody else when it is really yourself. You could choose to forgive and love, but you have chosen to project and blame. And then it hurts you! And all the time you pretend not to be doing it. You have to see the humor in that, so laugh with me and let it go. Forgive yourself and the other.
You are all in this together. That’s why we suggest that you be as kind as you can with each other. When you are kind to another you are kind to yourself. When you are kind to yourself you may actually reach the point of realizing your innocence, that you don’t deserve punishment. If you look out at one other, just one person, and think he is guilty and should be punished – you can look at the other six billion and see them all as innocent – that one is you. That is you that you want to send to hell. It just takes one, but let’s be honest – there is more than one such person for you. Each one of them you wish to see punished is you. So funny! Laugh again with me. So simple! The ego wants you to stay in separation, in guilt, in pain; Spirit wants to wake you up, bring you home to the love of God. It’s not a hard call to make. Come here with us. We will look at everything with you and help you to laugh. And always, as always……remember…..
God Blesses You
Sanhia
Why is it so difficult to let go of the illusion of the world?
Most people have this experience – we could call it schizophrenia – where on the one hand they understand the spiritual truth of pure non-dualism on a mental level; they read these messages and have read and studied A Course in Miracles, perhaps multiple times. That side of them believes in the truth of oneness with Spirit and with God and correspondingly disbelieves in the ego and the reality of the physical world. Yet when it comes to the push and shove of daily life, they seem to live in another world. There appears to be such a split. They ask, “Why, Sanhia, is it so hard for me to live the truth? Why do I know that it is all a dream, and yet take the dream so seriously and get upset and angry, am filled with judgment, pain hurt, fear, and feelings of victimhood. I know it’s not real, but I am still overwhelmed by all of these feelings! Why Sanhia? Why? Can you help me?” I can’t help you because there is no problem here. I hope you are laughing with me now. You are just being human and cannot be expected to be behaving any differently.
There is a term that psychologists use that goes back to Freud called dissociation. Freud also talked about projection, where people assign their own self judgments to others so that they can live with themselves (though probably not so happily). Jesus also told us all about this phenomenon. Dissociation can be described or explained in the following way: you want to change your life, to change your experience of things, to give up all of the pain and suffering and to implement a new plan; but a part of you disconnects from that new plan and does the same old thing. You sabotage your own strongly desired program. The old story simply continues to run your life with all of the old pain and suffering included. Even though you consciously say that you don’t want this, you keep doing it. That is dissociation; that is schizophrenia. In therapy, you have decided on a course of treatment, but you don’t seem to be able to carry it out. In spiritual healing, you decide to listen to Spirit instead of the ego, but the ego keeps running things.
Why would anybody do that? Why would they act against their own self interest? The short answer is, “because the ego made me do it”. A slightly longer version is that it is more comfortable to keep choosing the ego. It could be said that the known devil is preferable to the unknown devil. So far you have all survived while listening to the ego. It may have been painful, but it is familiar. It is comfortable like your old clothes. A big part of you doesn’t want to let go of that. And…what is this unknown? What would you be letting go of the ego for?
Before answering that question, let’s take a giant step backwards. As a child you often felt pretty helpless in a hostile world. Your protection was to build a wall and hide behind it. You didn’t let anybody penetrate that wall. In your private world you were an innocent victim of your parents, teachers, siblings, neighborhood bullies, and whoever else seemed to be more powerful than you. You blamed them for your troubles, and forgiveness was out of the question. The truth behind your wall and behind everybody’s walls was that you were terrified of God. This fear felt too dangerous to face, so you hid it, even from yourself. In this way you could pretend that God would take pity on you and punish those who were so harsh to you. The only problem was that none of that was true. You now have the spiritual awareness of why it wasn’t true and why it ultimately wouldn’t work for you then, or now. But, you also have this habit, and it seems to have kept you alive.
So, you are not just letting go of the ego; you have to tear down this entire wall that has seemed to protect you, though at an increasingly high cost. And what are you getting in exchange? You are willing to give up the pain, the fear, the suffering, the anger, the judgment, and the victimhood. You will also be giving up your personal identity, which is absolutely tied up in all of this. For you to fully release the illusion, you will have to fully release your attachment to your separate identity. This is fertile ground for the ego to grab hold of. Are you sure you are ready to do that? To become One with God and Spirit it is necessary to lose your uniqueness, to lose your sense of self, this sense of you. That is what letting go of the ego entails. What you do then, unconsciously of course, is to keep a foot in each camp. On the one hand you keep your spiritual disciple going through reading, studying, affirming, and asking Spirit for support. On the other hand you keep the other foot firmly planted in the ego’s camp, holding on to your specialness and that of others. So you have your support group of people you judge as specially good and the opposition group which is specially bad. You have special love and special hate. You hold that for yourself as well. You tell yourself all of the things that make you a special person: you are on a spiritual path, you recycle and care for the environment, you are against war, and you try to help the disadvantaged, and so on. You pat yourself on the back for being good. Then your special hate for yourself surfaces and you judge yourself for failing to be perfect with your spiritual practice, for not eating well enough, for losing your temper, for catching yourself judging, and so on. So you bounce back and forth between being so enlightened and being such an asshole who will never get it.
Boy does ego like all of this back and forth crap. If you choose Spirit you have to let go of it all, the special hate and the special love. This is enormous. It is bigger than your separated mind can even hold on to. That’s how big it is. The fear is gargantuan. There is no way that you can survive it. Sanhia! What are you saying? I mean that you as a separated, individual self cannot survive. If you let go of the ego comfort zone and pull that foot out of the game you will leave your personal identity and fall back into the Oneness of God. Sooner or later you will have to do this, but right now you are driving with a heavy foot on the brakes. The only choice you have is for how long and how slowly you want to rip that bandage off. The fear is usually way too big to rip it all off at once. For one thing you have no idea how long the bandage is, nor how many hairs will have to be ripped out. Beyond that, you have no idea what replaces the bandage and the accompanying pain. You know what a separate self feels like, but Oneness can feel like it might be an endless void. You have no conception of what the experience of “no you” is like.
Spirit demands nothing. You will never be forced to come home. Spirit knows that of course you dissociate. Of course you try to maintain your separate self. That’s what humans do. No problem. There is nothing you have to do about it. You are not wrong to continue, nor are you right to stop. But since you do want to listen, Spirit whispers to you to notice that you dissociate. Then Spirit suggests that you have a willingness to look right at the areas where you have a special hate toward yourself or others. If you say to me that you don’t have any hate for anybody, I suggest you are dissociating. It is fear provoking to admit your hate and judgment. Everybody in a body carries hate. It goes with the territory. You hate yourself for separating from God or you project that hate onto God for abandoning you. The fear is that if the hate is exposed, God will punish you. That is an insane thought, expecting something God is not capable of. But, if you pretend it is not there, you can’t deal with it. It remains hidden behind your wall and you stay in the hell of separation. Part of dissociation is pretending you are healed when you are not, pretending that you don’t have a problem. The ego here might suggest to you that since the problem isn’t real, there is no reason to look at it. But, you believe it is real. So, look right at it.
You look at it, not because you have a work that you have to do to transform this fear, but simply in recognition that you have a judgment. Notice that you have this judgment, this anger, this hate; become aware that you feel you are a victim, that you blame this person, that you blame yourself, and on and on. Just be conscious that you are doing that. Bring that to me. Bring that to Spirit. We’ll look at it together. That’s all you have to do. When you look at what is not real side-by-side with what is real, only the truth will eventually remain. The fear will disappear, will evaporate, will be burned away. This is like the second step in the five-step process. Love and fear cannot long occupy the same space. Do this throughout the day. Whenever you notice yourself experiencing any of the aforementioned manifestations of fear and separation, don’t try to hide or ignore what you are feeling or believing. On the other hand, don’t accept it in helpless self hatred. Look right at it and invite me, invite Spirit in at that moment. Ask us to look at it with you. Let go of the judgment and just look with us. This can be called “looking down upon the battlefield”. We will see you acting from this dispassionate viewpoint. We will remind you of your innocence and that you are unconditionally loved. As we watch together, you will become aware that you are the only one judging, and will realize there is no benefit to you from continuing, but plenty to gain from loving yourself. The fear is too great to face alone. Fortunately, you are never alone. You are always welcome to come join with us. Welcome us in. Invite us to gently shake you and to point out when you are dissociating. Allow us to remind you that it is safe to bring those judgments out into the open with us.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can I be a better parent?
In the last message we talked about the relationship you had with your parents, about taking responsibility for all that happened and forgiving them and yourself. If you have not taken these steps, you will likely find yourself repeating your childhood with your own children. For those of you who do not have children, this projection will take place with others for whom you act as an authority figure, though the impact is usually stronger and more focused with your own children.
Many people have very idealistic thoughts about their children and how they will raise them. You tell yourself you are not going to be like your mother or your father; you will bring them up in a different way. You may consider the best techniques to use with your offspring so that they don’t have to go through what you had to endure. The truth is that if you haven’t healed with your parents, you will find yourself becoming your parents as you are in the midst of bringing up your children. They will constantly frustrate you. It hardly seems fair – first your parents controlled and hindered you, and now your children are doing the same thing. What kind of world is this? The illusion, again, is that you have the responsibility as a parent to turn out the perfect child, when in actuality it doesn’t matter what you do as a parent. It truly doesn’t. This does not mean that I am encouraging you to beat or sexually abuse your children, but it doesn’t make a difference for them. It does make a difference for you. Whatever you send out to another is what you believe that you deserve, and will therefore receive. However, the truth of them is not harmed. If that is what they seem to receive from you, it is their creation. They will deal with it however they deal with it, as you did with your parents.
Your children came in with their egos fully formed and are creating what they need to have in their classroom to help them wake up to their Divinity. They chose you as their parent. Your basic job is to see that they survive childhood – to see that they are fed, clothed, housed, physically protected, and adequately educated. It is not your job to make sure they excel as students or have perfect behavior, whatever that might be. If they survive childhood, you have done a wonderful job. Even if they don’t, you have done the best you could. If you manage not to project your fears upon them, that is just gravy. Again, your children are the creators of their experience, not you. You are just a tool. If you want to do more than the basics and provide some of that gravy, the best way of doing that is to heal with your parents. Remember, if you still hold yourself as being a victim to your parents, you will create being a victim to your children. You will perceive your children as victims, too. You will worry about them, about what the world is doing to them. You will judge them for their weaknesses and fear for their future. In short, you will treat them as you treat yourself.
What you teach your children does not come from your words, but from your example. If you are coming from unconditional love, they will receive that no matter what your words or actions might be. They always have the choice to reject or misinterpret you, but loving them anyway gives them more space to choose love themselves. If through your living example your children are shown that you are never a victim to anything, you could not do more as a parent. Of course, this includes not being a victim to being a parent. If your children get the message of the parental role being one of martyrdom – that you have had to make so many sacrifices in order to be a good parent – you have put an enormous guilt load on your their shoulders. That’s okay; it was a lesson they apparently needed to deal with, but it leaves you feeling a failure, feeling defeated.
But this message is not about your children, it is about you. Where you have judgment about your children and want to change them – that is the place you are not accepting yourself. Thank your children for being your teachers. Herein lies the crux of this message. There is no true hierarchy among you and your children. You, they, and everyone else are just human. You are all Divinity pretending not to be Divine, trying to wake up. Just because your child is in a smaller, more physically vulnerable body – as you were once upon a time – does not mean they are not your peer. Yes, it is your role to help them survive to adulthood, not because you are more evolved, but simply because you are physically mature. So thank your children for being your teachers, and learn from them. Seek the place where you have no judgment.
One of the biggest confusions that a parent can act on is to demand some kind of love from their children. When you demand love from anybody else, silently or overtly, it comes from a place of not loving yourself. You have denied yourself God’s love, even though it is always there. You have separated yourself from it, pretending it is not there. You seek human love to replace Divine love, but that can never work. When you don’t believe that God loves you unconditionally, you create the world from that mindset. You are unlovable. It is not possible for anyone to fill that void, least of all your children. How can they love you when they are dependent on you? It is hard to truly love your boss or the policeman who just pulled you over?
Another thing that happens in the relationship between children and parents is brought about by your desire to create heaven on earth. The dream is that you will create this heavenly family where you can finally find love and feel needed. In addition you will release these wonderful, perfect children into the world who will make such a difference, or at least have the level of success that you never reached. You are a wonderful parent and they are wonderful children. If you now have adult children or – god forbid – teenagers (just kidding), you know what has happened to that dream. How much fear do you have for your child or your adult child? What concerns do you have about their choices? Where do you see them as helpless victims of other people or the world? When you worry about your children, you aren’t seeing their Divinity. You are not seeing the perfection of the lessons they are drawing into their classroom as they attempt to awaken from the dream. This has nothing to do with your children. They are simply your projection of your inner fears and separation from God. Own all of that. It does not matter what you or your children accomplish on the earth plane. Heal yourself. Set your children free to find their own Divinity. Again, the best support you can provide them with is your own self-healing.
Your role as parent ends when your children leave home. It was probably over long before that, but now it is impossible to ignore. You succeeded. They survived childhood. If you ignored your own needs in order to be a parent, you can stop that now. Take care of yourself. This is much easier to do if you have also given up the role of being a child to your parents. If you haven’t, if they still run your life through the power you give them in your mind, it is never too late to reverse that. Free yourself from your parents as you set your children free. Your primary relationship is now with Spirit. Your children and your parents are all peers, siblings, as you heal the rift with your true parent, with God. Your job is to see all your family members through the eyes of Jesus, to see them as perfect, innocent, unconditionally loved Children of God. This is the true relationship between parent and child.
When the relationship with your parents is not healed and there is frustration with your children, you will probably experience your marriage as less than ideal, also. All these relationships are being created by the same unhealed mind. You might make the decision to stay together for the children, fearing that they would be badly damaged by a divorce. It is not my job to tell you whether you should stay or leave; you must trust your own guidance to make that call. However, if you blame your partner for the problems in the marriage and leave, you will likely go out and create the same problems in another relationship. Don’t confuse cause and effect. Your mind is the creator of all your experiences, so that is what needs changing. However, if you put on a front for the children and stay together for their sake, it will be another example of telling them one thing and then doing another. They will know, at least on an unconscious level. This will not give them support in navigating relationships on their own as adults. Yes, this will be their creation, but don’t fool yourself into believing that you help your children by living a lie. Be honest with your children that you are having difficulties in the marriage and that they have nothing to do with them. Tell them that you are doing your best to sort things out. In that awareness, you still may realize that you and your partner’s goals are so different that a change to a relationship with greater alignment is desired. If you are unable to solve the marital problems, let your children know, without putting them in the center of the situation, and separate. If you find that you are not able to create an amicable split with your partner, you are not a victim. Whatever you do, try not to ever put the children in the center of your marriage/divorce. Don’t try to get them on your side or set them against your partner. This is not appropriate. It can never serve the child. A child is not ready to be your adult friend. Your relationship with your spouse is about you, don’t project it anywhere else. Take responsibility.
As you can see, this subject of parents and children is enormous. Humans learn through relationships more than anywhere else because of the nature of projection and the fear and difficulty connected with looking at the self honestly. No relationship is more fraught with confusing entanglements than that of parent and child. Therefore, no relationship provides more fertile soil for spiritual growth. Fortunately, as with all relationships, you don’t need their presence or their cooperation to heal. What is your creation can be totally balanced by you alone, of course with the support of Spirit. Don’t be shy about asking for that help. You are a Divine child and a Divine parent.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can we not see children as innocent victims?
It’s a funny thing, but I have never talked to a human who didn’t have parents. Sometimes, one might not know who his birth mother was; there was an adoption and the mother’s identity is hidden. In this case there are two mothers that you have stories with, one that abandoned you and one that you can have the everyday issues with. Even if there are no identifiable mothers, you will have numerous tales with foster parents, relatives, or orphanages, along with the actual birth mother relationship. There is always a father, also, even if the mother doesn’t know who it is. Present or absent, which is of course its own drama, you have a history with him along with any other men who have played that role for you. Within the illusion, everyone has two parents, and many stories come with those relationships. An interesting thing about the parent-child relationship is that it is a lifelong one. Most relationships are for a short period – perhaps only a one time meeting, or for a length of time – but only a few traverse your whole life. The relationship with a parent is carried deep within you, particularly if you haven’t taken full responsibility for it. This is true even if there has been a separation, whether through death or from personal choice. The relationship is a constant presence. If there were an order of importance of relationships in the illusion, these might be the biggest ones. Many of you, if you are honest with yourselves, blame your parents for one thing or another. You believe you are the way you are because your father was so cruel or because your mother was so judgmental. So, you are a victim all of your life because of whom your parents were. This is not true. That is the ego’s story. It is another way of confusing cause and effect.
The mass consciousness presents the illusion that a pure, innocent, helpless baby is born. The child is a blank screen onto which the parents will begin to write. Such a responsibility! If they do things right, the child will thrive; if they do things wrong, the child will suffer. What a burden! Fortunately it is an illusion. Children hardly come in as blank slates; they arrive fully formed. Of course we are not speaking physically, but as we know the physical you is not the true you. Physically, infants are helpless, but mentally they carry with them all of the ego beliefs of guilt, fear, and victimhood they have burdened themselves with through countless incarnations since their imagined separation from God. What happens is that children create experiences in the world just as you do as an adult. From the first day onward, and even before that in their prenatal experiences, children create in accordance with these beliefs. Like you, they project their guilt onto others and receive punishments they believe they deserve, which will hopefully square them in God’s eye. Now they have others, particularly their parents, who they can blame and point a finger at. You all did this, and you are still doing it.
I want to talk about this from a few different perspectives – firstly from your specific relationship with your parents. As you were growing up it certainly seemed that you had no choice. You couldn’t pick up and leave or select different parents. You couldn’t avoid abusive situations at school, in your neighborhood, or with relatives. You felt yourself to be a victim. You simply had to endure these experiences. But then, as now, you always had the ability to say that the outer world did not affect you. In some places you made this choice and your parents’ words and deeds did not touch you. You knew they were not the truth. You created your own truth in these situations. If you are not an only child, you see how your siblings developed differently – none of you are alike. If you were blank slates written on by the same parents, you should have turned out the same. Yet, you and your siblings are quite different. Why? Because you each created your own experiences and made your own choices in dealing with them. It was not so much a question of what happened to you as how you dealt with it internally. Did you practice forgiveness and seeing the Divinity in your parent, or were those skills yet to be developed? The potential was there to access those truths. This is not to point a finger or to say that it was your fault that you were not more aware, but simply to shine light on the reality of the situation. You came to wake up and Spirit provided you from birth on with the opportunities to do just that. You came in believing in your victimhood and you proved yourself right.
At some point you left home. Now you are on your own. Your parents are no longer in your day-to-day life. Yet, in how many ways are they still running it? What judgments did they make about you that you took on as your own? What fears did they instill in you that follow you around even when your parents’ physical presence doesn’t? Unless you do a forgiveness process, your parents will continue forever to run your life, even though you have been an independent adult for years. If you tell yourself that you are over all of that, that you are an adult and your own person now –wonderful! But take a good look at each of your parents and notice where you have any judgment remaining about them, or about the way they raised you – or about things they are still doing today. Where you find judgments you are discovering the places where they still run your life. This is projection, a confusion of cause and effect. You are always the cause of everything that happens to you. The world is always the effect. This is true now; it was true when you were a child. Your judgments of your parents are a refusal to admit the truth. It is time to grow up. Stop being a helpless child. If you were not really a victim then, you are even less so now. Be an adult and take responsibility. It is yourself you are judging. Handle it. You know how to do that – kindly, gently, lovingly, but firmly. There is no kindness to your parents or to yourself in projection and blame. They are attacks. Blame is a statement that you are a helpless victim. You pretend that you didn’t choose these parents, but you did. You may scream that you didn’t ask to be born, but you did. You created the perfect parents for you, the best classroom for you to learn the lessons you came to master so that you could awaken – leaving the pain, the guilt, the suffering, and the belief in separation from God that are a part of the world of duality – and come home. You chose the perfect parents to support you in doing that. Their job ended years ago. It’s over, complete. Now the only work left to be done is yours.
Until you do this work, you will recreate your parents in all of the authority figures you meet in your life. It might be your boss and it certainly will be your partner. If you have not forgiven your opposite sex parent, you will find yourself married to that parent. It will make no difference what your spouse does; you will perceive them acting as your parent did. Remember that it is all you. There is no other. You are the creator of everyone in your life. You will create your mother and father everywhere you go. Make it simple for yourself. Rather than dealing with challenges with every person you meet every day of your life, just heal with your parents. Give gratitude to Spirit and to them for playing this game with you, for being your teachers. Look where you have judgment. Let Spirit lift that and help you to forgive. Ask for gratitude for having these perfect parents who came into your life to teach you exactly the lessons you came to learn. If you are not certain what the lessons were, request to understand what you came to learn from your parents.
In conclusion, you are all children. When you were a physical child it seemed that your parents were on another level. They certainly had the physical power. In truth, you were all children, asleep and hoping to awaken to your true selves. You and your parents are siblings, as is your brother Jesus. Your only job is to love them and to love yourself, to forgive them and to forgive yourself. To enter the kingdom of God you become like a child: innocent, pure, forgiven – the very idea that the mass consciousness holds of the newborn. Become the child you never got to be in this body. You are the Child of God.
Good Now
Sanhia
How do I give it to Spirit?
We have been talking for years about giving it to Spirit. People have been asking me lately just what that means and how to actually go about giving something to Spirit. To begin with, I wish to remind you – and I can never say this too many times – whatever it is that you want to give to Spirit, doesn’t really exist. The problem isn’t really there. It is a figment of your imagination. That does not mean that it doesn’t feel absolutely real to you. It doesn’t mean that strong emotions are not triggered; appearing to cause you discomfort and pain. I am well aware of all of that. I have walked in your moccasins. I bring the illusion up as a starting point because you will find it easier to give something to Spirit if you can remind yourself beforehand that it is not a big deal, that it ultimately doesn’t really matter. If you believe that something is crucially important, it is harder to trust it to Spirit. When you give it to Spirit, you do let go of it. If you don’t fully let go, you haven’t given it to Spirit and you are left holding the bag. That is the acid test. If you find yourself still holding on, try again. Give it again, as many times as necessary, until you have fully let go.
I am going to share some ideas to ease your process of letting go. For some of you it may be hard to visualize what Spirit is. What is this entity you are trusting? It might be easier to substitute Jesus for Spirit. For others it might be easier to give it to Buddha, or to the Divine or the Divine Presence. You can give it to Sanhia. It makes no difference as long as you are giving it to an energy of pure non-dualism. I don’t recommend that you give it to a spiritual leader who is in a body, because they, like you, are still in dualism. No matter how learned and advanced a human teacher may be, he or she is still in the illusion of duality. They are a projection for you rather than Divinity or Spirit.
When you give whatever it is to Spirit, you absolutely release it. There are no strings attached. That is why you never ask Spirit to solve a problem for you. Have no attachment to what Spirit does with your request. You don’t ask Spirit to fix your financial problems. Don’t ask Spirit to bring you your perfect relationship. Don’t ask for a specific outcome or a solution. When you direct Spirit to a specific action you are making the illusion real. You are saying that if this problem can be solved, you can have a little bit of heaven on earth. This keeps you stuck in the cycle of duality. Asking for a solution is confusing cause and effect. You are not unhappy because of what is going on in your life. You are not a victim of that; you are the creator of that. In your mind you hold a belief that you are separate from God and deserve punishment. The challenge you are experiencing comes from that wrong-thinking mind. This is not an easy concept to wrap your head around when you are in a body. Your ego has done a very effective job of convincing you that the world is doing you in. Then, you want Spirit to come in and save you. I want to impress upon you that you don’t want us to do that because as long as you remain the victim you will stay in hell indefinitely. If we were to solve this problem, you would just create a new one, because your belief in victimhood and helplessness would continue unabated.
So, your request to Spirit is never one of asking for a solution to a problem. There is only one prayer for you to make to Spirit. Ask Spirit to wake you up, to help you realize that this is your creation. Ask for help in realizing that all of this comes from your belief in separation, from your fear of God, from your belief that you deserve punishment, from your belief that this world is real and that you are a victim of it. You want Spirit to take all of that from you and wake you up. You want to be reminded that you are, always have been, and always will be the unconditionally loved Son of God, that you are welcome to come home. That is the only thing to ask Spirit to do. When you call on Spirit, you give Him this burden, this tangled muddy mess of victimhood and confusion. You ask Spirit just to take it from you, that you no longer want to be immersed in fear and limitation. You ask not for solutions, only for freedom from the worry and the weight. You are free now, say, of your financial worries because they are not real so there is nothing to worry about, not because Spirit is going to pay your bills. Your belief that your problems were real is gone because you have given it to Spirit. Your beliefs will be cleansed by Spirit. Spirit is your cosmic laundry service. Your only job is to let go.
If you should notice that you are still holding the fear, it only means that you didn’t fully let go. Perhaps you let go of one level of your fear. No big deal. Give it to Spirit again. This is like the last step of the five-step process. It may come back. That is fine. When you successfully give it to Spirit and let go, you are living in the holy moment. This is that time where there is no time. You have let go of the past and your guilt. You have let go of the future and your fear. All of that has been given to Spirit. All that is left is the holy moment.
Another issue that may come up for some of you, perhaps for everyone, is the issue of trust. You wonder if you are just fooling yourself. Is there really a Spirit out there that you can give this too? Is it really true that you are the Divine Son of God, that this is just a dream that you can let go of? Is all of this really true and the entire world around you an illusion? Of course, I can assure you that Spirit is the only thing you can trust in, but that won’t necessarily alleviate your doubt. For most of you your choice really comes down to a combination of two things. First, you have tried it every other way and nothing has worked for you, so what do you have left to lose? You have tried and tried to create heaven on earth, to solve all of these problems and you have failed, so why not leave it to Spirit? The second thing is that you have been working with what I am talking about. This is not new. There have been times when you were able to let something go. You experienced a healing around a fear, even if it didn’t last. The more you practice giving it to Spirit, the more you will notice these kinds of results. This is not the outcome of seeing your problems solved, but the fruition of seeing your fear dissolve, of feeling at peace. Maybe your finances don’t look any different, but you don’t worry about them much now.
This is why you, not God but the Divine You, created Spirit being here. You wanted a constant and clear voice reminding you of the truth, because you also created the ego, a constant and clear voice reminding you of what is not true. Both of those voices are always there for you. You have been learning how to discern which voice you are hearing and to choose the voice of Spirit. As you continue to work in this way, your trust and faith will strengthen. It is a matter of persistence, of self-discipline. Your fear will decrease, but while you are in a body it never fully disappears. This is perfect. Whatever stands in your way from leaving the physical and returning home is there for you to see and to give to Spirit. It is so simple. You have only one job. Give everything to Spirit. There is nothing you have to decide or to solve. Everything is off of your shoulders. Spirit is your absolute guide in each moment. Returning for a moment to the five-step process, the second step is truly giving it to Spirit. You can choose to incorporate this into your internal directions to yourself. Surrender fully to the energy you are feeling in your body and at the same time hand it over to Spirit. You are already doing that when you stare into the face of your fear. It disappears because it is not real. When the discomfort of the fear transforms to that warm feeling of love, you have made your surrender to Spirit. As you look into the face of your fear, Spirit is there with you. The ego mind tells you to look away, warning you that it is not safe to face your fear. As you are facing the fear you can verbally add that you are giving this fear to Spirit. Again, you are not pushing the fear away, only offering it to Spirit. Perhaps in your practice of giving things to Spirit that we talked about earlier, failure comes about because you are pushing your fear away rather than simply surrendering it. So, if you are having trouble giving something to Spirit, we recommend doing the five-step process.
Finally, giving it to Spirit is a lightening of your load. It is not a foisting off onto Spirit to handle your problem. You give to Spirit in a spirit of love and gratitude, in the awareness that your fear is not real. It is a request for support in fully awakening. This request is always heard and always answered.
Good Now
Sanhia
Is it part of my purpose to help heal others?
As you are working with your spiritual process, with realizing your Divinity, with noticing you are listening to a voice, with learning to discern whether it is Spirit or the ego you are listening to, and with learning to hear, trust, and follow Spirit – as you are doing all of these things and you look around at your friends, relatives, co-workers, and perhaps even strangers – you notice that they are making what seems to you to be wrong choices. They may seem to be acting in ways that bring them pain and confusion as they listen to the ego and make the illusion real. A very natural reaction you may likely have is to say to yourself, “Oh, if they only knew what they were doing!” You think that perhaps you can be of help to them. You could point out how they are listening to the ego, how what they are seeing isn’t real, how their choices cannot work out for them. You may wonder if that is part of your path. As you are gaining wisdom, should you be sharing it with those around you? My answer to this is a very simple and clear “No”. That is not your job. That is my job. That is Spirit’s job. It is not your job. Perhaps that is not what you wanted to hear. Or maybe you are letting go a sigh of relief.
Let me explain why healing others is not your job. There are myriad reasons, so I will wander about and touch on this and that. I will begin by reminding that when you want to intercede when observing another in pain – what you are seeing is you. This is where the voice of the ego in you likely goes crazy and says, “No! That is them.” No, this is your creation. Do not confuse the cause and the effect. Whatever you see in the world is your creation. Everything is created by your mind. You are not a disconnected observer. What you see is born in your mind, not in the world. So, everything in the world is your mirror. When you see another choosing ego, it is you choosing ego. The work, then, is not to fix them, but to heal yourself. Your only job, your only purpose for being here, is to heal yourself. You have no responsibility for dealing with what you perceive as others’ challenges or problems.
Now, your mind may be asking, “But, what if they ask me for help?” That is a different question. Any requests you receive for support are to be given to Spirit. Allow Spirit to speak through you. Trust what comes and share it with the one who has requested support. Then, let it go. Have no attachment to it being heard, received, or acted on in the “right” way. That is none of your business. Your only job is to share what Spirit gives to you and let it go.
When you perceive that another has a challenge or might not be choosing in the highest way, what is truly going on is that you are judging them. This can feel like a thin line, discerning what is noticing and what is judging. If any kind of emotional reaction is present, know that judgment is involved. This can include positive as well as negative emotions. Let’s take it a step further. The truth of the other is that they are Divine, as are you. Any lack you perceive in them is an expression of denial of their Divinity. Thus, you are saying that you, also, are not really Divine. A good rule of thumb to use when looking at others is that if you cannot make your perception true for all others, it is not true. To judge one person for something you do not judge another for is to create separation. When you separate any son of God from another, you separate yourself from God. You could, instead, think in the following fashion. When you observe someone acting from the ego, you can say that they are not fully awake yet. That is true of all who are in the human condition, including yourself. To single out one individual as separate from God, while holding another as special or connected to God, creates the illusion of separation and cannot be a true observation. God is unity and Oneness. Any differences come from separation and the ego. As soon as you label any one person as out of balance, you have separated yourself from them and from God. In truth, of course, you are never separate from God, but this is your human experience.
If you wish to realize the truth of your Oneness with God and to let go of this physical illusion, don’t ever take on the cloak of the wise teacher, of being the healer. That is not your job. That, again, does not mean that Spirit may not use you, but it is for Spirit to decide. In truth, you cannot help but to teach what you have learned, but you will do this through your surrender to Spirit. Your job is not to teach, but to learn. If you are in doubt whether the words you receive are coming from Spirit, say nothing. The same words can come from the voice of ego or Spirit. What matters is if pure love is behind them. If you are unsure whether it is your ego or the voice of Spirit wishing to express, err on the side of discernment and caution. Give your doubt and confusion to Spirit. Continue to give to Spirit all of your perceptions of pain or fear or doubt or victimization or victimizing that you see expressed through others. Your task is to love them unconditionally and see yourself as one with them. If that is too great a challenge in the moment, it is no biggie. Give it to Spirit. You are the one crying out for help. When you turn the situation over to Spirit, you don’t tell Him how you want things handled. If you have any expectations about results, you have not let go, have not truly given it to Spirit. Remember that thinking you knew better than God is what got you here in the first place. Maybe Spirit has a message for you to share, maybe not. It is not your business. It does not matter what is going on in the world. That is effect not cause.
Your business is to heal your separation. You do this through forgiveness and reminding yourself of your innocence, not by noticing the log in your neighbor’s eye. Your healing will never be realized through projection. Own everything you see as yours; ask Spirit to help you forgive yourself and open to God’s love. You become frantic to heal the other, because you are frantic to heal yourself. When you try to heal the shadow rather than changing the projector you cannot succeed. At best, you end up with good slapstick comedy. Remember that it is never about the form. It is never about what appears to you to be going on in the world. It is always about the content of your mind. Is your focus on the truth of your Divinity, your innocence, on you being unconditionally loved by God – or – is it on your fear and guilt, on the belief that you have been kicked out of heaven, on trying to please God? It is never about fixing the world. It is not about saying the right words at the right time to the right person. None of that matters. Yes, Spirit will use humans in the process of ending the illusion, but it never matters when or how. The end is already certain. It was decided before any present perception, words, or actions transpire. When you speak with the influence of the ego there will be a shadow of judgment in your voice or an attachment to the end result. You may feel the listener must follow your advice to a successful conclusion or you have both failed. When influenced by Spirit you may never know why He has used you, what the purpose is. Let go of any need to know.
Your job is not to do “good”. Good is one half of the duality and we all know what the other half is. One cannot exist without the other. Love does not recognize good or evil. It shines on all until everything is dissolved but truth. The reason you want to heal another is your desire to be rewarded by God. God may then single you out for redemption because you are better than another. How fortunate that you noticed their failure so that you can help them because you are better than them. Look God! No hands! Your imagined redemption comes only after you see your absolute equality with every Son of God. God doesn’t need your help. Let go of thinking you have a better way. Be humble. Give up your need to be an individual, to stand out, to be better. Just be. Instead of healing another, simply be kind to them; be loving. That’s what God does. No matter how many times you fall on your face, you are loved beyond measure. No matter what you do or feel or say…
God Blesses You
Sanhia
Do I have to be perfect to ascend?
We have been covering a lot of territory in the past few messages, talking about pure non-duality, confusing cause and effect, accepting everything that comes to you, and the impossibility of creating heaven on earth. Sometimes, and it is perfectly understandable, you might have the reaction that this is all too much. On a conceptual level you might believe in what I have shared; that you are creating it all, that none of it is real, to forgive yourself for everything that has happened and to not judge anyone, and, and, and…… You might be thinking “But Sanhia, it feels enormous. It feels so big. I don’t think I’m up to it. I don’t think I can do all of this. How could anyone accomplish such a feat? You would have to be perfect.” Wow! That was quite a rant. Is there anything more? Don’t hold back. Excuse me while I chuckle just a bit, not at you but with you. You are absolutely right. It is too much. It is too big. Fortunately, you are not expected to be perfect. In the illusion in duality, it is an absolute impossibility. You cannot go through your day and not have a negative emotional response, not get angry, not blame someone, or feel like a victim. It’s going to happen. It is the human condition. If it did not happen, you would not be here in a body; you would be finished with all of this.
Maybe, you notice that these reactions are not happening as often as they once did. Think about how it was before you begin working with non-dualistic thinking. Over time, this change in how you react to the world will increase in its occurrence. But, you will never realize a time where the ego’s thoughts don’t grab a hold of you. If you have it in your mind that your ascension can only come about through perfection, that day is never going to come. There will never be a time where your ego is absolutely unable to get a foot in the door, or even a toe. Hearing this may bring on a wave of sadness or hopelessness for you. You may feel that you can never make it. That is not the case; it is but an opening for the ego’s voice. In fact, the opposite is true. You are going to make it; you have no choice. We are in charge of that, not you. You can slow the process down by digging in your heals and refusing to listen to Spirit, by insisting on being a victim and projecting your guilt on others. You can do that and slow things down, but you can’t stop it. So, if you can do your worst and are still guaranteed your place in heaven with God, where in fact you truly are right now though lacking the awareness of being there, how much more quickly are you going to realize your Oneness with God if you are trying to work with the process instead of against it?
The secret is not in being perfect in every moment. The secret is in becoming aware after you have let the ego run rampant, that you have done so. With this awareness there are two steps to take. First, give whatever it is to Spirit. Don’t tell Spirit what to do; this is not yours to handle. Just let it go and let Spirit handle it. The second step is equally important. Be kind to yourself. Let it be okay that you did what you did, or that you didn’t do what you didn’t do. Let that be okay. It is not the expectation that you will never stumble. There is no thought about that. There is no judgment. Remember that nothing here is real. Nothing you do is wrong. Nobody is hurt, not even yourself. It is all an illusion. That is the forgiveness process, so be kind to yourself and forgive yourself. It is perfectly okay that you listened to the ego. The important thing is that you noticed and have chosen to try not to do that next time. You might still do it again. No biggie. What is important is that you notice, even if it takes days to do so. It makes no difference how long it takes you to notice. Time doesn’t matter, except when you are in pain. Holding on to your blame and victimhood is always painful…well, after the initial rush that comes from feeling yourself to be a righteous martyr. As soon as you realize that you have projected, that you have confused the cause and the effect, the pain eases. This is an enormous accomplishment, the noticing that you have been listening to ego and now want to give it to Spirit. Nobody is counting how many times you trip, except yourself. So stop counting; be kind to yourself.
Let go of seeking perfection. You are already perfect. You are perfection pretending to not be perfect. As long as you are in a body, that dance will go on…..it will for all humanity. You cannot be perfect in duality, because in duality there are always opposites. You cannot help listening to ego in some moments, and you are not judged for that or for anything else. So give it to Spirit and be kind to yourself. I want to remind you that as you are looking for perfection, you can be looking in all the wrong places. Perfection is not found in the world, which will never mirror heaven, which will never replicate the infinite love of God. You created the world, thinking you could do better than God. That was a mad idea. The world is not the place to look for perfection. However, there is a perfect plan for you and the Sonship to awaken. When something occurs in your life and you react in such a way as to be a victim, this is a perfect part of Spirit’s plan. If you were to spend your life in the belief that you are doing everything perfectly, you would be in denial. Your head would be deeply buried in the sand as you repeat to yourself “Everything is fine”. You would ignore your pain until it kills you. Then you would come back and try it again. It is through feeling the pain that you experience when you listen to the ego that you realize you need to choose differently. Without this suffering you would not choose to listen to Spirit. Each time you go through the cycle of listening to ego, feeling pain, giving it to Spirit, forgiving, and being kind to yourself – you are one step closer to letting go of the illusion. This is only possible if all of the steps are followed. You cannot learn without first making a mistake. So, the more mistakes you make the faster you learn, as long as you realize your missteps. There is perfection in your errors. You each have your vulnerable spots – your hot buttons – the places where you are most likely to go into victimhood, projection, and blame. Those hotspots are a gift that Spirit will use to help you learn to let go of the ego. Choosing wrongly is the necessary first step.
If you are in a body, you believe that you are separate from God and you fear God and his wrath. That is painful. It is not your job to hide from the pain. Spirit makes that easy for you. Spirit presents choices that make it likely that you came into contact with your pain. Spirit does not cause the pain. It is your belief in your separation and your need for punishment that cause the pain. If you are not conscious that you carry this guilt energy with you, how can you let it go? There is perfection in everything that is presented to you. There is not perfection in your ability to choose Spirit in each moment. That you will never have. You will simply, eventually reach the point that you give your pain so quickly, so automatically to Spirit that Spirit will say, “Come with me now”, and it will be the end of your earthly experience. This happens not from your perfection of action, but from your surrender of your little self to the Oneness of God. You cannot choose this moment. You can only remember that choosing to listen to the ego for an instant does not further separate you from God. It is a window of opportunity that is there to lead you home. You may have many rungs to climb up out of the hell of physicality. You will not likely be taking the express elevator out, though the ego will whisper in your ear that if you were really so Divine you would take that express ride right out of here, so you must really be a fuck up. Smile, and give all of that to Spirit. Let go of the need for perfection. Each rung will bring a lightening of the load you carry. You don’t need to demonstrate perfection; you are perfection…no matter what the ego might be saying to you. You are innocent. You are perfection.
Good Now
Sanhia
What is meant by pure non-duality?
We have been talking about the illusion. The last message dealt with acceptance and analysis while the preceding one considered cause and effect. All of this is connected to what we call pure non-duality. I am going to take a moment to define this term. Duality has to do with opposites. The physical experience is a creation of duality. Without it, there can be no physicality. Whether the split is male/female, hot/cold, light/dark, right/wrong, heaven/hell or ego/Spirit – everything in this world is based in duality. Non-duality implies oneness. Non-duality is God, is divinity, and is your true nature. When you think you are human and in a body in the physical world, you are in duality. Ascension requires the release of duality. If you want to get off the wheel, to stop experiencing heaven and hell, reincarnation, suffering, and pain – so that you can go home and experience only divinity with God – the route to follow is pure non-dualism, absolute and complete. Anything, any belief system or teaching that finds an ultimate value or purpose in the physical, such as those who wish to create heaven on earth, is not teaching pure non-duality. This is fine. It is not our job to criticize or to tell you what to believe, but we want to let you know that there are consequences to every choice that you make. The truth of you will never be hurt or damaged no matter how long you chase after illusions. One day you will wake up. It makes no difference how attached you are to the duality. Eventually you will choose to let it go. The focus here is not to try to talk you into non-dualism. If you have an attachment to the physical and want to stay, then this message will probably not have much attraction for you. For those of you who wish to go home now, who are ready to release the physical and let go of duality, you will wish to read on. That being said, it is one thing to intend to focus on pure non-dualism, but another to fully realize it. The mass consciousness does not support such thinking in any way whatsoever. Even religions that began out of the seed of pure non-dualism have been altered, so you are unlikely to find support in any church or temple. Even many of those who purport to teach from non-dualistic sources, such as A Course in Miracles, often misinterpret and dilute the message.
Here comes a primer in pure non-dualism. Everything in your physical experience is an illusion: nothing physical is real. It is not the truth. All that you perceive in the physical world comes from your mind. You are the creator of this physical “dream”, not God. It is in this dream of physicality that you think you can hide from God. As long as you “live” in this dream you experience duality. There is a balance in the physical where every “positive” is balanced by a “negative”. Duality is based upon judgment, upon what is thought to be good or bad. The ultimate judgment is that you are guilty, that you have sinned against God and He will punish you. So, you have to be good, or at least punish yourself first, to get back in God’s good graces. That is the insanity of duality. You are welcome to try and improve the duality; you have been attempting this for eons. Beat your head against the wall as long as you want, but the only way out of the quagmire is to give up duality and practice pure non-dualism. This recognizes that God does not and could not judge you, that you are innocent and loved unconditionally. You cannot earn God’s forgiveness because it is always freely granted. Pure non-dualism means letting go of your belief in your separation from God’s love and choosing to wake up from this dream and be home with God. When you make this choice, we are here at your service. The practice of pure non-dualism is not complicated; it is very simple. It does require a great deal of effort and trust because you will be asked to go against everything that the ego is screaming into your ear, ideas that seem to be logical. Ego’s voice will come from within your own mind, from others, from the mass media, and from other spiritual paths. You will find yourself surrounded by this cacophony. No matter how daunting the odds may seem, you have no choice but to eventually succeed. We are here to expedite your journey.
There are just three steps in moving from dualism to pure non-dualism. The first one is perhaps the most challenging. This step is for you to simply accept that there are two voices you can hear in any situation. You can hear the voice of the ego, which confuses you through duality, or you hear the voice of Spirit, which reinforces pure non-dualism. This step asks you to train yourself into an awareness at each moment of your life – with each thought, with each action, with each feeling, with everything that is transpiring – that you are being presented with a choice of listening to ego or to Spirit. This may sound like a small step, but how easy it is to unconsciously accept ego as the only voice, as, for the most part, you have always done. Examples of listening to the ego include entertaining thoughts of victimhood, of judgment of self and others, of comparing yourself favorably or not to another. You may contemplate why things are happening, may feel fear, may feel unloved. There are many levels and ways that the ego carries on this onslaught. Training yourself in each moment to be aware that you are listening to either ego or Spirit is an enormous accomplishment. We are not even yet talking about the discernment of which voice you are hearing – though it is likely that of the ego at this stage – only the awareness that you have a choice of two voices in this very moment, that nothing is set in stone. In step one it is just for you to be aware that you are listening to a voice. Until you become aware that you are listening to a voice, you will unconsciously be listening to ego and will stay rooted in duality. Remember that there is no judgment about this choice. God loves you no matter who you listen to. The only punishment will be self-imposed under the direction of the ego. The ego plays “good cop, bad cop”. Ego will tell you how wonderful you are in comparison to another, which may feel good. Then it will tell you how bad you are in comparison to another individual, which may not feel so good. Ego constantly plays these games with you. Be aware of that. Until you develop the awareness that you are listening to a voice, you can go no further. Ego will run your life. If you notice once a month that you are listening to a voice, you will experience slow progress. As the awareness becomes weekly, or daily, or multiple times a day – you will truly begin to move your consciousness. Ultimately, your awareness will be constant. That is the state of the master. As long as you are still in a body, ego will do its best to keep you listening, to keep you rooted in the physical. Your goal can be to have constant vigilance about noticing that you are listening to a voice.
The second step is a small but significant one. The question is, “What voice are you listening to?” Is this ego or Spirit? As you are starting down this road it won’t always be easy to discern. In general the voice of fear comes from ego and Spirit is the voice of love. But sometimes fear can feel like love – and vice versa. When ego whispers in your ear how you are better than others, it can feel like love, though it is truly separation. We want to give you some more tips on how to recognize the voice of Spirit. Spirit never compares or judges. As we pointed out last time, Spirit accepts, ego analyzes. Thinking about things opens the door to ego. Accepting whatever appears opens you to Spirit. Spirit always reminds you of your innocence, of your pureness, of your divinity. There is never blame or judgment of yourself or anybody else. You can know that it is ego if blame or judgment is heard. Spirit never compares, that also is the realm of ego. When Spirit speaks, it is always a win-win situation. There are no losers. With ego there is always some sort of competition. With Spirit there are no “shoulds”. This word implies a rightness or wrongness in a choice. It suggests that to be “good” you will make a certain choice. If you follow a voice out of the fear of what will happen if you don’t, you are following ego. If you don’t follow that voice there may be fear of repercussions. Attachment to a certain result is also from ego. Acceptance of any outcome is the voice of Spirit. Whatever happens is perfect. If there is any guilt involved, that is the voice of ego. Spirit always communicates unconditional love and acceptance. As you practice identifying the source of the voice you are hearing, you will get better. It doesn’t matter how many times you are fooled. Your only jobs are to be vigilant (step one) and to make a decision (step two). Your accuracy will improve. Just keep getting back on that horse. You are still in duality. Otherwise there would not be the illusion of having two voices to listen to. Only the truth of Spirit could be heard. Ego lies. It is trying to maintain its existence by deceiving you. Spirit is patient. Time is on its side. Ultimately the truth will out and will stand alone.
Step three is perhaps the easiest, or maybe the hardest. This step is for you to take action. It does little good to identify the speaker as Spirit if you don’t follow what He says to do. This is where you put your money where your mouth is. You act in alliance with the voice of Spirit that you have identified. There is integrity, because when you are true with Spirit you are true with yourself. Here are some suggestions to ease the creation of this alignment. Begin each day by talking with Spirit. Ask Spirit to be with you all day and to help you notice when you have a choice of voices, to identify His voice, and finally to follow it. Ask Spirit for His guidance for the day. If you wake up with something from your sleep or dreams, or from the previous day that cause you confusion, ask Spirit for direction and support. You can complete your day by having a similar communication with Spirit before going to sleep. Let go of everything that feels incomplete, unsuccessful, unfulfilling, or simply stressful. Give it all to Spirit to handle while you enjoy revitalizing sleep. Wake up freed of this heavy load and filled with love. That is the whole purpose of that third of your life; it is a time to plug into Spirit and recharge. Ask to be told what to do. There is a subtle but powerful difference here between this guidance and the voice of ego. Ego tells you what you should do; Spirit tells you what to do. There is no right or wrong about it. It is now time to trust, to fully let go of ego and only listen to Spirit. You do this in order to let go of the world and fully realize your divinity. You trust Spirit as the only voice to get you there. You realize that you have no separate voice of your own. That separate voice was always the ego. It kept you apart from God. Spirit is now telling you the most direct way home. Spirit is not the best voice to listen to, it is the only voice. It comes from within you and from nowhere else. Nobody else can tell you what you should do. Spirit speaks only to you and loves you beyond measure. This is the only way for you. That is a terrifying thought to the ego. It is probably screaming in your ear right now telling you not to give up your autonomy. Of course the joke is that you have been doing just that for lifetimes – giving your autonomy to ego. Now, you are giving it to the divine truth within you. If you are tired of living in the duality, your job is to do your best in every moment to turn your life over to Spirit, to truly practice pure non-dualism. This is a tall order, but you will do it. You will all do this eventually. In reality it is already done and you are home with God in divine love. The play has already been written and acted out. Within the dream it feels like the illusion is still going on; it may feel like it is taking endless time. To reduce the time, follow step three in every moment possible. This, of course, requires first following step one and step two, but the goal is for those steps to become such habits that all of your focus can be on listening to and following Spirit.
Another support for step three is to be proactive by filling your mind through readings that support pure non-dualism. The world is filled with dualistic energy. You are bombarded by it daily from all sides. Taking some time to read and meditate on pure information can be a great support, not only in resisting the world but also in noticing where you still tend to make it real. Here is a short list of places to start:
- A Course in Miracles
- Gary Renard’s books (starting with The Disappearance of the Universe)
- The One With God series (by Marjorie Tyler, Jo Sjolander, Margaret Bollonoff)
- Anything by Ken Wapnick
- Channelings from Sanhia (either from the website or the book God Blesses You)
Start reading where you are guided. Find time wherever you can. Love yourself whether you read or not, but have the intention. You can also have the intention of finding allies, that is, others who have made the choice to experience pure non-dualism. Having even one friend with which to share mutual support can make your voyage faster. Perhaps there is a group out there for you. You do not need to be in a state of feeling alone with your path. As you progress, you will find yourself drawing like-minded energy. Give that to Spirit, asking to be supported in the highest way. If you find yourself alone though, know that that is the perfect way for you now.
While following these steps provides an enormous challenge, you also have an enormous resource to support you. The loving energy of Spirit (or Jesus, or Buddha, or Sanhia, or whatever expression of divine oneness you feel most connected with) is so far above and beyond the ego’s obstacle of fear that I hesitate to mention them in the same breath. As you choose and act from Spirit’s guidance, you fill yourself with more and more love. The accumulation of this love makes it increasingly easy to follow these three steps. This love builds on itself, spiraling higher and higher. It all starts with step one. Ask Spirit for support. Remember that all is perfect and is proceeding as it should. Accept Spirit’s gifts each day. Don’t fight, don’t resist. Trust. Listen. Then your load truly lightens. No matter what happens…….
God Blesses You
Sanhia
Am I really supposed to accept everything that happens to me?
In any situation when something happens, you have the choice to listen to the voice of ego or the voice of Spirit. If you listen to the voice of ego, you stay on the merry-go-round. You keep going round and round, or up and down, and stay stuck in the belief that this illusion is real. Or, you can listen to the voice of Spirit, which will eventually guide you back home. We have talked about this before, but I want to describe it today using different terminology. It is not always easy in the moment to recognize what is coming from Spirit and what is of the ego. Here is a method for making this discernment, to become more aware with whom you are playing and giving energy. The two significant terms here are acceptance and analysis. It isn’t hard to guess which aligns with Spirit and which with the ego, but I’ll tell you anyway. When you simply accept what is happening or has happened, whatever it might be, you are opening up to the voice of Spirit. When you attempt to understand, to analyze, and to deal with the situation, you are listening to the voice of ego. Spirit accepts; ego analyzes.
Let’s talk in more depth about what each of these choices is like. I the last message we talked about cause and effect. When you analyze, you are acting as if the effect is the cause. You are turning things around. You are looking at how to change the world. You are accepting the world as real, and as the cause of your problem. You are trying to make your world better. That is always the voice of ego trying to make heaven on earth. Remember that the cause is always within your mind, not out in the world. When you analyze, you are pretending that the world is cause. So, you may be thinking, “Sanhia, should I accept everything that happens to me without resistance?” And I respond, “Yes”. This is what Jesus was referring to when he said to turn the other cheek. Don’t fight what is happening, surrender to it. Accept it. Know not only that you are the cause, which means that anything and everything that happens in your life that does not feel Divine is experienced because you believe that you are separated from God. You fear that you are going to be punished, deserve punishment, and need forgiveness from God. This is why you have created everything that is uncomfortable in your life. Acceptance is merely the acknowledgment that it could be no other way. The cause must be in you and so it is useless to try to change the world. Rather than trying to change the effect, you go to the cause. You change what it is in you that feels you are guilty, that judges yourself. What you want to heal is your belief in your separation from God, this thought that you are not worthy, this idea that you have sinned against God and been found guilty. These false beliefs are what you want to change.
Another side of the story is this. Spirit always, with no exceptions ever, anywhere in time, has a plan. Everything that is happening to you is exactly perfect and as it should be. Spirit’s plan for you is that you wake up and come home. Every event in your life is part of this wake up call. When you fight what is happening or try to change it after careful or not so careful analysis, you are questioning the judgment and ability of Spirit. Only the voice of ego would have the temerity to try and pull that off. Ego is trying to protect its own turf by claiming to have a better plan than the Divine plan. You have bought this promise lifetime after lifetime. The reason for acceptance is to have faith in the voice of Spirit, trusting that Spirit is bringing you the perfect thing in each moment. Acceptance is the shortest way home. No need to question, to analyze, to understand…you simply accept that this is the best way. If it is hard to accept, you can do the five-step process to ease your experience. Rather than asking Spirit for understanding, ask for support in letting go of your illusions and the belief that they are real. Ask for support in giving up your self-hatred and your fear of God, letting go of your self-condemnation. If Spirit in its plan provides you with understanding, then of course you will accept that insight, but it is not your job to figure things out. That is Spirit’s job. Your only responsibility is to accept what comes and to trust, knowing that Spirit will provide you with everything that you need. So, cover your ears. Shut out the voice of ego. Starve it. Do this through acceptance.
As you have the conscious intention to choose acceptance over analysis, you will become more proficient at it. You will find that the more often you choose acceptance the easier it becomes. All things begin to look more divine, especially in places you would have previously had difficulty in finding perfection. Eventually, everything will look Divine. That is the state of mastery that precedes the full realization of ascension. Jesus was able to look at those who were putting him to death and see them as Divine. He could see every moment as holy, including the one where a spear was jabbed into his side. He accepted. He saw the Divinity. He saw that nothing else was real. In full acceptance there is unconditional love. There is no pain, no fear. You will all get there. That is already in Spirit’s plan. You get there by taking one step at a time, by noticing where you are analyzing rather than accepting.
Let’s take a few more moments to look at the analyzing process so that you may more easily recognize it. You are so skilled at this ability of looking at another and seeing how they are making choices that are not in their best interests. You want to help them. You want to point out to them what they are doing. That is the voice of ego. What you see out here, what you see them doing, is you. It is not them. It is always you. Your self-analysis is projected upon another. You are trying to heal it out there, instead of taking responsibility for your own thoughts. You are trying to change the effect instead of the cause. The other person is always showing you the effect of your mind. When you recognize how that process works, you begin to accept the behavior of everyone else and stop analyzing them or trying to change or assist them. You simply acknowledge that you are seeing places where you do not accept yourself and you take that inside and forgive. You accept everything as yours and give it all to Spirit. Think about how much time and energy you spend thinking about and worrying about others. You may hold it as your holy responsibility to do that. But, that is all from the ego. It is all analysis. It is all projection. It is not your job to help anyone else. Your job is to save yourself and you do that by accepting everything around you.
So, with all of this time and energy not being spent in your habitual manner, what do you now talk or think about? What is left if there is no more problem solving or “loving” spiritual gossip to share? This is a big space; it can feel like an enormous void. You give that space to Spirit. You accept that everything you see is your projection of your separation from God. You work on forgiving yourself and God; forgiving the other….reminding yourself constantly that none of this out there is real. In truth there is nothing to forgive. Everyone is innocent and Divine. I am aware that you are surrounded by spiritual teachings that contradict this. You are to be the Good Samaritan. You are to help others. You are to be a “good” person. There is nothing wrong about helping another, but that is done by simply loving them unconditionally, by accepting them as they are. If you think it is your job to fix them, you see them as broken, not as Divine. That is the service you will provide them. And as you see them, so do you see yourself. So we have the blind leading the blind. This does not mean that you don’t help somebody who asks for help. Be kind. But don’t confuse the issue by thinking you are healing somebody by giving them assistance. For more on this subject you can reread the message “When should I share my spiritual perspective with others?” You have no obligation here. It is not your job to heal. That is Spirit’s job. Spirit may use you in the healing process, but not through your conscious deliberation of what is needed, not through your analysis of the situation. You give yourself to Spirit and wait for Spirit to direct you. If you truly want to help others, then realize your own ascension. That is the greatest gift you have to offer to the whole. If Spirit has a role for you to play, that will unfold. It’s not up to you. There is nothing to figure out. Let go of that weight. Free yourself. Your job is to simply accept everything. You don’t have to do the right thing. Whatever you do is perfect. It doesn’t matter. What everyone else does is perfect. It doesn’t matter. If it looks like somebody out there needs correction, the truth is you think you need correction. You are all Divine, but asleep. You have to awaken yourself before you can awaken another.
Let’s close with this image. You are watching a movie on a screen. You don’t like what is happening so you get up and try to change the screen. But you can’t do anything. The movie continues. That is because the movie is not created on the screen. It is created by cameras and then projected on the screen. The screen is the world and the projector is your mind. The only way to change what is happening on the screen is to change your mind. This means that what is on the screen or in the world is not real. Only your thoughts are real. So change your mind. The catch is that you don’t really know how to do that. So it all comes back to the thought for today. Accept the movie as it is. Take responsibility for it. Forgive yourself. Give it to Spirit in the realization that Spirit is the true creator of the movie. All you can do is accept what you are seeing. Stop analyzing the show and give it all to Spirit. It is so simple. Analyze, listen to ego, and continue to suffer. Accept, listen to Spirit, reclaim your Divine heritage, and go home. No matter which choice you make in this moment….
God Blesses You
Sanhia
Do you confuse cause and effect?
One of the biggest confusions that the ego throws into every situation is its determination of what the “cause” is and what the “effect” is. We are all familiar with the terms, “cause” is what makes something happen and “effect” is what happens. There seems to be no control over the effect. It appears to automatically follow the cause. According to the ego’s picture of the world, you also have no control over the cause. Therefore, you have no control whatsoever. To the ego mind, the cause is always out there in the world. Perhaps because some person did something, it causes you to have something happen in your life. Maybe it is because the government infringes on your rights, because the doctor messes up, because the weather ruins your plans, and on and on, that negative effects come into your life. In that view of reality the cause is always out there in the world and you are a helpless victim with no control whatsoever over what happens. Shit happens. The universe is random or there is a spiteful god. Anything could happen to you at any time. You feel nothing but terror when you consider the future, not to speak of the immediate present. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it all. It is simply a chaotic universe. If that is the case you truly better live for today, for there is no guarantee for anything but the moment, and it may not last long. Anything might just fall out of the sky, ending life as you know it.
We are just having fun with you here. I want to remind you that the cause is never out there. It is always in here, in your mind. Please don’t take this scrap of information and rush off and blame yourself for everything in the world. That is another trick of the ego. It wants to know why, if you are the creator of all of this, you are doing such a lousy job. It does you no good whatsoever if you replace responsibility with blame. Responsibility is the acknowledgement that it could be no other way. The world is your creation, not God’s. You did this by making the choice to separate from God, create this universe, and disappear into it. However, you are unconscious of the part of you that made these choices – as you are unconscious of your Divinity. You are absolutely unaware that you are in heaven with God right now and this world is just a dream. If you were conscious of all of this you would wake up and leave the dream. This taking of responsibility is the third step of the five-step process.
Perhaps it is best now to turn to the five-step process, because it clearly shows the relationship of cause and effect. An event (or multiple events) is going on in your world. You react to it with fear and helplessness, believing it is something outside of yourself and that you are victim to it. Perhaps your brain-mind, your conscious thinking mind, assigns blame. Maybe you are not aware of what is causing your fear, but you clearly feel the discomfort in your body. It might register as a pain, a discomfort or an illness. This is the first step of the process, identifying the problem (effect). In the second step, you face the fear or the discomfort. You go right into it. Eventually the fear will transform. Because it is not real, your steady focus upon the fear allows it to transform to love. Then you are ready and able to move to the third step, as previously mentioned, and claim your Divinity by taking responsibility. You acknowledge that you, not the world, are the cause, and that it could be no other way because of your Divine nature. You could never be the victim. Remember there is no blame here. What transpires in the world is not real. None of it ever happened. There can be no fault, only confusion in your perception. The third step is to help clarify your perception. As A Course in Miracles (ACIM) teaches, “There is no order of difficulty in miracles”. No step in this process is any more important than any other. They all need to take place. In the fourth step, in the state of peace that you have found, you go inside and listen to the guidance. You go to true cause.
While you are in the illusion, while seeming to be in a physical body, you are always in duality. Even when you have moved into the third and fourth steps of the process and are experiencing peace, you are still in duality. If the experience remains of being in the world, of being in a body, you are in duality. Even though you may have the awareness that none of it is real, you are still fully in the experience of the illusion. If I were to say to you at that juncture to let go of the body and the world, you might ask, “But how?” You feel yourself stuck in duality. What the fourth step is really about is turning your life over to the only force that can lead you home, and that is Spirit. Listen to and follow what Spirit has to say. No matter how supportive anything in the world may be for you – whether it be ACIM, these messages from me, other pure non-dualistic texts, guidance from any spiritual teachers or leaders, support from spiritual practices such as meditation or yoga – it has the sole purpose to train you to listen to and follow Spirit instead of the ego. The only thing that will take you home is a total surrender to the voice of Spirit within you. Everything else is still a part of the illusion because it recognizes the duality of Spirit and the ego. The ego will continue to throw its tantrums, but your job is to return over and over to the voice of Spirit until that is all that remains.
Once you have realized that everything is created in your mind, there is always a choice of what you instruct your mind to listen to. Ever since you have been in a body – lifetime after lifetime – you have chosen to listen to ego. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. You would be aware only of your Divine home. There would be no choice of voices to listen to. There would be only one, only Spirit, only God, only Divinity. In duality this will always appear as a choice, do you choose Spirit or do you choose ego? There are steps that you can take toward realizing your Divinity. The first step is to realize that you do have a choice. You can choose between listening to Spirit and listening to ego. The second step is to be aware of which voice you are listening to. Ego will always tell you that the cause is in the world. There are no limits to where the ego will assert itself. It will tell you that you are hungry because you haven’t eaten for four hours, that you are tired because you didn’t sleep well last night. The cause will always be out there in the world according to the ego. It never is. This is not to say you should pretend that the world doesn’t exist. While you are in a body you will have to have food and sleep. Otherwise you will die and come back to try it in another way. What is not true is that your discomfort comes from not eating or sleeping. The cause of discomfort comes from your mind, from your fear and separation from God, from your guilt. So, you create pain in your life. If you are hungry, eat. If you are tired, sleep. Don’t pretend that that has solved the situation. It won’t be long before hunger and sleepiness return. So it is with every other “problem” in your life. The situation is never healed. Eat and sleep, but remember that the truth lies within you. Remind yourself that the only end to hunger and tiredness comes through listening to Spirit. Eat and sleep, but give your discomfort to Spirit.
We have been down this road together several times. I wish to remind you that Spirit is always bringing to you exactly the perfect thing in each moment to guide you home. I want to remind you that, as ego is your creation and as the world is your creation, so is the existence of Spirit being there to guide you home also your creation. In your oneness with God, you have co-created your way to wake up. However, you are the sole creator of the dream. This is not God’s dream. Nobody else can wake you up, but yourself. Nobody else is dreaming this but you. Spirit can grab you by the shoulder and gently shake you and whisper to wake up, but you can pull the cover over your face and continue to sleep for as long as you want. Or…you can choose to wake up. For most people, if it comfortable enough to stay in the dream, they will stay. It is familiar; it is known; it feels relatively safe. Waking up is an absolute unknown to the unconscious mind. Letting go of the world is terrifying. As we mentioned in the last message, trying to create heaven on earth seems like a safer bet. You, however, have made the choice to try to listen to Spirit rather than the ego. Spirit is going to bring situations to you that feel uncomfortable in order to help you wake up. If you see these events as the cause of your suffering, you will stay asleep. As you accept them as the gifts that they are from your own true mind, you begin to awaken.
Spirit will never give you more than you have asked for. Spirit will help you see where you have given power to the illusion, where you have become a victim to fear. This requires that you face these fears head on. It is not easy, but it is doable. Eventually, you will do it. The world is never the cause. When you fully realize this, the world can cause you no pain or suffering. There will be nothing to fear. You will know that the cause is in you and you will choose to go home. That is what Spirit is teaching you. When things come into your lives that feel painful, this is not a failing on your part. It is not a weakness. If anything, it is a strength. It is a sign of spiritual maturity, a sign that you are now ready for this test. You are ready to give this to Spirit, to take responsibility, to let go of having the earth be your cause. If the earth were at cause there would be only despair. Knowing you are at cause, that it is all from Spirit, from Divinity – there is nothing to despair of. Everything is perfect; all is aligned.
The thought for today is that the cause is always within you. Everything in the world is the effect from your mind’s cause, and you have caused it for only one reason. You have done this to help yourself wake up. If it is your deep desire to awaken, feel nothing but gratitude for whatever the world seems to bring to you. So simple. So pure. So beautiful. Just accept it with thankfulness.
Good Now
Sanhia
Can we create heaven on earth?
Can we create heaven on earth? This is an exceedingly popular question, one that many spiritual practices and teachers give much energy to. Most people have little hope that there could be heaven on earth. They tend to possess a helpless victim-like approach to their existence here, though there is usually some hopefulness that something might improve. On the whole though, they expect there will always be problems. Governments will misuse their power. Businesses will always care more for their profits than for the environment or the well being of their customers. Health will be a concern; we are victims to disease and accidents. We will never have enough money and our bosses don’t really care about us. Relationships and friendships are not fully satisfying. Those that start out ecstatically devolve into, at best, a ho-hum day-to-day survival. However, many of those who are on a spiritual path as well as a lot of spiritual teachers have decided that all of this can be overcome, that we can have heaven on earth. Working with an understanding that we are the power in our lives and that what we focus on and believe in will happen gives us the power to determine our futures on the planet. There is an underlying truth in this belief, but when we look at the wholeness of what is suggested here, the insanity of trying to create heaven on earth may become clear to you. This idea has its birth in the ego; it does not come from Spirit.
When we look at creating heaven on earth, there are several things to be aware of. First of all, this physical illusion of the earth and the universe is based on duality; it is based on opposites. In divinity there is no polarity: no good and bad, no male and female, no hot and cold, no opposites. There is simply is-ness. The whole appearance of physicalness is based on the illusion of duality that does not exist in Divinity. One thing this means is that when you try to create “good” in the universe, an equal amount of “bad” must also be created. Opposites always balance out each other. “Good” cannot exist without “bad”. There simply cannot be heaven on earth without hell on earth. In duality, you cannot create one thing without creating its opposite. So, if you succeed in creating a “good” in this illusion, somebody has to create a balancing “bad”. To further confuse the issue, your “good” may be another’s “bad” and vice-versa. Everyone is trying to create heaven on earth according to their own personal model of what that is, and how to achieve it. If this sounds insane, please understand that insanity is the basis of duality. If you wish to follow this reasoning as far as you can, then if you wish to create “good” coming out of others, you should create as much “bad” as possible yourself, so that the balancing energy could be released. If this is an absolutely insane proposition, welcome to planet earth. It is just a dance where every action brings an equal and opposite reaction.
Creating heaven on earth is an impossibility. Heaven is your true home. It is where you are right now, though you are having a dream/nightmare that you are in a physical body on earth. There is no real earth. Your true self is in heaven as you are reading this. So, here you are trying to reinvent the wheel, trying to create something that already is. In this case, rather than having God’s absolute perfection, we have humans who don’t believe in their Divinity and are therefore capable of using only a small fraction of their infinite creative power trying to compete with God in creating heaven in the midst of duality. It is not too hard to see the futility in this. But, it could be no other way, because this earthly physical illusion only came about as the result of a crazy idea. You thought that maybe you could create something better than God was capable of doing. That was an insane idea. Then you compounded this by going into terror and fear and disappearing into your creation to hide. All humans hold guilt about this choice to separate from God. Fortunately, you didn’t succeed. It was not possible to separate from God, any more than it is possible for God to judge you, withdraw His love, or punish you. It is possible to be in a dream, to be in an illusion where you forget who you are. You cannot change who you are, but you can experience amnesia in your dream. Your job is not the impossible; it is not to attempt to compete with God, by trying – and failing – to create heaven on earth. Your job is much easier than that. Forgive yourself. Be aware that God has no anger or judgment about what you have done. In fact, nothing has really happened. Realize that the easy thing to do is to allow yourself to be in heaven, not to try to create the impossible on earth. It is not only easier, it is also inevitable.
You will all wake up from this dream and realize your true home. You have no choice about this. All you can do is drag your feet and slow your progress down on your trip back home. You can extend time, but time is just one of the illusions of duality. Only what is real can last forever. These bodies, this earth are finite. You are real; your body and the hell around in the dream are not. Even now, as you dream of being here on earth in a body, the truth of you is in heaven. Rather than focus energy on bringing heaven here, wake up! The heaven you will find yourself in will far surpass anything you could even dream of in this illusion. Instead of doing the impossible, do the inevitable. Rather than dragging your feet, lift them up. Let Spirit carry you home. By choosing to hear that voice each day you can shrink time. You can cut off years or lifetimes. In the long run, it makes no difference. Once you awaken, this will all seem as if it never happened. In the meantime, you experience some amount of pain and suffering. Why prolong it?
If you try to create heaven on earth, you will fail. This will bring about some amount of pain and suffering. The part of you that feels helpless at not being able to create heaven on earth, but feels equally helpless in figuring out how to wake up, can feel doomed to suffer until ascension finally happens. There is a fear of seeing the earth being slowly destroyed, of wars, of corruption, and of friends, loved ones and eventually yourself succumbing to disease and then death. Does one just have to put up with all of this, to stand helplessly by? That is one choice, but it is not the only one. You can focus your energy and intention on seeing that none of this is real, just like the show you watched on television the other day. Not real. Made up. Imaginary. As you get that, you can find that watching it becomes less and less painful. In fact, it may become quite entertaining. When you know it is not real, it is not so hard to experience anything. The closest you can get to creating heaven on earth is by realizing that everything that is happening is being scripted by Spirit for one purpose only, and that is to guide you to your awakening…to your ascension. It is there to help you become aware that none of it is real and that you are and always have been in heaven. This means that whatever is happening is perfect. Realizing that it is perfect, accepting rather than judging and trying to change the gift of Spirit, allows you to begin to experience heaven. Perfection is not something that you create; it is what already exists. Your job is not to make the world perfect; it is to recognize the perfection that is already in place. When you think that something has to change, you are not accepting the perfection.
This bears repeating. You do not need to change anything to bring heaven on earth. Spirit is taking care of that. All that you need to do is to relax and accept the perfection of Spirit’s gifts, to feel gratitude. Your only response is to Spirit, as you learn to ignore the insane ranting of your ego. You don’t ask for any part of the world to be fixed. The only thing you pray for help with is your willingness and ability to hear and receive Spirit.
Help me to trust the perfection that surrounds me. Help me to know that this is not real, that no child of God can ever be truly hurt, that death is an illusion. Help me to choose your voice instead of the voice of ego, to choose love over fear. Help me to choose to believe in my innocence rather than in my guilt. Help me to reclaim my true home in heaven.
Good Now
Sanhia
What if this was the last day of your life?
A question that sometimes is asked of a person, often in connection with their spiritual path, is “What would you do if you had but one day left to live?” This, of course, is not a question of what heroic efforts might save your life, but rather one that forces you to choose what is truly important. This necessitates a great personal investigation. What do you place such a high value on that you would be sure to make it a part of your last day on earth? Conversely, what things would you definitely not do, not waste your precious moments with. As you are working with this process, you are not limited to pretending that you have only one day to live, you can give yourself a week, a month, or even a year. Perhaps what remains undone seems large and would require more time. Whatever the time span, the purpose is to become aware of the deep passions and desires that you are not exercising in your day to day life, to look at how much of your existence is spent with things that are not truly meaningful for you. It is about using your time productively. On that level it is a wonderful process, but that’s not where we are going today. We are moving to another level. That is always what these messages are about…taking things to another level, or looking at things from an ascension perspective. So, let’s be a little counter-intuitive again today.
You have likely done some of this kind of work already, looking at what your passion or your purpose is. You are aware of what gives you joy. Perhaps you don’t fill your days with these things to the level you would wish, but you have awareness. You are not choosing to live your life in absolute denial of where your heart or Spirit leads you. So what is this different perspective I am suggesting that you take? If you are on a serious ascension path, rather than holding spirituality as an interesting hobby that you enjoy exploring, there is another way to play this game. If your intention is to realize your Divine self, to experience that this is all an illusion, and to let it go – and that this takes precedence over everything else – you may wish to look at what you would do with the last day of your life from a different perspective. Whatever your answer to this month’s question might be, that is what stands between you and the realization of your ascension. Whatever you feel is undone or has not been completed yet, is what keeps you tied to this body. You will stay until you either complete it or let it go. The purpose of the “last day” process is not one of learning to stop wasting time. Time is an illusion that cannot be wasted. It is not about doing what you came here to do. There is nothing that is really important to do here. This is not real. If there is anything important for you to do (I am just throwing this contradiction in here because the ego mind goes absolutely crazy with inconsistency, while absolute truth can never be communicated in words), you have no clue in your conscious thinking mind what it is. But, there is a plan that Spirit has for you.
The best you might do with today’s process would be to say to yourself that if you have only one day (week, month, year…) you are going to listen to Spirit and do whatever you are directed to do. Anything else is coming from your ego. It amounts to your ego placing an importance upon you in this body in this illusion. Take some deep breaths and let this be assimilated into your being. What does this mean? It means that while you are in this process of waiting for the grace of God to lead to a full awakening to your Divine nature, you could be compressing time by looking at what you think you still have to do or want to do – perhaps what some people refer to as their “bucket list”. One choice would be to achieve all of those things so that they no longer stand in your way. The more efficient path would be to release the desires, to give up all your plans. Give them all to Spirit. If Spirit so guides you, take an action, but as for your ego self, there are no directions to be taken. You simply do the things that allow you to remain in your body in the moment…breathe, drink, eat, exercise, play with your mirrors…and then let them go. We are not just speaking of actions, of achievements, and of concrete goals. There may also be emotional, relationship desires you want fulfilled. Perhaps you want to feel loved or to have others express love to you in certain ways. Maybe there are spiritual gifts you want to demonstrate, such as translocation, channeling, time travel, or direct manifestation of objects. There is no limit to the number of things that your ego may want to experience. I wish to remind you that each one of these desires, including those that you may not even be conscious about now, keeps you rooted in the physical. They are all things you need to do in a body.
There is no judgment here. To be human is to have ego desires. There is no punishment for holding on to them. We are only suggesting that you become fully conscious of what your desires are. If you wish to release some desires, judging yourself for having them is perhaps the most inefficient technique you could come up with. Let them go when you are ready. A motivation for choosing to let go of these goals is to realize that whatever joy or satisfaction this experience or achievement might bring you, it will not relieve you of the pain of believing yourself to be separate from God. It will not bring you nearly the joy, pleasure, and ecstasy that are the truth of who you are when you let go of the illusion of being this physical body. You will get but a taste of Divine love.
It is a very simple process for today. Ask yourself what you would do if your time remaining in this body was limited; then let go of all need or desire to do those things. If that isn’t easy, give it to Spirit. If you don’t have the will to let go of something…go do it. Have that experience. Manifest it. Create it. One day you will simply say to yourself:
“Enough! I give up all my desire for earthly experiences. I surrender it to Spirit and let myself be guided by Spirit to whatever actions are part of His plan for me while still in a body. Let me become one with the divine plan, which is truly my plan.”
Good Now
Sanhia
Do we have free will?
The question of whether or not humans have free will has always been a hot topic. The answer is yes…..and no. In the duality there is always duality. There is no simple answer. The truth of you, the Divine you, has absolute free will to create anything it desires. Absolute. There is no limit. In the illusion, your ego thinks it has absolute free will. And it does. It has absolute free will to keep you stuck here. That is the job of your ego, to keep you in the illusion. Otherwise it disappears. Your ego has a vested interest in your free will, both in your believing that you have a choice and that there is a right choice. In truth, in the illusion you have no choice. You have no free will whatsoever. It has already been decided that the illusion will end. The script has been written, in fact, the play is already over. The illusion ends; it disappears. You realize the truth of who you are and always have been. This is the truth of who you are at this very moment – even though you think you are this body and that the physical world is real.
Because the physical is not real, it cannot be sustained indefinitely. Things that are real last forever; things that are not real begin and end. Knowing this makes understanding easier. Just look around and see what lasts forever. Probably there is nothing like that that you can see. Your human eyes and senses are unable to detect anything that will not change and ultimately end. So, we come back to the question of free will. Your only “true” free will is whether you listen to Spirit or to your ego. As you choose to listen to Spirit, the voice of your ego grows weaker and weaker. Eventually you won’t hear it at all. Then the physical begins to drop away and you will fully realize your Divinity. You realize your ascension.
What you are referring to when you say you have free will is really the voice of your ego. It says, “I want to choose what I want”. Even choosing ascension is a choice of your ego. Your Divinity cannot choose to ascend because it is already in that state. You are not trying to achieve something here, only to wake up. To choose something is to believe yourself to be separate from it. Every choice you can make is an affirmation of separation. Whatever your ego tells you is the way to realize Divinity, comes from fear and separation.
The goals you have in this world come from fear and separation. If you say that you want to get your finances in line so you don’t worry about money anymore, if you are seeking a nurturing supportive relationship, if you are seeking to find your right livelihood – the work you came here to do – none of that will lead you to realize your Divinity. I am not suggesting that you never have earthly desires, but, even should they be fulfilled, you will be left with the need to replace them with other earthly goals. Behind it all will lurk a feeling of lack, a desire for what you don’t have. Your ego’s eyes are infinitely large, always wanting more, never fulfilled. There seems to be a gap where you feel separated from God. No matter how hard you try to fill it, the task is impossible. How can you fill an imaginary hole with imaginary achievements? Eventually, whether in this body or another, you will decide to give your life to Spirit. There is no free will about this. It will be the only choice remaining for you. You will ask Spirit to tell you what to do. You will tell Spirit you are here to serve and that your wills are One. Everyone will make this surrender eventually. You will give your free will to Spirit. Until that time you will continue to have pain, fear, and suffering on the physical plane. No matter what goals you may set for yourself, there will be no heaven on earth.
Ego does not run the show here. Everything is directed by Spirit. Ego has absolutely no power; it all belongs to Spirit. Whether or not you pay it any attention, Spirit runs your life. The only thing you truly want is to wake up to your Divinity. Everything else is just your ego pulling your leg. Spirit brings to you in each moment exactly what you require to realize your ascension. Your only job is to accept what is presented. Welcome it. When you resist and think that what has happened is not what you want, you are trying to give control to your ego. Change your mind about that. Surrender your earthly will to the Divine will. You are simply agreeing to a done deal. Like it or not, Spirit is running your life. Let go of thinking that you know where your happiness and, eventually, your salvation lie. If you knew how to get yourself out of this illusion and into your Divinity, you would have done it long ago. Your life has already been scripted by Spirit. The end of the story is that you are back home. Your choices cannot affect this plan, though your cooperation may speed it along.
Your divine self played with the idea that it could create something separate from God. A “part” of you went off into that idea, into that dream. It was a dream because nothing real could be separate from God. We could identify the part of you that thought this separation could happen as your ego. It is the part that is in guilt and terror. The moment you created that dream, or that nightmare, God recognized it and created Holy Spirit to follow you into the illusion in order to wake you up and show that it wasn’t real. So, within this insanity of the physical world there is a voice of sanity. The truth of Spirit, of Divinity, never waivers. The duality jumps back and forth. On the one hand your ego says you can create anything you want here. You are God; you can create heaven on earth. On the other hand your ego says you are a worthless piece of shit who has failed at everything you have tried, deserving of punishment for your sins and ineptitude. Your ego is always in duality. There is constant conflict. In the truth of Spirit, you simply are. You are Divine. There is no good or bad, no judgment, only Oneness.
If you think of the most joy you have had in this body, it is a small taste of the infinite joy that is a part of your true nature. Some of you have had moments where you felt yourself stepping out of the duality into a place of peace and love. This, also, was but a taste of your true nature. Unlike this temporary appearance, your true self is eternally experiencing this joy. There is no other possibility.
In conclusion, you have the free will to surrender your free will. There is no choice to make. Choices only exist in duality. While you are experiencing this duality, it is the only place you can operate from. So, exercise your apparent free will by choosing Spirit over your ego. Establish a dialogue with Spirit. Your will and Spirit’s will are the same. Spirit will tell you what to do. Surrender to that guidance. Absolutely. All of your fear will come up because you are afraid of God. Ego tells you that only your free will can save you. Spirit reminds you that nothing can save you because you already are saved. So listen, surrender, wake up, and go home. Spirit tells you exactly what to let go of to give up the belief in separation. Your only job is to say “Thank you” and “What is your instruction today?” If you don’t hear a clear message, open your eyes and look around. Whatever you see is what Spirit has brought you today. You can do this. You will do this. Ultimately, you have no choice. That is your terror and your salvation. Don’t forget the five-step process. It can help you move through the terror more quickly. Your free will is a prison. Give it up, and let the gates be opened. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do. There is only God, only Spirit, only love.
Good Now
Sanhia
Is there any place for fun on the ascension path?
The last several messages have been somewhat intense, so I thought we would have a little more fun this time. In this message we will talk about fun, joy, and play. Perhaps you are taking things too seriously. If what you are experiencing is an illusion, why not have more fun with it? I have an assignment for you. Each time you find yourself being weighed down by the seriousness of your now moment, think up a joke about your situation. Make it so funny that you can’t wait to find an audience to share it with.
You are aware that your Divine nature is the truth of you. You understand that you don’t have a lot of control over how long it will take until you fully realize your Divinity and leave this physical illusion. In the meantime, since you have nothing really important to do – except, of course, whatever Spirit has in mind for you – you might as well have fun. If there is to be a choice between joy and misery, between fun and boredom…..is this a hard decision to make?
It is not so easy to have fun when you are feeling like a victim, so those thoughts and feelings will have to be jettisoned. It is also quite a challenge to enjoy yourself when you feel weighed down by lots of responsibilities. It is time to let go of them as well. Perhaps you feel that you have to earn your fun time, so you will work now and play later. Try turning that one around. If you are truly doing God’s work you will be feeling ecstatic. The teaching from the mass consciousness is that this world is a very serious place and that you have to apply yourself, work hard, and make the right choices or life will just run you over. Such a responsibility you have! When you look at that it is overwhelming. Sometimes it just makes you want to lie down and die. That couldn’t be any worse than living with that much pressure. But, unfortunately, it is not okay to die. That is not one of the choices. You have to let God kill you. Am I the only one seeing the humor in all of this? Instead, be counter-intuitive. Decide that nothing here matters, that there is nothing important to do. None of it means anything. You might as well dance and sing and play and do whatever is fun. This leads to the hilarious irony of the human condition. When you want to leave because you can’t take it any longer, you can’t. You are stuck. Even if you break the biggest taboo and off yourself, you will eventually come back and pick up where you left off. But, when you are having so much fun that you couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else, that’s when you might leave.
The world has it pictured that if you want to go to heaven, ascend, or get off the wheel you will have to work really hard. To achieve such a goal you have to pray, be good, and deny yourself. There is so much that is required every day, every moment. It’s impossibly hard. Then you die and you come back and do it all again. The counter-intuitive thing is not to try to do any of those things. You don’t try to be good. You don’t try to be right. You don’t try to do any of the things that the ego says you should do. Instead you ask yourself what would be fun today. What is your play in this moment? Even if there are dishes piled up in the sink, have fun. Maybe you put on earphones and listen to music while you are cleaning. Maybe you play with bubbles. Allow it to be fun. Tell yourself that if it isn’t fun, it isn’t worth doing. Joy becomes your value. This becomes your training. When that voice comes in and says “Yes, but you should….”, you jump up and say, “I know who you are! I don’t listen to you anymore.” You can recognize the voice when you hear the devil. The devil’s middle name is “Should”.
The funny thing is that this is true about everything. Whatever you think it is that you want – let it go. Just have fun. You think you want a relationship. Let it go. Look around at your friend’s relationship. Does that look like fun? Let it go. Have fun. Maybe one day part of your fun will include playing with someone else, someone who wants to have as much fun as you do. But, what is important is having fun, not having the relationship. If you have to give up fun to have a relationship, well that’s no fun at all. Replace the word relationship with anything else…money, dependable car, children who listen – it doesn’t matter what it is. If you really think you want whatever it is, then give it to Spirit. Spirit runs a highly efficient lost and found department. Everything gets to where it is needed. If it will truly increase your joy, it will come to you. If it is something that will end up taking away your joy, that will be a struggle – do you really want that? It’s a strange thing. You say to God or Spirit that you want something. You ask for it because you think it will make you happy. Cut out the middle man. Don’t ask for what you think will make you happy. Just ask for happiness. Ask to be eternally joyous. If you knew how to do that, you would have done it long ago. But admit that you don’t know anything, especially about how to be happy. So who are you to be demanding certain things, thinking they will bring you happiness. Be a happy idiot. Turn it all over to Spirit.
This includes ascension. Look at the fuel you have given to the ego when you ask for that. “You think that you can ascend? You think you are good enough for that. Oh, you’ve got a lot of work to do.” And you are off to the races. What you want is total ecstasy. When you experience that in a body, there is an opening to realize ascension. Ascension is not getting out of jail; it is the knowing that there is no jail. When in doubt, laugh. When unable to laugh, cry. Then let it all go. You probably didn’t hear it here first, but “don’t worry, be happy”. Remember always….
Good Blesses You
Sanhia
Are other people a part of the illusion?
In the previous message we talked about the illusion, and I meant every word I said. Now, it is time for some balancing words. It is true that your physical body is an illusion, but it is not true that you are an illusion. You are very real. It is true that the physical bodies of others are illusions. But it is not true that other people are illusions. As you are working with this truth of the illusion, I wish to suggest that it is fine to look at everything in the physical world going on about you as illusion, including things and events. Remind yourself that they are not real. However, it is not recommended that you look at other people and tell yourself that they are illusions, that they are not real. There is a practical reason for this. Whatever you see in others, you see in yourself. I have called this the mirror effect. If you identify others as illusions, you will view yourself in the same light – or lack of light. When you see yourself as an illusion, nothing is left that is real. That can be a depressing way to exist. That will pass. No permanent damage can be done. Denying your reality, your Divinity, can never change it. You are real and so are others. In the meantime, holding yourself as an illusion may not feel so comforting.
To avoid this, simply don’t think of others as illusions or as part of the illusion. This doesn’t mean that you look at them and say, “Ah! This physicalness is real.” All physicalness is illusion. But, when you look at someone, the truth of you sees the truth of them, recognizing their Divinity. If you say that they are illusions, you are saying that the Divine is an illusion. Here is what I suggest instead. As you are observing other people around you, practice seeing them as Divine. Forget about whatever you notice them doing or about how they physically act or appear. See them with your Divine eyes, as Jesus saw everyone. Behold their Divinity. If that is a challenge for you, and some individuals will present you with enormous challenges in perceiving their Divinity, ask Spirit for support. As you master seeing others as Divine, so will you identify yourself.
Remember that when it is hard for you to recognize the Divinity in another, you are looking in a mirror. You are projecting upon the other whatever is most difficult for you to love and forgive in yourself. You are not truly seeing the other. If you were, you would recognize Divinity. If you are identifying anything less, you are seeing your mirror. Of course, when you perceive the Divinity in another, you are also seeing your mirror. When you look with judgment you are watching through the eyes of your ego. Your Divine eyes can only see with true vision, can only perceive the Divinity in another.
Knowing that the action, rather than the actor, is illusion allows you to see the Divinity. This helps you to let go of the false picture of the other person. Your projection, your judgment of the action, is what is not real. The person is real. The truth of everyone involved is unaffected by the action. No harm can be done to Divinity. This is where the illusion is significant to realize. The players are real and are Divine. Only the action is not real. So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Discard the illusion of the action without rejecting the Divinity of the actor. This is true forgiveness. Whatever you see that is not Divine is your projection. It is what you don’t want to notice in yourself, because it is too painful, too frightening. Hold everything in the physical as illusion except for other people (and of course yourself).
That is it for this month. Short and sweet. See the Divinity in others so that you can see the Divinity in yourself. That is what is real. All the rest is illusion. You are real.
Good Now
Sanhia
What do you mean when you call the world an illusion?
We have talked many times about the illusion, but there has never been a single message fully describing what is meant by this term. Now the time has come. I am going to start with the ending and then go back and fill in the spaces. This is the ending: Everything, without exception, that you experience in this physical world is an illusion. Everything. None of it is real. No exceptions.
Now we will take a giant step backward. In the illusion, you can do that. In reality, there is no place to take a step and no time in which it can be accomplished. What is reality? Let me tell this as a story. In the first part of the story there is God. God is unconditional love, unlimited creativity, unlimited power, and unlimited joy. There is no duality, only the is-ness of these qualities. These descriptors are human terms and unable to do justice to what Jesus called “the Kingdom of God”. The only thing that is absolutely true and real is this kingdom. In the second part of the story, God chose to create beings or entities in the image of Himself. Remember, as always, that the language is limited. There are no serviceable gender free terms, but be clear that divinity, that God, does not have gender. There is no duality in divinity. As a default, we will refer to God as “Him”. To continue, these entities were created in the image of God, beings of unconditional love, creativity and so on, and, of course, gender free. These could be called the Children of God.
In the third part of the story, a group or a portion of the Children of God, who A Course in Miracles calls the Son of God, in their infinite creativity, decided it would be fun to construct something that would be secret and separate from God. To begin with, this was an impossible task. There can be nothing separate from God. I will now use the term “We”, because you and I are a part of this group. We are One with God and God cannot be separate from Himself. We allowed ourselves the thought that we could create separately from God and then went into that creation. We then experienced the illusion of separation. This experience was not real because we could not actually create something separate from God. We could say that this creation was like a dream. We went into this collective dream. God could not see this dream any more than a mother can see her child’s dream. In the dream we felt separate from God and had our first experience with fear. We were afraid that we could never find our way back to God and that He would be angry with us for creating behind His back. These fears were false. It is not possible for God to be angry or judgmental. However, in this nightmare we had created, all of this seemed possible. The ego is what we call that part of us that feared God and believed in the illusion.
In this way we created the physical universe. It is a part of this dream, of this illusion. We have been hiding here in the physical from God. The truth of us is still One with God. This is just a bad dream. As soon as God recognized what we had done, he created the solution. He imagined the means by which the part of our Divine selves stuck in the nightmare could reconnect with the Oneness. Because there is no time in Divinity, the solution was instantaneous. The problem was immediately solved. You could say that it was over before it began. Boom, boom. However in the illusion there is time. There is duality. So, it seems that we have been trapped in this dream for thousands upon thousands of years, for lifetime after seemingly endless lifetime. Trapped. The idea we have of hell is right here. This earth is it, but it is not real. The idea of heaven is our true home, the Kingdom of God, the place of unconditional love and unlimited joy. The challenge for us through these eons of time in the illusion has been to simply wake up to our Divinity, realizing that we are and always have been the Children of God. I have called this waking up our Ascension. These physical bodies are not who we are.
This entire physical world, every aspect of it, is an illusion. We created it, not God. This is our nightmare. As long as we hold onto it and defend its reality, it will seem real. The ego’s job is to convince us in whatever ways possible that the illusion is real and that we have no choice but to stay here. The solution that God created is called Spirit, or Holy Spirit. Spirit is the intermediary between God and the illusion. God doesn’t directly experience our dream because it isn’t real. If He were able to observe it, it would make it real. That’s the last road we would want to go down. Then our illusion would be true and we might really be stuck here. Fortunately, this isn’t the case, and God cannot get directly involved with things that don’t exist. Spirit, however, is the link between God and our ego illusion. We can listen to the voice of Spirit and be led home, or we can listen to the voice of the ego and continue spinning through lifetimes of pain, fear, and suffering. Sounds like a slam dunk choice here. However, the ego is whispering in your other ear telling you not to trust Spirit, asking you how these things that you can feel can be less real than some ideas that probably aren’t even true. Ego tells you that your divine nature is the illusion and that God is out to get you. You will have to pay for what you have done. You are guilty, guilty, guilty. Why would you want to go home to a God who is just going to punish you? Instead, you play all kinds of games trying to win God’s favor and His forgiveness. You project blame onto others, hoping God, and yourself, will be fooled and will go after them instead. All of this is impossible because there is no judgment or favor to be won. How can God love you more than unconditionally? It can’t be done. The only thing standing between you and realizing your Divinity is you. It is your choice to listen to the ego and to believe its claims that this illusion that keeps you trapped here is real.
Your job is to remind yourself every day that everything except your divinity is illusion. NOTHING that you see in this world is real. No exceptions. Scream it from the rooftops. The bodies are not real. The objects are not real. The stories are not real. The weather is not real. Your problems are not real. Money is not real; well, you probably knew that. None of it is real. The only thing that is real is your Divinity and unconditional love. Whenever you make something else more important than your Divinity, you stay trapped in the cycle of pain, suffering, and illusion. That’s all there is to it. It is very simple. When you feel trapped, give it to Spirit. Spirit is the link between the illusion and Divinity, so that you can ask for support and guidance as you deal with your fears and difficulties in the illusion. Spirit is, always has been, and always will be involved in every moment of your life. Spirit directs your story, presenting you with exactly what you need in this moment to find your way back home. Meanwhile, the ego is telling you to fear the gift of Spirit, so you push away in terror what Spirit brings to you. Maybe Spirit brings a death into your life. When you resist what Spirit brings, you are saying that you want to stay here in illusion rather than go home. Spirit is bringing death into your life to show that death is not real. It is bringing a material loss into your life to show you that things don’t matter. Spirit brings failure into your life to show you that your earthly goals are not important.
The question again is a very simple one. Do you want to listen to the ego, which will have goals for you in the physical, or do you want to listen to Spirit, realize your Divinity, and go home? The more successful you are in reaching goals in the illusion, the more attached you will be to staying there. This is why Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You can’t take it with you, not one part is real. It is all part of your dream. That is what I mean by illusion. I am not using a metaphor. I am trying to express as clearly, directly, and honestly as I can. There is nothing in this physical world that is real. You are to give up all attachment to everything physical and to trust that Spirit is always there bringing you exactly what you need to find your way home. Trust everything that comes into your life. Give up the fight and the struggle. If that is hard, give it to Spirit. If it is still hard, do the five-step process in addition. That is also a gift from Spirit to you.
Everything that happens in your life is guidance and a gift from Spirit to lead you home. Nothing here can ever be lost because nothing here is real. It is all illusion. Spirit will play with your attachments until you come into that full realization. The illusion and duality dissolve as you listen to and trust only Spirit, letting the ego go. Then you have no need for the illusion. You have no reason to create heaven on earth because your true heaven is right before you and infinitely more fantastic than anything you could dream up here. Welcome home.
Good Now
Sanhia
Why is it so hard for me to forgive?
It may seem that forgiveness is a common topic in these messages. That is true. It is true because there is probably no single concept that is of greater importance than that of forgiveness. If you wish to realize your ascension, it is absolutely central that you learn to forgive fully and completely. Without forgiveness, it is difficult to experience unconditional love. To try to love without forgiving first, is putting the cart before the horse. Forgiveness is what drives your realization of your ascension. The most efficient use of your energies is to figure out how to truly forgive. That’s where we are going today.
One of the reasons that forgiveness is difficult for you is that you may understand it to be something that is bestowed upon another because they have done something that requires forgiving. Whatever act that they have committed, you recognize it as a crime. You decide that it needs to be forgiven because otherwise you are stuck in this ego cycle. If you are a “good” person you will learn how to forgive them. What actually happens is that in this process you ever so subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) suggest that you are better than the offender. You will be the bigger person and forgive them for being such an idiot. I exaggerate to provide a little humor, but this is precisely how the attempt at forgiveness often takes place. You are still holding on to the judgment when you try to forgive in this manner. If you look deeply within, you will find that the forgiveness has never really taken place. Your belief is that the person has done wrong and needs forgiveness. No matter how much forgiving you do, that person still has done wrong. This misunderstanding is why forgiveness is so difficult.
The first step in true forgiveness is to acknowledge that nothing wrong has been done. To repeat, nothing wrong has been done. The judgment that a wrong has been committed needs to be released. The truth is that the other person didn’t do anything. If they had done something real, something that could truly hurt another, the victim would be hurt forever and ever, for eternity. Nobody has the power to do such a thing. The truth of all human souls is that they are Divine children of God and exist forever. Nothing Divine can be hurt. Only something that is not real can be damaged. Whatever it is that you are judging in this other person did not really happen. To repeat, it did not happen. Nothing real can be hurt. When you judge someone for the action you perceive them doing, it is no different than judging them for their previous night’s dream. There you can recognize that nothing really happened. It is the same in your “waking” world. The action that you have judged didn’t really happen, nobody was really injured. Nothing real, nothing Divine, can be hurt. You will wake up from this physical illusion too, some day. So, this is your job. You don’t forgive another for what they have done because you are a good person, above them and better – so that you are able to forgive. Rather, you realize that there is absolutely nothing to forgive.
Let’s look at it from another perspective. We talked several messages ago about how you define yourself. How many of you define yourself, in part, by what other people say to you or about you? Nothing that can change is real. Nobody can hurt anyone else. How could spoken words have any effect upon you? You are Divine. How can the illusion affect reality? It is time to turn this around. Nobody does anything to you. No one. There is nothing to forgive because no one does anything to you. This illusion is all your creation. You have created other people in your physical life. In this illusion of being human, you “hire” others to say and do things to you. Imagine that you have written a script. You hand it your friend and ask them to read it to you. It says horrible things about you. They ask if you are serious about having them read it out loud. You tell them to go ahead. They tell you how horrible you are. Then you get upset. You feel bad about yourself and are not happy with them. Pretty silly, huh? That’s exactly how it happens.
You are getting a two for one today. First, you are realizing that there is never really anything to forgive in anyone else. The second is to realize that whatever anybody does to you has come from your instruction. It is the only way it can be. They are telling you the judgment you have about yourself. They are telling you what you have not forgiven yourself for, the illusion that you believe to be true. As long as you pretend that it is them and not you that is the source of this information, you are stuck in a pattern of having to be superior to them for the harm they have done. As you accept that you are the source of everything that is not Divine, you realize that you have made up this whole fairy tale, this whole story. The forgiveness called for is of self. If you think that you have been wrong to think or act as you have, does this mean you now have to be better than yourself and forgive? How can you do that? You might believe that you can be better than another, but how can you be a better person than yourself? That gets pretty tricky. Now is the time to realize that this is all absolutely crazy, that there is nothing to forgive.
You have been projecting your beliefs upon God. You have created an unforgiving God. Now it gets even trickier. If God is really the one judging you, and you want to forgive, you have to be better than God. Then you can forgive yourself, which God obviously can’t do. This is the insanity of the ego. When you look at it in black and white (as you are doing now), it’s a pretty funny story. It’s really humorous. Close your eyes and feel the enormous freedom that comes from absolute forgiveness. This is not the forgiveness of your sins, but the forgiveness that says there is no sin. There never has been sin. You have always been loved unconditionally. There is nothing you ever could have done or ever could do to change that. Nobody is defining you as in need of forgiveness but you. You do not have to grovel before God begging forgiveness. Only you are holding the judgmental picture of yourself. Let it go. No amount of pleading will ever buy you forgiveness. No amount of atonement, no penance, will ever be enough. You cannot perform community service for God. You cannot make up for what never was and never will be. Such actions can only keep you in the cycle of judgment and fear. Forgiveness is only made easy when you know there is no need for it. Anyone can do it. No special skill is needed. You don’t have to be better than anybody else. There is nothing to do. Be like God.
Good Now
Sanhia
How can we deal with the world immigration problem?
I have been asked to say some words about the issues of racism, immigration, and the reactive rise of conservative political parties around the world. There are important questions about how to deal with the people who have been dislocated by wars and abusive governments. There is also the ongoing story of racism, both in the United States and in Europe. We always wish to begin by having an awareness of the illusion. If there is any part of the illusion that is triggering fear in you – whether it be expressed in anger, judgment, or confusion – take that and work with it, seeing it as a gift. The truth is that there are no victims or victimizers. Everything comes out of the creation of the individual.
When one believes one’s self to be separate from God, whether or not the awareness is conscious, there is fear and projection. The projection may be upon the victim and how in some way they deserve what they got. There could be projection upon the heartlessness of the victimizer. People may be seen as power driven, ignorant of what is going on, or stupid. So, forgiveness is called for on both sides. Keep in mind that all of this is about you. If these events and people did not touch on something deep within you, we would not be having this conversation. As long as you believe that this is all outside of yourself and a part of the world, a part of others, it will continue to trigger fear and helplessness in your life. It is not about the events themselves or about the unfairness, the pain, and the suffering. It is about the fear that is triggered in you by these events, by these stories. One way of dealing with these fears, of course, is to use the five-step process to transform the fear that is generated.
The route to spiritual awareness often passes through territory of intense fear and suffering. If your world appears to be okay, there may not be anything to drive you to go past your self-imposed limitations. If the world is absolutely insufferable, you feel a need to find a way to deal with it. The only way to truly make sense of what is going on in the world is to realize that nothing real is happening. If you take it seriously, you will never find a solution. If these racial/immigration situations can help you to face your fear or to realize that love or fear can be chosen as a response to any situation, a great gift has been realized.
If you are choosing to help others because you see them as victims who cannot help themselves, that is fear based. You cannot see another as a helpless victim unless you hold yourself in the same light. You can choose to project your sense of victimhood on others – and the world will be so generous in providing you an endless list of sufferers – or you can deal with your own fear of vulnerability. I am not picking out any group of people and labeling them as victims. To be human is to believe that you are a martyr. Every human does that. You believe in your separation from God. The history of humanity is the history of victimhood. Your job as a human is to realize that you are Divine. As a human, all you can do is pick your poison. Which side do you wish to view as the victims, those who have been driven from their homes or those whose homeland is being changed? Either way there are good guys and bad guys, winners and losers. Either way there is separation. Either way there is fear. The only way out of the morass is to no longer see yourself as a victim. You begin by forgiving both the victims and the victimizers, however you may have those roles distributed. You can’t have one without the other. Both are your creations and both represent your belief about your identity.
Let’s look at the Swedish immigration situation. The question is one of how to experience things from a position of unconditional love. If you hear someone state that the immigrants are destroying “our” way of life, how can that be looked upon with love? The bottom line is that fear begets, or gives birth to, fear. When you act out of fear, you create the very thing you are afraid of. Reacting out of fear is always self-defeating. It can never bring a solution; it can only make things appear to be worse. The approach to take with those who act from fear is not to throw fuel on the fire by accusing them of racism, hatred, or selfishness. It is of greater service to acknowledge their fear and to help them to do the same, without judgment. Realize that you could not feel fear in them without holding it yourself. The question then becomes one of asking how this fear can be transformed.
The same question is there for those who see all of the immigrants as victims and those who oppose them as victimizers. What is the fear? What are they terrified of? What are you terrified of? Your job is always to see the Divinity of everyone involved. The truth is that everybody just wants to find their way back home and they don’t have a clue how to get there. Back home might look like pre-immigrant Sweden. Perhaps, if we could get back there, there would just be peace, love, and safety. Or getting back home might be possible if everyone just opened their doors to all the world’s victims. Then, everything would be fine. If we all just found a place in our hearts to take care of them, we could live in peace, love, and safety.
In truth, there is no idealistic past to return to, except the Garden and the reality before your imagined separation from God. There was no perfect time in Sweden or in the United States. Every “present” was a time of fear and of longing for an earlier “perfect time”. On the other hand, if you try to be the white knight for all the victims of the world and bring perfection to the now, you will quickly realize that there are more victims than you could ever be able to handle. If you tried to bring all those in need of help to Sweden, the number would be many times greater than the current Swedish population. Are you prepared to invite anywhere from 10 to 100 people into your home? Are you ready to care for all their financial, emotional and psychological problems? On a logical level, this is obviously an insane solution, but far beyond that, it cannot deal with the problem because it does not recognize the true cause.
The solution does not come through changing the outside. It is your inside that creates the outside. If you are placing the blame on the outside and think you can do something about it, you are in denial of your own victimhood and helplessness. How can you save the world if you cannot save yourself? Ultimately there is no difference between feeling sorry for the immigrants and blaming the victimizers than in judging the immigrants and saying that it is their problem and not yours. It is just a different choice of how to deal with your projection. You can blame yourself and believe that you can’t do enough to make the situation right, or you can blame the victim and therefore can’t do enough to eliminate that problem.
The only solution begins with owning and facing your own fear. This requires taking responsibility for creating the world, rather than acting as a victim to your creation. It is not that solutions cannot be found, it is that the answer begins within you. First you find your own Divinity and then see it reflected in every other human. You see all as creators and none as victims. From that place you can invite others in love to look within for solutions. Since you know that every apparent outer problem is a gift from Spirit to help you open to your Divine self, you can support others to do the same. This is not to say that you ignore the outer because it is only illusion. You support each person in the way that you are guided without taking their problems seriously. You know it isn’t real, but sharing that with another who is not ready to hear it may not be the greatest support you can offer. On the other hand, buying into their story only helps to cement it in place.
If this dance is a difficult one for you, you probably have more work to do with yourself. Silently thank your victim “mirrors” and go back to transforming your fears. Be kind to yourself about this. If you are in a body you have fear and you believe in the reality of the illusion. If you have made the intention to release the illusion and to let Spirit guide you, there is still work to do. It may be part of Spirit’s plan for you to be here to support others. You are not here to help them solve their problems (a Sisyphean task if there ever was one) but to help them take responsibility, to take their power, to find their Divinity. Whenever it all feels like too much, remember that it doesn’t really matter. It is truly all illusion. You cannot take a wrong step. Nothing outside needs to change. Within is love and Divinity. Ask Spirit to help you find it.
Good Now
Sanhia
How do you define yourself?
Today’s question, rather than being one that is asked of me, is one I wish to ask of you. The question is “How do you define yourself?” If your only answer is that you are a divine, eternal, unconditionally loved and loving, infinitely creative child of God – and that is all that ever comes into your mind when you think about who you are, that is fantastic…..and you can stop reading now and enjoy your oneness with God. There may be other ways that you see yourself that seem to stand in the way of realizing personal divinity, even if you have been making efforts to see the truth. For example, you might define yourself by some traumatic event that has come into your life, which was painful when it happened and you cannot forget about it or let go. Perhaps you tell this story to others, maybe often, and/or it regularly comes up in your thoughts (click for an introductory message about “old stories”). These are places where you allow yourself to believe in your separation from God. Rather than one traumatic event, there may be a painful pattern you have noticed in your life, perhaps dealing with money, relationships, deservedness, loneliness, or lovableness.
There are two things I wish to say concerning these things you hold about yourself. The first I have already mentioned. You define yourself by these issues. This is part of who you believe yourself to be. That’s why you relate these stories to others. It gives your fearful ego self a boost to have others understand what you have been through, and to receive some compassionate thoughts from them. Some of these identities you have carried for so long that it is difficult to imagine yourself without them. Not only is letting them go difficult, it is fear provoking. Who would you be without this story? An example of this is a parent who has lost a child, who thinks they can never recover from this and will never be the same again. Another example could be the belief that you were shaped by how your parents raised you. A third could be that money is always a struggle for you. Whatever your story is, it defines you.
I mentioned there were two things I wished to say. The second is to remind you that your story is not true; it is a fiction. It is a movie that you are acting out a role in. You are pretending to be a victim of some event or series of events. It simply is not true. What is actually there for you is an enormous gift. Whatever you see as an anchor weighing you down in your life is a blessing from Spirit. Whatever limiting, fear provoking message this event is telling you is something you came in with in this body. Out of the fear you brought with you, you created the event. You didn’t do this to punish yourself. It was part of your pre-planning for this lifetime. You created this to overcome the false beliefs and separation from God that you have carried through all your incarnations. You are presented with these enormous gifts so that you can choose to overcome. There is no real consequence to holding on to the story, other than your continued pain and suffering in this body and the next and the next, until you decide to let this illusion go. God doesn’t care how long you hold onto it. He doesn’t see your story. He sees only your perfection. God can only see what is real, which is the loving, divine you.
If you want to take the bull by the horns, if you want to be proactive – make a pact with yourself. First, become aware of these limiting definitions that are less than divine. Notice the stories you tell yourself and others. Agree to stop telling them. If one comes into your awareness, do the five-step process. Now, look at the fear connected with this story until it transforms. Let go of the hopelessness of feeling that you will have the story with you forever, and look it right in the face. The reason that you cannot seem to get away from it is because it is your creation. It will follow you wherever you go until you confront it and let it dissolve. It is not real, but until you look at it and feel it fully and completely without backing down, it will feel real. This is not a work that anybody else can do for you. In fact you will likely react angrily toward anybody who would try to help. That would probably be too frightening. You need to be in control here. The action is to come from you. You are to admit that you have chosen to be a victim. Nothing has happened to you. It is 100% voluntary. Because you have chosen the “old story”, you can unchoose it. The truth is that only things that are real can stay forever.
Something that can assist you in being proactive with this “old story” is to change it in your mind. Ask your guidance to show you how this “old story” has already been a blessing for you or how it could be seen in that light. For example, if you have had a severe financial crisis in your life, you might now recognize that you have survived the “worst possible thing” and no longer have the same fears about money. If you have a parent who you felt treated you in an abusive way, you could thank them for doing such a loving thing because it forced you to find your strength within you, to love yourself instead of looking for approval from others. There is always a true story in the gift presented by each piece of this identity you have given yourself. Ask for support in finding the truth of the benefit from each situation. Now you can burn your candle at both ends. At one end you face and transform your fear. At the other end you see the event as a blessing. Develop the habit of doing both of these things until you notice your fear evaporating and everything being a blessing for you. There is no reason or need for you to continue to suffer or be a victim any longer, absolutely none. Nor is there any judgment if you continue to do so, absolutely none. You are free. Choose as you will. Go in peace.
God Blesses You
Sanhia
How can I see the divinity in other people?
We had a message several years ago about seeing the divinity in others. Some people have said that this is quite a challenge for them. They see someone acting in a certain way which makes it difficult for them to perceive that person as divine. It is such a challenge for them to practice forgiveness, they say. They understand the value of all of this but find it so hard to put into practice. What can make it easier, they wonder? I will do my best to support you here, but I agree with you. This is not an easy process. True forgiveness and unconditional love are not simple states to attain. If they were, you would have realized your ascension long ago. This is where the pedal meets the metal. This is where the tires meet the road. This is the real work of ascension. It is easy to be in theory about what truth is, but it is the practice that makes reality real. Every day you create for yourself situations to do this work. What a blessing that is. There is never a rest. Every day. You can hide from the world, but your mind will still flash these “old stories” in front of you, and in addition, perhaps, project futures ones with endings not to your liking. The challenges that are before you can be called “seeing the divinity in another” or “practicing forgiveness”, which are actually “seeing the divinity in you” and “practicing forgiving yourself”. In a given moment the outer or the inner focus might prove easier to move through.
Think of those areas that are the most difficult for you to accept. You all have your own hot spots, but I will dangle a few in front of you. Some are general while others feel more personal. The general might include someone using their power in a way that seems to hurt many people. So you blame and are angry at politicians, businessmen, or criminals. On a personal level it may be an individual who seems to have insulted you, who doesn’t return your love as you wish them to, or who judges you – which makes it hard to see them as divine. We want to remind you that all of this is you. Nothing else you perceive to be out there is separate from you. It is all your creation. When someone is acting in a way that you don’t approve of, that is you acting. It is you that you don’t approve of. If you pretend that isn’t the case and you assume that there really are others capable of hurting you without your permission, then you are truly stuck in an endless cycle of pain, negative emotion, and helplessness. This will continue lifetime after lifetime until you agree to take responsibility. You are the creator of your earthly experience. You are manufacturing these events in an attempt to externalize all the judgments you hold about yourself. You do this in a futile attempt to hide your failings from God. You hope that God will punish them instead of you. All of this is, as we have told you, a misunderstanding. God does not and could not judge you. You are innocent and have nothing to be judged for or to hide. However, as long as you perceive another person’s actions as real and believe that there are victims, you aren’t able to let go and forgive.
The first thing that we would suggest to you is to remember that the forgiveness you are asked to perform is always a forgiveness of self. Seeing the divinity in another is always seeing your own divinity. You cannot see the divinity in another if you are not seeing it in you. On the other hand, if you judge another and cannot see them as divine, then you cannot hold yourself as divine. It doesn’t matter where you start, whether you focus on the forgiveness and divinity of yourself or the other person. It is all one. It is all your creation. So, now use your creation. You may have chosen another to be the scapegoat, but instead you can see them as your mirror. The reflection they provide can allow you to see the self-judgment you have been avoiding. Now that you can see clearly, you can forgive yourself and replace the judgment with love. You can feel gratitude for what your mirror has shown you. You can thank them (silently) and feel love for them for providing such service. The easiest way to forgive another and to see the divinity in them is to love them. As you observe them or think of them, send them love. Keep sending them love. If your ego mind wants to throw anything else in there that is less than divine, you let that go and return to love. Love them not because they have earned it; love cannot be earned through actions. There is no logic in this love. If your mind demands a reason, the reason is that they are divine. Wherever there is divinity there is only love.
Much of this process is private. If the other individual is at a physical distance, your process has to be private. However, if the other person is right in front of you the situation is much different. Does this mean that you smile and lovingly accept whatever the other is doing? Not necessarily. A Course in Miracles speaks of something called “level confusion”. This recognizes that while you are in a body you are always acting in part from the ego. The choices you are making to forgive, to see divinity, and to act from love – to choose Spirit over ego – can only be made from the ego mind. If you fully accepted your divinity, there would be no choice to be made. This choosing of Spirit, of love, has to be made over and over. When you are confronted with a challenging situation with another, it can only be because you projected your “old story” upon them. This is difficult to deal with in that moment. It will be hard to speak to them without projecting. Deep inside you may believe that you deserve to be punished. I am not suggesting that you stand there and receive your punishment. That is not the teaching. Listen to Spirit as best as you can and do what comes to you to do in that moment. It might be to say no to whatever is coming at you. Later, when you work with the residual energy of what happened, is the time to see how everything was your creation. You do this not by blaming yourself instead of the other, but in acknowledgment that it could be no other way, that everything happens to help you see your divinity – as well as the other person’s divinity. No matter what happened or how you or they reacted, as you look back on the situation focus on loving them and yourself. When we talk of this loving, we mean without qualification. The love is never earned; it is an automatic deserved response to everyone in every situation. Nothing can disqualify them or you from this love. If something seems to be unlovable, that is your own self-judgment – take responsibility and replace it with love. In the end, forgiveness is the realization that there is nothing to forgive.
There is a stereotype of a parent who loves their child so much that, even as an adult, nothing their child could do could cause that parent to drop their loving defense. No matter what the world’s judgments may be, they stand fully behind their child. The child may lie, steal, murder, or rape, but the parent says, “Oh if you knew the heart of my child, you would love and forgive them, too.” This is what you are aiming for. Those of you who have children likely make exceptions for them you wouldn’t make for others. Make everyone your child. See them all as innocent babies. That is what you are surrounded by – millions of innocent babies. That’s all that you are – an innocent baby.
If you want to see others as divine, the first thing is to do everything you can to think of them with love. Let go of any judgments you notice yourself holding, and see them lovingly. If you are in their presence, act however you act. Away from the moment, let go of all of that. Hold that person and yourself to the highest love you can find. This is what opens the divinity in them to you. Now, full forgiveness becomes possible, knowing that in truth there is nothing to forgive, there is only divinity – knowing that none of this has anything to do with them, that it is all about you. The answer to today’s question is unconditional love, feeling it for others and for yourself. Your ego mind always tells you that you should have handled things differently. Of course, you are in a body. You act from the ego. But, that is not the truth of you. You are divine. What would it be like to feel God’s unconditional love all of the time? Feel that now. Give that to yourself. Give that to everyone else. That’s all we of you now. It is a very simple thing, just open up to that love. It is the only reality. God loves you.
God Blesses You
Sanhia
What spiritual practices should I be doing? (Part 2)
In the previous message we began discussing the question of what spiritual practices you should do, focusing primarily on those that touch on the physical and mental planes. It is highly recommended that you go back and read that message if you have not already done so, or as a review before continuing today. Now we will talk about the emotional plane. One suggestion that is often proposed as a spiritual goal is to suppress any feelings other than those of unconditional love. The attempt to do this encourages some to choose celibacy and/or to live in a meditative retreat. This seems to make it easier to hold only the highest feelings, only love. If that is your goal, you may suppress or avoid every other kind of feeling, so you will carry anger, fear, judgment, jealousy, and other negative emotions around with you unconsciously. You won’t want to see them and there may be no triggers present, no mirrors to reveal them to you. Other sources will encourage just the opposite. They will say that the best spiritual practice is to vomit all of your feelings on whoever is around you, to not hold anything back. This idea holds your raw emotions as something pure. Both of these approaches consider your fear and negative feelings to be real. The monkish approach is “out of sight out of mind” while the purging approach assumes that when you express the emotions, they are gone. Neither ends up working very well. In the former case, the emotions will eventually surface; in the latter they will surface over and over again. Expression does not release the fear because you still believe it is real.
There is nothing wrong with fear; it is simply an illusion. If you hide from it, you make it real for yourself. If you push it out on another, you also make it real. The only way to deal with an illusion is to go into the heart of it to see what is there. Face your fear. If you stay with your fear, you will eventually realize it is only illusion. It will disappear. It will transform. Only love will remain. This is why we recommend that you do the five-step process. Love is not something you find by running away from fear or by casting it off of yourself, it is what you realize when you go to the bottom of whatever is before you. It is absolute truth. It is all there is. Love is what is left when all illusion is gone. There are no words to describe it. Love is not a state you can try to attain. All you can do is face all your fears until only love remains. When you are in the illusion of fear, consciously or unconsciously, the fullness of love cannot be experienced. Do the process or simply ask Spirit to support you in facing your fears. There is nothing wrong about holding on to your fear, but it is no fun and leaves you feeling separate from God. The five-step process will not guarantee your ascension. It is not a spiritual practice. It is a tool, but it is not intended as a crutch. Facing your fears simply makes the period of time easier to bear, while you are in a body waiting to realize your divinity. We are also not suggesting that you drop any or all of your spiritual practices. If you enjoy them, if you are guided to do them – do so. Try not to feel needy about them; let go of any attachment to your practice.
Last, but not least, is the spiritual plane. Here we have meditation and prayer. Many teachings suggest that if you meditate often enough and long enough, you will realize your divinity. The Buddha did it, didn’t he? If you are not being successful, you must not be doing it good enough or hard enough. Good luck with that. Of course there are wonderful benefits from meditation. You can have improved health, more calmness, more energy, more focus. Most of this, however, relates to making the illusion better. The true heart of meditation is in giving everything to Spirit. To meditate with a goal of improving your experience in a body will keep you anchored in the physical. The focus is on giving to Spirit rather than to the ego. Giving importance to this practice is an act of the ego. Give up any pride connected to the length and depth of your practice. Do it from your heart; release the need for a schedule, for an enforced discipline.
The bottom line is that whatever plane your spiritual practice is connected to, if it has as a goal to improve your life, you are trying to create heaven on earth. Thus you will always be at cross purposes, because you created earth to hide from heaven, to hide from God. As you are deciding how to focus your time and energy, how to realize your spiritual goals, a constant question to hold is whether or not the practice is designed to enhance your physical existence. If that is the goal – be honest with yourself , there is nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy yourself – this is not the same as choosing to realize you ascension. Ascension is letting go of the physical. This does not come through reaching physical goals. It also does not come about through the denial of the physical. Fasting, celibacy, and physical discomfort make you more aware of your body, not less. This is why the Buddha spoke of the middle way. Both lack and excess leave a focus on the material. As you become aware of a particular importance you are giving to any spiritual practice, remind yourself that it doesn’t matter. What you choose to do or not to do really makes no difference. As you realize that it doesn’t matter, it becomes much easier to give it to Spirit. If you think it matters, the ego is attached to doing it right. If there is no “right” choice, then why not trust Spirit to choose for you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You can trust that your ego choice will leave you rooted in your body, feeling separate from God.
You may doubt your ability to hear Spirit. Be willing to do nothing until you hear something. What if you fear you may not hear Spirit correctly? Trust and follow what you hear. Then keep listening. Following Spirit is not a one-time thing. It becomes the only constant in your spiritual life. The more you trust, the better you will hear. What evolves is a great simplicity. The ego’s attempt to control all planes and make all the right choices is exhausting. You never get it figured out. There is always a new idea, a new direction, a new discipline. You will always be second guessing yourself. Giving it to Spirit makes it so easy. You simply accept that you don’t know and trust whatever comes. If you have fear, face it. If you have confusion, give it to Spirit until you become mindless, only following the guidance of Spirit. Nothing else matters. Spirit might suggest that you follow some spiritual practice for a time. That is guidance for you now, not for anyone else or for always. Spirit is always in the now. All guidance is, at best, half-truths, designed to lead you out of your ego mind. Let it. Let it be simple. Let it be God.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What spiritual practices should I be doing? (Part 1)
Many of you wonder about what spiritual practices you should be doing. What is necessary? What is important if you wish to realize your divine self, if you want to ascend? What should you do to help let go of the illusion? I will start with the short answer. The short answer is, “Nothing is required”. To elaborate on this response, if you think that something is required, that is the ego speaking. If you think that you cannot possibly ascend without practicing a specific physical discipline – such as yoga or meditation – that is from the ego. If you think a perfect diet must be followed – such as vegan, macrobiotic, fruitarian, or breatharian – that what you eat will determine what happens to your soul, again you are listening to the ego. Jesus was quoted fairly accurately in the New Testament when he said that man is not defiled by what goes into his mouth, but by what comes out of it. You create impurity in your life through your expressions, not through what you eat. If you fear that something you are about to consume is not good for you, give it to Spirit to purify. That is the true purpose of praying before you eat.
Does this mean that it makes no difference what you do? Can you live at McDonald’s and never lift a finger? This is not what I wish for you to understand. Your body is an illusion. Ascension is about letting go of the illusion. If you think that taking care of your body is what is most important, then taking care of the illusion becomes your goal. You can succeed at taking care of your illusion so well that you could live forever or until you realize that the body has no meaning in and of itself. Its purpose is to help you understand that it has no purpose. It is merely a vehicle, so you take care of it like you would any vehicle. If you don’t listen to it and provide for what it is asking, it may not get you to your destination. Any other function you might give to your body gives it a reality which substitutes the illusion of the temporary for the immortal truth of you. In the meantime while you are experiencing this body, take care of it. If you are hungry – eat. Listen to what it wants. If it later communicates that it wishes you had not made that choice, perhaps you will choose differently the next time. But, ultimately it doesn’t matter what you eat. If your choice brings you discomfort, accept it as a gift and do the five-step process. When you have chosen ascension, everything that comes into your life has the purpose of guiding you to that realization. It is not your diet that is to be a constant, but your listening to the divine, your acceptance, and your trust. Have faith in the guidance you receive in each moment. If a book or a person suggests to you what you should eat, smile and let it go. Spirit never speaks in “shoulds”, that is the domain of the ego. The same thing is true with physical activity. If you come away from this saying you are not going to exercise your body because Sanhia said you don’t have to, you have missed my message. Basing what you do on what you think I have said is another way of placing your power outside of yourself. There is no particular physical activity that is required, but if your body is asking for movement – listen to it and move in a way that it desires.
We have been focusing on the body because it is the most obvious part of the illusion. That physicalness that you can see in the mirror and touch – and that others react to – seems to be you. But there are other aspects of you that may seem to demand correct spiritual practice. There is the mental focus where you may believe that you need to think the right thoughts, that you should only think positively, and that your choices must be aligned with the highest truth. It is good to be wary when the mind uses words like “should”, “need to”, or “must”. That is the language of the ego. If your desire is to always manifest things in the world that please you, then choosing the highest thought is a “must”. But choosing goals in the physical world, again, puts the focus upon the illusion, not on your divine nature. If you are afraid to think wrongly, fear will run your life. There is a larger scope to this picture around spiritual correctness with your thinking. It assumes that you know. I want to be the first to let you know, in case nobody else already has done so, that you don’t know. You haven’t got a clue. If you knew, you would not be here in a body. If you think you know, you are being guided by illusion – also known as the ego. The only thing you can do is to give your mind to Spirit. Whatever response you then receive is your message for the moment, but not the truth for all time. It may not be your message a week from now, and is certainly not anybody else’s message. Your mind may find this a tough assignment. How can you know the truth if it keeps shifting and we are not all sharing the same one? It is not the truth that changes, truth is the only thing that never changes, but the words used can never express the full truth. The question then becomes one of which “half-truth” serves you best in this moment. All you can receive is a piece of the truth, which always contains its own contradictions. The guidance for you in this moment may be total insanity for another to follow. Each person receives only the guidance that is appropriate for them at that moment. When you are ready for the full truth, you will be beyond words, and likely beyond any need for a body.
We wish to also deal with the emotional and spiritual/intuitive planes, but I think you have plenty to work with for now, so we will continue in the next message. The bottom line for now is that if you are feeling any fears or pressures around performing as you “should” with your spiritual practice, you can let all of that go. There is no right way. There is just your way, and nobody else can truly tell you what that is. So, follow your guidance and trust what comes back to you. It is all perfect. It is better than you could ever plan. It is divine and so are you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
When should I share my spiritual perspective with others?
A question that comes up for many people on their spiritual path is how much of their experience and knowledge is it appropriate to share with others. On the one hand, you may be looking for support from others because your new beliefs are not reinforced by the mass consciousness. You may be seeking the assistance of cohorts to be able to be strong enough to hold on to your contrarian beliefs. On the other hand, you might feel that you have received some benefit from the ideas you are holding and wish to share them with friends because you love them and wish for them to avoid suffering.
As you are realizing the truth about your divine nature, about the world being an illusion, about there being no such thing as wrong and right, about death not being real, and about your fear of God – as you are realizing that you wish to listen to Spirit instead of the ego, you will experience quite a struggle. The mass consciousness not only does not agree with you, but thinks you are both crazy and dangerous to think such things. If you share these ideas randomly with people you are likely to attract strong negative responses. We want to look at this, not because there is a right or wrong way to act, but because we wish to support you in being efficient in letting go of fear and in living in love and peace, experiencing the least amount of pain possible. When people attack you for your beliefs, you feel pain, perhaps anger and/or fear. Our suggestion is this: There is a saying, “discretion is the better part of valor”. In other words, when in doubt don’t say anything. It may be better to hold it within and to work it out yourself than to share it with others, unless you have strong guidance to speak.
If you do decide to share with another, ask yourself what your motive is. For the present, let us assume that your reason for communicating is your desire to receive support. We’ll deal later with the issue of helping others. You have a desire to not feel alone in your process, to have comrades, fellow travelers, with whom you can honestly share your fears and the trials and tribulations of your spiritual path. Ask yourself why you wish to share with this specific individual who is before you. If the answer is that you want approval, you may be in for a rough time. This is connected to the expectations of conditional love. You may want to be loved for what you have to express. If you don’t get that response you may feel vulnerable and then judgmental toward them. Of course you can learn through all of this, but it is more efficient to notice your need for approval and work through that on your own. Again, use discretion. One way to create more safety is by joining groups aligned with your spiritual understandings. You can also wade into the subject slowly and carefully, so that you sense the openness of the other. No matter what you choose, you can’t do it wrong. You will learn from every choice and life will always offer you more opportunities. When you turn your guidance over to Spirit, the way becomes smoother.
Let’s go to the second point. As you are working on your spiritual path and gaining understanding, it is natural to want to help, guide, and inspire others. This opens up another can of worms. You have an understanding on a mental level that all of this in the physical world is an illusion, it is not real, and that it is your creation. Because you have that mental understanding does not mean that you know it to be true. If you did, you would likely leave your body now. You would have no further use for it. You would realize your ascension. For now, all of these are ideas, rather than knowingness. You don’t fully believe it. How do you get in touch with the part of you that does not believe? Notice where people around you don’t seem to be acting in their own self-interest. They might act like victims with sickness, relationships, or finances. You look at them and wonder why they would choose that. Before you decide to communicate that question, I want to remind you that you are seeing your mirror. It is to yourself that you wish to direct that question. Your job is to forgive yourself, as well as the other person, for not choosing divinity. If you were seeing the other person in truth, you would only see their divinity, as God only sees your divinity. Whatever else you think you are seeing is only your belief and fear that you are not divine. Be grateful for this gift that the other person has brought you, give silent thanks, and do the work on yourself.
To simplify things, we’ll say there are two different groups of people out there that you might be projecting these attacks upon. The first group is absolutely unaware of what they are doing, of their divinity, of the fact that they are hiding from God in this imaginary world. They do not want to hear anything you might have to offer about this subject, and will likely grow irritated and angry with any attempts by you to educate them. Again, your job is to do the work on yourself. The second group is composed of those people who do have some spiritual understanding. They may be working with A Course in Miracles, or these messages, or some other form of teaching where they realize that they are not their bodies and this physical world is a mirage. Like you, they are students and they have fear and doubt. They want to believe, and it is a struggle. Do you choose to help those people when you observe them acting as victims? The answer again is, when in doubt – – no. Discretion is still the better part of valor. First of all, the person does have awareness that their action or situation goes against the teaching. Is it your job to rub their face in that? Do you wish to add to their guilt? What happens when you point out what they are doing is that you may be projecting your own judgment, anger, and fear upon them. You are attacking them, and really, yourself. So be honest. Cut out the middleman. Let them alone and clean your own house. It is never about them. It is always about you. You are the creator of your life experiences. Again, give them silent thanks. Take responsibility. Forgive yourself and them; do the five-step process.
Does that mean to never try to support somebody else? There are two times when verbalizing spiritual advice might be appropriate. The first is when another person comes to you and asks support for what they are dealing with. Even then, it serves both of you to be very careful. Are you sharing in blame or anger or judgment? The truest way to support another is to give it to Spirit, asking what It would have you say. Listen and get out of the way. As you are talking, remain humble, remembering that this is your lesson as well. Spirit is talking to both of you, but first to you. When you are preparing to take off on an airline, you are given profound spiritual advice. The flight attendant informs you that in the unlikely case of a loss in cabin pressure, yellow oxygen masks will drop from above you. Those who have children or other dependent people with them are instructed to take care of their own mask first, before attempting to assist another. What a wonderful metaphor that is. You can’t help anybody without first helping yourself. Whatever message is coming, it is for you first. Try it on and work with it.
If someone asks for help, take your time. Tell them you want to go inside first. Speak when you are ready and share with humility. It can be helpful to give the person at least three acknowledgements or appreciations before offering any advice. AND, it is always better to say nothing than to come from an energy of fear. If you are going through life and confronting each fear as you meet it, you are more likely to be prepared in each moment to support those who come asking for help, and others are more likely to be coming – drawn by your energy. You are living with your oxygen mask on, constantly drawing the breath of Spirit. If the other does not ask for help, love them and accept them exactly as they are. Silently thank them for whatever mirror gifts they are presenting and be compassionate. What help you offer in these cases is your energy and your love. If you hold another in judgment, they will feel that, rather than love. It is always appropriate to share appreciations. Give every situation to Spirit. You might be guided to say something. Take care of yourself first. Love yourself without conditions. Forgive yourself. That is what God does for you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is the difference between a special and a holy relationship?
One of the goals of most people, including those on a consciously chosen spiritual path, is to find that special relationship, that special person, that soul mate that completes you. My job today is to throw cold water on that dream. This topic, like many we discuss, could be covered in book length form, but we will narrow the focus to making a few observations.
Let’s start at a basic level. A pattern that tends to happen in relationships is that you are attracted to another person for certain qualities that they seem to have. Perhaps it is a physical attraction; you like the way they look. It might be their smile or there is an incredible sexual energy between the two of you. Maybe you are drawn to them intellectually; you like the way they think and you enjoy talking together. It may be common interests that draw you together – you share a love for music or the outdoors. Perhaps the connecting bond is of a more spiritual nature. In all likelihood, it is some combination of these different possibilities. What commonly happens is that the thing that initially attracted you eventually becomes an issue that you have difficulty dealing with. What you once loved now gets under your skin. Perhaps you then decide to leave and try another relationship. You go through the same cycle again and again. Or at some point you might decide to settle with the relationship you are in, rationalizing that overall, the pluses overrule the minuses. Maybe you have a lot of time invested in the relationship, and/or children, and/or shared property or a business. But these days, people are more likely to leave, choosing a relationship that fits them better.
Why does this pattern occur? Why don’t we just fall in live and live together happily ever after? Let’s focus on two reasons. First, as we mentioned, you are drawn to this other person because of certain qualities they possess. You want them to continue to be that way, to please you as they initially did. This is what we call conditional love – as opposed to loving them simply for whom they are, allowing their sense of identity and person-hood to evolve and change. Instead you love them for whom you perceive them to be, and if they perform in any other way you are upset and feel betrayed. Then you may begin to look around. The truth is that they never were who you thought they were. You projected upon the other person what you wanted to see. Conditional love is the first major roadblock to creating a successful relationship. The other person is not acting as you wish them to; this is not acceptable.
The second challenge is a little more subtle. You are looking for someone to make you whole. There may be thoughts such as “I can’t live without you”, or “You are my better half”, or “We complete each other”. You are thereby expressing the judgment that in order to be truly happy, you require someone else’s loving approval. We call that codependency. You depend on somebody else to be satisfied. You have a need for the other, which brings on an anger directed at them for that dependency. It is a place where you can’t win. Part of you wants to push the other away and the other part can’t live without them and wants to hold on. It sounds pretty hopeless and sad. How can one ever have a successful relationship?
The relationships we have been talking about are special relationships. You hold the other as being more special than all other people. It’s the flip side of you not being enough. You make them more than enough, so they must eventually let you down. You are not seeing yourself as divine. You cannot experience your divinity and, at the same time, have a need for a special relationship. Special relationships are built upon your fear of and separation from God. They stem from the belief that you have to be special in order for God to forgive you. Since God never judged you, no amount of specialness will do the trick. There is no need to earn forgiveness. God loves you unconditionally. However, the ego believes that if you can find somebody special who also believes that you are special, maybe God can find you special, too. If that specialness ceases to exist, what is God going to do to you?
The resolution of this quagmire is in seeking a holy relationship rather than a special one. A holy relationship is grounded in unconditional love. You have no expectations for the other person; you hold no judgments. No matter what your partner does, you love and accept them. This thought brings terror to the hearts of most people. It brings on fears of being a helpless victim. I want to remind you that your partner is your mirror. Whatever you judge in them, you judge in yourself. You can use your desire to control or change them to instead forgive and love yourself for whatever it is you perceive in them. Acknowledge that this is you. The ego wants to pretend it is not. The ego wants to point the finger so that you can stay special in God’s eye. The ego wants the other to be the one punished. Take responsibility. Acknowledge that this is you and forgive yourself and your partner.
Accept that your record in choosing partners has been less than stellar. Give the job of attracting your next partner to Spirit. Your holy partner will have one function and one function only. That is to be aligned with you in realizing personal divinity. It is possible for you to have a holy relationship where your partner does not share that intention, but it puts all the weight on your shoulder because your partner is expecting a special relationship. For you to act in the “right” way for them all of the time will be a major challenge for you. They will not be happy to find you choosing God over them.
I will tell you quite honestly that if your intention is to be absolutely true to yourself and to love yourself unconditionally in order to realize your divinity, you have a real challenge to accomplish that within any relationship. There are few models out there in how to behave in a holy relationship. The mass consciousness only shows you special relationships as the ideal. In fact, you may find this work easier to do when you are not in a relationship. It is said that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I will modify that to say that when the person on the ascension path is ready, the partner will appear. Many of you have this thinking reversed. You seek the partner first, who will magically bring you to heaven, rather than first becoming what you wish to attract. When you get to the point where you realize you don’t need a partner to support your spiritual growth, you may attract one. Neediness will only attract a special relationship.
All that has been said up to this point is here to support you in being able to make the choice for a holy relationship. Once you have made that choice, you are really on your own. As mentioned, there are no models out there for how to proceed. You don’t know how to behave in a holy relationship. The only thing certain is that the ego will struggle to salvage something special out of it. All that you can do is to notice moment by moment where you have attachment to anything about your partner or the relationship and give it to Spirit. The holy relationship is fully guided by Spirit, as the special relationship is guided by the ego. To give yourself a fighting chance in your holy relationship, it is helpful if your partner and you have this as a shared, expressed intention and agreement between you. In this way you travel through the darkness together. You did not create this illusion and physical body to be experienced alone. You created other people so that you could project your guilt and fear on them. By yourself you could live in the illusion that none of that exists, but when you are in the presence of others, your judgments are inescapable. This allows you to see them and to take ownership of them. Your partner is always going to fulfill this function for you above all others.
When you intentionally take on the holy relationship, you learn to take 100% responsibility for everything that happens. If you allow yourself to be a victim to or in blame of your partner about anything, you are in illusion and denial. This is the challenge. It is also a great gift and a great opportunity. When two people choose to have a holy relationship, the ascension process is accelerated for each of them. It supports both in looking at the truth and in doing the required work. The irony and ecstasy of it all is that when you release the expectations of conditional love, you open up the possibility of enjoying full and complete happiness in the relationship. There is no limit to the upside of a holy relationship. The downside is no different than that of a special relationship. But, you have the momentum with you that comes from having chosen a holy relationship. Spirit is always there to support you. The perfect thing is always happening in your holy relationship to support your realization of your divinity. The only commitment that you can truly make in a holy relationship is to see divinity in your partner and in yourself in every moment, and to forgive and let go of anything that does not live up to that. That is God’s relationship with you always, except that there is no work involved for God. He always sees you as perfect.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Can you tell more about being in the now?
There is a lot of talk in spiritual circles about the “now”, such as “living in the now” or “be here now”. I hear confusion expressed about just what it really means to “be here now”. Where else could you possibly be? I am going to follow a few different threads in talking about time. It is always a confusing thing to discuss because the truth is that there is no time. So, we are talking about something that doesn’t exist, using words that can never express the truth. We have quite a dance to perform today, but then it usually is so with these messages. The truth of you, who always exists, does not fit into any concept of time you might hold. Always is a constant; there is no beginning or end. You think of things in time as having beginnings and endings, such as birth and death. You think of time in a continuum. If you consider reincarnation, you probably see your lifetimes unfolding in a sequenced order where you learn lessons and grow from incarnation to incarnation. From the human perspective of time, that seems to make sense. From the divine perspective without time, there is no order.
When we talk about the “now”, we are speaking of the eternal is-ness, that which is for all time, which is outside of time. When you begin to think of the ordering of events, with one thing coming before or after another, you are dealing with illusions and not divine truth. This is a very difficult concept to grasp, let alone to accept, when you are in a body. It always appears that “now” is this moment, but there is a past and a future. There are things that came before and events that will follow. If your intention is to experience your divinity, it is necessary to realize that this exists outside of time. The closest you can get to that understanding while you are in a body and your ego mind is running the show, is to try to be in the present moment, to attempt to remain in the “now” that you are experiencing – even though you remember a yesterday and anticipate a tomorrow. Simply hold the intention to let go of the focus on the past and the future. As fully and completely as possible you focus on this present moment. That is what “be here now” signifies.
Let’s shift gears and talk about the immediate benefits that are there for you on your spiritual path as you focus on the “now”. Time is one of the ego’s greatest tools in convincing you of your separation from God. When you look at the past it is almost always with a focus on victimhood and fear. This usually takes one of two forms. In the first, you look at the past and see how you were the victim, whether of your parents, a lover, an accident, abuse, and on and on. You focus on this mistreatment to which you were a victim, to justify the bad place where you are now. You recreate in the present the pain and suffering you experienced in what seems to be the past. On a practical level…stop doing that to yourself. What possible benefit can be brought to your “now” by recreating old pain? Actually, there can be a benefit. If you take this old pain you are recreating and transform it using the five-step process, your past has now been of service. The intention is to simply be here now. If the past intrudes on your present, transform the energy so that you can be here now.
There is a second manner in which the ego uses the past. The ego will pull a pleasant memory from the past and say, “Look how wonderful that experience was. You can never get it back again.” These pictures could be of your childhood, falling in love the first time, or the optimism of young adulthood. Those were the days my friend. Now, you can never relive them. The ego uses scarcity and fear to convince you that life will never be that good again, that the past is irretrievably lost. So, it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t with the past. Joyful memories of the past leave you with sadness and grief for what has been lost, while painful memories leave you totally helpless. Above all, these memories take you out of the “now”, and the “now” is where divinity lives.
The ego also plays two kinds of games with the future. One is the fear based vision of what might happen to you. You will get older and your body will break down, your relationship will end, you won’t have enough money, you won’t ever realize your dreams, you will get sick or injured, you will die, a loved one will die, and on and on. The ego has no end of fears of possible futures to flash before your eyes. Even if one or more of these scenarios were to play out in the future, it is not happening now. Why would you wish to replace the ecstasy of the infinite “now” with fear of future possible events? Whatever the past or future may or may not be, they are not here now. What is here now? Let that be your focus. The other game that the ego plays with the future is to dangle dreams in front of you. You will find your perfect partner, your financial problems will be solved forever, you will be healed, and on and on. Behind these dreams is a shadow warning you that you are just fooling yourself and the future will only bring more frustration.
So we come back to the “now”, and its truth is love. Fear belongs to time, to the past and the future. It is not part of the “now”. In the “now” there is only love. If you are experiencing fear you are either in the past or the future. Just knowing that can be a motivation to let go. Your ego warns that if you don’t remember the past it will repeat itself, but it is actually the memories themselves that bring about the repetition. The ego warns that if you don’t prepare for the future, you will only be a helpless victim of what will happen. And so, you make your present a hostage to your fear of the future.
It always begins with intention. You choose to be in the “now”. You choose to let go of the past and the future. When either of those illusions tries to invade your “now”, give it to Spirit. Spirit will handle your future. Spirit will bring you the highest thing to support the realization of your divinity. When the past comes creeping in, give that to Spirit also. If you are unable to let go of either the past or the future, it may be time to do the five-step process. Go into the fear and transform the energy now, into love, into the infinite “now”. Guidance is always there for you. Be comfortable in your ignorance. Trust Spirit. Support is always there for you. There is nothing real but love. It is in the infinite “now” that you realize your ascension. It is not in your future, and it certainly is not in your past. It is not about doing a lot of work and spiritual practices to earn your right to heaven. It is about being absolutely present and timeless. You don’t have to decide which door to choose. The “now” dissolves all doors. Nothing can take you where you want to go because you are already there. There is here. Be here now.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What if my “old stories” are good ones?
We have talked many times about changing your “old stories”, taking responsibility for the things that trigger pain and suffering in your life, and facing the fears connected to those stories using the five-step process. Many of you have done wonderful work in transforming these fears and experiencing more love and peace in your lives. This message is for you. If you have not yet chosen to take responsibility for your “old stories“, doing so may be the next step for you. For the rest of you, please read on.
It is not only the fear-based “old stories” that keep you stuck. All of your stories keep you mired. What do you mean by that Sanhia? There are stories that give you a positive feeling, stories like: “My intelligence is a great asset”, “I am good at healing my body”, “People like me and I get along well with others”, “I am beautiful (handsome)”, or “I have a wonderful primary relationship”. These are things that others might look on with envy. You may look at them and say that even though you have pain and crap in your life, you have this to feel good about. All of these feelings stand in the way of realizing your ascension.
We have talked some before about special relationships. It is not our purpose to go into that subject today, though we intend to cover it more fully in a future message. When you like things about yourself, as we have just described, or are happy about how things are working out in your life, it is like having a special relationship with yourself. You are seeing yourself as special. As with the sad stories, there is a basis of comparison. With the painful stories there is a sense that others are faring better than you are. With the success stories or positive qualities there is a comparison with those who have less. What you are creating is a sense of being special or different, whether that difference is felt as a positive or a negative. Behind all of this is a desire for God to notice how special you are. You are so special that God doesn’t have to punish you now. Either you are so good that God will want to reward you, or you are so bad that you are already punishing yourself (or is it God who is already punishing you?). These are just two sides of the same coin. The special relationship is the same as the un-special relationship. Neither is holy. They are either especially good or especially bad. But the holy relationship is divine and perfect as it is. You are perfect as you are.
You can thank Spirit for gifting you with whatever seems positive so that you can use it to realize your divinity, as you can also give thanks for whatever seems to bring you fear and pain, so that you can use it to realize the truth of who you are. The truth of you has nothing to do with your positive attributes or with your perceived weaknesses. You are absolutely divine and perfect as you are. Anything that seems to differentiate you from another is simply a gift from Spirit to support you in the realizing of your divinity and to offer as a gift to others in realizing their divinity. It is not that you can help others because you are so evolved; rather you thank Spirit for what is given you, knowing that the receiving is always connected with the giving to others. If you accepted the fullness of God’s love, you would give it to others. If you allowed yourself to receive the fullness of God’s love, you would realize your ascension. We do call you ascended now, because this love is always coming to you, at every moment of every day. It is only a question of your willingness to receive it.
When you hold yourself as special, you are holding yourself separate from others and from God. You are unable to receive the fullness of God’s love. You may feel that you don’t deserve it or you might think you are so good that you don’t need God. That is what got you here in the first place. That is the oldest story. It is even older than the story that you are not worthy and God is going to punish you. It is the story that you don’t need God. It is the crazy idea that you can create on your own, separate from God. That is the ego’s voice. When you have stories of being good at something, you are listening to the ego’s story. It is the ego saying you don’t need God.
As you let go of this story that you are so smart and competent, you don’t replace it with being so dumb and helpless. That is the ego, too. The Holy Spirit simply says “I am”. And that’s it. Nothing else is the truth of you. Or, if you wish, “I am love” or “I am loved”. Anything else is there to separate you from others and from God, and you are guaranteed to stay in hell until you let there be only God.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
#MeToo?
Today I would like to make some comments on world events, the things going on around you right now. One of the biggest current happenings, or what Ulla’s divine guidance calls “cosmic wind”, is around the energy that has acquired the label “#MeToo”. There are those points in time where there is a shift in mass consciousness. They are unpredictable and always come as a surprise. To those who have wanted the change, it has been much too long in coming. However, then it arrives with such a speed and power that it kind of takes the breath away.
I can give you a partial list of such “cosmic winds” in recent history. First was the civil rights movement in the United States. After centuries of being held down, suddenly those of African descent had the right to vote, to attend integrated schools, to hold higher paying better jobs, and to live in better neighborhoods. Not by any stretch of the imagination were the issues of prejudice, segregation, and inequality solved, but there was an enormous leap. Shortly after that another great leap occurred, this time for women’s rights in many parts of the world. For the first time in history, doors began to swing open to allow women to hold jobs in all fields and to rise to positions of power. This allowed them to have more financial independence and control of their lives, besides making it possible to pursue their dreams. This did not immediately create a level playing field in pay and opportunity, but the change was exponential. Much more recently, there came a rapid change in the acceptance of those who prefer same sex relationships. Less than seventy years ago, such actions not only caused one to be shunned in western society, but were grounds for imprisonment. Now, in many places, the right to marry, or at least to enjoy the same legal benefits, is afforded to same sex couples. Again, has all prejudice dissipated? Of course not, but in all three of these cases the mass consciousness quickly shifted. What had not been possible or legal was now protected by law and could happen.
Now we are on the threshold of another “cosmic wind”. Throughout much of history there was little legal or societal consequence for men who sexually mistreated women. This is not to say that there were not convictions for rape or assault, but they were the exception rather than the rule, and there was little to halt harassment. More likely to happen was that if a woman came forward with accusations, she became the “evil one” and her reputation suffered – not to speak of receiving retribution relating to her financial/career prospects – while the man denied everything. Now the tables have turned. It is hard to look at the news in the U.S. without seeing the story of the latest kingpin to be the recipient of multiple accusations of sexual abuse. Women feel empowered to speak up. Many who were afraid to speak out are now coming forward. Men are losing their positions and their reputations. This will make it far more difficult in the future for a man to get away with such behavior. The likelihood of prosecution will deter many from taking such actions. Laws are created to guide the behavior of those who are motivated by fear rather than love. Most people would not choose to do things that would bring harm to another. For the others, the threat of legal problems and of social rejection is necessary. That is what is in the process of occurring. Are women now fully protected? Of course not, but it is likely that safety will continue to expand. A leap has occurred.
Now let’s look at all of this from a spiritual perspective. For you as an individual to progress spiritually, it is absolutely necessary for you to listen to and honor your feminine side. This will guide you to a place of love and safety, a place where you can hear Spirit. The same is true for a culture. A society that cannot respect the feminine energy is doomed to spiritual frustration. The mass consciousness is not a happy one. The old saying “Happy wife, happy life” is apt. If a society serves the feminine, its spirituality and love will bloom. Remember that “feminine” and “female” are not synonyms. All people possess feminine and masculine energy.
There is another side to this coin. Before this “cosmic wind” blew through, the prevailing belief was that women are victims to men. Masculine energy cannot be trusted. If women feel empowered now to speak up so that they can fight the evil power of masculinity, it will be a long battle, one they will be fighting for the rest of their lives. Not all women have experienced “#MeToo”. They have not all experienced physical abuse. Think about what we have said in the past about victimhood and being the power in your life (https://channelswithoutborders.com/knowledge-base-by-theme/– select victimhood). Some women hesitated to speak out in the past because they felt guilty. It was not that they consciously welcomed the abuse, but the male energy defined it for them in that way. Some women felt guilty for being unable to say no. Above all they feared that the only way to get ahead or to support themselves and their children was to surrender to this male power. They felt guilty because they had given their power away. Some women, however, refused to give away their power, or did it once and learned from the experience. We would encourage the “#MeToo” energy to be not just, “I have been abused”, but more importantly “Me too! I will take the power in my life. I will not be a victim. There is nothing that I need to do, that I do not want to do, in order to create what I wish to have in my life.” This is not an either/or situation. You do not need to sacrifice yourself to receive what you want. Work with your fears with the five-step process. Give it to Spirit. Ask for the peace you want in your life.
This “cosmic wind” is supporting the release of a great deal of anger, vindictiveness, and judgment toward these male perpetrators. We recognize the pain you are feeling. There is no judgment about it. Feel free to express it and allow it to move. Then let it go. If you hold on to the anger, your blame will eat away at you. If you seek revenge, then as you sow so shall you reap. If you have the awareness that your judgment is always ultimately of yourself, perhaps it will be easier to forgive. The forgiveness is infinitely important. It is not a question of wrong or right. If you hold the energy of judgment, you will be held victim to it. The cycle continues. It does not serve you. You can also work with Ho’oponopono.
We want to remind you that this is an illusion. This physical world, full of drama and stories, is not real. They will become nothing when you leave your body. They are nothing now. Your job is to realize your divinity. Here. Now. God would never ask you to sacrifice your divinity for any reason. The fear of being controlled by the masculine energy is really the fear of God. God is neither male, controlling, nor vindictive. That is only a projection of your fear. God knows only unconditional love, has no judgment, asks nothing of you, and offers everything. Choose love over fear. Come home.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Do I need to transform all of my fears before I can ascend?
We will continue this month with the theme of ascension. Many of you are doing a wonderful work here, facing your fears and perhaps dealing with them through the five-step process. When the energy in your body is transformed from fear to love, the transition is permanent. This does not mean that you may not create more fear in the future, but if you have the intention of aligning with and giving everything to Spirit you are not as likely to manifest new fear energy in your body. There is, however the residual old fear that you are still carrying with you.
While I do not wish in any way to discourage you from continuing to work with the process to transform any fear that you become aware of, I do want to give you the following warning. You may believe in an “incremental” approach to ascension. You may have the idea that if you chisel away at your fear a little bit at a time there will eventually be nothing left and you will realize your ascension. I want to give you a different way to visualize this. Those of you who have studied math in the past may remember the image below, or perhaps it will just trigger your math phobia. There is a function in geometry which generates an asymptote. This is a straight line that is approached by a curved line. The curved line gets closer and closer to the asymptote without ever touching it. The distance between the curve and the asymptote continues to be cut in half, but, in infinity, the curved line never reaches the asymptote. Close, oh so close, but no cigar. Cutting the distance in half will never fully eliminate it.
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Let’s look at how this relates to your ascension process. Though there is a finite amount of negative fear energy carried in your body, the five-step process also transforms it geometrically. You may think that if you keep chiseling away it will all disappear, but this is like the asymptote. It represents your ascension, while the curved line measures the fear you are continuing to transform. You keep getting closer and closer to realizing your divine self, but never fully realize it. The upside is that as you approach the awareness of your divine self, you experience more joy and less pain in your life. You likely find yourself providing more of your divine service for others. Your ego is less of an irritant. But you don’t fully realize your divinity.
Again, I am not suggesting that you stop working with your stuff. If you feel pain or fear, by all means reduce the pressure. Transform it into love. This leaves you much more capable of hearing Spirit and following its direction. What I would encourage you to let go of is the thought that facing your fears is enough. It is not by your work that you realize your ascension; it is by the grace of God. If it is not about eliminating all of your fear, what is it about? It is about giving everything to Spirit. In A Course in Miracles Jesus speaks of the sacred moment. This is when you absolutely experience the oneness with God. It is not something that can be forced into being. It happens when you give up all intention and become one with whatever Spirit is presenting. This realization does not require that you be free of all fear. You do not need to work and work until every last drop of fear is squeezed from your body. As we explained above, that is not going to happen. You can only approach that point, but can never reach it. There is no magic point on your curved line where you suddenly jump over to the line of infinity (divinity). There is no order. I can’t look at each of you and measure how close you stand to realizing your divinity. Your position on the curved line measures nothing about the timing of your ascension. It is only about surrendering to the sacred moment, about being open to Spirit and to the grace of God.
But Sanhia, you may be thinking, you are beginning to sound like a broken record. Give it to Spirit. Give it to Spirit. Is there anything else? Of course! If you are in pain, do the process. There is no reason for you to suffer. If you are pain free, but wondering what to do next – you give that thought to Spirit. There is nothing for you to do. Anything that you might choose to do would only get in your way. Your only job is to get out of the way. That may sound like a double-edged sword; the thing to do is not to do. How can you think about not doing? That seems crazy. Of course it is. Your entire creation is crazy. It is insane. Your mind can never think its way out of it. Enjoy your insanity, and give it to Spirit. There is nothing else to do, nothing to worry about. Any attempt to realize your ascension comes from the ego. It comes from the assumption that you are not who you are. It assumes that you are separate from God, when you are not. Only the ego can have that thought. The truth of you knows your divinity. The good news is that you are off the hook. There is nothing you have to do, nothing you have to worry about. Listen to Spirit. That Voice will remind you of the truth. You are already ascended.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
When am I finally going to experience my ascension?
The basic topic of all my messages is ascension, the realizing of your divinity. For some of you, this is a rather new concept or one that you haven’t explored deeply. If that is the case for you, I suggest that you go back and read some of the earlier messages that deal with this subject, either on the website or in the book God Blesses You: Ascension Message from Sanhia. Some of you who have been working with ascension for some time have the questions “When am I finally going to realize my divinity? How long is this going to take?” For those of you who read the message last month, the short answer to those questions is to give them to Spirit, as you give everything to Spirit. You give it to Spirit in the spirit of ignorance. You don’t know anything about the timing or importance of the realization of your ascension. If you are looking at it from the ego standpoint, your ascension is about you. “When do I get mine? I don’t give a crap about anybody else! When am I going to get out of this hellhole, get rid all of this shit in my life, stop being born again to parents who – well you know how parents are – and bring an end to teachers, police, governments, war, and rape? When do I get out of all of this?” Even though you might deny that you look on your ascension in quite that light, if you are honest with yourself you really do. You might not word things in quite that way, because you want to convince God that you are such a saint, but there is ego selfishness and separation involved in any desire to experience your divinity now. When you feel that urgency, you can never experience your divine perfection, because you are not coming from the truth of you.
We started with the short answer, now it is time for the medium depth and length response. You absolutely need to give the timing to Spirit and give up all attachment to when you will realize your divinity. This is not your decision. That belongs to Spirit. If it were up to you, the choice would really belong to the ego. But, the ego can never choose oneness. Its existence is based on separation. Ascension is about realizing oneness. To demand something from Spirit is an act of separation. This keeps you stuck where you are. You can’t possibly realize your ascension until you don’t care whether you experience it or not. You are absolutely unattached. Some of you have said to me that you really want to heal some problem. Perhaps it is with a health issue or finances or relationships. When these desires are expressed, I look you in the eye (as much as I am capable of doing that) and say, “What do you want more; to realize your ascension or to heal that issue?” If you choose the worldly desire, I encourage you to ask Spirit for support, but remind you that you will continue to live in hell, no matter what Spirit does. Until your desire for ascension is the number one thing in your life, it will not occur. You will continue to cycle through incarnations until your priorities shift. There is no judgment of you involved. You are welcome to take as long as you wish. On the other hand, if you are one who has chosen ascension, and you have surrendered everything else to Spirit, it is time to surrender your desire for ascension also. The realization of your divinity will happen at the perfect moment. Your only job is to be present, to listen to and follow Spirit.
Now let’s move on to the more fully developed answer to this ascension timing question. Spirit has a master plan for you and for every other human. You can choose to play your role in that master plan or you can listen to ego. To fully play your role you give everything to Spirit. You are then told what to do and you do it. Your ego fear is that relinquishing direction to Spirit will leave you forced to go against your own will. Actually, your will and Spirit’s are one, but you are only partially aware of what yours truly is. There may be significant things for you to do in a body in order to support others in bodies in following their part of the divine plan. If you were to realize your ascension today, to leave behind this physicalness, you would be unable to carry out this part of the plan. You couldn’t fully play your role. You could work as I do, but that is not what Spirit has set up for you right now or you would be doing it. Your task is to listen to Spirit to find out what your present purpose is and then do it. In previous messages we have called this Right Livelihood. It is doing what you came here to do, absolutely and with full integrity. The only way that you can do this is to acknowledge that you have no idea what you are here to do. Whatever you think it is, that is at best only a piece of it. Let Spirit guide you. Spirit will present you with what you are here to do and what to say. You have a gift to offer to the other divine beings around you. It is the same gift that Spirit is offering you. First you receive it from Spirit; then you give it others. In fact you don’t fully receive it until you do share it with others. The giving and the receiving are one, as are you and the others, along with Spirit and God. Spirit will let you know when It is through with you, and you have completed your function on earth. It is on Spirit’s time, not yours. You don’t have a say in this. Your say would be from the ego.
Many of you believe that your ascension is something that you earn, perhaps through good works. Your ascension is not earned. It is extended to you through the grace of God. When you fully receive the grace of God, which comes when you let go of everything else; you realize your divinity. The grace of God is with you now, and has always been with you. But you are not receiving it. It is this process of surrendering to Spirit that allows you to open to the grace of God. It comes to you through the messages and guidance of Spirit. As you share with others what Spirit has given, you begin to realize this grace, not as a learning, but as a knowing. How much sharing will it take until you know? Give that to Spirit. It is none of your business. That is the question of the ego, which only wants to know the answer so it can throw a monkey wrench into the gears to slow down the process. The true appearance of God is the disappearance of the ego. It is not for you to know. It is not for you even to wonder. Your ascension is part of a divine plan. It will come at the perfect time for the ascension of all. Nobody’s ascension is complete until everybody’s ascension is realized. It is not just about you. We are all one. If you are still in a body, that is Spirit’s purpose. If you are concerned about the status of your body – your health or your aging process – give that to Spirit. You can’t choose to leave your body in order to experience your divinity, because there is nothing real for you to leave. The body is an illusion. You can’t leave something that is not there. When your desire can only be fulfilled by ascension, you have given the body an importance that it doesn’t have. You have created an impossible situation. If you are ascended you would have no desire to be ascended, because that is all that you are and have always been. The desire proves that you are in illusion.
The only way to make the jump is to let go of every part of the illusion and give it to Spirit. Receive back whatever Spirit sends you. When the next confusion is felt, give it to Spirit. And on and on until there is nothing remaining to let go of and Spirit is fully directing your life. When the time comes where the Oneness benefits by you no longer being in a body, you will realize your ascension. In the meantime, just let go and enjoy the ride.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What do you mean when you say to give it to Spirit?
People have a variety of reactions when I suggest they give something to Spirit. Some are upset at the thought and express that it feels like I want them to give their power away. Does that mean they don’t trust themselves? Others are willing but don’t know how to go about giving something to Spirit. Still others make the attempt but wonder how they can tell what Spirit’s response is. In reality, you have but two choices. You can give something to Spirit or you can give it to the ego. That’s it. You may think it is you alone making the decision, but if you haven’t given it to Spirit, “your decision” is really made by the ego.
You are not expected to be sure what it means to give it to Spirit or how what Spirit decides is different than what the ego might choose. It can be very confusing. The ego has been running your life, and your lives, for what feels like an eternity to you. The place to truly begin in meeting God and finding your divinity is to accept that you don’t know anything. Whatever you think you know is probably wrong. Even if you are right, you are still just guessing. And you probably won’t guess right the next time, nor have any certainty of knowing when you have made a lucky stab at truth. You won’t be able to take advantage of being right, because you will follow it up with so many wrong choices. If you knew how to realize your divinity you would have done it long ago. But here you are, in confusion, in pain. Even if you have managed to minimize some of that discomfort, you are still here, not experiencing your divinity. The question is, “How do you get there?” Your answer is (let’s see who has been paying attention), “Sanhia, I don’t know”. When you know that you don’t know, you know a lot. You know more than most people. If you also know that when you don’t know, you give it to Spirit — you know more than almost everyone.
When you give it to Spirit, you let go of it, whatever “it” is, whatever the confusion is, whatever the choice is, whatever the weakness is, whatever the pain is. You let go of it and give it to Spirit. You don’t think about it anymore. You stop worrying. If you notice yourself doing either of those two things, give it to Spirit. Again! It is no longer your responsibility. Keep giving it to Spirit until you have let go of it. Don’t tell Spirit when it has to give you an answer or how it should look. Have no expectation of the form or the means. You don’t know what it will look like. You don’t know what Spirit is going to do. Remember, you don’t know anything. All you do is trust. Whatever comes into your life next is Spirit’s response. What do you do if what comes into your life doesn’t look right, if you have a hard time receiving it? You give it to Spirit. That’s all you do. In between giving it to Spirit and feeling clear about the response, you remain a “happy idiot”. You don’t know anything, but you don’t care. Whether or not the guidance you receive makes happy sense to you, follow it. Do your best to trust. If that is hard to do — I’m waiting for the drum roll — give it to Spirit. How much simpler can it be?
That’s what we mean by saying “Give it to Spirit”. It is an acknowledgement that the ego is never going to get you there. Never! Its suggestions will be endless. Do this. Do that. Meditate every day. Change your diet. Give up everything you enjoy. It has all kinds of ideas for how to realize your ascension, all of them guaranteed not to work because the ego does not believe that such a goal is attainable. If they worked, the ego would be out of a job, in fact out of existence. This is a great challenge for you because you believe so strongly that it is your effort, your will power, your determination, your spiritual wisdom, your good deeds…something from you that will lift you out of this hell. But it isn’t and it won’t. None of it! All that you can do is give it up to Spirit. That is all you can do. Your mind is absolutely helpless in getting you out of the grasp of the ego. The greatest pronouncements of the ego appear to come from the “outside”. The whole world agrees that death is certain and unavoidable. Who are you to fly in the face of that? It doesn’t matter how close to unanimity those around you are. If the choice is not what your heart most desires, give it to Spirit. That is the job for your mind, to learn to give everything to Spirit. Let go of everything else.
When you give it Spirit there is always a response. When It gives you an answer it is always for the now. Spirit may suggest something different tomorrow. Ego tends to give rigid orders. It tells you that there is only one way to do something and you should always do it that way. This becomes an idea of what to do. That is why spiritual practices don’t work. Spiritual practices are not from Spirit. They are always ideas from the ego. Rituals don’t work either. The ego embeds “should-ism” and guilt for non-performance. Even those of you who are working with A Course in Miracles might consider this. Jesus has no expectation that you be loyal to the Course every day. If you are having difficulty doing the Course one day, give it to Spirit. The proof of this discipline is not in its regular repetition, but in how you take it to heart in every moment. If you are doing that, you will find yourself constantly giving everything to Spirit. Enjoy the Course or give it to Spirit.
The goal is for you not to carry anything around with you. You are empty, light, and free. If this is not your experience, give whatever is weighing you down to Spirit. Say, “Spirit please handle this for me. Thank you.” It’s like having your own personal assistant. You all have special needs, so give them to your personal “spiritual” assistant. And let go. Be free.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
If the body is an illusion, why do I have one?
I have mentioned many times that the body, along with all physical manifestation, is an illusion. It is not real. It is not the truth of who you are. Sometimes people ask me, “Why do we even have a body? What is it all about? The body certainly seems real. If you pinch me it hurts. It seems like I have a body. If I run up against the wall, it feels solid. It’s there. If I go under water, I can only stay so long. What do you mean this is an illusion?” These are all very good points. The ego does an excellent job in asking good questions.
What is there to do is to find the source. When you have conflict in the world, one person making a response to another’s action, it is in reaction. This can go back and forth endlessly. Where is the source of all of that contention? Where does it begin? It is one of those chicken and egg questions. When you speak of reincarnation, you may say that you have something happening now because of something you did in a previous life. Why did you do it then? Well, you had a life previous to that, and so back it goes. Where is the source? If we go far enough back, you arrive at the first man and the first woman. Is that the source? The Bible will tell you its creation story. There were Adam and Eve. They were in paradise and everything was perfect. Then she tempted him. Actually, she was first tempted herself by the serpent. Who was this snake? The serpent encourages her to just eat of this apple. God said not to eat of the apple or there will be severe consequences. That’s the Bible story.
What is the real story? The serpent is the ego. The fruit was of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Upon eating the apple, good and bad appeared. That was the original illusion. They are not real, as the ego is not real. The god that kicks you out of heaven is not the real God. It is your guilt. All of that is part of the illusion that began then. You allowed this voice that was separate from God to have power over you. You decided that maybe truth was being spoken. The ego said to believe in good and bad. Spirit said this will separate you from God; more correctly, create the illusion of separation. Spirit didn’t threaten punishment, It warned of the illusion you would thereby be creating. This was what Christianity calls “original sin”. The sin is the belief in good and evil. It separates you from God. Out of this whole separation story, you, who were in truth One with God, created this illusion of physicalness, created a world that seemed real, but is fueled by the opposing energies of good and evil, or duality. You manifested bodies and disappeared into them to hide from God, forgetting your Divinity, believing that your body was the truth of who you were. You believed that this body that feels pain when you pinch it, and this wall that you can’t walk through, and this water which seems impossible to breathe in are very real.
Before we talk about what to do with these bodies on this earth, in this physicalness, the first thing to understand is that they absolutely are illusions. They are not real. You are real, but your body is not. God is real. The physical universe is not. If something does not last forever, it is not real. If it has a birth and a death; it is an illusion. All that is real is eternal. It is good news is that the world is an illusion. I say good news because most of you aren’t having such a great time in it. The news of its unreality should be welcome to you. Time is not real either. God is timeless. You don’t have to worry about how long this hell is going to go on because time doesn’t exist.
We come back to the original question. Why even have these bodies? The answer is that in order to fully realize your Divine nature and Oneness with God, you need to do it in a body in the physical world. In a sense, you have locked yourself into this world and only you can let yourself out. When you use up one body, because they are quite expendable, you eventually choose to create another. If you don’t realize the truth in that body, you create another, and another. You have already created countless ones.
The body is not something to be honored or revered. Though it is not Divine or real, it is a tool, a vehicle. You respect and take care of it because it is a required part of realizing your Divinity. You do it in a body. If you deny the body or fight the bodily desires, through severe fasting, defying sexual desire, eliminating music and dance, or even gouging out your eyes so as not to be distracted by physical beauty, you are giving power to the physical. You are saying that it has such control over you that you have to go to war with it in order to ascend. It would be more aligned with truth to hold the physical as neutral. It has no meaning one way or the other. But now you are in a body believing it is real, which all of you do even though you might have some awareness through reading things here or from other studies, such as A Course in Miracles. You haven’t had the full experience of your Divinity. If you had, you would no longer be with your body. While you still believe your body is real you can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. That won’t work for you, so you take care of it. Otherwise, you will just have to trade it in for another. The body is a tool, and you take care of your tools or they are of less use. You created your illusion of separation by creating the illusion that you were a body, so you create the end of the illusion through a body. It is that simple.
In the eyes of God, none of this ever happened. Or, we could say it happened in the wink of an eye. The ego says there have been billions of years of evolution, so many lifetimes, and so much trouble and pain. But, it is just a blink of the eye of God. As you created the illusion, God created the solution. He made the Holy Spirit. As the ego dispenses confusion and falseness in one ear, Spirit whispers truth in the other. At some point, you will choose to begin shutting out the ego and listening to Spirit. At some point this transition will become complete, and you give your life fully to Spirit. You let go of judgment, separation, and fear. You fully realize the truth. Then time begins to disappear along with the universe. We call that ascension. You do it while you are in a body. That is the only reason you have a body. There is no necessity for you to suffer in the body while you are completing this process. Suffering only comes from listening to the ego. God would have you enjoy every moment. As you are transforming fear into love you will experience less and less pain on all planes.
Begin by acknowledging the body is not you, is not real. Do this even if you don’t fully understand or believe it. Accept that everything the ego tells you is a lie (Book I: Message 77: How do I discern Spirit from ego?). Give intention to turn your mind over to Spirit. Ask It to keep you focused on the truth until that is all that is there for you. The ego will always give value to things in the physical world and have goals. You will have goals. Don’t put any value in them beyond holding them as tools for your ascension. Nothing of the world has any other value. Any additional importance you place on the physical will bring you pain and separation from God. Spirit will provide you with all your physical needs as you are realizing your divinity. It is that easy.
Good Now
Sanhia
Is spirituality a hobby for you?
For some of you, the study and pursuit of spirituality is one of your favorite pastimes. You love to takes classes, read books, have sessions, and so on. But, I want to ask you a question, something that only you can answer. Be brutally honest with yourself. Is spirituality a hobby for you? Perhaps I should say more about what I mean by hobby. A hobby is something that you enjoy doing and like to use your spare moments for. For some this time is filled by music, dance, art, handicrafts, camping and the outdoors, gardening, boating, carpentry, or one of numerous other interests. It is a way to enjoy yourself and to express your passions. When I ask if spirituality is a hobby for you, I am asking you to access what place it holds in your life.
Here are some indicators that spirituality might be a hobby for you. Perhaps you pursue something, have fun with it, take some classes, play around with it, and after a time begin to lose interest. Let’s say you begin with feng shui and switch your interest to tarot or perhaps to an art class. At any rate, you find your interest and enthusiasm are now focused on different pursuits. This may show that spirituality is a hobby. Another sign might be that you are working with a particular spiritual practice and it triggers some deep energy for you that is not comfortable to handle. If you decide that isn’t the fun that you signed up for and let it go, finding, perhaps, another means of expressing your spiritual interest – spirituality may be a hobby for you. Perhaps you have many sticks in the fire, dabbling with this and that but not going too deeply into anything in particular. Another indication is that, like hobbies in general, spirituality is a sideline for you. It is not something that is the forefront of your mind day-in and day-out. You focus on it some evenings or weekends, but day-to-day it is business as usual, with your focus on the “real world”.
If you consider all of this with “brutal” self-honesty and say “Yes, that is how it is for me and I like it that way”, we say “Fine” and we want you to enjoy this hobby and pursue it as fully as you desire. I will warn you that you will likely continue to see yourself as a victim. Your life will probably not live up to what you truly want it to be. If your response is that some of this is true for you, but you are not sure how you feel about it, let’s discuss it a little further. If you want to experience, spiritual growth or – beyond that, realize your ascension – spirituality as a hobby will never get you there. If it is a sideline for you, there will only be marginal changes in your life. Is that fine with you? If so, that is wonderful, but you probably won’t have an interest in reading further today.
If you are saying to yourself that you want to experience more, to transform your life, you may want to revisit your “spirituality as a hobby” patterns. If your pattern is to move on when the newness of a spiritual interest wears off, try staying with it. Follow it deeper. Perhaps that means dropping some pursuits so that you can really focus on a few or even just one. There was a previous message that explained how the ego likes to divide and conquer. What draws you the most? Focus your energy. If a spiritual direction begins to threaten the ego, reasons will be suggested to move on to something different. When you stay with a spiritual practice, things will eventually be uncovered that you would rather not look at. This is the point you have wanted to reach if you have expressed the desire to transform your life. This is your gift. This is the place to face your fear and walk into it. This is where your spiritual pursuit is upgraded from a hobby into your life. This is the magic moment.
Now is the time when you decide to put your spiritual development on center stage. It is no longer related to the sidelines, to the weekends. It is no longer a bit player, but the star of the show. Your path becomes a daily focus. You are aware of it when you wake up in the morning. As you go through your day you try to bring awareness into each moment. It is the last thing you meditate on at night. You are not always successful at holding the focus, but that is your intention. Everything now takes a spiritual perspective. Perhaps this brings about the dropping of activities, relationships, or goals from your life. Everything will transform, whether it stays or leaves. Your deepest relationships become those where you can share your spiritual path. The energy around your job will alter, or you will find a new work. In like manner, your other hobbies will transform or begin to drop out of the picture. All of this can be quite scary. Putting spirituality in the spotlight will position you face to face with your worst fears.
This brings us to the second question. The first question was “Is spirituality a hobby for you?” The second question is “Have you made a clear commitment to realizing your ascension or your divine nature?” If not, you can be caught in a kind of “no man’s land”, a DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone) between hobby and commitment. This can be a rather uncomfortable place. You’ve left behind the seeming security of “spirituality as a hobby“, but you don’t have the strength that comes from intention and the support from Spirit to deal with the challenges that will come. You are stuck in the middle. It is not uncommon to have a lag time between leaving the hobby status and making a clear commitment. That intention does look frightening, and the ego has many reasons to convince you not to go all of the way. It looks like you have to let go of absolutely everything in your life. We are not saying that you should commit. You will know when it is time. Before that it would be a lie to you and to God. However, in the meantime you will likely face challenges that feel beyond your ability to handle.
My purpose is to support you in being perfectly clear about where you are and what you are choosing. You have three options: 1) Spirituality as a hobby 2) Spirituality being put on center stage 3) Absolutely committing to realizing your divinity. What does commitment mean? Commitment means that you say to Spirit:
“I want you to support me in fully realizing my divinity. I want you to bring whatever changes that would best support that realization into my life. I want you to help me to change my thinking about absolutely everything until I am fully aligned with God. I want you to support me in seeing the divinity in not only myself, but in everybody. I want you to support me in forgiving every judgment I have, I want you to support me in seeing the perfection of every moment. I want you to support me in receiving everything that comes my way as an absolute gift. I want you to support me in choosing You over the ego in every moment.”
I will warn you that once you fully commit, there may not be any way to go back to what seemed like safer places. The only way out may be to go forward and through it. However, your commitment allows you to do just that. Putting spirituality on center stage encourages all your fears to come creeping out of the dark. Committing to Spirit gives you the tools to fully deal with them. The fears aren’t real, but you are. Wherever you are in the three stages, I am absolutely with you, as is Spirit, as is God. There is no judgment, only loving support. All you have to do to feel that support is to say “I will take it”. The voice of Spirit will always guide you home.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What tools are there for realizing ascension?
You deserve to be in a place of joy, love, and peace. The ego always pulls you away from your true inheritance from God. What is certain is that you will ascend; you will realize your divinity. You will know true joy, love, and peace. People have asked how they can shorten the period in the meantime in which they are suffering and in fear.
I am presenting you with a short list of things that you may do to help speed up the chasing away of the ego and the welcoming of your divine self. I present this not in the spirit of burdening you with more thoughts about what you should be doing, but to offer you some inspirational choices. As you move toward realizing your ascension, your moments of pain will be spread further apart and will be of shorter duration. Your go-to place will be joyful, loving and accepting of whatever is present.
First are some suggestions for how to deal with all the lists in your life. I expect that most of you have lists, whether written or mental. Some of the experts suggest that the way to handle your lists is to tackle the toughest thing first. The thinking is that when the biggest challenge is out of the way, everything else becomes easier. Of course, the next thing you take on is what is now the biggest challenge. I think this orientation is backwards. Look at your list and ask yourself what would be the most fun thing to do. What would give you the most joy and excitement? Or ask what is the easiest thing for you to do? You do that task first. After experiencing the joy of crossing something off your list, check to see what is now the most fun and easy thing. That is all you do. Of course, your list will never be finished: you will always be adding more things to it, but the choosing remains the same. It is not a question of what has been on your list longest or what most “needs” to be done. The choice is always determined by your passion. If you believe that life is a struggle, choosing the hard things first will reaffirm that creed. You think that if you just force yourself to do these tasks you have been putting off, your life will ease up and you can enjoy things. The truth is that your list will keep growing, as will your certainty that this is just how life is. If the habit you nurture is to look at your list and ask what would be fun to do today, what is most exciting – your whole attitude toward life will begin to shift. You deserve to do what you came here to do, and that “doing” will be a joyful experience.
I recommend that you treat the list I am about to give in that manner. There are more things on it than you could do every day. “Cherry pick” the ones that most appeal to you and play with them first. There is no order of importance to the items.
1. Intention: Have you made your intention to realize your divinity? If not, the pain will not begin to end until you commit to joy and ascension. If so, there is no need to repeat the request. However, as you are looking at whatever is troubling you or whatever logs you have thrown in front of yourself for the day, ask yourself how all this connects with your intention. That is the important question. The task is to align yourself with what you want. Perhaps this means letting go of something. Maybe you are giving importance to matters that are not connected to the truth of who you are. Are you are being true to yourself? Give everything to Spirit.
2. The five-step process: If you are not feeling good, emotionally or physically, do the process. Go through it on your own, or listen to the recording on the website, or contact one of your friends to lead you through it. Decide that you don’t wish to live with the discomfort; change your story. Remember that the fear that you transform to love through Spiritual Alchemy is permanently altered. You have accumulated a finite amount of fear in your body. It is only a matter of time before love rules your day instead of fear.
3. Numerology chart – Your Love Letter from your Higher Self: There are many different ways that you can play with your chart. You could pick any major position in your chart and ask for guidance concerning a situation you are dealing with. Or you could pick one position at a time and think and meditate on it. Eventually you might work through your entire chart. Focusing on the name numbers will help you accept, support, and love yourself, while looking at the birth numbers can assist you in accepting what you have created or drawn into your life. Allow Spirit to talk with you through the numbers. Your Ascension Numerology book will assist you as you begin this process, but eventually the numbers and positions will become such a part of you that you will only refer to the book occasionally.
4. Spiritually inspiring reading: Find an inspirational book to read out of daily, perhaps in the morning as a way to start off your day. You may have a particular favorite or might move from one book to another. Ask your friends for recommendations. You can read from our old messages here on the website or in the book format: God Blesses You: Ascension Messages from Sanhia. Reading regularly helps align your brain-mind with Spirit instead of the ego.
5. A Course in Miracles: I have separated this out from inspirational reading, because the Course is a particular study. It is designed to be worked with in small blocks of time on a daily basis. I see the Course as a spiritual equivalent to a workout at the gym, A day here and there will not make much difference. But years of regular training will perform Miracles with your body or with your spiritual awareness. We could call it spiritual toning. It takes quite a while to turn around the ship of mass consciousness. If you stay with the Course, the ego doesn’t have a prayer.
6. Forgiveness: Practice forgiveness daily, constantly. Separation evaporates. Forgive yourself; forgive others. Forgive God; forgive the weather. Forgive the driver for hanging out in the left-hand lane. Forgive everyone, everything, all of the time. You do this not because the forgiveness is needed, because everyone, including yourself, is innocent, but because when you forgive, it allows a place to align with Spirit. When you are judging yourself or others you are separate from Spirit. That places you in hell. When you are in hell you are suffering. The ego will tell you “that bastard deserves it”; he deserves your anger and your judgment. The ego loves righteous indignation. It creates enemies and separation. Forgiveness is the quickest way. Everything in your life that is painful is connected to a lack of forgiveness. Every physical ailment you have is linked to not being able to forgive. If you are having trouble forgiving, ask Spirit for help. In the end, as well as in the beginning, there is nothing to forgive. There is only innocence.
7. See the perfection: See the perfection in each person and each situation you meet. They are here to support your ascension. The driver who just cut you off was the perfect driver for you at this moment. You have the perfect President. Everything is perfect. That plane crashing with no survivors was a perfect event. Divine, as it should be. The dis-ease, whatever it is…perfect. Accepting perfection is the greatest threat to the ego. The ego’s job is to protect you from imperfections. It uses your judgment and your anger to accomplish this. Perfection puts the ego out of work. With the recognition of perfection, you can no longer be a victim to anything. Negative patterns will disappear from your life. There is nothing left to fear. This is heavenly. It doesn’t matter whether you understand why something is perfect, that knowing will come in time. Just trust. Nothing has to change.
8. Accept God: This doesn’t make any difference to God, but it makes an enormous difference for you. Here is how I know that people fear God, even if they claim to be atheists. If they hold a speck of judgment, they believe in and fear God, a punishing God. People consciously deny the existence of God because they have made Him in their image. They think that God is judgmental and vengeful. They blame God for what humans have created…which is everything that exists in the physical world. They deny God because judgmental people claim to speak for God. Separate all of these ego lies about God from the truth, which is so simple. God is unconditional love. There is nothing that God would ever judge. Claim God. Reunite with Him.
If you pick just one of the items on this list, the one that most draws you, it will make an enormous difference in your life. When you are ready to take on more, you will know. If you skip a day, forgive yourself and start over. God doesn’t care.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What Is the difference between ascension and enlightenment?
I have been talking about ascension for a long time. This has been the major focus since I began communicating through Michael over thirty years ago. For those of you whose native language is Swedish, there is no word that directly translates this concept. The closest is “himlafärd”, which means “a trip to heaven”. This provides a beginning in grasping the term, but still contains a sense of going somewhere. In English, ascending literally means to go up, again indicating the involvement of motion. A clearer understanding would be to associate ascension with the realization of your divine nature. The idea of “going up” assumes that your ascension is not right here, right now. The thought of having to travel to find your ascension only leaves you separate from its realization. However, there is also an accuracy in these literal translations because when you fully realize your divine nature, this earth plane loses any reality it might have previously held for you. In the challenging attempt to define ascension, I have often talked about what it isn’t. Ascension is not something that is realized through following specific practices, disciplines, or beliefs. It does not happen because you are good, or because you do things in the right way. Ascension is the full realization that you are one with God, you are loved unconditionally, you are love, that there is only love.
I have talked about all of this before, but today I wish to introduce another term which is commonly used and, at times, seems to be interchangeable with ascension. That word is enlightenment, which in Swedish translates as “upplysning”, meaning “putting the spotlight on”, a more direct translation. I want to compare these terms, beginning with a disclaimer. The differentiation I will establish is connected to the manner in which I define these words. Other sources may have different definitions. Enlightenment could be seen as a subset of ascension. All who realize their ascension are also, certainly, enlightened. However, those who are enlightened do not necessarily realize their ascension. What is the difference? Enlightenment means that you realize that this physical plane is all illusion. You understand that you are the creator of all that you experience. You know that time doesn’t truly exist, nor does your physical body. You realize that you are. That is your only truth. You always are. That full awareness is called enlightenment. Often, enlightenment is seen as the highest spiritual goal. It is a term that is used within the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha became enlightened, and so Buddhists seek a similar experience.
If you experience enlightenment, you continue to deal with the world about you, but with an absolutely different perspective. You are still in a body dealing with everyday life, but you no longer take it seriously. The only thing that remains real is self. You know that you always are. The enlightened one has no idea whether others have any true existence. I wouldn’t know if there is such a thing as “you”, an entity that also creates everything that you see. All that I can know is that your existence is my creation. In ascension, you have this enlightened perspective, but here is a distinction. When we speak of enlightenment, there is usually no reference to God. There is only the “light”, the eternal is-ness. The assumption of the enlightened one may be that the existence of God is beyond knowing, that all that can be known for sure is the existence of self. There are no answers to any of the deep questions such as: “Why do I exist?” “Where did I come from?” or “Why did I create this body and this universe?” Some who are enlightened will argue that your existence is all you can know. This knowingness of the unreality of the human experience allows almost all pain to evaporate.
The difference with ascension is that it does deal with these questions. It recognizes divinity and a creative source, which I call God. It understands that the earth experience and physical creations emanate not from God, but from the souls we call human. This manifestation came out of fear of God and separation from Him. We created this universe to hide from God, out of our fear of punishment. Without the acceptance of the existence of God, you can realize that all of this is a movie, but still have a vague sense of emptiness. The deep questions do not totally disappear. Strands of judgment persist. In fact, enlightenment might be the last refuge of the ego. The answer to the deep questions is that you are here to heal your relationship with your creator. Denial of His existence won’t make Him go away. He has nowhere to go. Nor do you. This understanding allows you to ask God, or Spirit, for support in aligning with truth, in reconnecting to your divinity. You realize the importance of forgiveness in the process. You become absolutely intolerant of the slightest judgments you might hold. You seek to see divinity everywhere.
There has been a great confusion because most of those who believe in God do not believe in enlightenment, while most of those who believe in enlightenment don’t believe in God. Ascension requires both beliefs. The connective energy is unconditional love. Without God, unconditional love may not be of importance. You could be enlightened, but not fully surrendered to and guided by Spirit. The void or emptiness of the enlightened state allows a place for the voice of ego, because your mind has not been fully offered to Spirit. In Buddhism, there exist bodhisattvas who are on the threshold of enlightenment but hold back, waiting for everyone to join them. They reincarnate over and over, coming as teachers. The confusion is that one’s primary reason for incarnating becomes the serving of others. This is in denial of God and your separation. It is the lack of recognition that what you see in others is only a reflection of yourself, which is all that you can affect. The ascended masters comprehended that their own realization of divinity was the reason for their physical experience. Ironically, their ascension is also the greatest gift they could offer to others in supporting spiritual development. Ascension understands the oneness. It knows that personal ascension raises all ships, shines light on all souls.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Did Jesus die for our sins?
The holiday of Easter has just passed; perhaps some of you celebrated it. In the last message, we talked of love and sacrifice. In the world of Christianity, the great story is of the martyrdom of Jesus. That legend has been passed down for 2000 years. As it is told, Jesus, the only Son of God, came down from heaven out of his Father’s love for us. God sacrificed his only Son. He did this because we humans are bad. We are sinners; we are evil. The only plan God could come up with to allow us to return to him in heaven to be saved, was through offering the crucifixion of his Son. That is the story, a very sad tale. It is filled with graphic descriptions of suffering, torture, and betrayal. However, this is nothing more than a fairy tale. It is not true. This is not what happened. The true story is that Jesus was not the only Son of God. We are all the Sons of God. He did not come to atone for our sins, because God does not recognize our sins. Only we see our nature as sinful. We see this because we believe that we chose to separate from God. We are terrified of God and fear his vengeance for what we think we did. This is all part of the myth. Jesus came to tell us that it’s not true, that God loves us. Absolutely and always. There is nothing we have to do to earn it. It is just for us to realize that we are divine, that we are one with God.
Jesus came to earth of his own choice to save himself. He wanted to become aware of his divinity while in a body. Easter is the celebration of his self-realization. That is what the resurrection was. It does not represent dying and coming back to life again. Death is an illusion. The resurrection represents the ”death” of death, the realization that there is only life. There is only life and always life, in divinity. That is the true nature of every soul. Easter is a time to remember this truth and to let go of death, suffering, fear, and the belief that you are an evil sinner.
You may want to ask me why this made-up story has been passed down and believed by so many. There seem to have been eye witnesses. People recorded these happenings. Why would it have been passed on like this? Don’t tell us it’s a lie Sanhia! Well…this story is like all stories. They are imaginary. No story has happened. Nothing that you attribute to an action by those in human bodies, no, none of those stories are real. Nothing has happened in the truth of God. You have manifested this illusion that you have an earth. You create all of the stories that take place on it. You stay in an endless loop with those stories, a seeming infinity of bodies and lifetimes. This goes on until one day you wake up and realize that there is only now, only this moment. There is only the truth, only love. Everything else you have been making up. Meanwhile, because you think you are a sinner, you created a savior, since your story says that you can’t save yourself. You believe that somebody has to pay for the sins you imagine you have committed, so why not have Jesus do it? He’s got big shoulders. He is the Son of God. Let him do it. The problem is that you are still stuck with the guilt. Not only are you a sinner but you let Jesus take the rap for you, leaving you even further away from God (This perhaps is a good thing. Have you noticed how he treats his Son!).
What if we look at the life of Jesus from his perspective? He came in with a high level of knowledge of truth, brought forth from previous lifetimes where he did much work. He created a wonderful support system in his pre-planning. On both sides of his family there were great spiritual workers who came in with him to support his process. His father Joseph ascended before him, showing him the way. When it came time for his full realization, which required an absolute surrender to Spirit, he was told that his path was to go through this “Passion Play” of crucifixion. In this way, the story would be recorded and passed down for the ages. Even though the facts would be grossly incorrect, the seeds of the truth would be there for those who have ears to hear with. It seemed that a trusted associate turned on him. In truth, Jesus asked his good friend Judas to play a role. Judas did not want to carry out that assignment, but Jesus convinced him it was part of Spirit’s plan. This was an act of love, not betrayal. Though what people saw at that time did look like punishment and torture, Jesus experienced no pain on the cross. Rather, he was in ecstasy. He knew that he was not his body. As for the witnesses, however, they could only project their own fear upon what they saw. The story was written down and passed on. Had there been no crucifixion, nobody would know of Jesus today. Adding to the drama, his body disappears. Now, you have an unjustifiable execution, but there were many of those with the Romans. How to make this one stand out? Let’s disappear the body, right under the nose of the Roman sentries. To cap things off, let’s have the body reappear later. This is the stuff that sells newspapers, not to speak of Bibles. Jesus simply, out of love and trust, followed the plan that came from Spirit. He did this, not to pay for your sins, but to teach you how to listen to Spirit, how to trust, and as an act of faith. Some of you have the terror that if you listen to Spirit you’ll end up nailed to a cross, too. You may have something to move through around this. It is the ego that leads you to pain and suffering, not Spirit.
How would your life change if you trusted in the true story of Jesus? When you think of Easter, the message is of love and eternal life. The focus is on the resurrection. If your thoughts go to crucifixion and suffering, ask Spirit to lift those thoughts from you. It is time on a symbolic level to burn all of your crosses. As long as you hold onto the cross as the symbol of Christianity and Jesus, your life will be one of sacrifice and suffering. Burn the cross. Burn them all. Let that blaze be the fire of the love of the eternal flame of God.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Does love require me to sacrifice?
There is a great confusion that intertwines love and sacrifice. It is this belief that if you love someone or something, you must make sacrifices for them or for it. This belief causes many problems. It is a confusion because love is of Spirit and sacrifice is of the ego. The ego believes that the only way to get something that you want is to give up something that you also want. We can call that a “win-lose” situation.
I want to begin with a short history of this perplexity. Most of you are familiar with the Judeo-Christian story, expressed both in the Old and the New Testaments. Let’s start with the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament. It is filled with sacrifice. God, or Yahweh, is constantly demanding something from the “chosen people”. Many are animal offerings, but in one particular story we have Abraham, the father of Judaism, being asked to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, who had come to him late in life as a reward for his devotion to the one god. Abraham was told to take Isaac up the mountain for this surrender. Reluctantly he agreed. Sacrifice for the love of god. God lets him off the hook at the last moment. The message, however, is that the proof of love is a willingness to make sacrifice. This is found carried forward into Christian belief. There the doctrine is that Jesus gave himself, that god sacrificed his only son, to free us from our sins. Love and sacrifice. I want to remind you that no such thing actually happened with Jesus. There was no sacrifice involved. This was a gift of love freely given from Jesus’s heart, following the loving voice of Spirit. If you want to hear the truest expression of Jesus’s teachings, I recommend A Course in Miracles. If you read the New Testament, I suggest that you limit yourself to the words attributed to Jesus, and still use your discernment (see last month’s message).
I want you to know that the god of the Old Testament, who for many is also the god of the New Testament, is really the ego. It is not God. God never asks for sacrifice. How could an all-powerful, all-creative, all-loving God ever have a need that could only be filled by human sacrifice? It makes no sense whatsoever. It is a crazy thought. Sacrifice is an attack, not an expression of love. When you sacrifice for another, what you are communicating is that that person is not divine. You are affirming their helplessness. Only by the sacrifice of your blood can they survive, be happy, and prosper. What a story! This is an attack. An attack on another is really an attack on yourself. How can someone else not be divine unless you also are not divine? Every sacrifice you make is an attack upon yourself.
You don’t usually offer blood sacrifices anymore, although patriotism may ask that you give your life for your country. While some believe in giving their life for their country, others believe that they must be willing to surrender all to help the oppressed of the world. This is not to suggest that to aid another is an attack. Only when the action is offered in the spirit of sacrifice is it an attack. When you do for another out of the love in your heart, out of divine inspiration, it is not an attack. This is something you truly desire to do. It doesn’t matter to you how it is received, whether there is gratitude. It is done out of your joy and freely given.
Look at your relationships, especially your committed relationships. In what ways do you feel that you have to deny yourself in order to maintain a relationship? Or even to have it to begin with? How many women deny their independence, career aspirations, or freedom in order to have a relationship? How many men feel tied down, denying themselves, not allowed to be “real men” anymore because of a relationship? When children come along the feeling of the necessity for sacrifice increases.
The place to begin is by recognizing that sacrifice is not an expression of love but is an attack. It is a byproduct of guilt. Your ego will tell you that you will lose everything if you do this. This voice will tell you that others are dependent upon your self-denial. Have the intention to stop making sacrifices. Ask Spirit to support you in strengthening your will to give up sacrificing and to always come from love. When the fear comes up – and it will – use the five-step process to help you transform it into love. When you are in a state of unconditional love you can clearly hear Spirit’s guidance.
When your ego is telling you that there are others out there depending upon your support, I want to remind you that it is all you. Everything that you see is you. If you perceive neediness that seems to require your sacrifice, that is your neediness. If someone tells you that if you really loved them, you would give them what they demand from you, it is your own ego that is speaking. How long will you believe that you have to thrash your own back in order to become pure enough for God? Sacrifice is self-flagellation. It is an attack upon yourself. This is why some people are terrified by love. The fear is that loving another will call you to a deep painful sacrifice. The only way to be free, in that case, is not to love. What a tangled web the ego weaves. Avoiding love will not bring an awareness of your divinity. If you stop sacrificing, instead committing to love and to transmuting fear into love, you will be able to hear Spirit directing you. This guidance will always lead you into love and out of sacrifice.
This is a great challenge. It is a fearful thing to give up sacrifice. The mass consciousness says that sacrifice might buy you redemption, might bring you forgiveness from God. But it doesn’t work that way. Sacrifice only keeps you separate from God, who requires nothing from you and offers you everything. God only asks you to be your true self. Set yourself free.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do I discern Spirit from ego?
We have been encouraging you to choose love over fear, Spirit over the ego. Some of you have asked how to tell the difference. Right now, any decision you make is likely to be fear-based, whether you choose to listen to the ego or to Spirit. If you opt for the ego, you do it out of fear of what might happen to you if you don’t follow its direction. When you decide on Spirit, you have the fear ”What if this is the wrong thing to do?” The ego is very good at playing that kind of game with you. ”Don’t you think somebody would have been doing it like that a long time ago if that was the way to do it?” ”What if everyone acted that way?” The main message from the ego is that if you don’t do as it suggests, something bad will happen to you. You feel that the only safe thing is to do what you don’t want to do. When you are listening to Spirit you think, ”That is what I really want to do, but I’m afraid to”. The fear is that you will get hurt by doing what you want to do. Deep inside you can hear what you really want, but you are afraid to act on it. The voice of Spirit is saying ”Go for it”. To sum it up, the easiest way to discern the two voices if you are doubtful is this: If you follow out of fear, the voice is likely the ego; if you are afraid to follow, the voice is likely Spirit.
Spirit will remind you that if you listen to the voice of the ego only one thing is certain. You will die. Everyone who has done things the ego’s way has died. You may be wondering where you find those who have listened to the voice of Spirit. The ego is correct when it tells you that there aren’t many. They are called ascended masters. The one you probably know best is Jesus. When you read his channeled message in A Course in Miracles, you are getting a training in how to listen to Spirit and leave the voice of the ego behind. The same thing happens when you study these messages. When there are few accompanying you on your voyage, the odds are greater that you might be listening to Spirit.
Mass consciousness is one of the voices of the ego. It takes great courage to choose Spirit over ego. Each of you have come back countless times hoping that you have set things up in such a way that this time you will pick Spirit. From where I sit, it’s a done deal. It doesn’t matter if you ascend in this body or twenty bodies from now. Nothing will stop you from realizing the truth eventually. You will get there. I have no fear for you. It doesn’t matter whether you listen to Spirit now, or not. And so it is with God, who sees only your perfection, only the truth of you. Even now in the midst of your fear, you are absolutely one with God, totally connected. Everything around you is illusory. None of it exists. You can ask God to stop all of this madness, to come down to earth into your hell. God won’t hear you. As we mentioned in the last message, while you are in illusion the best you can do is to talk to Spirit. Even when you begin to consistently put your faith in God, in Spirit, and in your divinity, there is still a step between believing and knowing. When you know, you will feel no need to talk to God because you are one. When you ask,”Can I talk to God?”, you are really saying you want to ask God for help. This is what you do when you pray. You may think your prayer is going to God, but it isn’t. It is heard by Spirit. Spirit sends you support to help you to choose the voice of truth.
Let’s return to the original question of how to discern the voice of Spirit from that of the ego. Begin, as always, with the intention. Ask Spirit to support you in this goal. Ask for the faith to follow your heart, even when you are experiencing fear and doubt. If the ego wins the battle, let it go. Forgive yourself and try again. The ego might win many battles, but it cannot win the war. Remember how the voice of Spirit feels. When you fully want something to happen from your heart, that is its voice. Remember that the guidance is always for you. Spirit won’t tell you how another should act toward you. It is all about you. This illusion is your creation. You can ask Spirit to bring you moral support, but any attempts to make specific people play certain roles for you is always the work of the ego. It begins, always, as a choice to listen to Spirit over the ego. You do it because you believe it is the truest thing to do. Eventually there will be no choice. The only voice you will hear is that of Spirit. I call that ascension.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why do I feel abandoned by God?
Some of you have expressed anger to me – perhaps not directed at me, though you may have wanted to shoot the messenger – because of things I have said about God. You feel that God doesn’t pay any attention to you, that He is not aware of your struggles and your pain. You feel abandoned because none of this exists for God. I can understand, on one hand, why you might draw that conclusion. I have explained to you that this earthly experience is all an illusion. Nothing in your physical world is real. The only things that truly exist are absolute love and divinity. This illusion you have created in the physical realm of bodies and fear does not exist in the mind of God. He does not see your experience. God sees only the truth in you. He does not see your fantasies of separation, judgment, and pain. He sees your divinity, your holiness. Hearing that causes some of you to feel that God doesn’t really care about you. He is just going to let you hang out here in your pain and suffering. All your prayers and cries for help are ignored. To your great surprise, I have a number of things to say about this “abandonment”.
If God could see your illusions, it would make them real. Think what that would mean. If your body truly exists; if this earth and universe are existent; if your pain, suffering, and fear are real; they will go on forever. When you die, and leave all of this ”reality” behind you, you will realize that none of it was actually taking place. This you realized after your last incarnation, as well as following the multitude of others you have experienced. When you no longer have a body, you still are, just a whole lot lighter without the excess baggage you carry with you now. All of the things that felt so necessary, vital, and important in your physical experience are gone. They are simply gone. If they were real, they would still be there. When you ask God to give them reality, be aware of what you are asking for. You are asking for your hell to be permanent. It is to your saving grace that God does not see your illusion, seeing only the truth of you so that you have the potential of also holding the truth.
Rather than abandoning you, God has sent the Holy Spirit. This is a difficult concept to fully understand. In Christianity, they talk about the trinity of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. Usually, even though the concept is alright, the execution of it is woefully inadequate. The Father is often pictured as judgmental and punishing; the Son is limited to Jesus, excluding all of the rest of the Sonship (which includes you and me); and the Holy Spirit is often simply not understood at all. The Father is the originator God – all loving, all powerful, all creative. The Son is you: whoever is reading this; whoever isn’t reading this; and whoever has, is, or will be in a body. The Son is created in the image of the Father: divine, all loving, all knowing, all powerful. But, a part of the Sonship has chosen to believe in a separation from the Father and fears retribution for that action. That is the case for all who have chosen human form. God recognizes that you believe yourself to be lost, but does not experience the trauma you have created. You are like a sleeping child experiencing a nightmare. The loving parent recognizes that the child is having a bad dream and knows that it is terrified, but cannot penetrate into the illusion. The parent knows that what is being experienced isn’t real and that sooner or later the child will wake up. The parent tries to lovingly awaken the child and to assure it that it is safe. It is the Holy Spirit that carries out this function.
The Holy Spirit is the intermediary between the Father and the sleeping Son. Spirit is designed in such a way that you can ask for Its support, supplicating to be brought into conscious alignment with the Father. I want to remind you that you are not being helped to establish alignment. You are already aligned with the Father. You are one with God. You are one with each other. What is lacking is the awareness of that oneness. This does not take away the truth of who you are, but it does keep you from having the experience of your divinity. Rather than living in the divine love of your birthright, you live in fear. By asking Spirit for support, you can realize your alignment with the Father. The role of the Father is to hold the course, to hold it steady, to hold the truth, to never waiver, and to never give any reality to the hell that you have created. The Father always sees your perfection. It is your role, as the Son, to give up the ego, to stop choosing to listen to it, and to choose divinity. To facilitate your process, God has created the Holy Spirit to help those of you who have chosen ascension, and want to give up fear and illusion. The Holy Spirit is there to give you a helping hand. He is aware of your illusions, but does not take them seriously. Your task is to believe Spirit, rather than the ego. Spirit is there to support you in constantly choosing love over fear.
You can ask God to come down to earth and enter your hell. God won’t hear you. Spirit will hear you, however. Even as your faith in trusting Spirit’s voice over the ego becomes stronger and stronger, there is still a step between believing and knowing. When you cross that line into knowingness, you no longer feel a need to talk with God, because you are fully aware of your oneness. In the meantime, rest easily in the knowledge that God’s love for you is eternal and that dissolution of your hell is a certainty. The consistent message from Spirit is ”lighten up, everything is moving forward perfectly”.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is the difference between unity and oneness?
On day one of the new year (2017), I have been asked to speak about oneness. Interestingly, the universe is going into a ONE year today (numerologically). We have talked about the illusion, about this physical world being an illusion. And it is a very convincing one. I want to say that you have done a marvelous job in creating it. It is very believable. But there is one part of this illusion that is particularly hard for me to swallow: that is where you consider yourself to be separate from God, and therefore not to be divine, but to be human with all the baggage that includes. To be human is to be with what Christians call “sin”. But even if you don’t consider yourself to be Christian, you probably believe that there is such a thing as right and wrong. If you ever judge yourself or another, you believe in sin. If you believe in judgment, you think that it is God that judges you, whether that belief is consciously held or hidden deep within.
Within this story about sin and judgment and guilt is the illusion of separation. That doesn’t sound like much fun at all. When you choose divinity, and being one with God, there is nothing but love and joy. That is the divine nature. Why, you might ask, would anyone choose separation, pain, suffering, and guilt instead of love? The short answer to that is that your ego doesn’t believe you are divine, and doesn’t even believe there is a choice that can be made. The significant questions become, “How do I opt out of this? How do I choose divinity? What is that like? What is it like to be aligned with God?”
Two terms are often used interchangeably: unity and oneness. Let’s investigate what these words really communicate. Unity suggests that two or more are joined together. Because they can join together, they can also separate. You have the example of the United States of America. There are fifty states that have chosen to unite under one central government. Is there oneness? Do all of the citizens feel at one with each other? This is a rhetorical question. In this case, unity and oneness are quite different energies. Unity means to join together while still maintaining a separation. You have two people united in a marriage. Do they become one person? Some would like to hope so. Given the evidence that over half of the marriages end in separation, we would say “no”. There was a temporary union, but not a oneness. The truth is not that you are united with God and with each other, but that you are all one. The experience of ascension is the realization of this absolute oneness. Some of you may have had a deep spiritual experience where you have felt this oneness, whether through meditation, a psychedelic drug experience, or simply as a spontaneous happening. What you all have in common, no matter how you have had this experience, is that the feeling of oneness did not last. It eventually disappeared and perhaps you have been seeking to replicate that state ever since. But, it is elusive.
You may ask Spirit to bring you into oneness. More accurately, you can ask Spirit to help you realize your oneness, because oneness is your true nature whether you realize it or not. You don’t do something to become one. You don’t earn it. You already are and have always been one with God. While you may not be experiencing this oneness right now, you do experience your separation. The separation is an illusion, but it feels very real to you. You encounter separation when you feel attacked by another or when you judge another or yourself. When you attack out of fear you feel separation. When you feel any negative emotion, you are experiencing the sense of separation. The role unity plays for you is to have it as an intention now, when you are feeling this separation. When you forgive another and you forgive yourself over whatever incident is there between you, your intention is to create a unity between the two of you. When you feel afraid that God is judging you, create unity with God through asking for forgiveness. These are steps that your mind can handle, even though it is in separation. You can focus on forgiveness, so there is no feeling of separation between you and your brother or sister, or between you and God. It is easier to focus on unity than on oneness. Ascension is oneness, and that step will come. In the same way, you focus on forgiveness, even though the absolute truth is that there is nothing to forgive, nothing ever. So, there is no need to forgive, but your mind cannot accept that. It is so accustomed to a state of sin and judgment, blame, and right and wrong. All that you can do now is to notice when your mind goes into guilt or judgment and use forgiveness to help establish a unity between you and others. The truth is that you are one, but first you may settle for unity.
Take advantage of the tools you can use. Use the tool of forgiveness. Aim for unity. Choose to end all separation. Do that until the judgment falls away because you realize there is nothing to judge. The separation falls away because you know you are one. It is no longer just an idea or a belief. You know it. The quest for unity and the act of forgiving are your spiritual training wheels. If you keep using them, you will eventually have no use for these aids whatsoever, because you are absolutely aware of your divine nature. Spirit will remove your wheels without even telling you. You will simply find yourself flying freely in your innocence. We will ask you this New Year’s Day to begin or to continue to forgive and to seek unity throughout this ONE year. And we wish for you a year of unconditional and unlimited love.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What can I do with the fear I feel over Trump’s election?
As some of you may be aware, there was a presidential election this past month (November 2016) in the United States. Oh! You are all aware of it. Okay. How many of you were pleased and excited with the results? I don’t hear anyone cheering. How many of you were terrified by the results? Wonderful! You see, fear is what this election was all about. It was a thumbs up or thumbs down vote about fear. If your reaction was fearful, you were part of the thumbs up vote. You voted (or didn’t vote) out of fear. You have helped to create this election result. I say this not as an accusation, but as an encouragement to take responsibility for your creations. Fortunately, it is all an illusion…or we might all be terrified now. I’m not. I feel fine. There is only one reason why you are here now in a physical body on the planet Earth and that is to realize your divinity – to know that you are one with each other and with the creator God. He doesn’t care who is president of the United States. It doesn’t make any difference. If it makes a difference to you, you have given your power away. You are claiming to be a victim of outer circumstances or are perceiving others to be caught in the crosshairs. Either way it is a projection of your own fear.
The reason for voting at all is simply to select the candidates who most embody the love that you have in you, that most suggest that the loving, trusting, divine energy that is the truth of you will be expressed and shared with others. Whether or not the president of the United States seems to embody that energy makes no difference to you. The question is, ”Do you embody that energy?” Are you a being of love, light, and truth or are you a being who is spreading fear and darkness, guilt and blame? It is a very easy choice: love or fear. For those of you who are choosing fear, congratulations. You have elected the perfect leader – even if you did not vote, even if you are not a citizen of the US. The residents of Sweden and other countries feel strongly affected by the election results, also. It is a world event. If you are feeling fear, that is a choice. Nobody is forcing you to be afraid of what will happen because of this election. When you are choosing love, you know there is only perfection, that everything is happening exactly as it should. You trust in what is presented. The plan may not be obvious to you, but that does not mean that it is not present. In the previous message we talked about faith. Faith is where you go forward and act without proof, operating in the trust that divinity, that love is all there is.
How can this election outcome be in service to the planet, when your brain-minds are saying, ”No, this is going backwards; this is not going in the right direction”? Yet at the same time, more and more souls on earth are making the conscious intention to realize their divinity. These beings are giving increasing trust to this process. Trust that this election is a part of that continuity. I will tell you a few things to whet your appetite, but ultimately it is you who are to go inside and ask Spirit to help you release your fear about the election and trust in its perfection. One of the ways that the election is serving is that for some of you it is important to see the world improving in certain ways. It is vital that what you see outside match what you want to feel inside. Actually, you have the process reversed. What you see in the world reflects what is going on within you. All we have at this point that we can look at is an election. Some votes were cast and winners were declared. Yet some of you already are rushing ahead and projecting the most horrible things occurring. Does that come from love or fear?
A great gift from this event can be realized because some of you on the spiritual path are looking to be saved. You are hoping for a great leader to come along to rescue you. You will never be saved from the outside. There is nothing there for you to be protected from. The fear is illusory; it is not true. No matter who is in power in the world’s governments – what they do or how human bodies are affected – they are absolutely incapable of doing any damage to the truth of you or anyone else. The part of you that doesn’t believe that has created this test for yourself. Think back eight years. Remember how excited many of you were at the results of the election that had just happened. What hope you had for the world! How peace would come! How racial equality would be achieved! A whole new period of harmony and love was being ushered in, The Swedish Nobel committee even awarded Obama a prize in anticipation of the great good he would do. Now, eight years later, how did that dream work for you? For many there is a disappointment. Perhaps in eight years you will be disappointed that the Trump presidency was not as bad as you thought it would be. Or would you call that a pleasant surprise?
Now it is time to step up and take control and power over your life. Why give that authority to Donald Trump, especially given what you think he will likely do with it? But why give it to anybody? Except Spirit. Let this election be a great healing gift for you. Give thanks, not only to Donald Trump, but to all those who voted for him as well as those who stayed away from the polls and didn’t vote for his opponent. Give thanks to everyone that you judge for the results of this election. Acknowledge them for giving you this golden opportunity to take your power, let go of the belief that you are a victim to outside circumstances, and know that there is only love, only Spirit acting here and everywhere. Nothing else is real. Ask Spirit to support you in realizing this. Forgive Donald Trump and his supporters and the non-voters. Forgive yourself. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Love, love, love. You have a wonderful opportunity here. I encourage you to take it. I encourage you to be open to the possibility of love and see the divinity in Trump and in yourself. It is you who controls your destiny. Your leaders can neither make you nor break you. Only you get to do that. Give yourself a break. Give yourself a hug.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do I move from a lack of faith to trust?
Trust is having faith that whatever is happening now is perfect. It allows you to be fully present in the now. The ego is not capable of doing this. It either dwells in the past in guilt and blame about what could or should have been, as well as mourning for ”the good old days”, or it imagines a future – worrying about what might or might not happen, or fantasizing about some dream that it doesn’t really expect will manifest. Trust is centered right here, right now. It is aligned with Spirit and, therefore, with God. Trust and faith are interchangeable terms. When you trust absolutely you experience only love; fear is dissolved. When you have faith, you listen to the voice of Spirit within you and follow it without question.
It’s easy to discern between the voice of Spirit and the voice of the ego. The voice of the ego always possesses doubt. It fosters worry about what the future will bring based on your current choices and actions. When you have faith, you know that your current action is perfect and whatever you have drawn into your life is exactly what is required. It is not necessary for you to understand why it is perfect. That information will come when the time is right. Faith is never dependent on proof, which is a demand from the ego. Proof is really saying, ”I cannot trust Spirit until you can absolutely show me that Spirit is trustworthy”. This is a demand that can never be satisfied. Trust cannot be earned. When you do not trust Spirit, you are merely projecting your lack of faith in yourself. You don’t trust your intuitive process. You feel separate from God and do not believe a direct contact is possible. Perhaps, you want a ”burning bush” experience, or something like what Gary Renard manifested with Pursah and Arten, as he related in The Disappearance of the Universe. You want Spirit to create something that appears to be outside of you, to speak to you. You want a miracle. If you were to manifest such a miraculous event, over time you would likely come to doubt your experience and go back to your old ways. Trust is to be found within you.
How do you move from a lack of faith to trust? The first step always is intention. You decide that you want faith, that you wish to trust in Spirit. You ask for faith before you have certainty that there is something to believe in. Your ego will resist your attempts at faith at every turn. A strong declaration of your intention to have faith helps you bypass the ego. Maybe your lack of faith hasn’t created enough discomfort for you yet. Perhaps things have to get a little worse. Possibly you may have to bottom out so that you have nothing left to lose. Or, you can shorten the time of pain and suffering by asking to trust now. As soon as you make the request, Spirit will begin sending faith to you. The only reason that you don’t fully trust now is because the ego has set up blocks to keep that from happening. It believes that God cannot be depended upon. The ego thinks that God is out to get you, and therefore it needs to protect you from Him. But, when you don’t trust God, you don’t trust yourself – you and God are one. This becomes a dead end, where your life is filled with mistrust.
After giving your intention, the second step is to listen. When you find yourself at a point where you are worried and fearful about what will happen, and don’t know what to do – ask Spirit for direction. And listen. Trust what you hear. The ego will want to doubt and question, perhaps even to deny that there was a response. But Spirit always answers. Trust the first thing that comes. Act on it. As you respond to the guidance you receive, future directives become stronger and clearer. Your action is a demonstration of faith. Trust is beginning to grow within you. This faith will continue to expand as you feed it. You feed it by going inside and asking Spirit for support, whether you call that meditation, reflection, or prayer. You listen, receive a message, give thanks, and act. And your faith increases. You can also develop your faith by expressing gratitude toward everything that you have in your life, seeing it all as a gift from Spirit. If you are struggling to see something as being a gift, ask Spirit to help guide you to acceptance. The truth is that it can only be a gift; you are always connected to God, and God only sends you his loving grace. Because you are reading this, I know that you have already decided to welcome Spirit into your life. You have already chosen to become aware of your divinity. Even if the commitment is not yet strong, it is there and it is increasing.
What you feed in your life grows. If you trust Spirit, it will flourish in you. If you feed the ego by giving power to its doubts and fears, it will swell. And let’s face it. The ego doesn’t need any more help. It has been running this show for lifetimes. It’s time to give trust a chance. When you have faith, you are in the realm of peace and love. That state continues to strengthen until nothing can shake it. All you are asked to sacrifice is your doubt and your fear. Doubt and fear can only manifest more doubt and fear. This will be your fate forever until you choose to trust, which will happen sooner or later. It doesn’t matter if you wait. The illusion will wait with you. It’s not real. It’s not going to do you any true harm. I have faith that you will eventually choose to trust Spirit. Why not do that now? I know that the choice of trust leaves you absolutely safe. In fact, you are always safe. But if you listen to the ego, you will never experience a feeling of safety. Whatever you choose.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Who are you?
When doing numerology readings through Michael, I usually begin by asking those souls, ”Who are you?” I ask them to use terms that are always true. After they have finished, I say that there are two ways that I would answer that question for them. The first would be true for any soul that was sitting before me. The second one would be specific just to them. Today, I want to begin by sharing that first truth about who you are that applies to each one of you that is reading this. It is very simple; it won’t take long. You are divine. You are a child of God, created in the image of your creator. This means that you are a being of unconditional love and unlimited creativity. You are. You have always been and you always will be. You are innocent. You are unconditionally loved by God no matter what you might do, say, think, or feel. That is the truth for each one of you. The reason that you have chosen to come into this physical body at this time is to become aware of this truth and to know that it is your essence, thus realizing your divinity. That’s the end of the story. Ulla says that it is not that easy, that it is difficult for many people to believe that this is true about themselves. I know that is the case; I have been in your sandals.
There is also the second, personal truth about who you are. I’m not going to spend much time with that right now because I cannot differentiate here the words that apply to each of you individually. The Love Letter from Your Higher Self, your numerology chart, presents that information. It tells you two things. On one level, it describes your confusions and challenges that obstruct you temporarily from realizing the absolute truth of who you are. This information helps you to ask Spirit for support in letting go of those blocks. The love letter also talks about the specific gifts that you have to offer to the world, to the whole, to the one. You use these gifts to support others. After you fully realize your ascension, you continue to use these gifts in support of others, as all ascended masters do. We released the Ascension Numerology book so that you could access this specific information and work with it yourself.
There is a third sense of self we particularly want to work with today. These are the thoughts you have about who you are that are limiting and will inevitably bring you pain and unhappiness. These restricting definitions of self leave you feeling less than divine. For example, you might identify yourself as a parent, perhaps a good parent. If you hold that image of yourself, what is your value when you don’t have children or someone acting out that role with you? What is your worth? What happens when your children grow up? Who are you now? Perhaps you once saw who you were as being a child. You grow up and you still are a child, because that is the part you hold for yourself. Any pattern of behavior that limits how you operate in society denies your divinity. You may distinguish yourself by the type of work that you do. Who are you when you go home? Who are you when you retire? One of the more challenging aspects comes when you label yourself with a larger classification such as, ”I am Swedish” or ”I am American”. Even bigger and more formidable is when you define yourself by your gender: ”I am a woman” or ”I am a man”. What happens when you identify yourself in these ways is that you take on the mass consciousness that goes along with those definitions. If you say ”I am a woman”, you may take on the consciousness of ”I am oppressed”, ”I am in danger of sexual attack”, ”I am paid less than I am worth”, ”I am a victim”, ”I am angry at men for all of this”, ”I need a man to take care of me”, or ”I am helpless”. Not all will take on all of this energy, but all will take a part of it. When you combine ”I am a woman” with ”I am Swedish”, another set of self-identifications emerges. Religion (or the absence of it) can throw in another set of variables. And so on.
I wish to remind you that this body is not the truth of who you are. You have in your many previous incarnations had both male and female forms. You have tried all different religions. You have experienced numerous nationalities and races. None of these are you. You are much more than any definition that you can give to yourself other than the one I gave to you in the first paragraph. All these other descriptions limit the truth of who you are. Then you experience lack, pain, and suffering. You encounter guilt and victimhood. When you leave your body through dying, you will realize it was not who you are. You will notice that you are still here but your physicality is not. The challenge is to have that awareness while you are still experiencing yourself being here in a body. It’s fine to have it after you leave – and you will – but you will choose to come back into another body to realize it here. This is where you are to experience your divinity.
Be aware of these limiting definitions you hold of who you are. What categories do you place yourself in? Each time you notice one, ask Spirit to support you in releasing that story about yourself so that you can align with your divinity. You can also ask Spirit to show how the divine in you would act in your present situation. Otherwise, you are in the knee-jerk response of your limiting story of you, where you seemingly have no choice but to react in ways that do not bring you the love and peace that you desire and that are your birthright. You deserve it all. It is here right now for the taking. Let go of the ego’s story of who you are and claim the treasure that Spirit offers. Hold on to that intention and one day it will be yours. The time up until then is an illusion. Your truth, your divinity, is forever.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why doesn’t money feel spiritual to me?
Michael just pointed out to me that we have never directly addressed money in these messages. Ulla says that money seems to be a problem for everybody. It is funny that even though you have largely done away with physical money in your modern economic system, it remains just as big a problem. When we talk about illusion, what better place is there to look than at money? What value does that piece of paper have? You can’t eat it or drink it. You can’t build a house or take a trip with it. All you can do with it is give it away, or stow it away. Money is an absolute illusion; it has no value in and of itself. Even the coins that once were precious are now made mostly of low cost metals. You often replace money with a little worthless plastic card or even digital numbers in cyberspace. The thing to understand about money in all of its manifestations is that its primary purpose, as is true with absolutely everything else in your life, is to support you in realizing your divinity. You are immortal, divine beings. That is what you came here to realize.
Money is a tool to help you do just that. You may believe that the purpose of money is to help you survive, but your survival is guaranteed. Your ego may scream out that you don’t just want to survive, you want to survive and stay in your body. If you think that money is what allows you to stay in the body, and the ego uses the body to stay separate from God and in pain and suffering, then money must be the thing that keeps you trapped in your earthly hell. If we do away with money, can we eliminate pain and suffering? It is not quite that easy. Ask those who have tried to live outside the financial system.
Let us start with looking at the connection of fear with money, the anxiety that there isn’t enough. Money is the best way that you know to attract what you desire into your life. Whether you are looking at the basics of food, water, shelter, and clothing, or the extras that seem to make life worth living, there does not appear to be enough money. You may decide to sell yourself out. You may take a job that you probably wouldn’t do if fear were not raging in your mind. Some of you have mastered this denial process by finding work that provides some enjoyment and/or pays relatively well, but if you won the lottery, would you wish to continue with your job as it is? For many of you, your story is that your job takes too much time and energy, has too many distasteful qualities, and leaves you with too little money. The choice seems to be between either working harder or being poorer. There may be fear around deservedness, and poverty can be seen as the only route to heaven. Jesus warned us about the spiritual dangers of the love of money. When you place financial success as your most important goal in life, you have chosen a goal that has no value. If you believe that money will bring you happiness, you are deceiving yourself. No matter how much you create, it will not be enough. Which billionaires have said that they have enough and have stopped accumulating wealth (the answer may be those who are beginning to look at their own mortality)? But the deception is equal if you believe that poverty will bring you happiness. Remember that money is pure illusion. What do you value? If your priority in life is to experience your divinity, the purpose of money is to support that happening. Perhaps you wish to attend trainings or workshops, go to retreats, or receive sessions for your spiritual and physical healing. You don’t feel that you can afford them, so your spiritual growth feels blocked off. You can’t afford to ascend. That is quite a story.
We begin the healing of your relationship with money by reminding you that the dollar, kronor, or other currency is the illusion of all illusions. It is not real, but exists simply as a temporary convenience. It is a bridge. When you can fly, you don’t need bridges. Money provides an easy way to exchange. It releases you of the need for barter, where you must find the person who has what you want and also wants what you have. Money provides a basis for trust where you give service one place and receive service in another. Eventually there will be no need for it. Fear of lack requires you to keep score. As you realize that the supply is infinite, the need to keep track disappears. You don’t have to wait for the world to get there. You can go there at any time. You can go there now. You cannot experience your divinity while you are carrying fear about money. Is it possible for God to be unable to generate enough? Is there a limit to the creative power of God? If you believe that you cannot generate enough, you have separated yourself from God. You must not be divine. Part of my job is to shake you gently and remind you that you are divine. Listening to your ego is the only thing standing in the way of manifesting whatever you desire in the moment. You choose to pay attention to your ego instead of to Spirit. Your ego says you are undeserving and that there isn’t enough to go around. It tells you that wanting more is selfish and takes away from what others can have. It warns you about what God does to selfish people. The way to ascension, according to the ego, is to do without, to be an ascetic. On the flip side, the ego tells you that those who have abundance have sold their soul to the devil, and they will burn in hell forever. You will be rewarded for your suffering.
What a story! When you decide to stop listening to the ego, your experience will change. It probably won’t transform all at once, because it is difficult to stop listening to that lie instantly in its entirety. Ask Spirit to come in and guide you to the truth about money and manifestation. The function of money is as a medium of exchange so that you are supported in the moment as you are following your path or doing the service you came here to do. Money is not a diversion for you. You can be fully focused on love and supporting others to realize their divinity, as you realize your own. Do the work of listening to Spirit and letting go of the ego. Keep your eye on the prize. Whatever is essential for today will be there. There is no need to worry about tomorrow, because it never comes. You are always in the now. You are always supported by Spirit. When your fear about money surfaces, use the five-step process. Go right into the face of your fear. You will never be able to accumulate enough money to lose the fear. If you are working a job or staying in a relationship because of fear of money, fly into the face of that fear. Staying is a slow death that will not allow you the true happiness of realizing your divinity. If you want to do something that supports your purpose, but worry about not having enough – spend the money. Trust. Do the process. Remember that it is all illusion. It is just a movie. Play the role your heart is set on. God is on your side.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I deal with my karma?
I don’t believe that we have discussed karma in depth in these messages before, though there has been a reference or two. There is a great deal of confusion around karma. In western religions, it is not even talked about, because karma implies past lives. These faiths acknowledge only the existence of the lifetime you are now experiencing. They believe in only one illusion, not in many. It is from Hinduism and Buddhism that we get the belief in reincarnation and the concept of karma. According to these religions you can have both good and bad karma. What you do in this life will affect your next life. If you do something harmful to another, you will suffer for it in your next incarnation. Conversely, if you do good deeds, your reward will come in your next lifetime. A similar belief is held in Christianity, except the reward or punishment is in the afterlife, and it is permanent. The concept of karma is based on judgment of good and bad, followed by the appropriate reward or punishment. For most people, however, the focus with karma is on the negative. You believe that you are suffering now for something you did in a previous embodiment. On top of that, if you do something you judge as bad in this lifetime, you are condemning yourself to being born again, because fresh karma is believed to only affect future lifetimes. Reading between the lines, if you don’t lead a perfect life – if you make one mistake – it’s all over. You are going to have to come back and try it again, and suffer for it.
We want to look at karma from several different perspectives. The first thing is that karma implies judgment. It suggests there are good and bad actions. Those of you who are on a conscious spiritual path – wishing to experience your ascension – become focused on living a perfect life. ”How do I eat right? How do I meditate and pray correctly? Am I doing the right work? How do I take each step flawlessly, so I don’t even step on an ant? How do I breathe so consciously I don’t even inhale a gnat?” There is an unceasing focus on doing right. All this comes from the ego. The entire interpretation of karma that we have been dealing with up to this point comes from the ego. It is fear-based. It is this idea that God is going to punish you for what you have done. God is judging everything that you do, so you take over that job.
Let’s look at what karma truly is. It has nothing to do with divine judgment. What karma represents is that in a previous life you judged yourself for an action and never fully forgave yourself. It is you who pulled that forward to this lifetime. You are still carrying that judgment with you. When you were doing your pre-life planning, you looked at these accumulated judgments – or karma – which you were holding and asked yourself how you could best set up your new incarnation to support you in forgiving and letting them go. You planned to draw various experiences into your life to trigger those old guilts. Hopefully, they would be brought to your attention and forgiven this time. Karma is simply the measure of what you have not forgiven. It has nothing to do with payback or retribution. It is not a punishment. The reason it feels like punishment is that you have a tendency, as we have previously mentioned, to punish yourself before God does. This is the insanity of the ego, because God loves you unconditionally and has no judgment, no matter what you do.
In this lifetime, you will experience something as being traumatic. Your brain-mind may identify this as karmic payback time. Perhaps you bow your head and willingly take the punishment, believing that you deserve it. It is a beautiful thing to accept and to let go. However, if you surrender in a spirit of having deserved this, you are not completely through with the energy. A part of you will continue to respond out of fear rather than out of love. On the other hand, a full letting go and forgiveness leaves you at a place where you only choose to follow the guidance from Spirit, rather than your sense of right and wrong. You are able to surrender to trust and love, directed only by the oneness of Spirit.
You are susceptible to choosing as you have chosen before. You are likely to listen to ego instead of to Spirit. Karma is simply self-correction. You draw these karmic experiences to give you the opportunity to choose Spirit this time. The more shaken up you are by the karmic experience, the greater the possibility that you might invite Spirit. If you don’t, it’s all right. Nobody is going to punish you except yourself. You will get chance after chance after chance. When you choose Spirit, karma is dissolved. It is no more, neither past nor present. Whatever ”fresh karma” you have accumulated in this lifetime is also dissolved. There is no further balancing to be done. There is no debt to be paid. It is just a question of when you absolutely forgive yourself, when you fully let go of the ego. Doing the five-step process accelerates the release of your ego. The karma you carry is in your body; it is the energy that you work with in the second step. It makes no difference what lifetime or lifetimes the karma is connected to. Either you have it or you don’t. When it dissolves, it dissolves for all time.
Karma is not punishment; it is a gift you have offered to yourself. We support you in giving up the struggle. Surrender the idea that it has to be hard. Let go of the thought that you deserve punishment and that pain will cleanse you and make you worthy. You are worthy right now. Ascension is not something you earn. It is simply about loving yourself and everyone else unconditionally. It is about absolutely forgiving yourself and others. In the process of doing that you will come to the realization that there has never been anything to forgive. God does not and never has judged you. He always loves you. Karma is a gift to remind you of where you are not doing that, where you are choosing ego over Spirit. Welcome and embrace your karma. Use it to practice forgiveness and unconditional love. You are forgiven. Go in peace.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What do birthdays and deathdays have in common?
Everyone in your culture consciously embraces the anniversary of the birth, of the entrance into the illusion of physical reality. Your birthday is a big day, one for joyful celebration. It is an event where everyone honors you, perhaps with a party so that people can express their love and appreciation. The deathday is also a date to celebrate. It is an occasion where you focus on the transition of your loved one. It is a time to consider the spiritual gift that arrived for you that day. Whatever is not healed in you about death will come up for you to look upon. It is a moment to ask Spirit to support you in fully opening up to what you are still holding around death: whatever is feeling unhealed, wherever there is still fear or anger, grief or sadness. Feel where that energy is being held in your body and to call on Spirit to help bring about a transformation. You may want to revisit where we talked about death.
Your birthday is for celebrating the moment when you jumped in and declared that you were going for the golden ring again. On that date, you took on a physical form in the hopes that you would remember the truth of who you are this time; that you would realize your divinity and experience the Oneness while in a body. The deathday, which is always someone else’s, is a celebration for one who came in with you to play an important role, joining you in a mutual support to recognize your divinity. Feel gratitude for that, understanding that the death was a part of the gift. The greatest possible benefit that can be garnered from this is the insight that there is no death. Death is an illusion. There is no ”life”. You do not begin with a birth or end with a death. You are. Birth and death are but mirages. Your single purpose in creating this chimera of ”life” is to realize just that; that it is an illusion. This is not real. It is not you. You are divine, eternal, immortal, and limitless. Each death is a gift to help you realize that. The anniversary of the deathday is meant to honor the divinity of that soul. They died so that you could be free of the illusion of death. The ego sees this as ”the supreme sacrifice”, but nothing was lost here. Those who die only leave behind the suffering they experienced while having a body. They are free of all of that now. I have used the term ”illusion” several times. Your ego has a great resistance to accepting life and the physical world as illusions. The term cannot be overused. Repetition can only help you to let go of your ego’s resistance.
When there is still sadness for you around the deathday, the sorrow is a mask for your fear of your own death. If you fully accepted the soul’s immortality and you truly loved the individual who has left the body, you would be so happy for them that they are free of suffering. ”Rest in peace” you say, and you would really feel that joy. This is not a peace of emptiness or nothingness, which is, perhaps, part of your story and your fear. It is the peace of seeing that this was an illusion, the peace of knowing that the pains and sufferings of this ”life” can all be let go. A gift that is there for you in the deathday is you can realize that you don’t have to leave your body to let go of the suffering. That is the last recourse. If you can’t find a way to transmute the pain while alive, you can always leave your body. There is no judgment about this. If you choose to leave, you will sooner or later choose to return. Eventually you will get it; you’ll accept your divinity. But, since you are going to leave behind all of this suffering at some point, there is absolutely no reason to hold on to any of it for another minute. The deathday is there to remind you of that. You can’t take it with you. You can’t take your pain with you when you die. You can choose to release it now.
Celebrate your own and others’ birthdays. Honor your courage in taking on the form of the illusion of physicality. Love your determination to realize your divinity this time, to ascend. Celebrate the deathdays for those that you love. Don’t add the intervening years to their age. Don’t visualize what they might look like now. This is not a day to hold them in their physical form. It is a time to celebrate their divinity. They are no longer your parent, sibling, partner, child, relative, or friend. They have dropped that role. You are still lovingly connected with them, but now it is with the truth of who they are. Let the illusion of their life go, as they have already done. Practice forgiveness. Go into your body and deal with your pain through the five-step process. Ask Spirit for support. Make every day a celebration of eternal life, of the truth of who they are, and of the truth of who you are.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Can you explain the terms ego and Spirit?
In past messages, we have used the terms ”ego” and ”Spirit”. Perhaps this is a good time to define what we mean by them. Those of you who are or have been working with A Course in Miracles may be familiar with how it uses these words. We will treat them in a similar way. We would begin by reminding you of the truth of who you are, of your personal divinity. You are created in the image of God. You are one with God, who loves you unconditionally no matter what you might choose, do, or think. However, the part of you that we call your ego does not believe this or trust it for a minute. Your ego, in fact, is terrified of God and believes that you are separated from Him. It thinks that God is angry with you for this separation and is going to punish you. Your ego’s agenda is all about protecting you from God. One of the ways it does this is by punishing you, before God can do it. Another way of dealing with this fear is by trying to be ”good” in the attempt to win back God’s love. Your ego is absolutely insane. It’s crazy. Your ego believes that you have to try to do everything right. You have to eat right, wear the right clothes, meditate in the right way and with the correct frequency, have right thoughts, treat others right, and so on. This comes from the belief that you are separate from God, which you cannot be, never have been, and never will be. It is an absolute impossibility. The nature of who you are is a child of God. You are created by God in His image, and there is nothing you can do about it. But, your ego doesn’t believe this. Your ego will do anything to protect you from God.
Your ego is the voice of fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, pain, suffering, doubt, and self-flagellation. None of it has anything to do with God’s love. We would put it this way. God simply does not see your illusion of separation that you have created here through your ego. He does not see it. God doesn’t see this hell that you have created. He does not even see those moments when this world your ego has made feels blissful, even heavenly. Even the ecstasy you might experience on the physical earth pales in the face of the true joy, love, and creativity that you are. It is but a taste of it. You may have heard that the human mind only uses five or ten percent of its full capacity. What if it worked at 100%? When you experience bliss in your body…enjoying the beauty of the earth, dancing, having sex, eating food, sharing love with another, or whatever the connection might be…you are at best only experiencing 5% of the totality of the absolutely unlimited bliss, joy, and love that you are. Happiness is a very relative term. If you are receiving electric shocks and then they stop, you may feel happy. Happiness can only exist if there is also unhappiness. Divinity is infinite rather than relative. It has no opposite; it is the ”is-ness”, the truth of who you are. Your ego, meanwhile, is fighting like hell for that 5%, while denying the existence of the 95%.
What is Spirit? Spirit is a little harder thing to put your finger on. It is not physical, nor of the material world. We could call Spirit an intermediary between you and God. Whereas, God does not see this physical-ness, this illusion – in fact you created it so that you could hide here from God – Spirit is able to see it. Spirit is in between; it is absolutely connected and one with God and at the same time can recognize your confusion. You can have a direct communication with Spirit about your inner turmoil which you are unable to have with God, who doesn’t recognize anything about you but your divinity. Spirit can enter into your dream and help you transform it. When you ask Spirit for help – some people use the term “pray” – it is the same thing as asking Jesus or any other ascended master for help. The ascended master is a soul like you, but has recognized oneness with Spirit and can act in this realm while also being absolutely connected with God.
Your job becomes very simple. You can listen to your ego or you can listen to Spirit. You can be guided by your ego or you can be guided by Spirit. You make the decision. It takes a very conscious intention to choose Spirit because the world around you tends not to. The world around you will probably reflect that you would be insane to choose Spirit, even the mirror that claims to be religious. What do you do in the face of such overwhelming opposition? First comes the recognition, the knowing of which of the two you are listening to, your ego or Spirit. If any of the qualities above, which were listed at the beginning of the second paragraph, are present – you are listening to your ego. If you are listening to Spirit, the following qualities might be present: first of all, trust, and secondly an absolute integrity (being true to yourself). Your ego wants you to act in a way that is not in line with your true self, out of fear of what might happen if you are true to yourself. The trust and the integrity fit hand in hand. Meanwhile, your ego is warning you of all of the consequences of going down that road. When you are listening to Spirit there is never a competition, never an either/or, never winners and losers. Spirit always speaks with unconditional love, free of judgment. Your ego speaks from fear and always has limits, competition, and the need for protection.
The next question might be, ”Okay. I know I am listening to my ego, but how do I stop?” First you set an intention and you invite Spirit in. You ask Spirit to guide your life. After you have done that, there are two main things you can focus on. One is to have a constant awareness of when and how your ego is acting. Ask yourself how Spirit might guide you here. How would Spirit choose? What might Spirit say to you? If an answer doesn’t come quickly, ask Spirit to send you support. The second thing is to practice forgiveness. Your ego operates out of guilt. That is its main fuel. Forgiveness destroys guilt. If you could eliminate guilt from your life, your ego would starve to death. It needs your guilt or the guilt of others, which is easy to find. You simply point your finger and say, ”It is your fault”. But we know that everything you see around you is just your own reflection. It doesn’t matter whether you perceive it in yourself or another. Remind yourself that it is an illusion; that person didn’t do anything to you. You haven’t done anything either. You are all innocent. You forgive both. You constantly search for the guidance of Spirit, and you continuously forgive when you realize your judgment is in the way. A good benchmark for telling whether your judgment is in the way is to see if you have any. If you do, it is in the way. Nothing is too big or too small. Choose Spirit. Ask for support. Forgive. Know that you are always loved at every moment. Know that you do not have to do one thing to deserve that love.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do my home and relationships affect my intention to ascend?
We talked several years ago about home and having a sense of home. I encourage you to reread that message, but we are going to talk a little differently about home today. We have also talked about relationships before. Again, you may wish to review that subject, but we will go in another direction with the information today. Finally, we previously talked about intention, and of course you are invited to revisit that correspondence – in fact, it would probably be the most supportive of the three in fully receiving today’s communication. We are going to weave these three topics together for you.
Everything always begins with intention. Everything. If you do not express clear intent, you, by default, give your life over to the mass consciousness and to the confusion brought forth from your past lives. When you have the goal to experience ascension, the only thing between you and the full realization of your divinity is the illusion of time. That could involve lifetimes, but it will happen. Much of what we share with you is given with the hope that you might reduce the time it takes you to realize your divinity. Knowing what you want, expressing intention, and making ascension the most important thing in your life – these are the great time reducers. Whatever else you are considering, choices you have before you, confusions you have – ask yourself, “Is this in line with my intention to ascend?”
I want to specifically direct this focus of achieving the realization of your divinity in two ways: first dealing with home, then with relationship. I have mentioned several times about the ”mirroring” effect of others. Whenever you are around others, you see yourself reflected in them. Whatever you notice about them shows how you feel about yourself. Your judgments of them are your judgments of yourself. Your love for them is your love for yourself. If you feel yourself to be a victim to them, it is you who have created the attack because of your belief in a need for punishment. As you are conscious of this, you can use it as a healing tool. Your ego does not want to accept these reflections as you. It wants to project on others and to be a righteous martyr. Take this home with you. Work with this within the safety and security of your home. These are frightful things you are encountering. It is a great challenge. It is not easy to fully confront your illusions and your fear, even using the five-step process. That’s why we encourage you to create a safe home. This is a place where you will have minimal opposition from your mirrors. You will never escape them completely, nor would you want to if your primary intention is to ascend. On the other hand, if you are constantly challenged by your reflections, you go crazy. It’s more than you can handle. Create a secure place; I call that home. For some of you this home is the place where you live. But for others your residence is not a shelter. For some of you, home might be a group you get together with, a close friend, or a quiet spot in the woods. That is where you feel protected. The first thing we are suggesting around home is that you make sure you have it somewhere. If your residence doesn’t provide such a haven, find someplace else. Look for a space where you feel nurtured and supported in your spiritual process.
If you are in a relationship that doesn’t support your spiritual process in a nurturing manner, I ask you what your first priority is? What is your intention? If it is your chosen purpose to become aware of your divinity, living day-to-day intimately with someone who does not reinforce this path makes that realization much more difficult. If this is the case for you, perhaps you have created a safe pocket within your residence. But, still you must venture out into the rest of the house and interact with your partner. The questions are ” What are you choosing?” and “Why are you choosing that?” Perhaps your response is to say that you know that your partner is your mirror and so you are using your partner to promote your spiritual growth by taking responsibility when you become upset over what is going on between the two of you. I say that is wonderful, but do you need or want your life to be a constant barrage of perceived attack from your mirror? If you are open and willing to see your fears and what your ego is telling you, there will be plenty of opportunities to experience your ego’s voice as you go through your daily life. But, if you are ”sleeping with the enemy”, it can actually be harder to change your story.
Let’s talk further about relationships. Some of you, as you read this, are saying, ”What relationship? I wish I had one.” If this is your situation ask yourself which is more important to you, realizing your ascension or having a relationship. Be honest. If being in a relationship comes first, it is not likely that you will manifest one that supports your spirituality. You will also likely find the relationship to be a co-dependent one, because you may be entering it out of neediness. What other parts of yourself might you be willing to deny to keep your partner from leaving? If you decide to leave, you have to begin the whole process over again. What will make a new relationship any different? I encourage you to be conscious of what you are choosing. Ask yourself what you really want from a relationship. What would leave you unfulfilled if it were not a part of your partnership? If you have expressed your intention to realize your divinity, how can a relationship be fully supportive if it is not based on a mutual desire to experience your divine natures?
If ascension is your highest intention, you might be more strongly supported in it through creating a safe home for yourself, rather than focusing on having a relationship. If this leaves you feeling hopeless, your issue for healing is hopelessness. Create a network of friends or groups that share and support your intention. Choose a home where you can work with your process, deal with your ego, face your fears, and focus on loving yourself and others unconditionally, without having anyone in your face. Also, work with your fear of never finding the right partner. Come up with a new story. What likely happens is that you will create the partner who fully supports you in your ascension process when you don’t need that person, when you are already doing that for yourself. If you are looking for a partner to come in and save you in your spiritual process, you are back to a co-dependent situation. Ask Spirit to bring a supportive partner into your life. This partner can magnify the effort you are already making. Nobody ascends alone. We are all connected. You are never alone. When the person is ready, the partner will appear.
Your ultimate relationship is with yourself and with Spirit. Your process is expedited when you are clear about your intention, create a nurturing home, and are uncompromising when it comes to choosing a partner who supports your intention. I am not necessarily suggesting that if your relationship does not feel supportive, you should move out today or have the locks changed. But, it may be time to initiate a different kind of conversation with your partner. See if that mutuality can be found. If your partner is not able to support you – you have a clear choice to make. Remember that your truest partner is Spirit, and Spirit always loves you unconditionally.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How does the ego divide and conquer?
There is a strategy that has been used throughout history by those who seek to take power from others called ”divide and conquer”. If one can get different groups or individuals to fight among themselves, it becomes easier to take them over. It is when people are united that conquest becomes a larger challenge. The clever conqueror discovers how to sow the seeds of discontent, to get people’s fingers pointing in many different directions. Individuals fail to recognize the real source of their difficulties. They think it lies everywhere else. Many politicians have mastered this ability. Divide and conquer. The ego has always used this technique. Where did these controlling leaders learn how to do this? From the ego. Those who seek to dominate others are the highest expression of the ego on the planet, using force and fear to wrest power from others. Of course, no leader can do this without your consent. This kind of power feeds off of fear. Now we want to look at how the ego accomplishes this.
Some of you, in conjunction with the previous two messages, have been working with your “old stories”. We have heard wonderful reports about the successes you have had in using the five-step process with them. Some of you have realized that you hadn’t previously made the decision to really let go of the “old story”, and decided that it was now time to do so. Now we want to take it to another level. What the ego will often do is let you go off trying to change a story and therefore claim your power and your divinity. But, before you fully achieve success with that issue, the ego taps you on the shoulder and points out another issue which you need to heal. You drop the first issue and go to the second. Then the ego taps you on the other shoulder and points out a third issue, and another, and another, and so on. You are left exhausted and hopeless. There are so many issues to heal. How can you ever get to all of them? Before you can put out the first fire, there is another fire calling for your attention. What to do? You throw up your hands. After a time, you probably find the energy to tackle another “old story”, but the same cycle continues. You melt into a puddle of helplessness. Divide and conquer. The ego wins.
Once you are conscious of your divine nature, the ego has to step up its game. Your full embrace of your divinity is the death knell for the ego. This awareness of your divinity will lead inevitably to full realization and your ascension; however long it might appear to take. Being alert to the ego’s techniques allows you to minimize that expanse of time. Being mindful to how the ego works will lower your susceptibility to the divisions it is provoking. You begin to understand the ego’s game which is intended to keep you in this endless cycle of victimhood and powerlessness.
What we are going to suggest as means for ending this seemingly unending division is that you choose just one “old story”. We don’t suggest that just any story will do, but that you choose the one that appears to you to be the largest, the most insurmountable. Choose your greatest challenge, the one you feel would be the hardest thing for you to achieve. The truth is that there is no order of difficulty, but the ego is telling you that this one challenge is greater than all the others. The ego tells you that this one is too hard and that you should go for something more easily achievable. Even when you make this choice, you can be sure that the ego will remind you of the roads you haven’t chosen. Don’t listen. This choice will be easier, because you know that you have taken on a big challenge. Likely, the other baits the ego tries to tempt you with are nested within this larger challenge. If the ego, in its desperation, should tempt you with an even larger challenge, you might choose to let go of the one you have in favor of the new, seemingly bigger story. If this should be the case, you still are left dealing with only one story, and you can thank the ego for its helpful diligence. The ego will sometimes shoot itself in the foot in order to get what it wants. Ultimately, the biggest “old story” is all inclusive. Don’t worry about finding it; let it find you.
Your job is to choose the major story that you are aware of and willing to release. Use the five-step process or whatever other technique you might have to transform that “old story” into one of divinity, power, and love. Give it attention every day. Do this by focusing on your new story, chosen in the fourth step of the process, holding that in the forefront of your consciousness throughout the day. If you should notice pieces of the “old story” creeping back into your consciousness in the form of little fears or guilts nibbling at the edges of your new story, then redo the five-step process. Do so every day if necessary. When you are working with the second step, and you have felt the energy transform and have moved it to your heart chakra, try doing a full body scan from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet to see if there is any other place where you are feeling discomfort. If you detect any imbalances, work with those spots until you notice no further distress. You might wish to continue doing scans until everything feels clear. Then, it is time to release the energy from your heart chakra.
Feel the simplicity of having just one story to deal with. You may reach a point where you feel that you have fully left the “old story” behind. Congratulations! Now, what is the biggest “old story” you want to transform? Notice that you are not simply jumping from one story to another. It is not an example of divide and conquer. You are simply “trading up”. Eventually the ”new” old story will be the one that is truly all encompassing. You will stay with that story until you realize your ascension. Remember always, that you don’t escape your fear by running away from it or by closing your eyes and making affirmations. You deal with your fear by confronting the terror and diving right into it. The ego may tell you to run away, but turn around and face your darkness. Know that Spirit and love are always with you. You will meet them at the heart of darkness. Have a wonderfully focused time with your new story.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why is it hard to let go of victimhood?
In the last message, we talked about recognizing your “old story” and choosing to let it go. But, you really have to want to let it go, and you don’t always want to do that. Sometimes, things have to get so bad that there isn’t anything else to do but to let the “old story” go. I am a believer in the idea that the least pain brings the greatest gain. You don’t have to really suffer to grow spiritually. If you are proactive and get out in front of things, you can choose to have your spiritual progress be as painless as possible. However, the part of you that we call the ego – the division that doesn’t believe in your divinity, thinks you are separate from God, and believes you are going to be punished for this separation – wants you to hold on to the victimization. It seems safer. Remember that the ego isn’t sane; it is absolutely crazy. It believes in insanity. And it draws immense pain and suffering to you.
I want to talk about how this operates for you. The ego says to fear punishment by God for being guilty. There is a hesitation to ever admit guilt. The ego tells you that to admit guilt is to invite the inevitable punishment. What you do then, is to project. Why is your life not working? Why are you upset today? Why are there problems? Because he did this. Because she did that. Because of the government. Because of my boss. Because of my parents. There is always a place to put blame. Unfortunately, blaming never helps. The ego claims it is buying time, that it is protecting you. But blaming never brings joy; it never brings peace or a sense of love. It creates feelings of helplessness. Blame leaves you always victim to the whims and the actions of others. Always. That is an illusion, because victimhood is a lie. It is not the truth. You are the creator. You are the divinity. Whatever exists comes from you, even if you are not aware of your part in the manifestation. As long as you pretend to not be responsible for your creations, they will continue to attack you. You will continue to fight them and to suffer.
I think that most of you can recognize yourself here. But some of you also play the game of ”Woe is me”. You tell yourself that you are so horrible and weak, and you go about accusing yourself instead of blaming others. However, if you look deeply, you will probably find many judgments of others mixed in with the self-blame. The ego thinks that by taking blame it might be able to avoid the wrath of God. But blaming yourself is the same thing as blaming others. It is an illusion; it is a lie. And, it never makes you feel better. It never heals. Remember that in the eyes of God there is no blame, no judgment, and no separation. God sees only your divine nature. For you to experience your divine nature, give up all blame and guilt, take full responsibility for everything in your life, and forgive yourself for every judgment you are holding about yourself and others. When you find the going to be tough, that is the place for the five-step process.
I began by saying that you are to be fully willing to give up your “old story”. There is a very good reason, according to the ego, for holding on to this blame/victim pattern. It manifests in a variety of ways, but they all have something in common. To the ego, it feels like there is a lot to lose by giving up victimhood. There is a comforting security blanket in being the helpless victim. This is something you can share with everyone around you. It is said that misery loves company. You go to your friends and you tell your pitiable story. ”Look what (fill in the name) did to me”. ”Guess what happened to me at (fill in the place)?”. ”You won’t believe what this jerk driver did”. It goes on and on, and your friend hugs you and says, ”Oh, poor you. I know how that feels”. You have this great connection and it feels good in the moment. It is a way to immediately sense love coming from others. They support you. This may be the only way that you know how to feel this love. The glow doesn’t last, however. The pain of being a victim remains. If you do decide to let go of your victimhood, there is a fear that others will abandon you. If you stop joining in the game of enabling victimhood, of supporting it in others and allowing others to support it in you, what is left in your relationships? Maybe others will grow angry and judgmental toward you? How will they react if you stop sharing your blame stories? What if you suggest to them that they give up their victimhood and claim their full power? ”Who the hell do you think you are?” they might say. There is a tremendous fear of taking your power. The ego judges power. It is terrified of it.
There is a similarity here with the experiences of those who choose to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. In that case, you want to give up an addiction to substances, as opposed to an addiction to blame. You may find that you will give up many of your friends and relationships, because they only share and support your addiction. You may choose to replace these people with others who are opting to take their own power. A great change may be required. Parents with younger children might have the fear that if they gave up their attachments, they might not be there for their kids. You might lose your marriage, your parents, or your job, along with your friends. You will become a social pariah. The ego does a wonderful job of spreading this kind of terror.
Ultimately it will come down to one question for you. Are you tired of this shit or not? Do you want to hold onto your victimhood and your unhappiness because you have the solace of fellow sufferers? Is that worth it? If the answer is ”yes”, you will continue with your “old story” until the answer becomes ”no”. If you want, now, to experience your divinity, feel your power, know only love, peace, and joy – you say “no” to the ego. You choose to let go of all judgment and blame, and refuse to have pain, suffering, and failure be part of your life anymore. Now, you are ready to let go of the “old stories”. You are willing to transform the fears you have been holding in your body into love. This will take some time, but the rewards will begin to be felt immediately. You don’t have to wait until life breaks you. You can be proactive. Choose to listen to the voice of love. You can experience the minimal amount of pain by choosing now. The more completely you commit yourself, the less pain you will feel. When you make this choice for yourself, ask for support from Spirit. It is there always. It always has been there. It has only been waiting for you to ask.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What do you mean by my “old story”?
For some of you there has been some confusion over the first step of the five-step process, misunderstanding the meaning of your ”old story”. Your ego tells you stories all of the time about your experiences and what they mean. For example, your brain-mind might say, ”I am really good at athletics”, or ”I am a good problem solver”, or on the other hand, ”I just don’t get along with the opposite sex; I don’t know how to talk with them”, or ”I never have enough money”. As you repeat some of these tales, they fill you with confidence and power. Relating other narratives may leave you feeling uneasy or even terrible. There is a sense of ”that’s my story and I’m stuck with it”. These are the “old stories” that we are talking about, the ones that bring you discomfort, the ones that hurt. We call it a story because it is something you have made up. It’s not the truth. Anything that is not about unconditional love, joy, and passion is false. It is an illusion. Today we will talk about these “old stories”.
You don’t have to live with them anymore. You may not want to hear this, but you are living with these old tales because you are choosing to do so. Nobody is forcing them upon you, though your narrative may state that others are, indeed, forcing your story upon you. If your account is, ”this isn’t my story, this is just the way the world is,” you are denying your divinity. You are pretending that someone or something else is running your life. As long as you hold on to that fantasy, it will be true for you. My job is not to tell you to change your perception. That’s your job. I am simply here to tell you that there is no story you are stuck with. That is the simple truth. Let me retract that. There is one story you are stuck with. You are the divine, innocent child of God. You are all powerful. Everything in this world is your creation. You are stuck with that. You can deny it, but you can’t get rid of that story. It is the only statement that is absolutely true. All of the others are optional; they are whatever you want to choose.
You can hold on to painful stories as long as you wish to, but I encourage you to remind yourself of your divinity regularly, daily. Emphasize to yourself that you are the loving, infinite, immortal power behind everything in your life, even though your ego may be screaming out ”I don’t believe that; I’m not all of that!” Remember that God loves and blesses you always, no matter what you do. Replace the story of the punishing God with one of a loving God. Let that be your daily focus.
For now, we want to direct our energy toward dealing with these “old stories”. They are simply things that happen in your life that cause you pain. It may be that you are not fully conscious of having a story. It might just feel like your experience. Something happened in your life and it hurt. You can feel where you are carrying that pain in your body, both when the event happened and when you recall it to your memory. That is an “old story”. That is what we are talking about transforming through the use of Spiritual Alchemy. The five-step process will only work well if you decide that you don’t want the story anymore. You may have an unpleasant “old story” that you are not ready to let go of. That’s fine. Hold on to it as long as you wish. But, if you are ready to let go of what is painful in your life, you can do that. Be honest with yourself. Either way the story is serving you. You are not a victim. If you are ready, you can do the process.
There is something else I would like to say about this process of letting go of the “old story”. It is a habit to play your tale over and over in your head or through sharing it with others. Every time you revisit the “old story”, you give it energy; you feed it. It lives and it continues. If you have done the process and the story comes back, likely, there is another level of the energy to be transformed. Acknowledge it and redo the process. You don’t always get every bit of it at once. You transmute what you are able to each time. Eventually, the pain will all be gone from your body. Remember that you are not chasing the fear away, you are transforming it into love. Meanwhile the fear affects you on every level. Eventually it kills you. You leave and come back and do it again with a new plan. When you have made the decision to let go of the “old story”, really let it go. If the story comes back, repeat the process. To repeat the tale is to hold onto it. The only catharsis that comes from the retelling is to feel the pain that you are carrying, so that you can focus on it while doing the process. Otherwise, do not give attention to the story either mentally or verbally. Your story is fed when you receive pity from others. It can be a helpful self-discipline to simply stop. See what happens. Replace the “old story” with your divine story. Ask yourself how a divine child of God would react in your situation. In each moment you are choosing whether to feed love or fear. Be vigilant in noticing which you are giving life to. Don’t allow yourself to focus your mental energy on the ego’s fear.
You are love and you are loved. Keep your focus there. Step by step you are moving toward the full realization of your divinity. You will get there. That is a given. The five-step process merely accelerates the movement. Alleviating the suffering now; that is a choice. God only sees your divinity. Everything in this world is your creation. We encourage you to take your power and to use it, inspired by the love that you are. Have a wonderful now.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How should I celebrate Christmas?
I would like to talk about Christmas. This is the most important holiday in the western world. That is a confusing thing for some people, perhaps for many. Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus. However, Jesus was a Pisces and was born in March of 4 BC. Yes, that’s right. He was born four years ”Before Christ”. The Christian religion, however, chose December to celebrate Jesus’s birth. We want to state very clearly that Jesus had nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of Christianity. We’ll discuss more about that, later. The reason the holiday is observed in December is that as Christianity was developing and spreading in Europe, one of the most significant existing festivals had to do with the return of the light. This was more important in ancient agrarian times than it is today. Now you can always go to the store or open the refrigerator to find food. In those days there was only what had been saved from the previous harvest, along with any successes from hunting. It would be a long time until things began to grow again in the spring. In December the light was scarce, it was cold, and there was often concern about how long the food would last. The midwinter solstice was the longest night of the year. From then on, the light began to return. This brought about optimism and a revelry. There was fear about the dark and this festival expressed the hope that there would eventually be warmth, then growth and more food. Christianity co-opted this celebration, but chose to keep many of the old elements intact. That is why there are Christmas trees, elfish beings, lights, feasts, and more. That is why we have this holiday.
Let us take a look at Jesus. Certainly, the word Christmas contains” Christ”. Whether or not you consider yourself to be a Christian, and whether or not you believe in Jesus’s existence or divinity, you are well aware that Jesus is the reason for the holiday. As I have said, Jesus did not begin Christianity, and he would not have done so. The religion is not representative of his teachings. There is a small amount of Jesus that can be found there. If you read through the New Testament and look at the words that are attributed to him, perhaps twenty percent of them are in the ballpark of something he might have said. There are an equal number of things that are absolutely opposed to anything Jesus taught. Absolutely opposed. How do you know which is which? If you read those words – in some Bibles the words attributed to Jesus are in red, like someone has highlighted the juicy parts for you – take a deep breath after each statement and ask yourself if this fills you with feelings of unconditional love and lifts you up. Or, does it cause you to feel guilt or fear? If it does the latter, it is probably not an accurate representation of Jesus’s real words. When in doubt, throw it out.
I will tell you what I know about Jesus, both from being his disciple in my lifetime as Thomas and also from what I learned after he was no longer directly in my life (lives). I did write down many of the things that I heard him say. These writings have been referred to as The Gospel of Thomas, which was found in the 1940’s along with other ancient scrolls in the Egyptian desert. But, that version is not mine. That transcript had gone through several re-writings. Perhaps half of what is there was close to what I had written. Again, use your own guidance if you read this text. Coming back to Jesus – there are some things to say about him that are absolutely true, and that he said himself. He taught over and over that the way to find heaven was through unconditional love. It was not about doing ”right” things over ”wrong” things. It was not about judging or being judged. It was about being in a state of love. He also said that he was a child of God, created by God. He said that we were just the same as him, that we are no different. He was to us as an older brother, with more experience and wisdom, who was further along the path. Jesus saw the divinity in each person, whether or not the person was capable of recognizing that divinity. He did not teach that there were rules to be followed. He didn’t speak of the Ten Commandments. He did not make any statements about what people should do. He did not speak about roles that women should take in society, as opposed to men. He did not differentiate between people based on their religion, sexual orientation, state of servitude, or race. His primary tenets were unconditional love, forgiveness, and the honoring of personal divinity.
That is what can be celebrated at Christmas. It is not about the birth of a savior. Jesus would be the first to tell you that birth was not his beginning. He had always been and always would be, as you have always been and will always be. To make Jesus special, to make Jesus different, would go against the heart of his teaching. He said ”this and more you shall do”, that is, that whatever he did, we are capable of doing…and more! Make Jesus divine in your thoughts, but not at the cost of denying divinity to yourself. The observance of his birth is the celebration of his divine eternal spirit, which is also the honoring of your divine eternal spirit. It is at this time in the darkness of the year, in the coldness and the unfruitfulness of the season, that it can be helpful to reaffirm your divinity, to hold that light in the dark.
There is no need in your spiritual process to pay any attention to Christmas, whatsoever. It’s not necessary. Neither God nor Jesus will frown on you for not honoring the birthday. God does not operate in that way. He honors and celebrates whatever you choose to do and loves you without conditions, as does Jesus. It is for you with your inner guidance, to decide what to do with this day, if anything. But if you are thinking about Christmas, you can use the moment to align yourself with your brother, Jesus, remembering that he holds you always as his equal. His coming was not as a sacrifice, but was as an expression of love. Not only did he not die for your sins, he didn’t recognize your sins. Only you hold on to the energy of that. This can be a wonderful time to light a candle and to see the purity and the brilliance of the light that is you. Or find it in the fire you may be sitting before for warmth. For those of you who find yourself in the southern hemisphere, this celebration might feel more appropriate for you in June, in the dark of your year. However, the memorialization can happen at any time, in any month, or not at all. Follow your own heart. You can celebrate your eternal flame at any time.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do I deal with the religious conflict in the Middle East?
We would like to further develop the previous message, What is a spiritual response to a world crisis?, beginning with the history of conflict in the area called the Middle East and how it ties in with religion, particularly the three major monotheistic ones: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The story begins with the oldest of the three, Judaism, and the tale, as told in the Old Testament, of Abraham. He was told to take his people to the land that is now Israel, and to begin a new religion that honored the one God. This land was not empty. From the outset we had somebody guided for religious reasons to take over a land that belonged to someone else. This Jewish god demanded obedience; there were severe consequences for breaking his laws. Years later, the story tells us, the Hebrews left and went to Egypt where they became enslaved, then, following generations of captivity, broke free behind Moses’ leadership. Forty years after this, they returned to the “Promised Land” and, again, other people were living there. In the name of god, they fought for and won this land. Over the next 1200 years there was a nearly constant state of war with other religions, mostly not monotheistic, for control of this land.
At times the Jews lost control and were subjugated. This was the case when Jesus was born, with the Romans controlling this land. Jesus was a Jew, we could say a rabbi, and not a Christian. He did not start a religion. But many who were not Jews began to follow some of his ideas, primarily through the influence of Paul. Thus, began the religion called Christianity, which was only loosely based on the words of Jesus. The half of his sayings that were eliminated were partially replaced by the inclusion of Old Testament, or Jewish beliefs. However, the wisdom of Jesus had little to do with the Ten Commandments or the idea of a “chosen people”. Jesus’s message was simply one of unconditional love and of personal divinity, that held everyone as divine. You love your enemy, because in truth you have no enemy. His teaching was at one with my teaching, as he was my teacher. However, historically, Christianity became the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The unconditional love and acceptance of Jesus transformed into a pattern of war and conquest.
Along came Mohammad and Islam, also tracing their roots to Judaism. Jesus was held as a prophet, but not as the son of God. On the one hand they were right; there is nothing special about Jesus over anyone else. What they missed, as did the Jews and the Christians, is that everyone else is as special as Jesus, that we are all sons and daughters of God. So, you had three different groups claiming to have the true knowledge of God, asserting ownership to the heart of their religion, Jerusalem. Over the years there has been a constant conflict over “the Holy Land”. When we talk about this dispute, we are not talking about all Jews, all Christians, and all Muslims. The clash is between those who could be called the fundamentalists of their respective religions. Fundamentalism results when fear is the basis of religious belief, rather than love. They are afraid of God and prostrate themselves before the divine. They do not respect themselves or see that they can find the truth within. Fundamentalists go to the sacred texts and claim them to be direct revelations of the thoughts of God. They try to find in the text the truth of what God wants them to do. They have the fear that the failure to do God’s bidding will bring His judgment down upon them.
Today, Jewish fundamentalism is responsible for many of the policies of the Israeli government and its refusal to provide a home for Islam in the Holy Land. Islamic fundamentalism is responsible for terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Christian fundamentalism, which has a particularly strong influence on the government of the United States, accepts neither Judaism nor Islam as true religions. Even in Europe are found judgments about Islam and Judaism, seeing the former as intolerant and terroristic, and the latter as controlling international money. That is the situation as it appears to exist today.
I am speaking to you as neither a Jew, a Muslim, nor a Christian, but as a divine child of God, because that is all there is. If you look at these three religions, you will find that the majority of their followers are not fundamentalists. They are trying to find a place of unconditional love and acceptance through the tenets of their religion. They want people to take care of each other. We have just heard the Pope come to the United States with a message to share the wealth, to work to end the vast differences between the haves and the have-nots. This has always been the message of Muhammad, as it has been a tradition within Judaism.
All of this comes back around to and hinges on the teachings of Jesus. Yes, Jesus said to take care of the poor, but his deepest message is the one that is the key to the whole situation in the Middle East. This was to love your enemy, and in fact to see, in truth, that you have no enemy. He was talking about the concept of the “mirror” as I have shared with you on many occasions. What you judge in another is what you judge in yourself. It can be no other way. To bring peace to the Middle East you first find it in your heart to love every single person there unconditionally. Let go of your judgment. Let go of your belief that any child of God could be a victim – not the refugees, not those who are imprisoned or tortured or murdered, not those soldiers who have been physically or emotionally damaged. There are no victims here. The way you care for people is by seeing the divinity in them. When you see their divinity, you cannot see them as a victim. You don’t have to travel to the Middle East to accomplish this peace. At the same time, as you hold on to your judgments, you are feeding the fire there.
Drop all stereotyping. If you notice that you are having thoughts about a person because of their religion, let them go. Let your thoughts be about the individual, rather than the group they represent. Then, look into that individual’s heart and see who he or she is as a unique child of God. If you find that there is a part that you have difficulty loving unconditionally, that is the part of yourself that you judge. Do the work on yourself, not on them. This is how you bring peace to the world. You don’t have to leave your own living room. It is not about arguing with others or convincing them. If you hear prejudicial statements, notice if they upset you. If they do, the healing is to take place within you, not within the other. Use some process to move the energy. It can be the five-step process, Ho’oponopono, A Course in Miracles, or whatever works for you. There is no one way. The belief that there is one way leads to fundamentalism. If you think that your spiritual techniques are superior, you are feeding the flames in the Middle East. It is okay. All on earth is illusion anyway. However, you will not experience your own ascension while holding feelings of superiority or inferiority.
Remember that it isn’t real. In the atrocities that you hear or read about, no souls were injured in the production of that movie. These are all divine, immortal, eternal children of God. There is no damage. The part of you that feels that there was damage is the place to begin your healing. It is the place within you that doubts your own divinity and what Jesus taught when he said, “This and more you shall do”. This and more than what Jesus did. Let the peace begin with you. Know that it is all perfect. It is all as it should be, exactly what you need in order to experience your personal divinity.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is a spiritual response to a world crisis?
As you are working with your own spiritual healing, realizing your personal ascension, and perhaps using the five-step process, there often seems to be a stark contrast between the spiritual work you are doing and what seems to be the “reality” the world is presenting you with. One of the current “realities” is connected to the situation in Syria. This appears to be a complex political situation. The Mideast was destabilized by the Afghani and Iraqi wars instigated by the United States. This led to the formation of terrorist groups in the former Iraq. These groups spilled over the border into Syria. The long-standing dictatorship in Syria began to experience a civil war. Of the groups opposing the regime, ISIS emerged as the strongest. For those of you who are intent on rescuing to make the world a better place and to supporting the “good guys”, it is hard to find a champion. In addition, an extremely large number of Syrians have felt that there was no choice for them, in order to protect themselves and their families, but to flee the country and to seek refuge elsewhere. Many of them have fled to Europe, because there were few good options in the Middle East. That is the stage that has been set.
The situation tends to trigger extreme reactions for some people. One response is, “How can we take care of all of these people? We have our own problems. We don’t want to accept more Muslims in our country because their ways and beliefs are so different. We would have to take care of them, which is expensive, and they don’t want to follow our laws or respect our way of life.” On the other hand are those who say, “Oh, these poor people. We have to do everything that we can to provide them with a safe haven, to help them to get there, and to assist them in starting their new lives.” Oh, and another response for many people is one of hopelessness. The inner voices might say, “What can I do? This is all too big for me to make a difference. It just isn’t my problem.” All of these viewpoints come out of a place of fear. For those who do not want to take on the responsibility of helping there is the fear of lack and the fear of becoming victims to the refugees. For those who want to take care of the refugees there is often guilt, which is a manifestation of fear. It is the belief that you have behaved badly and that you will be punished if you don’t somehow make up for it. This all comes out of the illusion that there was a “wrong” and that it, therefore, can be corrected. Hopelessness is the fear that one is powerless. The ultimate fear is of death. You can also reread What am I to do with death? for help in dealing with this issue.
It is time for us all to take a deep breath and to collectively take a giant step backward. Let’s look at this whole situation in a different light. First of all, it is absolutely essential to remember that whatever you see in the world is a projection of your ego. If you see chaos, if you see victims, if you see people who don’t deserve help because they are responsible for their own troubles, this is a projection of your ego and how you perceive yourself in the world. The first step to take in healing what feels to be enormous world problems, and specifically the situation in Syria with the refugees, is to look and see where your fear is attached. Take responsibility for it and realize that this is about you, not about them. Looking at the situation with unconditional love, taking full responsibility for your own life, you might consider Syria and say, “My, this is an interesting opportunity for healing that they have chosen for themselves.” You would not see victims. You would see powerful children of God who have collectively chosen to create a situation that forces them into enormous change. Such change always leaves wide open the opportunity for healing. In your own life, your greatest opportunities for healing often come in the face of what appears to be adversity.
Deal with your own fear that is triggered, perhaps using the five-step process, and see this as an enormous spiritual gift for the Syrian people as well as the people of all the countries that are also deeply affected. Then you can look at these people freed of your judgment, guilt, and the feeling that you have to do something to help. Rather, you can see their divinity and the opportunity they have created. You can go into a place in your heart and see if you are guided to support this healing process in some way. Only from this place of unconditional love and acceptance can you be guided to an action that will truly support the spiritual process of another. Remember that the solution to a problem is never about changing others or changing the outside. It is always about taking responsibility, about looking at the situation and acknowledging, “This is me”. The solution lies with healing yourself. If you absolutely succeed in that, your personal ascension will change the world.
This is an enormous challenge. It is one thing to choose to be a monk and to go into solitude to work on your spiritual process. It is another thing to stay in your community, your family, and your work where you are dealing with the energies of others and are exposed to much of what is transpiring in the world. But, this is the challenge that you have chosen, to be in the world but not of it. You might wish to go back and read two messages that dealt with world problems for further support: How can I change the world? and How do I deal with my environmental fears?. You have created Syria for your own healing. This a great gift and an opportunity for you. We encourage you to make the most of it and to find that unconditional love within you. And to live there.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Do you believe in a punishing God?
Let’s start by defining mass consciousness. Mass means a large number of people, though not all. Consciousness is the awareness that is in your mind. When you are unconscious of choosing your beliefs, you have surrendered your consciousness to the control of others. The ”others” can be called the mass consciousness. In any culture there are a set of beliefs that are held by most people in that society. If you are unconscious, you simply accept those beliefs and they run your life. Though in truth you are divine and powerful, you will manifest according to the illusion of reality of the mass consciousness, and thereby prove its correctness. It is an endless loop. Whatever you believe in, you create. Your ego says, ”See. I was right”. It is considered blasphemous to oppose the mass consciousness and to proclaim your personal divinity.
Perhaps the cornerstone of the mass consciousness in western society is the belief in a punishing God. Some of you may already be saying, ”Oh yes, I was raised with that, but I don’t believe in it anymore”. My question for you is, ”Are you so sure?” Let us start with the first peg. God is unconditionally loving. That is the simple truth. The idea of a punishing God is man-made, not a divine idea. God is unconditionally accepting. There is nothing you could say or do that would be blasphemous to God. Absolutely nothing. The only one who can provide consequences for your words, thoughts, and actions is you. Only you – not God, not other people. If you cannot accept the belief in a loving non-judging God, there is nothing more to say here. You are welcome to follow your life and to make the best that you can of it. However, you would not be here reading this message unless at least a part of you was open to accepting the truth about God. I am speaking to that part of you.
The next step, once you have changed your mind, is to move everything in your body you are holding that doesn’t believe in your innocence and your divinity. It is one thing to state the belief – and that does come first – but that is not mission accomplished. It is simply setting a course. The path you are traveling is across what you believe to be your separation from God. If you believe in an angry and judging God, the chasm is uncrossable. How can you approach something that you are terrified of? In that case, you do whatever you can to keep the lion away from you. Your choices include living in the way that you think God wants you to, in order to avoid punishment – or denying the existence of God altogether. Either choice is designed to keep God away, not to bring God closer. That is what keeps you safe, in this illusion of an angry God. Being ”good” is a way to deflect God’s attention. You also want to hide what you think are your transgressions, both from God and from yourself.
The following step is to realize that that there is no such thing as a sin. There is no such thing as doing something bad that needs punishment. Sin is an illusion of the ego. If there is no judging God, there cannot be sin. You are off the hook. You have the absolute freedom to do anything you want. God will never judge you. This idea of good and bad, and right and wrong, is man-made. This thought can bring a level of terror to you. Because you haven’t fully accepted the truth of love as the ruling aspect of the universe, your ego in its fear says that people would be out raping, murdering, stealing, and God knows what else. You are terrified of the chaos that such a world would bring. Take a deep breath and feel that part of you. Ask yourself what part of unconditional love would want to kill or be killed, or to be involved with stealing, raping, or punishing? What part of unconditional love would wish to bring harm to anyone or would deny you whatever it is that you want? What part of unconditional love would create scarcity so you’re going to have to fight over what’s there?
Whenever these fears arise of what would happen if there were no rules of right and wrong, no judgments, and consequences, they arise out of the belief in a punishing God. If the energy that created you is unconditional love, how could you be anything else? How can the creation of a loving God be sinful? You have accepted the mass consciousness that God is angry and judging, and you are punishing yourself before God can get a chance to. You create sickness, financial struggle, relationship problems, victimization, trade-offs, and, finally, death.
First accept a loving God, accept your sinlessness, and give up your guilt. Forgive yourself for everything including your judgment of yourself and of God. Of course, there is truly nothing to forgive. God is not judging, but, because you are, it is a helpful step to take. Since you believe there is something to forgive, continue forgiving until you realize there is nothing to forgive. We would improvise slightly on the maxim ”To err is human, to forgive is divine”, changing it to ”To believe in error is human, to forgive is divine”. We could say that the state of divinity is the state of constant forgiveness. Forgiveness becomes acceptance.
Now we come to the place where we arrive in every message. If you are trying to work through all of this with your brain-mind only, you are still holding on to mass consciousness energy. Your brain-mind does not have the ability to let it all go. At best, it can convince you that you can experience your divinity and that God might not be punishing. You will still draw in the illusion of punishment, because deep within your body you still hold the belief in a punishing God. One way to move this is by giving it to your belly-mind by doing the five-step process. There is no should, or right or wrong, about doing this. Use any other technique that leaves you experiencing unconditional love. There does not need to be a great deal of struggle in whatever procedure you use. To use no method delays your experience of unconditional love. You deserve to feel unconditionally loved all of the time. Whenever the feelings of fear are felt in your body, go to the website and listen to the recording. Allow yourself to be guided through the process. You can also lead yourself through it or ask the support of a friend. Transform that fear into the love that is truly you. When you do the five-step process you are allowing yourself to fully feel the unconditional love of God, instead of the judgment and struggle of the ego. I will end by giving you my judgment of you. You are divine. You are loved, unconditionally. Always. No matter what you say, no matter what you think, no matter what you do. Your birthright is unconditional love.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I reduce stress in my life?
When you don’t see perfection in everything that is happening around you, or when you don’t experience the divinity in yourself and others, you may think that you have to fix things. You often feel that the responsibility lies with you and a heavy weight descends upon your shoulders. It seems that you must deal with all of these challenges and with the ”idiots” surrounding you. It appears that you have to protect yourself from the latter, avoid them, or attempt to control them, so that they don’t ruin this great effort you are making to create perfection. It sounds like a tough job. I’m glad I don’t have to take that one on.
Your life becomes such a struggle that you lose sight of how total, constant, and unending the battle is. You try to reduce the amounts of stress you are aware of to a level that is bearable, but no matter how much you are able to alleviate situations, life remains a battle. This struggle is your creation. You are choosing to have hell on earth. No matter how much you let go of, the inferno remains. The questions is, ”Why are you creating hell on earth to begin with?” You can see divinity and perfection, or you can choose to fight. We have spent the past two messages focusing on the former, so let’s try working from another side this time. You don’t have to see the divinity in another, when they seem to act as your trigger. Nor do you have to see the perfection of what is happening, to give up your resistance. Just say NO to struggle. Decide to stop fighting. Let go of it. Decide that there is nothing that is so important that it requires straining.
If today were the last day you were going to be in this body, would you spend it in struggle and stress over little things? This is one acid test to see if struggle is involved in your day. Ease up on yourself. As you become aware that you are struggling, take a deep breath and relax. Go do something that does not feel like struggle, something that feels like fun, or joy, or even ecstasy. What would you truly rather be doing right now?
Buried deep in your consciousness is the belief that your very existence depends upon struggle, that if you don’t fight to survive you will simply go down – for the third time. And that’s it. Your whole life is defined by separation from divinity. Your brain-mind is full of reasons why you have stress. Things have to be done, it argues. This is a story of separation from the divine, a belief in your weakness. Argue for your limitations and they are yours. You are that powerful. The ego arguments for struggle are very rational to your brain-mind. There is no end of them. You will carry them to your grave. Or, you can just say NO. You can refuse to listen to them. You can change your mind. This might throw you into such terror that it will be best to do the five-step process. Eventually, you will be able to choose your passions over your guilt and fear with greater ease. The first step, as always, is to have the intention to give up the fight. Remember that what you are fighting against is always an illusion. It is never the truth.
There are two primary places where you can get stuck. One is the belief that the nature of life is simply that you have to struggle. You think you have no choice but to work at something you don’t like, that you are required to do all these things you don’t want to do merely to survive. If you want to do better than just subsist, it seems you have to strain even more. Look how much hassle is involved just to go have fun on a vacation. The other belief is that anytime somebody else is involved with what you are doing, there will be a battle. You anticipate working together as a challenge and relationships as hard work. That’s the story. It is a belief in struggle. You don’t have to do it anymore. The battle is totally within you. Nobody else can force you to fight. Every time that you give up a little piece of this resistance you realize a little more of what true joy can be like. If you absolutely give up control, you can sense your divine nature right here, right now.
You have experienced this. You have had moments when you were at peace and your brain-mind was at rest, not wrestling with any devils at all. You were enjoying what was there right then, feeling the unconditional love of the belly-mind. You feel that when you finish the second step of the process. But you have the story that it is not practical to stay there all of the time. You wonder how you could get anything done, how you could survive. On the other hand, when you believe that there is nothing but struggle, you begin to call for and welcome your death on a subtle level. Nobody wants to live forever if survival means constant stress. Let’s talk about what true responsibility is. You are responsible for choosing your reality. You are not responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary for making your reality happen. Spirit does that for you. Let it. There was an advertising program for an American busing company back in the 60’s. The image was a powerful, comfortable bus with a competent, professional driver. The voice-over said, ”Leave the driving to us.” The ad implied that you would enjoy the ride, have fun, relax, be safe and protected, and arrive well rested. In your mind, hear Spirit saying, “Leave the struggle to us.”
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What can I do when things are less than perfect?
In the last message I talked about seeing divinity in every person. This time I want to look at seeing perfection in everything. We will begin with a definition of perfection, starting with what it is not. Perfection is not the result of endless tweaking. Constantly adjusting, changing, and working with things does not create perfection. This is the product of the ego’s judgment. I would reverse that thinking. You simply acknowledge that how it is now, is perfection. How it is, how it was, and how it will be – all of these are perfection. Since everything is perfect as it is, everything is divine.
If perfection is a standard that has to be reached, divinity would be hard to realize. Rather than trying to change the outside, change your perception. Take a different view of your past. Each of you had perfect parents. They could not have been better. You could not have chosen better parents – and you did choose them. You chose perfect friends as you were growing up; you chose perfect teachers. Everyone was absolutely perfect. Could not have been better. All of your bosses – perfect! All of your coworkers and all of your relationships – perfect. Every decision, every choice you have ever made – perfect. You could have chosen differently, and that would have been perfect too.
The truth is that you all are ascended. The only reason you are not experiencing yourself as ascended is because you are looking at things and saying that they are not perfect. We could also say that you are not always feeling as you wish to feel. And that is perfect, but you don’t need to continue to suffer in that way. When you are not enjoying how you are feeling, you have a belief that something is not perfect. If you believed that everything was perfect, what would there be but joy and unconditional love. We know that you can’t fool yourself. You can’t just say that everything is perfect if you don’t really believe it. That’s why we have the five-step process. There are these places where you are holding the story in your brain-mind that everything isn’t perfect. Also you feel something in your body that isn’t pleasant. You wish it wasn’t there, and the more you wish it gone, the more it stays. Welcome that feeling and go into it until you experience it as perfect. That is the second step. Then from your heart, choose a new story that you love.
When you hold the intention to see the divinity in each person, you are choosing to see everything as perfect. Decide that everything that happens to you or to anybody else is perfect. As you have this intention you will find some of your experiences transforming, without doing a specific process with them. You might think of one of your parents and realize that if they hadn’t been as they were, you wouldn’t have accomplished what you did. And what a gift have these changes been for you. There is always a story like that with everything you are holding as not perfect. This perfection is not just an ideal. There is an absolutely traceable perfection where everything is connected to everything. You can’t tweak things to this level of perfection because your brain-mind doesn’t understand enough to know how to do it. Simply accept things as they are and let Spirit do the tweaking for you, trusting that the perfect thing is always happening. You may know what you want, but you have no idea how to get there. Spirit will direct you. You came in with a pre-planning. Before your birth, you said that this is what you want to accomplish in this incarnation. You chose the perfect parents as well as a cast of others to push you in that direction. It doesn’t matter whether you were moved by them, or moved in reaction to them.
As you have the intention to see divinity in everyone and perfection in every action or event that happens, you will have less draw over time to do the five-step process. Your body will feel more in balance. In the meantime, the process is a very fast and efficient way to deal with a situation that is difficult for you to perceive as perfect. It helps you to transform your judgment. To accelerate the process even more, have the intention to see perfection in everything and divinity in everyone. The truth is that you are ascended. You have given that intention, not only in your pre-planning, but now consciously. Because you are divine, it can be no other way. As a divine soul, you know no boundaries of time or space. You have always been and always will be. You simply are. You are a being of unconditional love and unlimited creativity. Yes, you.
If you are having difficulty seeing the perfection of something, ask Spirit for support. The understanding will come. You will find yourself increasingly inhabiting a place where your belly-mind is able to accept the perfection of what has occurred, even though your brain-mind may not understand. You accept that it is perfect although you don’t yet know why, but trusting that sooner or later you will understand. You ask to enjoy the perfection while the understanding is on its way. Practice looking at the past and find those things that you can now see as perfect, though at the time you were unable to. Everything that has happened in your life has happened for the purpose of helping you to realize your divinity. You were born divine. You have always been divine. But you haven’t yet had the pleasure of fully experiencing your divinity. You have felt it in smaller ways. The ways are going to be growing larger. You will look in the mirror one day and from the bottom of your heart say, “I am divine. I am perfect.” It’s true.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Is there divinity in everyone?
I would like to suggest a small procedure for each of you to practice in addition to the five-step process. As you go through your day and different people come into your awareness, attempt to see their divinity. Some people may present a larger challenge for you than others. You may find yourself having a judgment about a person for some reason. Remember to be aware that he or she is your mirror, and it is with yourself that you have the judgment. Then you can use the five-step process to work with that energy. But, you can also try to stay present and see that person as divine. Remind yourself that no matter what they are doing, what they have created, or what energy they are putting out – all is perfection. The truth of them is divine and whatever is happening has the purpose of helping you to realize that.
There is a habit of unconsciousness. Unconsciousness means not being aware of your divinity. It becomes a routine to go through your day and not think about your divinity. It can be a pattern, beyond that, to obsess with things that are diametrically opposed to the idea of divinity – things such as sadness, lack, unhappiness, fear, and so on. Seeing the divinity in others is simply a discipline to help you become conscious instead of unconscious. As you are going through your day and you become aware of someone, let’s say a stranger, you may react in a habitually protective manner. You are careful not to show yourself until you find out who this person is. You might feel threatened by them. Often you are looking at this being from a place of judgment. Do you like this individual or not? Is this somebody you can connect with? Is this human enlightened? What we are suggesting is a whole new way of observing a stranger. Instead of looking at them with eyes of judgment and fear, look at them with the eyes of unconditional love. Instead of looking at them from the brain-mind, look at them from the belly-mind. This doesn’t mean that you try to ignore or repress any uncomfortable feelings you get around this person. If you have such a reaction, you keep looking at this soul from your belly-mind and love them unconditionally. You accept them fully as they are. Your brain-mind has only one job now, and that is to say that this person is divine as you are divine. This being is a piece of God. This individual is an eternal immortal soul. Perhaps the person is unconscious of their divinity. Remind yourself of the truth, so that you can look upon this soul with the eyes of unconditional love and acceptance, seeing or at least looking for their divinity.
If what you are experiencing with this soul does not feel divine, your process is to let go of your brain-mind, because it doesn’t seem to be helping right now. Coming from your belly mind, send them unconditional love. Silently express this acceptance and seek the understanding that they are in your life to deliver an important message to you. Let go of the fear you have of their message and welcome it. Your process is to accept the other. This is like a walking meditation. See the perfection in everything and everyone you meet.
The process can be even more challenging when practiced with your friends and loved ones. Here you have a history of a pattern of judgments and ways of reacting. You already have a big story in which they play an assigned role. It can be harder to let go of your unconsciousness with those close to you than with your perceptions of a stranger. In fact, your judgments of strangers often are directly related to the way in which they remind you of somebody you know. Keep looking at your friend. See who they are and love that person unconditionally. Imagine what a joy it would be to realize that you are traveling around with divine friends, that your partner is divine and that your family members and coworkers are divine. What a difference that would make! What a supportive world you would have to live and play in.
This process of seeing the divinity of others is not limited to when they are in your physical presence. There are also the times when others come into your thinking or your brain-mind. Be conscious at these times, also. Are you being judgmental in your thoughts? Are you upset with them? Are you worried about them? Remind yourself of their divinity. This is a piece of God that has taken human form, just like you have. In the face of this divinity, how do you now look at their actions? The first thing, of course, is to affirm their divinity. Secondly, take responsibility for any difficulty you are experiencing, knowing that has to do with you and not with them. Finally, ask for support from your guides, angels, higher self, inner knowingness, and from Spirit to help you understand how and why this is divine. Find a way of seeing the perfection of what is transpiring.
Practice seeing that perfection and divinity in everyone you meet each day, friend or stranger. Where do you see the divinity in this individual? What do you appreciate about this being? In the discipline of doing that you will begin to see yourself in a conscious way. All of the time. When you see the perfection of what is happening, you stop taking others’ drama seriously. You won’t get drawn into their story of victimhood or lack of divinity. You may pay attention to it, but you know what it truly is. You may or may not share this awareness, based on how receptive the person is to hearing it, but your reaction no longer fuels their “old story”. Otherwise, there is nothing for you to do but to recognize the perfection and the divinity.
One of the beauties of looking for the divinity in others is that you can’t change their actions. With yourself, you have the illusion that there is something you should change. You believe that if you could just be different, you might experience your divinity. With others, you have no power to change them. All you can do is to love them as they are. What a gift that is. Seeing the divinity of others is a perfect complement to the five-step process, which is a way to accept yourself unconditionally. If you remember to practice acceptance with just one soul today, and perhaps with another tomorrow and each day thereafter, you will experience a profound movement. Why don’t you start with the next person you see or happen to think of? You are simply divine!
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why is it important to balance my masculine and feminine energy?
All of you in Western Civilization pay homage to the masculine above the feminine. This is not a criticism; it is simply an ”isness”. There is nothing wrong with paying homage to the masculine, but when this devotion is out of balance with your homage to the feminine it is difficult to realize your ascension, to realize your own divinity, because you are denying half of yourself. I want to talk a bit about the masculine and the feminine so that you can be sensitive to when they are operating in your life and where your emphasis is, so that you can choose to move that focus if you wish.
The irony of my job – I do have a job that I love to do – is that I do a bit of a bait and switch act. I come in the form of one who seems to be of masculine energy, not only coming through a male channel but also having ascended in a male body, to people on a conscious spiritual path who honor the masculine. Though gender is not the truth of who I am, I play the male role very well. People listen because they respect that air of masculine divinity, even if they are angry about it and hate men. They still respect it on an unconscious level. Everyone does. My job is to use my masculine authority to convince you to listen to your feminine side. That is the irony. And it’s a lot of fun, because nothing matters more than your feelings. And that is the connection to your feminine side – what you are feeling. It doesn’t matter whether you are happy, stressed, or angry. Your feelings are important. If you don’t love and accept those feelings in yourself, you are denying the feminine.
The masculine spiritual energy doesn’t say, ”Don’t listen to that bitch”. There is no battle between them. The energy of the masculine pole is to show light. “This is who you are. This is what you can do. Your mind is creative.” Of course, all of this is true. But what is missing is that if you don’t love yourself, your mind is absolutely helpless to accomplish what you want in your life. The power of creation requires the feminine and the masculine to work together, the light of the masculine and the unconditional love of the feminine. None of you have any problem with the ”light” part. You have all followed teachers and read books. You have become inspired and want to follow some direction, and then you fail. You are not able to do it. You decide that you are inferior to the teacher or the author. It seemed so easy when you were in the class and were told that all you had to do was this….. It is not about the ”brain-mind” knowing.
It is about feeling the love. This is why we created the five-step process. Notice that the process doesn’t start out with your new story. It doesn’t start from the light. It starts from the “old story”, from the pain, the fear, and the separation. In the second step, your job is to go into those feelings, into the feminine aspect, and to love them. If you go into the pain and you tell yourself that you are doing it because you want to get rid of it, you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. Whatever the feeling is, if your desire is to simply avoid it, you are not honoring the feminine. Rather than running away from or pushing away the feelings in the second step, you go directly into them. You face the energy and fully experience it; you merge with, welcome, listen to, love, and thank it for being there. You ride and stay with it wherever it goes through your body, however strong it gets, and in whatever way it might morph. The feeling always has a message or a gift for you. You may not always speak with the energy on a verbal level to get that message. The communication might be subtle, symbolic, or a vision. If your brain-mind is still engaged at this point of the process, it can be most helpful to have a dialogue with the energy in your body so that you can let go of judging, analyzing, and labeling the feeling – allowing you to receive that message. Eventually the feeling will transmute to the unconditional love of the feminine belly-mind. You feel this inner warmth, not because you ran from your feelings, but because you dove into them. When you choose your new story in the fourth step, you are not choosing it from your ”brain-mind”. You are choosing it from your heart, from the merging of the feminine and the masculine. You just know that this is your new story.
The feminine comes first, not second. You cannot be here in a physical body without coming through your mother. This doesn’t mean that the feminine is more important; they are both absolutely necessary. Love simply comes first. This flies in the face of the mass consciousness of Western Civilization which states that masculine energy always leads. It doesn’t. It follows. This does not mean that women are always to lead. You all have both feminine and masculine energy within you. The primary job of the masculine is to empower the feminine.
The masculine is to lead in such a way as to make it safe to experience your feelings. For the most part, the masculine has been doing just the opposite. It has taken its task to be the chasing away of feelings. ”Don’t cry. I will make everything alright. Don’t look at your fears. Just look at the light. Think positively!” For the masculine to truly lead would be to encourage the crying of all the tears and the expression of all the fears. We are not referring to the projection of the fears upon others or a blaming. We speak of an encouragement to fully feel them without defending, rationalizing, or judging. Use your masculinity to support the full experience of your femininity. When you find the unconditional love that lies beneath everything else in you, your masculine can truly choose what you want. You don’t want to avoid pain; you want to fully experience love. They are not the same thing. When the masculine is separate from the feminine, it thinks it has to stay in charge and make the choices. Otherwise all hell might break loose. But, when your masculine is in touch with the unconditional love of your feminine, it gives up control and says to Spirit, ”What do you want me to do?” And that guidance always leads to exactly what you really want. It’s beautiful. You are not doing it out of a sense of self-protection, but out of a recognition of purpose. It’s an absolute surrender and yet an assertion of your masculine energy. It’s doing what you came here to do. Your ”brain-mind” will never discover that by itself. Such awareness comes when you fully accept all your feelings and everything Spirit sends to you. You let the transformation take place where you feel the unconditional love of the feminine. Then you can see the light.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What can help me to forgive?
I have referred to mirrors off and on through the years. Those of you who have worked with me directly have heard me talk about them. Now it is time to give the subject some deep reflection (pause for laughter). Jesus spoke of mirrors. He said to remove the log in your own eye before judging another. He also said, ”judge not, lest ye be judged”. He had much more to say on the subject, but the writers of the New Testament didn’t know what to do with the information – they didn’t understand it – so it didn’t make the final cut.
We can begin by saying that everything that is physical is not real. Your ego is telling you that what you see and touch is real, but it is not. That which is real exists forever. Everything that is physical is temporary. Where does the physical come from? It comes from you. You have created it. When I say you, I am talking to you, the individual reading these words. Everything, without limit, that exists in the material realm is your creation. God has nothing directly to do with it. God created you. You created the earth. This is your game. Again, I am talking to you specifically, not people in general. You have the illusion that everybody is experiencing the same physical ”reality”, but if you check out any of your stories with anybody else who was ”there”, the tales don’t completely line up. If your political affiliation differs, they may not line up at all. No two people ever experience the same thing. You each have your own illusions. There are places where there is a great agreement in your stories; we call this mass consciousness. But there are also areas of great disagreement about the illusion. However, the ego believes that it is all reality rather than illusion.
The ego asks what the purpose of all this is if it is not real. It doesn’t want to hear an answer, and there is no answer that would satisfy, because the answer is, ”None”. If your ego were to fully accept the meaninglessness of your physical experience it would have to accept that it, also, has no purpose and it would disappear. All the ego does is to keep you believing in your separation from God and from your divinity. The ego cannot exist in the space of unconditional love. When you are in a permanent state of unconditional love, all you do is channel your divinity. Your ego stays out of the way. It disappears. You continue to operate in the physical realm, but you don’t take it seriously. You recognize that it is not real. What can possibly upset you if nothing is real? Instead the world becomes a place where your divinity plays. Your divinity created this illusion as a tool for your ascension, not for you to be fooled into taking it seriously. When you absolutely realize that it is not real, that everything physical is an illusion – you will have realized your ascension.
But we came here to talk about mirrors. If you wish to go the shortest distance or take the least time to experience your divinity and release your ego, it is quite productive to work with the concept of mirrors. It goes like this. Everything that exists in your physical world, including yourself, is your creation. Your ego thinks everything and everyone else is separate from you. They are not. Their physicality is your creation, as yours is theirs – but that is none of your business. When you observe another’s actions, what you see is you, not them. That’s all you can see. Everything you see around you is you. You are the creator. If you find yourself in judgment of someone’s actions, it is yourself you are judging. I can hear your ego at work already saying, ”What do you mean! I would never kill someone, or start a war, or kick someone when they are down. I would never do that.” Yes, you would. In fact, you have already done it – though perhaps it was in a previous life – and you haven’t forgiven yourself. You are still judging yourself. In fact, you can’t even look to see it within yourself because you have so much judgment. So, you produce a ”scapegoat”. You create somebody else to commit the action you can’t forgive in yourself. The game the ego plays is to judge others instead of judging yourself. When you understand that, you know there is not even a reason to forgive, let alone to judge anyone else. They are simply doing as you have bid them. In fact, what you can do is to bow down to that person and thank them for showing you what you were unable to see in yourself. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Now you can forgive it in yourself. Whatever you did had no permanent effect. Nothing real was hurt because nothing real can be hurt. There is nothing to forgive.
Once you have taken ownership of the action you have judged in another, do whatever you can to forgive yourself, starting with having the intention to do so. The five-step process is always helpful here. When you realize that nobody has ever done a thing to you, that it has always been your creation and that, beyond that, none of it matters – you are realizing the truth of who you are. None of it matters. All that matters is love. It is that simple. This is what the mirror is about. It doesn’t matter if you see something, hear about it, or read about it. It doesn’t matter if it is ”truth” or fiction, whether you see it on TV or in a movie, or read about it in a novel. It makes no difference. Wherever you find your mirror, your job is to let go of the outwardly directed judgment and to acknowledge that this is where you judge yourself. This is where you have the illusion of guilt and separation from God, even though God never experiences any separation or judgment. Never. It’s not in the job description. God is unconditional love and unlimited creativity. That’s it.
Out of your unlimited creativity you have manifested this physical illusion and placed yourself in it in such a way that you have forgotten who you are. It’s a maze and you have been trying to find your way out of it. The way out is to realize there is no maze. Use your mirrors to get out. See where your illusions lie. Forgive yourself. Find love and laugh a lot. The illusion is pretty funny when you stop thinking about it.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What do you mean when you say I preplanned this life?
Let’s start today by talking about the truth of who you are. You are divine. You are one with God. You are the creator of all that is in the physical realm. This cannot be stated too many times. When you crossed the threshold and moved into the physical vessel of this body that you have created for your earthly experience, you forgot who you are. You think that you are less than divine and go on to prove yourself right. Just because you don’t believe in or can’t accept your godliness, you don’t stop being divine. You simply create from this stepped down point of view. You generate the illusion of limits throughout your life.
Let’s take a step back across the threshold, to a point before you created this incarnation. You now have a greater awareness of your divinity. Having been through this cycle of birth and death many times, and knowing how forgetful you become when you get back into a body, you try to design things to wake you up. You want to make yourself aware of the truth of who you are while you are in this next body. You hope to ascend. We call this preplanning. This is where you, along with those souls who have decided to incarnate with you and play significant roles in your life, make agreements.
It is helpful for you to take to heart and understand that the preplanned future events may look like disasters to you. Things may happen in your life that you would never consciously choose, such as accidents, death, loss of a love, or material setbacks. When you look at these events from the point of view which has forgotten your divinity, you might think that you are a victim of a random – or worse – cruel world. Why is this happening to me? Is God punishing me? The answer is that you planned it this way, that you are the god you have been railing against. You hoped these events would shake up your life so you could perceive yourself differently and begin to recognize your divine nature.
If everything in your life worked out well, you would be fairly content most of the time. You would be okay. If your parents were good enough, if you were relatively smart and healthy, if you had decent physical coordination and were attractive to others, if people liked you and you had plenty of friends, and if you were satisfied with your partner – you would be okay. If you had healthy, intelligent children who didn’t give you too much hell, a talent and job that you mostly enjoyed and which brought you a comfortable income, life would be okay; but spiritually, you might not grow at all. Why rock the boat? There is nothing wrong with such a life unless it is your desire to experience your true essence, not just ”good enough”. If you want to experience divinity and the absolute truth of who you are, and use your infinite individualized creativity to affect this earth plane and others in it, ”good enough” is not good enough. That is not what you came to do. You preplanned events and relationships to guide you in the ascension direction you wanted to follow, knowing that you would forget this course once you got into a body.
Look at your life now and find the one, or perhaps two or three, traumatic events that cause you to say to yourself that in no way did you choose this. Take responsibility for those events as you do in the third step of the five-step process. State that you chose this story, not to punish yourself, but out of love. This is recognition of your intention. While it is important to choose your new stories and to create the life you desire, it is equally important to realize that every story you already have comes from an intention. If you deny that intention, you deny a whole side of your divinity. Take these ”worst” events to your heart one at a time and do the five-step process with them. Feel where the story is held in your body and fully experience the energy until the Spiritual Alchemy does its work. Sometimes with these big stories, the energy is so powerful it feels like it doesn’t want to let go. This is a place where it can help to dialogue with the energy. Welcome it into your body. Thank it for being there. Acknowledge that you asked it to come. Tell it that you know it has a gift or a message for you and express your willingness to receive and to act on that guidance.
If your intention is to realize your ascension and get there in the most direct manner possible, embracing these events that seem the most challenging is the quickest way to go. Look the event in the face; tell it, ”I chose you. Thank you for being here. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here asking to recognize my divinity.” When you can transform your greatest failure into your greatest success, anything is possible. And it is.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do violence and guilt relate to sexuality?
In the last message we spoke of spirituality and sexuality. There are two issues dealing with this subject that we would like to go into today. The first has to do with the coincidence of sexuality and violence. The second concerns undesired pregnancies. There is a connection between the two issues, but we will begin by looking at them separately. Deep within many of you there is a belief that sexual energy is not divine. To partake in sexuality is therefore to separate yourself from God, and, therefore, comes punishment somewhere down the line.
Violence is not an expression of sexuality. Sexuality is an energy that comes from the sharing of love. We wish to disconnect violence and sex in your brain-mind. Rape is violence; it is not sexual. It comes out of fear, not love. Love never requires another to do something that isn’t freely chosen. Fear can draw one to violate the freedom of another, or at least to attempt to, whether that violation is verbal, physical, or spiritual. Verbal and physical abuse are well understood. Spiritual abuse includes curses and spells, as well as the use of spiritual powers to encourage another to behave in a sexual way with you. As we have mentioned before, the development of spiritual powers is not always connected with love and spiritual maturity.
Let us again draw a line in the sand and say that when we are talking about rape or sexual violence we are not talking about sexuality. However, for many of you, particularly those who have chosen to incarnate in a feminine body, there is an emotional difficulty in separating these two – particularly if you have created the experience of apparent victimhood to sexual assault. Then you might find it difficult to have a sexual experience based in love, because the fear energy is still strongly held in your body. We want to remind you that when we talk about creating situations, it is never a statement of blame. If you are holding guilt or blame for the situation that happened, it is not our intention to support that. We wish to remind you of the absolute truth that you are the divine power in your life and that nothing could possibly happen without your permission. This does not mean that your intention or permission was consciously granted to the sexual violence that you have experienced or that you have fear of. You may wish to use the five-step process to feel this fear of sexual violence in your body, go into it and embrace this terror until it transforms to love; then visualize a new reality for yourself. This allows you to let go of victimhood and take your true power.
For some of you, your identification with victimhood is so much a part of who you believe yourself to be that you are unaware of having it. Here are some signs to look for. Do you feel something holding you back from sexual activity, aside from lack of interest in a particular possible partner? Do you find yourself having strong emotional reactions when watching films or television shows (or in reading novels or following true life stories) portraying sexual violence? Do you find yourself getting angry at the perpetrator or in judgment of the victim? “How could they let that happen?” ” How could they be so stupid?” If you do, your belief in your victimhood is active. If you have not created an ongoing fulfilling sexual relationship in your life, the fear energy is probably present, and likely not just from this incarnation but from many lifetimes. This is a major reason why lasting, loving relationships are not created. For others, the guilt creates a chain of violent partners.
Now let’s look at the male side of the equation. Here it is more likely that you have guilt about sexuality because you believe it is wrong. That begs the question for you, ”What woman would want to do that?” So, you either deny yourself sex or feel you have to trick or force the woman into the sexual experience. Tricking might mean making promises that you don’t intend to honor. Force, of course, means rape – which could mean emotional or mental force, as well as physical. All of this emerges out of the belief that you don’t deserve to have physical intimacy, so the only way to have it is through force. “What woman would want to have sex with you?” None, so you need to use some form of coercion. “And what kind of woman is going to have sex with you?” Only an evil woman, separated from God and spirituality would do that nasty thing with you. Now your use of force is somewhat justified. But what are your prospects for a lasting, supportive, loving committed relationship? “How can you commit to a relationship with a woman that you don’t respect?” If you do make love, you will be punished. Perhaps, she will control you and ruin your life in return for sex. Or, you can use the five-step process. For the woman, there may be the belief that there must be a relationship in order to have financial security. Sex can be seen as a price that has to be paid in order to have that support. Quite a story isn’t it! The good news is that you are both free. You don’t have to act out this story anymore. You can just let it go.
Before we leave for today, let’s talk about the subject of unwanted pregnancy, which affects both of you – although the woman has a larger role. For the man, the fear is likely to be that the pregnancy is going to rope you into the relationship and you may have to make a commitment. Even if there is already a child or two, the noose is being tightened and the responsibilities and restrictions are increasing. Unwanted pregnancy is the consequence you knew was coming from having sex. The extreme in the mass consciousness tells you that the only excuse for sex is reproduction and that you must live with your sinful choices and have the baby. Even if those religious structures don’t exist for you, it is likely that you believe that you have no control over pregnancy, short of abstinence. Most forms of artificial birth control carry with them some danger from side effects. Guilt is there with or without religion. The purest form of birth control is to love yourself unconditionally and to process all of your sexual guilt through the five-step process. Choose conception consciously. This is a big step. In the meantime, take prudent precautions until you are clear that you have released the fear and judgment from your body. Affirmations alone will not do that. Don’t come back to me and say, “Sanhia, you told me I wouldn’t get pregnant unless I wanted to”. If you do create an undesired pregnancy, there is no right or wrong choice. You will learn and grow from either. The potential child is an immortal soul (and old buddy) who has agreed to play this role for you. Either way, that soul will continue.
The five-step process is a very powerful and effective tool. But, that does not mean that it is necessarily easy for an individual to succeed at it the first time she tries. Some of you have more innate skill in doing the process by yourself. For many, it may be helpful for somebody to guide you, somebody in whom you have confidence. You may also use the recording found on the website. It all comes down to you and to your intention. The tools are there to use. If you prefer the support of another, create that. Find a partner and support each other. There is always a way. It is the strength of your intention that makes the difference. We love you. We wish you to have a wonderful experience in physicality and to free yourself from all the fears of sexuality so that you may enjoy it ecstatically.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Do I have to choose between spirituality and sexuality?
There are many people who would never put spirituality and sexuality in the same sentence unless they were talking of contrasts or differences, but certainly not when speaking about any commonality of energy. We wish to speak today about the spirituality of sexuality. Before we begin, it would be helpful if you would go back and read Is it helpful to honor the feminine energy?
What we call spiritual energy deals with the communication between the physical world and the divine. We could say that spirituality is an attempt by people to connect with their divine side. From the perspective of your eternal or higher self, which does not deal with the physical realm, there would be no focus on spirituality. It would be like fish talking about water. That is the ”isness” of eternal existence. The divine nature is simply what is. Spirituality as a specific topic is only of interest to those aspects in a physical body. It is only for those who have forgotten their eternal natures. One belief that has evolved over time is that the only way to realize your divinity is to deny your physicality. Many religions have picked up on this and have chosen to forbid certain physical actions. They might say that you can’t eat certain foods, that you shouldn’t enjoy yourself too much, or that you shouldn’t seek after physical pleasure. The ultimate admonitions are strictures against human sexuality.
The belief of those who wish to deny the fleshly pleasures is that the physical is evil and only the spiritual is good. From that point of view there can just be pain and suffering in the physical. The only salvation is in death. This leads to a great confusion. Why even be born? Why come into this evil physical existence? Who has created this wickedness? If it is God who has created the physical, what possible reason could God have for creating evil? It’s perplexing. From this perspective, the greatest evil of all is sexuality. Without sexuality, no more beings are introduced into this hell. This ultimate spiritual direction was expressed by the Shakers who eliminated sex entirely. Though other religions have not gone that far, most have judgments and restrictions around sexual energy. The more fundamentalist a religion is, that is, the more they believe in a masculine and/or judging God, the more censure and condemnation there is about sexuality. Because it is the women who bring the new beings into the physical world, there is more judgment directed at them.
Let us look at what this sexuality is really about. When we let go of judgment – of thoughts of right and wrong or good and evil – and we accept the perfection and purpose in everything, what is the function of sexuality? The sensual experience has a great potential to open you up to your own divinity. Erotic encounters allow you to absolutely let go of everything that is not present and sense the energy within the physical form of your body. It allows you to feel unconditional love and ecstasy. Sexuality can help you on the way to realizing your ascension, but no amount of sex will guarantee the knowingness of your divinity or your ascension. Of course, also, no amount of judging or harnessing your sexual nature will lead you to the knowing of your true self, either.
What we encourage first of all is that you let go of whatever judgments you may have about your sexuality. Become aware of issues of control, whether it is your domination of others or your fear of being manipulated. Notice the places where you feel yourself to be a victim of sexuality. Feel that energy in your body and use the five-step process to transform it into love. Choose the story you wish to have about your sexual nature in the fourth step. Embrace your sexuality as a full part of your divinity. One of the reasons that you chose to create this physical universe and to come into your body was to deal with sexuality.
Some of you have had incarnations where the main purpose was to experience as much sexual energy as you could. In other lifetimes, you have experimented with having no sexual activity to see what that was like. There is no goodness or badness about this. You are free to choose whatever you want. I am not telling you how much sex you are to have. It is your spiritual heart that will tell you that. It is to that place where you are coming from love rather than fear that you wish to listen. You will know that you are honoring the truth for you when you realize that you are free of any judgment for how others conduct their sexual lives. There is no one way to be around sex. The ”one truth” idea leads to the belief in right and wrong. The one truth is that you are divine, infinitely loving, and creative, and that you are absolutely unique as an immortal divine being. You are to express your divinity and your uniqueness through a physical vehicle by having physical events. To deny your sexuality is to deny your spirituality.
As you give yourself permission to fully explore your sexuality, you may tap into vast reservoirs of fear that have been lodged in your body. That is a wonderful thing to discover. You have been carrying that energy in your body for lifetimes. There is nothing more intertwined with judgment on this planet than sexuality. Therefore, there is nothing with greater potential to set you free than is your healing around sexuality. Confront those fears. Find your divinity. Whatever stories you have in your mind that great spiritual leaders were non-sexual is an illusion. These stories are passed down by those with their own sexual issues. Sexuality was a part of the spiritual process for Jesus, Buddha, and nearly every other ascended being. Please enjoy the rest of your trip.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why is intention necessary?
Many of you celebrate the birth of Jesus. There is a great deal of confusion about who Jesus was and what his significance is for us today. What Jesus came to show us and to demonstrate is our personal divinity, that we are children of God as he is. That is the message. It is one of resurrection, not of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. However, you hold this belief in suffering in your bodies. The crucifixion story was written down and passed on in its present form because that was the energy that mankind was holding 2000 years ago. Martyrdom could be accepted, but the divinity of people was not part of anybody’s story. It threatened all existing orders.
The picture of God that is held by many people today still has nothing to do with the essence of unconditional love and unlimited potential that is the divine creative force. We were made in the image of this God. What has happened, in the popularly accepted view, is that God has been created in the image of man – man in ignorance of the truth of his divinity. All the negative emotional energies that are held in a fear-based life are projected upon God – an angry, punishing, judging, jealous God.
We want to recall that there is one overriding message that Jesus came to teach, that we are divine. We are the power in our lives. We create everything that happens. How do we do this? Some of the truth was recorded. He said to ask and it will be given. You must ask. It comes from intention. This is what we want to talk about today. You created a planet of free will where you can choose anything that you want. You cannot unchoose the truth of your divinity, because that exists above and beyond this physical earth, without limit. Nothing can destroy you or another human soul. You have choice only over your experience here. Once you leave, the veil lifts and the emotional baggage you were carrying is gone. Here you have a choice. You can opt for fear or love. If your intention is to go with fear, your experience will justify your selection. Everything that happens to you will prove the correctness of your intention.
If you do not intend to claim your divinity, you will continue to deal with pain and suffering. Experiencing your divinity is not likely to happen accidentally. You begin with the intention. You must ask. But, simply asking without taking action can make for a very slow realization of your divinity, one that might not be fulfilled in your present incarnation. You have all of this fear energy in your body. You are carrying it with you from this and former lifetimes. It continues to manifest negative emotional experiences where you have depression, anger, hopelessness, jealousy, or fear of lack. It helps to have your aim be true and consistent.
It is not enough for your brain-mind to think that you are divine. There are many wonderful books out there about the spiritual nature. Reading them will not give you an experience of your oneness with God, nor will reading this message. Your timelessness is experienced as you transform the emotional energy that is held in your body, and your brain-mind is incapable of doing that. You cannot think your way out of this. Affirmations will not bring about the realization of your holy nature. You carry this energy in your body, not in your mind. Your brain-mind reacts to the emotional energy in your body in a slavish manner. It is an endless loop. You create situations out of the beliefs you hold. Then you have a negative emotional reaction to the situation, and your brain-mind jumps right in. It chooses blame and victim thinking. Your brain-mind may try to squelch the negative emotion in the body, but it fights a losing battle. In the end, it is not about changing your mind or thoughts. Intention is about taking action in alignment with Spirit.
You certainly want to act out of love and your true desire. In order to do this, let go of self judgment and move to unconditional acceptance. No matter what. The fear you are holding in your body refuses to allow you to do that. The ego is basically screaming out, ”Without me you are nothing. I am all that is protecting you from oblivion!” It is an impossible task to successfully argue with this fear that doesn’t believe in your divinity. You can only embrace it with love. What is required is an intention to not try to cover up, hide from, or change this energy of fear in your body. Have the intention to love it, to welcome it, and to simply watch it. If you observe it for long enough with acceptance, the fear transforms to love. It is that simple, because it always was love. That is all that is real. The fear is an illusion. We have just described the second step of the five-step process. This is what we call Spiritual Alchemy, the transforming of fear into love.
The commitment is to do the process with the fear-based emotions every time they come up – until they stop surfacing, until all that is left in your reaction to every situation is love. You will continue to create the situations that will trigger your fear until it is dissipated. Then those same situations, if they were to arise, would be answered only with love. At that point when your response to everything is love, the question may arise – ”has the world changed or is it my reaction that has altered?” The truth is that both have transformed. There is no difference. There is no separation.
If you feel that you are responding only with love, but you buy into others’ illusions – you see them as hopeless, sad, or victims – you are projecting your own fears. That energy is still present; the other person is simply holding up a mirror for you. Take the feelings they trigger for you. Silently thank the other for showing you what you are still holding andgo back to work on yourself. You cannot change the experience for anybody else. This is the planet of free choice. Everyone has the right to be a victim and to suffer – as you have the birthright to be fully free and claim your divinity. It is not your job to do this for anybody but you; but it is your job to see them as divine, no matter how they perceive themselves.
Christmas is a wonderful time to celebrate the birth of your awareness of your divinity. In the dark of the year you can shine your spiritual light on your own darkness. Allow it to be there and embrace it with your love. Every candle you light can be a symbolic gesture toward this commitment to loving your emotions. You are divine.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I step out of the mass consciousness?
We have talked a lot over the past messages about the five-step process, of your old stories and the changing of these stories. We have communicated that you are the power in your life; you are divine and create everything, whether consciously or unconsciously. Today let’s focus on that part of the unconscious that we call the mass consciousness. These are the beliefs that permeate the culture in which you live. Most people simply accept these stories as true without questioning them, as if there is no choice. If you do question the mass consciousness, people might look at you as if you are crazy. You can travel to another culture and find differences in their mass consciousness. Some beliefs are nearly worldwide, the inevitability of death and taxes – for example. Health concerns are also part of the mass consciousness, such as the flu season or allergies. You might believe it is that time of year, so you are likely to catch something. Though many mass consciousness beliefs are universal, some ideas are narrower in scope, such as those running through families. There may be familial beliefs in good health as the standard, but other clans might hold illness and infirmities as often occurring events.
What we want to address today is the importance of being aware of the mass consciousness energy. Otherwise it will be running large parts of your life. Be particularly sensitive when you hear people, or perhaps even yourself, making statements that limit your spiritual power. Examples might include: ”You just can’t do what you want to do.” ”Nothing comes easy”. ”You have to fight to get what you want.” ”Money is evil.” ”You can’t trust men /women.” ”Sex is bad/dirty/unholy/going to get you in trouble.” ”I am getting old.” ”Don’t rock the boat.” I could go on and on. I won’t. You already have available to you an overabundance of limiting mass consciousness beliefs. Notice these ideas as they come into your field of awareness, and instead of agreeing with them or promulgating them, ask yourself if this is a story you want to be true. If it isn’t, you have your work cut out for you. Let go of that “old story” and choose a new one.
This is the place to use the five-step process. Your brain-mind is likely to cave in to some of these mass consciousness ideas and say ”That is just the way things are.” “People age.” ”Life is about suffering.” It takes the second step where you confront the fear energy held in your body, before your brain-mind can successfully choose differently. It is not just a question of choosing a new story. It is a question of facing your fear of holding yourself up to the potential ridicule and anger of those around you. You will deal with the voices that say, ”What makes you think that you can choose differently?” or ”Who made you God?” Of course, the answer is that God made you God. You were made in the image of the infinite. You are divine, and, you don’t choose to have these old stories anymore. This is not to say that you are to share the new stories you are choosing with everyone. In fact, it is probably easier if you don’t. It might be best to only disclose your new stories with those you trust to support you, until you find yourself strong in your divinity with confidence in your ability to choose your own stories. One of the great fears of stepping outside of the mass consciousness is that you will be crucified for it. That is an important story to change right away. Meanwhile, hold your cards close to your chest. Find a support group, even if it is but one person – ”Where two or more are gathered in my name”. Claim your divinity.
Walk away from the mass consciousness, whether it comes from religion, parents, governments, the media, science, or your own DNA. Change your story or it will run your existence because you are giving it permission to do so. Let’s say a little bit more about the genetic coding of your DNA. There is the belief, greatly supported by the mass consciousness of science, that who you are is determined by what is in your genetic code; that your DNA is all-powerful. Your genetic code will be left behind in mother earth’s compost pile while the truth of you goes on eternally. The immortal divine truth of you is always a greater power than your DNA. Your genetic code was created by the timeless truth of who you are. There was certainly purpose in that. You set things up in this life in order to have certain experiences, but you did not set yourself up to be a perpetual victim of those circumstances. If you have a situation that the mass consciousness says is genetically disposed – this is an opportunity, a spiritual gift, a place for you to say ”I want to change that story”.
You are all now having the opportunity to experience the changing of mass consciousness. Mass consciousness is not a static thing. It is not the same today as it was a thousand years ago, or even a hundred years ago. When a critical mass of people hold a new story, the mass consciousness begins to change. It requires only a small minority of people holding the new story to effect this transformation. It was such a critical mass that brought the earth into an ascended state, and that ascended state now allows the mass consciousness to change more quickly (What about the planetary ascension of 2012?). It is easier now for people to choose a new story than it was fifty years ago. There is less resistance. Not only are you altering your stories more easily, but you are replacing more stories and more people are choosing to convert their stories. This has a snowball effect. Changes in mass consciousness that used to take a century can now occur in five years. The current change in technology is mirroring the change in mass consciousness.
Perhaps the greatest block remaining for you in the mass consciousness is the fear of your divinity. You believe that to fully claim your divinity, and, therefore your power, is blasphemy. There is a belief that such a desire is evil or satanic, that it is of the ego or a sign of mental illness. To claim your divinity, to realize you are the power in your life and can do whatever you wish to do, is a heresy. That is the greatest fear. People are terrified of taking their power, or of even asserting they have a divine right to claim it. This is the mass consciousness promulgated by most religions. It was not the teaching of Jesus. He spoke of his achievements by saying ”this and more you shall do”. The truth is out there in many published books. There are people talking and writing in the mass media. There are workshops and classes. This energy was almost invisible fifty years ago, but it is everywhere today. The energy supporting the recognition of your personal divinity is there. The critical mass is close. It is becoming easier, but nobody can make the choice for you. Ultimately, you, yourself, will come face to face with your fear and find the love behind it. I’m on your side. I’ve got your back. But, you have to be brave enough to claim your freedom. Choose to unlock the shackles of mass consciousness.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How important are special places and secret teachings?
There have always been special places on the planet which are known as power points, portals, energy vortexes, or by other names. You are still aware of many of them today. Some of you are drawn to Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, the Nile Valley with its pyramids and temples, Mount Shasta in California, the Himalayas and so on. Every continent has such places. People sought these locales out to go on spiritual retreats, to fast, or to make vision quests. These were times for purification and to get in touch with divine guidance. In some cases, spiritual communities evolved or developed near these power points, allowing the whole group to focus energy toward spiritual evolution.
At the same time, and often connected with these power places and/or their communities, there have been secret teachings. The spiritual knowledge was not written down. The secret teachings were not intended for the average person, who was not trusted to be able to safely handle such wisdom. It could prove to be self-destructive, or it might be used to gain power over others. If you wished to progress spiritually, you had to find a teacher. You had to prove your worth to that teacher. You couldn’t simply enroll in a class, pay your fee, and be taught the secrets of the universe. You had to go through an initiation process, work at lower levels, and earn the trust of the teacher. They did not want to show you how to use spiritual power until you were ready for it. This is how it has been for eons. When the truths have been written down, they were done in such a way that the average person could not access them. Even when you read now the words assigned to Jesus in the Bible, some of which are accurate, they just hint at the fullness of his teachings. He only shared the deeper teachings with those who were ready to hear them. For others, they were hidden in parables or not dealt with in depth. Additionally, those who wrote down his words had only a partial understanding of them.
In 2012 the planet Earth completed its transition into ascension status. This is a change comparable to that initiated during the incarnation of Jesus and those who came to help in that work. A tremendous transformation has now taken place. Among the effects of this movement is that there is no longer a need for special places or for secrecy. You do not have to go to power points to access the divine energy. It is right here and it is right now. Wherever you are, it is. Your divine self is absolutely open to you. You don’t have to go anywhere to find it. To seek it out in special places now can actually slow your process because it can reinforce the “old story” that you are separate from your divinity. I’m not suggesting that you never go to special places, only that there is no need to do so. If you feel a draw to a spot, then go. Follow your heart. There are no longer special places for the planet, but there may be special places for you. Only you can feel where those places are. You might realize, for example, that for your spiritual growth you desire a retreat in a place that provides peace and solitude. Perhaps you are led to live in such a place. Even then, there is not just one place that is the right one for you. Many can provide the solace you seek. Trust your heart and also what presents itself as you make your requests of Spirit.
The truth is now there for all to see and hear. The teachings are no longer hidden. You do not have to climb the mountain to find the guru to learn the secret of life. It is within you. You can turn on the television, walk into a bookstore, or look at the internet. The truth is everywhere. All the information is now out there in the open. Nothing is hidden. The only thing you have to do is to discern what is truth and what isn’t. Listen with your heart. If the teaching is love based, it is likely true. If it is fear based, it is likely false. If your intention is for experiencing your ascension, you will draw the truth to you.
There is no need for hiding the truth on this ascended earth. The shroud of secrecy has been lifted. Secrecy is based in fear. There is no longer a need to protect your truth from others. This is not to say that you are to proselytize the world. Live your own truth and share it with those who express interest. People who are holding onto fear energy can still create persecution and martyrdom. If you fear persecution, the tools are there to create safety about you. You can work with the five-step process or other techniques. When you give up being a victim and claim your divine power, you are always protected.
People are still capable of twisting spiritual understanding to attempt to control others. The use of secrecy in the past to prevent this was unsuccessful. People still gained access to spiritual power and they took advantage of others. Yet earth survived because love is more powerful than fear. All that can be destroyed is that which is not real. Energy can only be used against those who agree to give their power away. It bears repeating. When you give up being a victim and claim your divine power, you are always protected.
You no longer need to seek out special teachers and to go through special initiations. If you draw to yourself a teacher who acts as if he holds the keys and presents that you have to show your worthiness to be his student, you may wish to take a step backward and breathe deeply. A true teacher makes you aware of your own divinity and your personal power. He encourages you to take responsibility. There are no wrong decisions, but some choices will bring more pain than others. The pain can always be a stimulus for growth, but is not a requirement for it. In the old energy, you needed to walk away from everyday life, from your family and community, in order to follow a spiritual path. Today, in the ascended energy you might choose to do that. You might choose to disappear for a while. But, none of this is absolutely necessary. The teachings are universally accessible. The divinity is within you wherever you might be. The choices are infinite and they are yours. Enjoy.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Are aging and death certain?
Your birthday may not be soon, but you can apply this message to your most recent celebration or to your upcoming one. Take your pick. You are celebrating the illusion of being a year older. In the illusion, this day honors the day of your birth, of your beginning. The truth is that you are, you always have been, and you always will be. You simply are. The you that is has chosen to have the experience of being in a physical body without letting go of any part of your divinity. You are experiencing the ”I Am” through the perspective of the physical. When you are not aware of your divinity, you have the illusion that life begins with your birth, cycles on through your lifetime, and ends with your death. After death, however, you will have a renewed awareness of your divinity, and will eventually plan another incarnation. From the human point of view this makes perfect sense, as you see all life around you going through these cycles. The whole universe seems to support this view of birth and death.
When you are not connected to your divinity you are very susceptible to the beliefs of the mass consciousness. The mass consciousness says, ”A year older. Another ring on the tree. There are only so many rings. After a certain age, there will be a slow, but definite decline in the physicality. Finally, this will lead to your death, because the body is no longer a fun place to remain.” This is the best scenario with the mass consciousness. It assumes a belief in life after death or a belief in future incarnations. However, if your life is ruled by fear, rather than love, the mass consciousness can take a worse turn. You may be alarmed by aging, frightened by the breaking down of the body, panicked at the inevitable death, and terrified that there is nothing beyond it. When you have the goal of ascension, the intention to fully realize your divinity, the limits to how you experience your physicality begin to drop away. As you experience your divinity, you find that time can move backwards as well as forwards. You can encounter life in multiple ways. You can travel to particular days in your life and re-experience them. Journey to other lifetimes is a possibility. There are no limits. I encourage you to take back the night. Let go of the darkness you hold around death and choose love.
When your birthday comes, make the choice to celebrate being a year younger. Decide to count backward each year until you reach your optimum age, whatever that might be. How do you want to experience the world? From what perspective of physical energy do you want to live? We can call this ”youthing” or, to have fun with the English language, ”youthanization”. You begin by changing your stories about aging. The first one to change is the belief that your body will deteriorate. The new story could be that your body remains at a steady state, that you hold your present state of wellness. Like a bird in the wind, you can learn to fly in place. Learn that you can begin to reverse the aging process with your body.
In the mass consciousness, nothing is more certain than death. The slow (or sudden) deterioration of the body is a close second. There is no order of difficulties in miracles, but there is a greater challenge in creating a new story when the mass consciousness belief about the “old story” is strongly held. Are you willing to go against the beliefs of everyone you know? Unless you wish to run right into that wall, you might choose to work with youthing privately or only with those you trust at a deep spiritual level.
You cannot successfully choose youthing out of fear of death. When the motivation is fear, the realization cannot be divine. Remember that death is not real. You can never be destroyed. You are immortal. You choose life because you love life. You choose health because life is too much fun to play in any other way. You do this by accepting your divinity, by knowing there is only love, and by acting from that loving place. This is what the five-step process is designed to support you in doing. It is not a ritual. A ritual is an action that you repeat, hoping that the gods will intercede on your behalf. That is not an acknowledgement of your divinity, but of your need for outside intervention. It is an act of hope, which is the flip side of hopelessness. The five-step process is an expression of your power, of your love (they are one and the same), and of certainty in your divinity. The motivation for youthing is not to live forever. It is to fully experience your divinity. Only when you are certain of your divinity can you know how long you wish to stay in your body.
As you are changing your story and taking full responsibility for your life, ask yourself what you want more than anything else. If the truth is that you wish to fully experience your divinity, to realize your ascension, everything else will take a back seat. All that comes into your life will be there to support you in fully knowing the truth of love. Here’s to you, kid.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I realize my purpose?
This is the time of year when many of you take a vacation. The focus is on taking time for yourself, relaxing, and doing what you want to do. This often involves being out in nature. On one level, you are choosing to have a certain type of experience. It is like the sabbatical, which is an extended period for stepping out of your regular life, but it is more a place for playfulness and expression than for introspection. It is a time to enjoy life. Some of you experience less than pure joy on your vacations. A tremendous pressure can be felt to make the most of the time. For some there is the dread of the impending return to the ”real world”. This is particularly true for those of you who are not doing what you came here to do. It is as if the rest of your life is a sacrifice and the vacation has to fill all the empty holes in you. Then, at the end of the vacation you go back to a life that isn’t chosen from your heart.
For those who are fully into your Right Livelihood, the Buddhist term used to describe following your heart in the work you do, there is a seamless flow from work into leisure. Vacation is simply another way of expressing your truth. But, for all it is a time of recharging, particularly in connection with the feminine energy. Let’s look more closely at this term. Right Livelihood is connected to dharma rather than karma. It is not a balancing of energy from past and present life confusions, or karma; it is acting in harmony with your deeper being. There is something that you came here to do. It is yours and yours alone. Nobody else can do this, nor can you do anything else and know true peace. If you are not doing the thing you came here to do, there is a sense of failure and frustration about your life.
For some people, there is a total shut down around their purpose, but for many of you a piece of your purpose is visible to you, though not the whole. The challenge is to surrender fully to purpose. In the same way that you don’t come in remembering your divinity, you also don’t remember what you came to do. The remembrance comes through a conscious choice. If your commitment and habit is to choose love over fear, you will slowly uncover your Right Livelihood. When you are there, you are living in love. You are following your passion and sharing that love with others. What stands in the way is the belief that you don’t deserve to do what you love to do. This may be expressed through a belief that the universe will not support you in following your heart. The ego voice in your head tells you, ”You need to be serious. Buckle down. Keep your nose to the grindstone. You have to work hard to support yourself and your family. That’s how it is.” That is the voice, the belief, of fear and lack.
Part of following your Right Livelihood is to release the fear. But, an equal part is to truly know what your purpose is. These two are intertwined. If you carry a great deal of fear it may block the knowing. You may not be able to see it at all. You may think of yourself as someone with no particular gifts to offer the world. Or, you may see part of the picture but doubt your sanity and not trust what you see and feel. Those of you who live in western civilization are influenced by a mass consciousness that considers Right Livelihood to be a frill that can only be dallied with once you have taken care of the ”meat and potatoes” of life, after you have done the duty that you owe to yourself, your family, and your society to work hard at something. But, the true service happens when you give from your divinity and share it with those who are close to you, your community, and the world. That is the greatest benefit you can offer, much grander than any self-sacrifice could provide.
How do you go about releasing fear and finding true purpose? A wonderful place to begin is with the five-step process. Your “old story” is whatever you believe to be true about Right Livelihood. It may be a statement of fear, one of confusion, or one of hopelessness. Feel where you are holding that energy in your body and focus your full attention upon it until you feel the unconditional love emerge. Then accept your divinity by taking full responsibility for your “old story”, thanking it for its role in guiding you to your Right Livelihood. Finally, choose your new story from your heart. In addition to this process it will help to commit to bring something you love into your life each day. Set some time aside for yourself. Prime the pump with love until it begins to flow out of you constantly.
When we use the term ”Right” this is not a judgment; it is a knowing. This is not to imply that there is a ”Wrong” Livelihood. Right in this case means true to yourself. Only you know your purpose. Only you can feel it. It is like an inner GPS. No matter what direction you take in your life, this inner voice always points ”right” to your purpose. It makes no difference how many painful steps may have been taken. Your inner compass will point you home. All there is for you to do is to wipe it clear of fear and let the love light your way. Let your vacation be a beginning. Choose to bring that special energy into every day of your life. You can do it on purpose.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What are the real dynamics of rescuing?
Rescuing is a deeply ingrained part of your culture. You were raised with fairy tales about a damsel in distress, who is held captive by an evil knight or a dragon or a witch. The noble, good knight comes in to rescue her. What is communicated by this beautiful story? First of all, we have the hopelessness of the victim. The story does not recognize the victim as a powerful, infinitely creative child of God, but as a mere mortal of limited abilities – unable to help herself. Much can also be made out of the feminizing of the victim, but victims today can just as well be in a male as in a female body – though males may be less inclined to ask for help. Another aspect of the story is that there is some evil force outside of the victim that wishes to do harm to her, to exert power over her; and the victim is helpless in the face of this dark energy. If the rescuer is successful, which of course he usually is in these stories, what he has done is to confirm the powerlessness of the victim. The victim is forever indebted to the rescuer and the rescuer may look forward to a lifetime of protecting the victim. Regardless, the victim will continue to create situations where rescue is is seen as necessary. That is her story. The rescuer, also, will continue to look for damsels in distress.
The first question is to ask whether a great service is really being provided if the relief is only temporary. This is not to say that you are to ignore someone who is in danger or that support is not to be lent when the situation is grave. But if a pattern of helplessness exists, are you providing the highest service by continually rescuing? Jesus said that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. When you rescue, you are giving a fish. Teaching victims how to rescue themselves feeds them for a lifetime. Jesus was able to heal others because he recognized their divinity. He did not see them as helpless victims. The key to eliminating victimhood lies in the recognition that you are the creative power in your life. As long as you pretend that you are not, you will always need rescuing. If you believe in victimhood, you will be one. If you think evil exists, it will continue to oppress you.
Without victims, there is no need for rescuers. Why would you rescue somebody if you recognized their divine power? Just what is the difference between the rescuer and the victim? They are two sides of the same story. One cannot exist without the other. It is the brain-mind that holds this story of helplessness. The only true rescue that can happen is for the brain-mind to choose to relinquish this story of victimhood. If it gives this powerlessness to the belly-mind to be embraced by its unconditional love, the illusion of fear can be transformed into spiritual gold. That rescue is not performed by another. It is accomplished by yourself. There can be aids or other support. When you create a new story, all kinds of assistance come to bring it into fruition, but those allies come at your order. They come because of your strength, not your weakness.
Rescuers can alleviate the pain, but a healing comes only from the wellspring of your own power and divinity. True rescuing involves supporting another’s brain-mind to take its power. It does not provide solutions, but encourages others to create their own salvation. If the rescuer buys the story of the helplessness, the rescuer does not believe in the divinity of the victim. The rescuer sees the victim as weak and vulnerable. But, you cannot perceive powerlessness in another unless it is also part of your own story about yourself. Rescuing becomes a distraction. Instead of dealing with your own impotence, you deal with another’s. There is a basic denial. But as you don’t truly heal the victim’s helplessness, you don’t handle yours either. You pretend it is not there and project it upon another. This is the danger of being a rescuer. The world wants to pat you on the back, so there is a great sense of security in continuing to go out and rescue others. Your own feelings of weakness can be covered up. It feels safer to live in the illusion that you are strong and rescuing everyone else than to face your own fear. If the rescuer were to acknowledge the strength and divinity in the victims, what is left for them to do? How can you be a hero if there is nobody to save? The answer is that you can’t truly rescue another until you liberate yourself. The task of the hero is to recognize his own divinity and to take full responsibility and power in his life.
Let us not forget the third leg of the victim triangle. We also need the villain, the victimizer. The play can’t go on without one. Remembering that there can only be evil if you believe in it, what is the role of the villain? There needs to be a delivery system for the disaster that supports the belief in victimhood and helplessness. Without the victimizer, there is no painful “old story” to be freed from. The lack of belief in your personal divinity is still present, but there is no nagging need to release it. The villain is the answer to your prayers. You want to realize your divinity, but you need a situation that is so hopeless that you are ready to entertain the idea of changing your story. Part of the process of reclaiming your divinity is to welcome, thank, and give love to your victimizer. You have asked the villain to be there, whether you are aware of it or not. It could be no other way, because you are the divine power in your life. The victimizer is there to help you take your power. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! In this story, it is important for the rescuer and the victim to give the villain his rightful place. The victimizer is showing them their mutual belief in evil. You have all taken your turns as the villain, whether consciously or not. You could not be in judgment of villains were you not also judging yourself. Whatever has been done to you, you have done to others. You are all in this story together, and all the parts are necessary. Embrace the victimizer within you with the unconditional love of your belly-mind.
Who is really stronger, the rescuer or the victim? The victim is confronting fears, while the rescuer may be denying them. Every human who has not recognized her divinity, her ascension, is a victim. That is the role she is playing. Those that recognize their victimhood have a chance for redemption. Those who believe in their role as a rescuer have little chance. Notice that in many of the rescuer stories there is a time of darkness for the hero. This is where the gold is hidden.
Notice when you attend spiritual groups that there are often more women present than men. The illusion of victimhood is more obvious for women in a patriarchal culture. Remember that being a victim is not your passport to ascension, but it often does lie between you and your awakening. Males who are successful in the material world have a particular challenge because they often have not experience themselves as victims. This is what Jesus meant when he said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. There is nothing random in the universe. There is purpose in everything. You are the creative power. Use the five-step process or whatever works for you to let go of victimhood, take responsibility, and recognize your divinity. Be your own hero.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do I deal with my environmental fears?
A question has been presented to me about how to deal with the world and its environmental problems. Your brain-mind may be asking, ”How can I and my children survive the threats from pollution, global warming, carcinogens, chemicals, radiation from electronic devices, warfare, and the effects of capitalism and large governments?” You might understand how you can affect things directly dealing with your own thoughts and actions through the five-step process, but still fail to see how you can avoid being a victim to the mass consciousness and world events.
You project your love and your fear upon the planet. You cast all of this upon “Mother Earth”, but nobody has the power to destroy the earth. The area of concern is not with the earth; it is with you. Nobody has the power to determine the future of the planet for you. That is yours and yours alone. Neither do you have the power to determine the future of the planet for anybody else. Your belief will not change the truth, but it will affect your perception of the truth. No matter what you believe about the world, your experience will prove you right.
Scientists are correct when they tell us that we are undergoing a period of global warming. I don’t suggest that you ignore the warnings. What are you to do with the information? If global warming is to bring about changes that include storms and flooding, you can choose not to be directly affected. It doesn’t matter whether your fear is of drunk drivers, earthquakes, or mass murderers. You can always choose to be in the right place at the right time. If you are suffering significant degrees of fear, or anger – one of fear’s many manifestations, do the five-step process. Global warming could prove to have some positive effects for the planet. Your job is not to judge. Your job is to feel love and choose what you want. Choose what you want rather than choosing the absence of what you fear. If it is appropriate for global warming to be halted or reversed, it will happen. It will happen from a place of love. Perhaps a person, or persons, in the process of following their heart’s guidance find the alternative energy source or channel an absolutely unthought-of solution to the situation. Your job is to release fear and to follow your heart. Do what you came here to do.
I’m not suggesting that you stick your head in the sand and hide from any of the fears that were mentioned in the opening paragraph. If you are concerned that the food you are eating might kill you; of course, you want to change that story. But, you also want to eat to please your belly-mind. Healthy food tastes good. Organic food is more enjoyable than non-organic. Natural foods are more gratifying than processed ones. Eat what truly feels wonderful to you, and release your food fears through the five-step process. If you find yourself in a situation of eating food that you know is not healthy for you, don’t worry about it. It won’t kill you, unless you want it to do so. Survival is not about purity. It is about loving yourself and your life so much that there is nowhere else you would rather be. Enjoy whatever you eat. If you love your food, your food will turn to love within you.
Many of you are worried about the effects of radiation, especially from mobile phones. If the fear is great, protect yourself until the five-step process has a chance to work. Then listen to your heart. If you are worried about your children’s use of phones, I have a question for you. Which is the greater ultimate danger to your child, mobile phones or her brain-mind acting out of fear? Where are your priorities as a parent? You can hardly ask your children to surrender their fears to the belly-mind and to choose always to come from love unless you are making a sincere effort to do just that yourself. Kids aren’t dumb. They’ll smell that one a mile off.
When there is no fear and no denial, your love will create only from your heart’s desire. There is nothing to fear. As you are building your love, take the precautions that you feel that you want. Ultimately there is no order of difficulties in miracles. When you are performing Spiritual Alchemy, there is no difference between creating a state of unconditional self-love (which you have experienced your ability to do, if you have worked with the process), and protecting yourself from nuclear war or a significant rising of the ocean levels. It doesn’t matter where the fear of victimhood is coming from; love is simply the place where you begin. It helps, as you are dealing with what seem to be such enormous issues, to put things in perspective. If you believe that this body is all you get and then there is nothing, terror is more likely to hold you in its grip. If you hold the awareness that none of this is ultimately real, that it is just a big dream that you will awaken from someday, and that you will eventually laugh about it all – it is easier to let go of your brain-mind and find true peace and love in this very body. You are already ascended. Get used to it!
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do I create dis-ease?
In the last message I talked about the two minds, the brain-mind and the belly-mind. Your brain-mind is more connected with the masculine energy or the direct mental communication with the higher self, while your belly-mind is more connected with the feminine energy and relating to the physical world and its sensual experiences. It is your brain-mind that always chooses and focuses the energy, having intention, and, it is your belly-mind that is in a constant state of unconditional love and acceptance, simply flowing with what is. What I call ascension is this place where your brain-mind and your belly-mind are in absolute harmony and balance. I spoke of the importance of your brain-mind surrendering to your belly-mind so that experience of peace and love can be had. In that nurturing space your brain-mind can choose with clarity.
That place where your brain-mind and your belly-mind meet is the spiritual heart or the heart chakra. We speak of coming from the heart. The Swedish have an expression “att tänka med hjärta” that translates to ”if you think with your heart”. When we say ”coming from the heart”, we are saying two things. We are saying that you are coming from a place of unconditional love, but we are also saying that you are coming from a place of absolute integrity. When you are true to yourself, you are true to your heart. But, how can you hear your heart? You can only do so if your brain-mind is quiet. If your brain-mind is full of chatter, if it is expressing fears and doubts and limitations, Spirit is drowned out. This quieting can be achieved through meditation or any other technique that turns over the power to your belly-mind. The five-step process is designed to do just that.
With the surrender of your brain-mind, your belly-mind can hold that place of unconditional love and acceptance. Your body is no longer experiencing fear in the form of pain or dis-ease or emotional discomfort. There is instead a sense of peace and warmth. However, if your brain-mind insists upon holding on to control, it becomes self-destructiveness. It holds a story that doesn’t serve you and isn’t aligned with your divine self. This will eventually become dis-ease in your body, but immediately there is a discomfort.
What happens when your brain-mind has the intention to let go, to shut down and let your belly-mind take over? Your belly-mind sees the energies in your body for what they truly are, expressions of love. It realizes the absolute peace, tranquility, and love of the infinite. Then your brain-mind is re-engaged in a state of unconditional self-love. In this nurturing culture that your belly-mind has allowed to engulf the body and especially the spiritual heart, your brain-mind can choose what it is that you want to make manifest. This union of your two minds happens in your spiritual heart. This is not the choice that would please your parents, your partner, your friends, or your superiors. It is the answer to the question ”What is mine to do?” or ”What is my purpose?” Your brain-mind is also able to see a larger picture. It can recognize its power and the part it has played in creating what has been.
Your two minds can only meet in your spiritual heart. If all the energy is focused in the realm of your belly-mind, there will be a state of unconditional love and acceptance without movement or action. It will not be possible to fulfill your pre-life plan. If the energy is focused in the realm of your brain-mind, the connection with love is severed and your choices will be directed by fear and could become ruthless. They meet in the center. Your brain-mind initiates the process by giving full power to your belly-mind. Your belly-mind transforms your bodily vibrations to one of tranquility which it focuses in your spiritual heart, and your brain-mind is invited back in to direct the energy from your true desires. This is what I call Spiritual Alchemy. Your full purpose may evolve gradually as you operate from the heart. There is no hurry. Feel free to follow your heart one step at a time. Or shoot for the moon.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I get the ying and yang energy in harmony within me?
When most people think of the ”mind” they are referring to the thinking that comes out of the brain. This mind is the part of the human that directs energy and activity. The brain-mind, as we shall call it, is intricately connected with the ego. The ego is the part of you that thinks you are separate from God, that believes in all your stories, and that pretends you are a victim. Your ego is driven by fear rather than love. This does not mean that your brain-mind can only function from fear and can only connect with your ego, but that is its default mode. Your ego does not believe in your divinity or accept the reality of your eternal soul. Your brain-mind will work to validate your ego’s story unless it is retrained. Your brain-mind accepts a story in which you are weak and helpless. If there is a God, it believes you are inferior and at God’s mercy. Sometimes your brain-mind may reject the idea of God, but there is still no room for your divinity. Your “old story” tells how you need to be punished for your wrong doing and wrong thinking, whether that is by God or by the randomness of the universe. Most of the time that your brain-mind is operating, it is creating stories that your heart doesn’t desire. The best thing that most of you can do with your brain-mind in this ego state is to just turn it off, to figure out how to disconnect it. The five-step process has been developed to help you do that.
What many people are unaware of, or else often disregard, is that the human being has two minds. In addition to the brain-mind which does the thinking, there is what we will call the belly-mind. Your belly-mind is located in your lower abdomen. While your brain-mind is more associated with the masculine yang energy, your belly-mind is more linked with the feminine yin energy. It is your belly-mind that connects you with the earth and experiences the physical joys of being in a body. While your brain-mind picks up energy in the form of ideas or pictures, your belly-mind is more of a sense receiver. It picks up input from throughout your body as well as from other bodies. It collects information from your every cell. Your brain-mind is usually not in touch with the cells in your body. Its primary function is to receive clear light from your higher self and so it deals with the intellect and the realm of ideas. Your belly-mind is dealing with what is here and now.
Most people give their power to their brain-minds. Because the brain-mind is usually guided by fear, their lives are run by terror. People are also afraid of their belly-minds. The belly-mind is not guided by rationality; that is the realm of the brain-mind. The belly-mind has a more intuitive energy. It knows without knowing why. It knows without needing to know why. It just knows. Let’s go back to the five-step process. The first step is simply the recognition of what your brain-mind has gotten you into. Your “old story” is your fear driven belief. Your brain-mind wants to get rid of this story, but can’t because it really believes in it. In the second step, you set your thoughts, judgments, and rationalizations aside and simply surrender to the feelings you are carrying in your body. This is where your brain-mind is disengaged and your belly-mind takes over. This is where the real work is done, where Spiritual Alchemy takes place.
Let’s look more deeply at the second step. Your belly-mind pays attention to the feelings that are in your body. It watches them until your brain-mind fully disengages. Then the true nature of the energy can surface. Love is felt instead of fear. Peace descends where there was tension. Sometimes, your brain-mind is so terrified that it cannot disengage. It may be helpful in this case to have a dialogue with the energy being held in your body. This is more easily done if there is a third party, an outside brain-mind, that can ask the questions. Otherwise your brain-mind will often be unable to let go. A good place to begin the conversation is by welcoming the energy you feel in your body. Whether it is experienced as a physical pain or an emotional discomfort, you have created the energy and have invited it into your life. This energy is your friend. You are not a victim. You didn’t create this energy to hurt yourself. This was the best that you could do in the moment to get where you wished to go. The least that you can do is to make your guest welcome. Then it is time to ask the energy what gift it has brought for you. The answer to that question will only be heard by your belly-mind. Your brain-mind will either be unable to hear it or will be distrusting of the message if it can hear, so the process is one of slowly sedating your brain-mind until it feels safe enough to let go and let your belly-mind work with the energy. Your belly-mind has no fear of the body or its feelings. Your belly-mind has no fear, period.
Your belly-mind is very much connected to the feminine energy. It contains no judgment. It is one with whatever is there. It is a mind of unconditional love. As your belly-mind maintains a steady connection with the energy held in your body and your brain-mind slowly recedes into the background, the energy is perceived for what it truly has been all along. It is felt as love.
Your brain-mind is not a vestigial organ. Its job is to choose the story you really want. Your belly-mind does not choose stories. It loves unconditionally and connects fully with the physical world. When you are here in a body you can do anything that you want. How do you decide just what you are going to do? Deciding is the job of your brain-mind. But, if your brain-mind is ruled by fear, it is unable to hear your higher self clearly and chooses less than what you want. These two minds are to work together. If your brain-mind tries to operate alone, it will respond to fear. If your belly-mind were to work alone it would lack direction. Manifestation happens through the marriage of the two minds.
For millennia, the mass consciousness of the earth has believed that the brain-mind was superior and the belly-mind was inferior, if it was given any respect at all. Actually, it is your belly-mind that is to take the lead. This is not to say that your belly-mind is to dominate as your brain-mind has done. They are to be in perfect balance. The job of your belly-mind is to connect with the physical level of existence, in a harmonious loving manner. You are to love every aspect of your body simply because it is, as well as all of physical reality. Your belly-mind’s connection with the unconditional love of divinity allows your brain-mind to release its fear and to choose its stories out of love and passion. Thus, we come to the third and fourth steps. Third, your brain-mind takes full responsibility for what it has created, understanding its divinity and that it could be no other way. This taking of responsibility can only be made from love. Finally, your brain-mind is ready to choose where it wishes to go. It is now able to hear your higher self and to freely follow it.
The irony is that the brain that has the fear is the one that has to choose. Your brain-mind is interested in the truth. It wants the truth and is drawn to it, but is also terrified of it. Who wouldn’t want to live without fear in a world where you could create abundance and whatever else you wanted? Only a great fear could turn you away from such a truth. Your brain-mind needs its “mother” to hold it and whisper in its ear that it is safe in order to have the strength to choose the truth. Without the support of your belly-mind, your brain-mind will at best choose only a small part of its divine inheritance. It can seem easier to deny the possibility than to take a chance and have your hopes dashed. Your brain-mind may open up to spiritual possibilities but claim that others might be capable of achieving them but not you. ”I’m not strong enough. I’m not brave enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not pure enough”. The list goes on and on. You may fear for your sanity or for being persecuted as occurred during the witch trials.
Your brain-mind can be aware of these three things: 1. That you could choose anything. 2. That you have the power to choose. 3. That it’s up to you to make the choice. Your choice may not be made with certainty, but it will give your belly-mind the space to go to work. Otherwise your mind brain believes that the only thing holding itself and the planet together is its control. ”If I let go, everything is lost”. In terror, it will not surrender that control and life is lived in some degree of fear and lack.
My job is to tell you that you are in charge of your life and are fully capable of creating whatever you want. It will take some work, but your belly-mind is ready to support you unconditionally. Take the leap. Work with the five-step process. Experience your divinity.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What can I do about my dis-ease or ailment?
How are you feeling? This is a common question that friends ask upon meeting each other. Your response might be, ”Good”, or you might go into detail with why you aren’t feeling well – perhaps giving out more information than was desired. What you are really doing, whether the answer is fully honest or not, is giving your friend a report on how you are doing spiritually. There is no difference between your spiritual health and your physical health, and this can be expanded to include mental and emotional well-being. They are absolutely connected. I want to look at three categories of dis-ease today. The first group consists of those things you chose to bring in with you. The second includes the dis-eases that are temporary and of short duration. The final collection consists of the disorders that are labeled by the medical community as possibly being terminal.
Some of you in your pre-life planning chose to come into this incarnation with certain vulnerabilities or handicaps, whether they be physical, mental, or emotional. It might be a challenge with vision, hearing, speech, or mobility. There may be a congenital health issue, autism, dyslexia, or myriad other conditions. It is important to recognize that those were preplanned conditions. Nobody comes in as a victim to blind luck or accident. Whatever might look like fate is simply the way the angels have carried out the plan that you made. The reason for this planning probably had to do with your soul’s desire for spiritual growth and ascension in this incarnation. Sometimes the soul agreed to the specific handicap as a way to support others in their growth. However, since you are reading this now it is clear, if you have such a condition, that you hoped to use the disability to support the possibility of your ascension in this lifetime.
All challenges change your focus in life. Severe challenges cause you to go more deeply within to understand and to work with the ”realities” that seem to be present. Your disability comes from the loving heart of your soul to support you in realizing the absolute truth of who you are. Some of you chose in your pre-life planning to acquire the disability at a certain point later in your life from something that appears to be outside of you. This could come from an injury, from a dis-ease, or from a gradual loss of a sense or mental ability. There is no difference between the natal and the later-in-life situations. In each case, it is seen as something that is chronic and irreversible. Know that this disability is not random; you are not a victim. There is a meaning to this, and, on a deep level the god in you has chosen this out of love. It is important to go to the place of loving acceptance of the disability. You welcome it and thank it for being there. You bless it. You communicate with it. You ask it what gift it has brought with it and you open to receive that present. Know that your disability is always the bearer of an enormous gift. Know that it is absolutely necessary to receive it in gratitude and to open up the gift before the disability can be released. To try to transform the disability without fully accepting it leaves you in a place of victimhood. The god in you has invited it in, but you are refusing to receive it. Welcome it in and love it.
Acute situations are those that are perceived to be temporary, though they may be recurring. You have a headache or a cold. You stub your toe or break your arm. You know that you will get over it, but your story may believe that it will happen over and over in the future, perhaps even in recognizable patterns. Acute situations are usually created while you are in the body, rather than being preplanned, though recurrent, disabling situations, such as asthma, PMS, or migraines may have been preplanned. Many of you have no chronic situations, but suffer occasionally or more often from different maladies. These are chosen on a subconscious level, and they are reactions to what is going on in your life right now. If you are carrying around fear energy in your body, you will have a physical response. Fear and dis-ease are directly related, and they carry a message just for you. It may be as simple, for example, as that there are some foods that do not support your spiritual growth, and so your body has a negative reaction. Your heart wants you to eat the foods that support your spiritual development. If you ignore the message, your body reacts until you pay attention and alter your diet.
Another reason for dis-ease may be that you are putting too much stress on yourself. Your heart wants to be freer and less busy. It wants to have more fun, so the body reacts and you get headaches, a cold, or the flu. You feel there is so much work for you to do that you can’t rest for a moment. Then you get sick, have to rest, and the world does fine without you. And you survive. Why do you create all this stress? It is your mind saying that you don’t deserve to do what you want to do, what you came here to do. Dis-ease is about not loving yourself. If these are new ideas to you, you can explore a wonderful booklet by Louise L. Hay called Heal Your Body. It suggests underlying causes for the physical problems you are experiencing and offers suggestions for new stories.
For everyone, though, I suggest that you use the five-step process to deal with any dis-ease you may be feeling. In the first step, simply describe the physical problem or the discomfort in your body. The second step is straightforward, too. You know where you are feeling discomfort in your body. Shut your mind off and go deep into the feeling. It can be scary. There can be the feeling that the pain is too great, you are afraid to surrender to it. Your job, however, is to do just that, to fully go into it and look it in the face. When you have transformed this energy, go to the third step and take full responsibility. Acknowledge that it was out of love for yourself and your desire for spiritual growth that you attracted this dis-ease. You move on to the fourth step and choose your new story. Repeat this (the fifth step) whenever the discomfort returns.
The third category is a very interesting one. Life threatening illnesses or accidents can be preplanned, chosen later, or even be a combination of the two. This is where you draw to yourself a situation that the medical profession tells you (or at least believes) could be terminal. The situation is not only chronic but it appears that it might even kill you. Now, your tremendous fear of death is triggered. You may have chronic pain involved. Your whole life is likely turned upside down. Perhaps it is impossible for you to do your work; there may be a great number of medical procedures; you may experience financial strains on top of everything else. Again, you can do the five-step process. In the second step, in addition to paying attention to the discomfort there will also be times to communicate with your dis-ease. There is a question to look at in a potentially terminal situation. Part of you is looking at leaving. Why? Do you wish to stay or to leave? There is no right or wrong answer, but there is your answer. Is it fear about life that causes you to want to leave this body? What old stories do you have? You can have a dialogue with this dis-ease. You can welcome it. You can find out what gift it is bringing to you. You can express your gratitude for your dis-ease. You may have a long list of reasons for why you are ready to pull the plug on this life.
Notice that you created a slow process rather than a sudden event. You are giving yourself time to realize what it is that would make your life worth staying for; you have time for creating a new story. Again, until you choose to take responsibility for your dis-ease, you will suffer under the illusion that you are a victim and that you really want to live. Likely the desire to live is really a fear of death. All death is suicide, but most suicides are unconsciously chosen. When you are dealing with a potentially terminal situation you will use step five over and over. You will use it every time that pain or fear arise. The first time around you will likely deal only with the discomfort in the body. Eventually you will realize that it is time to look at what your pain has to say to you. There may be many issues, and it might take repeated cycles through the process to deal with it all. This may take a bit of time and work, but what more pressing things do you have to do?
If you are consciously on a spiritual path, everything that happens in your life is of spiritual importance. It helps to remember that the bottom line is always love. Love yourself. Love your dis-ease. Love the knowledge that you are the power in your life and that you can always choose to claim that power. Love the fact that you will have as many chances as it may take. Love yourself, no matter what should happen.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How does manifestation take place?
You planned this incarnation. You designed your physical type and your gender. You arranged to connect with other souls and to play significant roles in each other’s lives. You came in with the goal of completion. When I say completion, I mean that you plotted things with the intention that you would come into a full conscious awareness of the truth of who you are, the truth of your divinity. This was your greatest hope for this lifetime. You would not be reading this now, were that not your intent. You set things up for yourself as you came into this incarnation so that ascension was a distinct possibility. You still have absolute freedom of choice and you can always decide differently, yet your choices have led you to be reading this now. You have had lifetimes where you didn’t choose the ascension path. In still other lifetimes, you have been conscious of this desire to experience your divinity, but have thought that you couldn’t do it, that you would come back and try again. You may choose such a course again this time and there is no problem with that.
The only thing that is absolutely inevitable is that one day or another, in one body or another, you will have the experience of your divinity. It is the truth of who you are, and you can only hide from that truth for so long. Within many of you is a desire that wants this experience right now, but doesn’t believe that it can happen while in this body. You might try to travel outside of your body. Maybe you don’t want to wake up in the morning. In the physical world, you may have a sense of hopelessness, a sense of futility, of frustration. It could feel like there is nothing but pain and discomfort from being in the physical body – even though it has its moments of pleasure, its moments of bliss. You have felt that way before. That is your story. What I am offering to you – although it is not mine to give, it is yours to take – is the possibility of letting go of that story, forever, and replacing it with the story you wish to have. It is not my job to write your story. You can write the story of what you wish to accomplish while in this physical body.
To help you understand more about why you are able to choose your own story, let’s talk about how manifestation takes place on the physical plane. The vibration that deals with manifestation is that of the number eight. If you look at the shape of the 8, it can explain to you everything about manifestation. It is said about the 8, ”As above, so below” – as it is in the spiritual, so it is in the physical. When you take the 8 and turn it on its side, it is the symbol for infinity. The only limit that exists on the flow of created manifestation is the one you choose to place there, no other. You have been working with the laws of manifestation as long as you have been in bodies. When you work with the laws unconsciously, you create unconsciously. When that happens, you are usually not pleased with the result. It never looks like what you would consciously choose. Therefore, you make the erroneous assumption that you are powerless, that you have no effect or influence over what is happening. If you imagine the creative force that brought everything that is into being, can you visualize a limit to what that energy can create? The truth of you and who you are is that each of you is created in the likeness of the original creative force. You are infinite, immortal, and have no limits as your creator is infinite. You are a piece of the whole. You are a being of unconditional love and unlimited creativity. You are innocent and loved unconditionally by the creator. It is difficult for you to take full responsibility for your life and to assume your full power if you are carrying guilt and judgment.
This is how manifestation (visualize the 8) takes place. You have the spiritual plane at the top of any symbol and the physical plane at the bottom. The spiritual plane you could call your soul, your higher self, or the immortal part of you. The physical plane represents your body and the material earth, that which in truth is not real, is not immortal. You create there in the now for whatever purposes you might have. If the physical should disappear, the spiritual remains. What is in the physical is what you are pulling from the spiritual. You can pull anything out you want. In the middle where the two circles join, or where the flow crosses itself, are the mental and emotional planes of existence. The mental plane decides what you are going to create. As you are telling your story, whatever it may be, that’s what your mental plane has decided to pull out of the spiritual. Whatever limitations you feel imposing themselves on you, that is your story. That is created by the mind.
Some of you have worked with the idea of positive thinking, where you decide to change your mind. How did that work for you? Maybe there were some short-term successes, but it leaves out half of the equation. Thinking is the masculine side of the manifestation process, but by itself it ignores the feminine side. The feminine side is the emotional plane. There are only two emotions. One is called love and the other fear. Love has one name and fear a thousand. Anything that is not unconditional love is fear. When you are thinking positively, but your heart is holding fear, you create from the fear. Your emotion powers your thought into reality. You can only create what you desire into manifestation through love. Fear only brings what you don’t want. It is crucial to get yourself into a place of unconditional love before you can successfully focus on your new story.
Your first step in creating your new story is to find your way or ways to get yourself into a place of unconditional love. Some of you can do this through meditation. However you manage to find that sweet spot, do it before you choose your new story or you will be spinning your wheels. The only thing that is real in the universe is love. Fear and everything else is an illusion. When your mind chooses with a heart filled with love, that is what goes into the spiritual realm and manifests in the physical. It is not your job to make it happen in the physical. You don’t have to figure out how you are going to create this. Your job is to simply give the order to Spirit, saying that this is what you choose to manifest. Then you get out of the way and let it happen. The five-step process, or the process of Spiritual Alchemy, is an excellent way to find that place of unconditional love so that you can choose your new story and bring it into manifestation. It is an easy process, but it requires commitment and persistence. You probably will not change your entire story in one sitting. But, maybe that’s my story and one that you wish to change. Good luck.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Are you afraid of the dark?
For those of you in the northern hemisphere, when you have passed the darkest day of the year and have several months of winter weather to look forward to, do you dislike these months? Do you have an aversion to the shorter days, the colder temperatures, the snow or cold rain? Are you already looking forward to spring? I could spend this time speaking of being present, loving what is in front of you, and making the most of each day. Those are all ascension focused points of view, but there is something else I would like to zero in on today. It is a good time to examine your fear and judgment of the dark.
Let’s start with the fear of the dark. Do you experience anxiety being in dark places? Are you fearful walking down a dark street or road by yourself? And what about being in the woods alone at night? What is this fear of darkness all about? Your childhood was filled with horror stories that mostly took place after dark. You don’t worry about monsters under your bed in the middle of the afternoon. To look at what the dark represents, in fact, what it actually is – look at the dualism that makes material existence possible. The first division in the biblical creation story was between the light and the dark. The light was declared as good, so where does that leave the dark? Light represents the masculine, idealistic, mental energy. The dark represents the feminine, realistic, emotional energy. The fear of the dark is the judgment you have for your physical-ness, and for feminine energy. Keep in mind that you all contain both feminine and masculine energy in some balance.
How prevalent is the vilification of the dark in today’s mythology? Think of Star Wars, Batman, and The Lord of the Rings. Everyone is always fighting the dark forces, sometimes sparring with their own inner darkness. The yin-yang symbol is not one of combat but of the intertwining and juxtaposition of energies. You did not create your bodies in order to fear them, but rather to learn to love them unconditionally as you use them to realize your ascension. Ascension does not occur by choosing the light over the dark. Such a choice leaves you hanging on the wheel of reincarnation. If you choose to love the light and to hate the dark, earth becomes your personal hell. Then, you can’t wait for the opportunity to leave your body. Leave if you wish. You don’t have to stay in the physical. But, if you choose to stay, why not love your visit? Why not embrace the dark along with the light? You can start this winter. Heal your fear of the dark, of the physical, of the feminine. Give up your judgment of darkness.
The first thing you might try doing is to use the five-step process. This is a powerful and effective way to change your story; and your fear of the dark side is a major part of your story. If you are having any difficulty leading yourself through the five steps, perhaps you can find a trusted friend with whom you can take turns being the guide, so that you can each have a time to simply relax and be led. You can also listen to the recording. This is big. This touches on all relationship issues, especially those involving your sexuality. It is not possible to maintain a deep physical relationship without loving the body. This impacts all health issues and all money/survival concerns. Dis-ease comes out of fear or out of hatred of the physical body. If you dislike the physical, you may have difficulty manifesting your material support. This connects with all mental health issues, especially depression, which becomes a bigger issue for many of you at this time of the year. It is not possible for you to unconditionally love yourself if you fear and judge half of who you are. Spend more time in the dark. Don’t rush to fill all your evenings with lights and electronic distractions. Try a little candlelight, or a fire and meditation, a book, or quiet conversation. Try taking some walks in the dark.
It is time to look straight into the dark. Face your fears. See the dark for what it is: a perfect part of the universal, unconditionally loving creator and creation. Notice that all the ascension stories include the ”dark night”, where the prophet has to confront his deepest fears. There is no path around it. The only way out is straight through the heart of darkness. There is only love waiting there. Everything else is illusion. Darkness is love just as light is love. Have your own private marriage ceremony between them this winter. You deserve love all of the time. May the darkness be with you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I feel more grateful?
The Christmas season is a time for feeling gratitude. In America there is also the holiday of Thanksgiving. However, it is always a good time to be grateful. Thankfulness is not just a matter of spiritual correctness; it is a matter of spiritual effectiveness. To feel appreciation requires you to have the story that life is working for you, that you receive what you want. Since your experience follows your story, gratitude is essential to you having a sense of fulfillment in your life.
Some of you may be thinking that there are some things that are difficult to feel grateful for, in fact they are actually quite upsetting. How, for example, can you give thanks for having a car accident, losing a job, being diagnosed with a serious dis-ease, or having somebody close to you die? How can you be joyful about being late somewhere, stubbing your toe, having an argument with your partner, or misplacing your keys? Actually, these are the most important times to have the intention to experience gratitude. Everything that comes to you is a gift. You experience pain and discomfort because this gift is unexpected and unrecognized. All that has happened is that you have forgotten what you have asked for; you have forgotten who you are.
Let’s go back to square one. You are the innocent, unconditionally loved child of God. You are divine, the creator of all that exists in your life. Yes, you have forgotten all of this. It is hidden behind that veil that separates the physical from the immortal and the timeless. But this does not alter the truth one single bit. You have created what is present in your life. To act as a victim, to be upset about what is, is to deny your power, your divinity. It is to guarantee a future of more upsets and unhappiness until you finally awaken to the truth. Nothing can occur in your life without your permission. The first step is to accept your gifts. Welcome what has come into your life, even if you don’t understand how it can be a benefit. The understanding will come later, but it is not necessary yet. All that is necessary is the awareness that you have created it, even if it was done unconsciously.
Express gratitude for whatever has come into your life. If it is difficult for you to sincerely feel grateful, you can follow the five-step process. The first step is to state the problem as you perceive it. It can be helpful to write this down in a sentence or two. This is your “old story, the one have been carrying around with you all of your life and probably for lifetimes. Perhaps you feel a discomfort in your body, but cannot put this feeling into words. Just go with that.
The second step is to feel where you are carrying this energy in your body. Close your eyes. Begin a slow, deep, rhythmic breathing. Focus your attention on the place in your body where you are feeling the discomfort. Notice how it feels. Turn your mind off. Don’t judge, label, defend, or define the discomfort. Just pay attention to it. Notice how it feels. Don’t attempt to control it. Let it do whatever it wishes. Just follow it. Allow it to get as big as it wishes. Eventually you begin to notice some settling of the energy. It may begin to feel warmer and lighter. Slowly move the energy to your spiritual heart or heart chakra. You have just performed what I call Spiritual Alchemy. You have transformed fear into love. This is actually easy to do because fear is an illusion. Only love is true. Your mind has labeled the experience and the feelings as fearful, but the truth is that there is only love. Next, visualize an opening in the front of your spiritual heart and see the energy releasing through it in a laser-like beam. As you continue breathing, feel the energy dissipating through this opening with each exhale until it has largely been discharged into the universe.
Now that you are feeling unconditional love and peace, the third step is to take complete responsibility for creating the situation described in the first step. Take your power back. Acknowledge that this situation could not have occurred without your participation. Again, it is not necessary yet to understand why you have chosen as you have. It is enough to declare that you have done so and to know that it was done from love.
Finally, it is time for the fourth step. Choose your new story. Again, it may be helpful to write this down in one or two sentences. As you declare what you wish to create, remember to phrase things with positive statements. Your mind tends to ignore negative words (for example it will interpret ”I will not experience pain” as ”I will experience pain”). State your story in the present tense unless you wish to keep its fulfillment always in the future. Also, do not require any other specific individual to play a role in your story. If you can control others, they can also control you. Just state that someone will play a particular role in your new story. This is a co-creation between you and your angels and guides. It is not your job to make things happen on the physical plane. You have done your job by choosing your new story. Allow the person or persons who wish to be part of your plan to join in. Then let go and let God.
The fifth step is called ”repeat as necessary”. You will likely experience a recurrence of the “old story”. It is deeply embedded in your cells. The old feeling may rear its head again. Pat yourself on the back for recognizing the first step, and repeat the other three. It will be easier each time. Eventually the “old story” will fade away and only your new story will remain. You may notice that the fourth step also morphs as you repeat the process, as you get clearer and clearer about what you truly want. Eventually, you will also realize why you created the original story. You will understand what a gift it was to you and the benefit it brought to you. Accept your reward right now. Be thankful. Open your present. Enjoy it. Deep within lies the realization of your ascension. It is your birthright. Merry Christmas.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Is suffering a necessary part of my spiritual path?
Most of you have heard of the expression ”No pain, no gain”. You may be an ardent proponent of that philosophy. I want to let you know that pain is not an indicator of growth; it is a measure of your resistance to growth. It is a sign that you are doing something destructive to your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual well-being in your current incarnation. When you touch a hot burner on the stove, the message is not to hold on as long as you can so that you become stronger and wiser. The point is to let go as soon as possible. I would be the last to tell you that you will not encounter pain on your spiritual path. Many of you may have chosen a spiritual path in order to deal with the misery in your life. What I wish to be among the first to tell you is that the avoidance of suffering is the quickest and most direct route to realizing your ascension. The cross is not the symbol that Jesus would have chosen to represent his teachings. His message was not one of agony, but one of love and joy. My message goes a step further. It is that life is meant to be a joy and that the solution to your problems is always to choose the easy way.
Let’s go back to the hot burner story. The idea is to stop doing whatever is causing the pain as soon as possible. With the burner, the next step is obvious. You take your hand away and think long and hard before placing it there again. Things may be less obvious with the discomfort you are experiencing in your life. The pain may be subtler. It may be of a mental or emotional nature, or it may be physical but the cause may be difficult to diagnose.
Where do you start in letting it go? Begin by being willing to ask for help. How many of you experience that the times when you are the most depressed and feeling the most hopeless and helpless about your situation are the times that you choose to hole up all by yourself? These are the times when you don’t reach out for help. Somewhere in your programming may be the thought that you need to handle things alone, or maybe you are embarrassed by your present state, or maybe you are simply overwhelmed by lethargy. You may believe that progress can only come through great struggle. This energy is all the working of your ego. It wants you to stay stuck where you are. For your ego, this is a safe place. You are not your ego. You are a divine, innocent child of God. Spirit wants to support you, but you have to ask for help. You deserve to be free of pain. Ask for help.
Now that you have freed yourself up from emotional and physical paralysis, you can use the five-step process to end the distress. The first step is to state succinctly what the problem is. This is best done with one sentence. Write it down. Describe the uncomfortable energy as you perceive it. The second step is to work with the emotional energy you are feeling in your body connected to this problem.
With your emotional energy feeling balanced it is time to move to the third step. Restate the problem, but take full responsibility for it. Let’s say, for example, that your problem is, ”My spouse never supports me in the things I wish to do”. Taking responsibility might look like saying, ”I have created the illusion that my spouse never supports me” or ”I have created having a spouse who does not support me”. Now you are speaking truth. You are in charge of this incarnation. It is all your creation. Is this what you wish to create? Because you have ordered what is, you can choose something different.
The fourth step is to choose the easy way. What is it that you wish to experience? It is your choice, so claim whatever it is that you truly desire. Listen to your heart. In the previous example, you might choose, ”I always feel supported”, or ”I always support myself completely”, or ”Spirit absolutely supports my every choice”. As you are making the transition from the first step to the fourth step, I want to remind you of a couple of things. First, the full transformation is not likely to be experienced overnight. This is not because you lack the power; it is because a part of you is probably still holding on to the old belief. Be patient with yourself. Take responsibility when you become aware of the old pattern. Repeat the process (that’s actually the fifth step). You will get there. It will get easier and easier each time you do it. Secondly, be aware that you may have the belief that healing is hard, that it is painful. If you recognize that pattern, write it down, take responsibility, and choose ease and painlessness. It is that easy. Remember the pain does serve a function, but that is only to serve as a wake-up call. Once you are awake you have no use for it. You want to be aware, but you also wish to be pain free. Wake up and enjoy your life. That is why you chose to come. Party on.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What can I gain by letting go of control?
Control is a double-edged sword. When you try to take command of situations, you lose control. When you let go of trying, you actually gain control. I can see that this will take some explaining. I want to suggest at this point that you go and read (or reread) the message entitled How do I deal with power out of balance?. That will make it possible for me not to spend a lot of time repeating myself. I’ll wait while you are doing that.
Okay. Welcome back. Isn’t this technology you’ve created a wonderful thing! It’s only the tip of the iceberg of the power that is you. Now, let’s come back to our topic. When you try to control a situation, the motivation is always fear. You are afraid that if you don’t personally make sure that everybody involved does as you wish, the result will be something you don’t desire and will perhaps be very dangerous for you. The underlying feelings are that you aren’t safe, the world is a hostile place, others are out to get you, there is no loving God, and there is no orderly meaning to the universe – it’s all random chaos. You have enough understanding at this point to predict what will come out of trying to seize control, given this fear-filled emotional state. The law of the universe states that you will create whatever you give emotional power to. Your fear will always overrule your mental choice. Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. These attempts to gain control are not only doomed to fail, they are also extremely exhausting because you see every other person as a potential block to your safety and success. You are all alone. You have no allies. You must control everyone and everything. Of course, you aren’t conscious of how pervasive this is, so you unconsciously drive a wedge between yourself and your friends, lovers, coworkers, family, and non-acquaintances.
Let’s bring things back to truth and love. You are safe, loved, and innocent. The keys to the kingdom are yours for the asking. All you need to do is let go (revisit the last message if you want a reminder: How do my relationships fit into my ascension path?). Feel the unconditional love of God and love yourself. This desire to control is really the wish to have what you deeply want. You want to feel safe, loved, and loving, along with having a sense of inner peace. You want to know that you deserve and have the power to ascend. You have asked for all of this from a place of peace. Now you give up control. If your mind knew how to manifest these things into your experience, it would already have done so. If you knew how to realize that you are ascended, control would not be an issue. You don’t know specifically what to tell Spirit to do. And yet you are trying to hold on to control of your world. Am I the only one who finds the situation a little comical? The only step that is open for you to gain control now is to give it up.
This is called letting go and letting God. It requires you to trust the infinite love of Spirit to bring you exactly what will help you to feel safety, peace, and love, so you can realize your ascension. It helps if you welcome whatever comes into your life, receive it as the gift that it is, and feel gratitude. This requires you to trust. Your mind is not going to be of much use for a while. Its ”go to” place is control. It will explain to you all of the reasons why you shouldn’t do any of the things I am suggesting. You will experience tremendous fear. Breathe through it. Stay with it. Don’t try to push the feelings away. Experience them fully. Feel them deeply. Let go of thoughts about the feelings. Don’t judge them; don’t label them. Just notice them. Let them get as big as they want. Notice where the feelings are in your body. After some time bring those feelings up to your heart. Experience them there, again not labeling or judging them. Release them with your exhale as a golden beam of light projecting out from your heart chakra into the universe (the five-step process).
You will have everything you want when you give up control. You will have things you didn’t even realize that you wanted. That is why when you ask for something to manifest you always add ”this or something better” to your order. It is not your job to ”make” it happen. You give that to Spirit. Give up control and you gain control. Move past your mind and into your heart. We are all there waiting to follow your every command. We’re not the ones you can see; we’re the ones you can’t see. We’re all on your side. We’re all one. We love you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How do my relationships fit into my ascension path?
Let’s talk some more about choosing your story. If the story you choose is fully grounded in unconditional love, it will unfold as you have visualized it. If your story is based upon fear, you will not create what you want. Let’s say that you are choosing a life full of loving relationships. Maybe it is time for a reality check. Is fear involved in your relationships? Are you concerned that the special people in your life – your partner, your children, your parents, your close friends, or your teachers – might abandon you and leave you alone, either by dying or by making other life choices? Do you want to hold on to them? Do you want the relationships to remain just as they are now? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, you are being controlled by fear rather than coming from love. We all know where that scenario heads. It’s not a pretty picture. To believe that you can’t live without someone is to believe something that is not true. Your divinity does not need anything to be complete; when you hold on to this fear and yet are asking for ascension, something has to give. Your story cannot contain fear without you losing power over it. There’s a good chance that one of your relationships will change form on you through abandonment, death, or other interventions. If your story is based on fear, you will not create peace of mind or ascension. You will not create what you want.
“Wait a minute Sanhia! Are you saying that I have to let go of my relationships with the people I love in order to ascend?” No, I am not saying that. I am saying that you must give up your attachment to those relationships if you desire to know true happiness and wish to ascend. If your story includes those loving relationships, keep them in your life. All you need to let go of is the neediness and the dependency. Your happiness is not dependent on anybody else’s choices, beliefs, or actions. Your story is not reliant on any other individual’s story. Your relationships are immortal. Give up your attachment to souls staying with you in their bodies. Release them fully. You will enjoy the time with them if they choose to stay with you, or you will enjoy an eternal relationship with them in another form if they choose to leave. If you want your relationships to remain just as they are now, that is based on the fear that you are only your body. When you love another unconditionally, you free them to follow their heart and their path. Release them fully.
“Wait another minute Sanhia! Does this mean I can’t have any long-lasting relationships if I want to ascend?” No, you can have the relationships; you just don’t get to decide who they will be with. For your story to work for you it cannot compel anybody else into a certain action or activity. But, it can compel a certain energy to fill that space without naming it. For example: if in your story, you always want to have a partner to share your experiences with, a partner that you feel absolutely aligned with, that doesn’t bind any specific soul to you. You are giving absolute freedom to the one who is able to fill that space. If one chooses to leave, there will always be another who will choose to replace that energy. Your story will always create a perfect partner, not out of neediness and fear, but out of the joy of sharing your love. There will be no neediness compelling those presently in your life to remain in place. There is no pressure for them to stay loyal to you. Only your shared love causes you to choose to be together. If one of you should choose to move on for any reason, Spirit will effortlessly create a continuance of that energy in your life through another vehicle.
No matter what happens, you have the story you desire. As you let go of your attachments to specific relationships, you will begin to experience the immortality of those connections. Your relationships will not become old, or stuck in undesirable patterns, because everyone will be able to change and evolve without having to leave the relationship. When relationships are based on freedom and unconditional love, they are approaching the absolute truth of your mutual divinities. Love fully and completely. Love without measure or expectation. Above all, love yourself. Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why do negative things keep happening to me?
Are there situations that you are not pleased with? Do you feel victimized by others or by life? Do negative patterns in relationships persist in following you? Do you live with constant stress, worries, or fear? Are you looking for a magic pill to make all of this go away? I have just the thing for you. Change your story. Things are the way they are because that is the way you believe things are. That is the story you have been telling yourself all of your life, maybe for many lifetimes. You are the creator of your reality. Nobody else has any control over your experiences but you. If you don’t like what is going on, change your story.
Changing your story is straightforward, but it takes some persistence. To begin with, take absolute responsibility for how things are. Maybe the way you believe things are comes from family or societal influences. Perhaps your parents told you that life is a struggle. Maybe they told you never to trust anybody. It could be that their example taught you that marriage means fighting, lack of communication, and power struggles. Possibly the society you grew up in told you that life is about competition or that you need to deny your desires in order to be financially responsible. You might believe that you are genetically disposed toward certain dis-eases or conditions. Let’s just stop there and go back to square one. You are a divine child of God. You are created in the image and likeness of your creator; therefore, the truth of who you are is a being of unconditional love and unlimited creative energy. There are no more limits on you than there are on the Creator of all that is. The physical world, as you experience it, is entirely your creation. Entirely. It is your story. If you don’t like the story, change it.
Once you have taken responsibility for your experience of the world, you are ready to change your story. Remember that all manifestation happens by focusing on the desired reality with your thoughts and powering them into manifestation with the fuel of unconditional love. If you are feeling fear, doubt, or any other emotion besides love, it is not time to focus on your desired reality. You will not succeed in manifesting your passion if you are not in touch with the love that is the truth of who you are. Use whatever techniques you have learned to get back to that sweet spot of unconditional love, that place where you love yourself without judgment. For some of you that might be through meditation, walking in nature, doing the five-step process, visiting with a trusted friend, or simply getting a good night’s sleep. If you don’t have such a resource, finding one becomes your primary goal. Spirit responds to your instructions. If you don’t treat yourself lovingly, how can It? When you find yourself in that sweet spot, take a look at what isn’t working in your life. What story have you been telling yourself to create such an outcome? What results would you rather experience? What is your new story?
The last part is the one that takes persistence. Become aware of each time you start to let the “old story” into your mind. Stop those thoughts cold in their tracks. Forgive yourself for letting them in. Go back to your new story. Slowly, the “old story” will stop appearing in your thoughts. Gradually you will notice the new story manifesting in your reality. Over time you will likely realize that you want to modify the new story as well. You are operating under a myriad of stories right now. It is not possible to change them all at once. Start with the squeakiest wheel. One or two or even three stories are all that you want to deal with now. The most important thing is for you to begin to realize on a cellular level that you are not a victim and have never been one. That is a tremendously freeing awareness. That is a major step toward realizing your ascension. Imagine a world where everybody is living the story of their choice. That’s my world. That’s my story and I’m not changing it.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What am I to do with death?
We know that there is only love or fear to choose as a reaction in each moment. It is understood that love is true and that fear is an illusion. Knowing these things, what are we to do with death? If we choose to fear death, we would be choosing a reaction to what we know is an illusion and we are left living every day in fear or in the denial of our fear, for death could strike at any moment. It might be our death or it might be the death of one we hold close. Our fear tells us that death is final, that we don’t know what lies beyond it, and that the separation brought about by death is total and irreversible. What a relief it would be if we could be certain that death is an illusion.
Let us go back to square one. You and everyone that you know are immortal, innocent, unconditionally loved and loving children of God. You have always been and always will be. Death, as you fear it, is an illusion. It does not exist. You are not your physical body. Your physical body is merely something that your divine self is doing right now. Death is just a change in form. Someday you may choose to leave this body. Yes, I used the word choose. There are no accidents in the universe. Every death is a suicide. This choice may be conscious or unconscious; that is up to you. If you commit to taking full responsibility for what is happening in your life and choose to face your fears when they arise, there will be no surprises. But remember, there is no judgment about suicide. There is no punishment. You are just as much you, with or without your body. And so is everybody else. You do not really go anywhere. Some of you know this because you have developed your ability to communicate with those souls who have chosen to make that transition.
”But, Sanhia,” you may be asking, ”even though I know all that is true, I still miss my loved one so much.” Feel that sorrow. Feel that sorrow without assigning any meaning or judgment to it. Separate your mind from it and simply feel the energy. Where in your body is it being held? Simply experience that energy. Let it grow as large as it wishes to and move in any way it wants. Stay with it until the feelings begin to calm. Then, slowly move the sensation to your heart. Finally, open the door to your heart and let the energy release as a beam of light off into space. Now we are ready to talk. You are not the victim of another’s death. You chose it, just as they chose it. This death is a gift to you. Receive it. You came here to realize your ascension. You came here to experience the truth of yourself, to awaken to the total love that you are. Could unconditional love and total creative power ever lack anything? Can God feel abandoned? Of course not. You are Gods. This feeling of loss is an illusion, one that you wish to release. The death of another that you have chosen to experience is there to help you release the illusion and to choose the truth of your love and power. This is a co-creation of you and your loved one. They chose to move on. You chose to use their transition to help you find the truth of yourself, to find love.
A Course in Miracles states that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In other words, it is no more difficult for you to understand the true nature of death than it is to give up your fear of not having enough money or of being late for your appointment this afternoon. Give everything to God. Let go of everything that is not love. You know that the alternative is to live in pain and fear. There is nothing to fear. There is nothing that can be lost. We love you. You are surrounded by loving support. Ask and it is yours. The fear of death is the fear of life. Let your fear die a quick and joyful death.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Is it helpful to honor the feminine energy?
It is no coincidence that women are beginning to assume positions of power on the planet. Not only are they being elected to office in increasing numbers, but the future will continue to see an expansion of feminine power in all areas. In the United States a significant majority of college students, law students and medical students are women. It is no coincidence that this is occurring as the planet has been moving into ascension status. Since the dawning of the Neolithic Age when farming, permanent homes, and cities became the new thing in human life on earth; masculine energy has dominated. This was not a bad thing; everything is perfect, but it was out of balance. Religion was dominated by masculine energy. This made ascension a particular challenge. In order to ascend, individuals found it important to step outside of the religious teachings and the models of male power and find their feminine center. It is no coincidence that the spiritual explosion that has taken place over the past fifty years has been accompanied by the feminist movement.
Feminine power is rooted in the physical: in the body, in the emotions, and in Mother Earth. Loving yourself unconditionally includes loving your physical-ness. Masculine power is rooted in the mind. When masculine power is the dominant energy there can tend to be a judgment of the physical, or at least a denial of the body. The rational is valued over the physical and the emotional, not only by men, but by women. Women have a deeper, more innate connection to the physical – certainly physical existence begins within the woman; there would be no physical life without her. The nurturance of that life again comes predominantly from the feminine energy. This is not meant in any way to be read as a denigration of masculine energy; it is simply the recognition that the two are to be in balance. For millennia, women have been treated as second class citizens. They have been judged and have been blamed for dragging men down. They have often taken this blame and guilt upon themselves. But, women have usually been closer to ultimate truth; they have on the whole been more spiritually mature than men.
The spiritual leaders, however, have most likely been men. These leaders have taught others to follow certain rules, which often involved a denial of the body. They have excluded women from spiritual leadership. I chose to appear as a masculine energy through a masculine channel because most women are not ready to be taught by a feminine energy. My message has been to not follow rules, to trust your own self, and to love and honor your body and all passions that you have without judgment, which is a message of honoring the feminine within you. However, both women and men have needed a masculine voice to give this permission. This is a time of transition. In the future, there will be a balance of masculine and feminine voices to listen to. You chose to manifest a physical body in order to have a certain quality of experience. Ultimately you wish to realize the truth that you are divinity housed in a physical form. You cannot judge one part without judging the other. You cannot fully experience your divinity without fully loving the physical being.
There is a difference between loving the physical and being attached to the physical. Attachment is a false belief that something is needed. You don’t need this body; your spirit is immortal. But you do require a body in order to explore the physical world and in order to ascend. You love your body as you love your spirit. You honor your body as you honor your spirit. You honor the emotions that you feel as you honor the ideas that you have. Women tend to be in closer contact with the physical and the emotional. When they choose to honor their feminine side while choosing an ascension path, their way may appear to be easier. There are more female humans that have ascended over the ages than males. Most of them accomplished this in a more private way or in a way that was ignored or denied by others. Most of them are working in support of your ascension now in subtler, less public ways. The large majority of people who come to talk with me are in a feminine body. This is true worldwide for those on a conscious ascension path. It is not more difficult for a man to ascend, it is simply less likely that he makes that choice. It is less likely that he is able to surrender to his feminine nature. Women have been learning how to pay attention to the masculine for eons.
Let me conclude by reminding you that there is no intention to show any judgment of the masculine or the feminine here. If you are hearing that, please take some time to heal that judgment within yourself. Your spirit is neither masculine nor feminine. You have spent lifetimes in both forms as well as with different sexual orientations. You have chosen your current physical nature. No matter which gender you have picked, you came in with an energetic tendency to believe that masculine energy was superior. It is in your cellular memory. It is not the time to move to a place of believing that feminine energy is superior; it is time to bring them into balance, to honor them equally. In the short term that might look like giving more attention to your feminine side so that she can take her rightful position of sharing the throne. I once concluded my messages by saying ”Goddess Bless You”. This was not intended as a denigration of ”God”, but as a reminder to honor Mother Earth as well as a subliminal message that the Creator energy is neither masculine nor feminine, but that for many of you the word ”God” is felt as a masculine (and probably judging) energy. Know that God blesses you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I change the world?
For many people, the spiritual drive began with a desire to change the world. You looked out at the many problems afflicting the planet, maybe racism or sexism, homophobia or pollution, global warming or poisoned food and water, inequality of income and opportunity, or political corruption, and you said, ” I have to do something!” Some of you spent years fighting battles against seemingly unstoppable forces. Some of you gave up; some went into cynicism and depression; some are still fighting the ”good fight”. This message is for all of you. It is time to stop fighting; it is time to let go of the cynicism and depression. It is time to claim your full power.
The attempt to change the world comes from a place of love, but it is driven by fear. Like everything that is powered by fear, it is destined to fail because it is built upon a false foundation. When you remember that the world is your creation, that it is a reflection of your own consciousness, what is it that really has to change? Two thousand years ago, Jesus changed the entire world. He changed things not by attacking the Roman Empire or the Jewish religious and political power base, but by becoming his true self, by recognizing himself as a child of God, by seeing the divinity in every other soul, and by sharing this message with those who chose to receive it. There was no force. The only battles were internal ones. Those battles were won by letting go, by realizing that all is one, that all is divine, that all is love.
If you insist on seeing good guys and bad guys out there in the world, you will always experience a world of good guys and bad guys. If you fear that the rich will always control things, your experience will prove you right. If you love everyone unconditionally and see them each as innocent children of God, created in the image of their Maker, you will see joy and peace on earth. You will experience the bliss of ascension. You will provide the greatest gift to your fellow travelers that you could possibly have to offer.
Where do you begin? You begin by loving yourself unconditionally, by loving yourself no matter what you have done, felt, or said. You take responsibility for the faults you find in the world and recognize them as judgments you are holding against yourself. Then, let them go. Love yourself to heal yourself. Heal yourself and you will heal the planet. Transform your fears. Trust in the perfection of everything, of every action, of everyone. This is the only way that the planet moves forward; progress in the human spirit happens because of the internal work of one individual. The progress is magnified geometrically as two or more souls heal themselves. To heal is to become whole. The truth is that you already are whole, so healing is just a matter of realization – of seeing the truth about yourself.
I am not asking you to bury your head in the sand and to ignore what is going on in the world (though you might want to skip the evening news). Notice, but don’t judge, realizing that you are looking at a mirror. The more you notice, the more you have to work with in your internal healing process. Where you see the illusions of pain and suffering and victimhood, remind yourself that what is really there is divinity. Love, love, love. All you need is love. The Beatles were right. You are loved beyond measure. You will realize that. You will love yourself beyond measure. You deserve to experience that now.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Is it possible to ascend and be in a relationship?
Relationships are central to the healing process. Notice that when you created planet earth as the set for your personal movie, you filled it with many characters. You did not choose to heal alone. Each other person acts as a mirror to you, reflecting back clearly who you are – or at least who you feel yourself to be. When you love something about another, you love that same quality in yourself. When you are judging another, it is over something that you judge yourself for. Ascension is that place where you unconditionally love yourself and others, having no judgment, seeing only divinity. It is easy to hide your feelings from yourself, but difficult to mask your reactions to others. When you recognize this truth, you welcome all experiences with all people, knowing that being triggered by the words or actions of another is a gift that can help lead you to the truth. If you are willing to fully accept the experience and the feelings, take full responsibility for them, and choose to move through the fear – you will find love and peace.
The committed love relationship can be central to this process. This is where you choose to be with another from whom you can see a great amount of love reflected. You may choose to live with each other or simply to be in regular close contact. Sexuality is usually a part of this relationship. What makes the committed love relationship most powerful is when both partners have made a clear intention to themselves, to Spirit, and to each other to use the relationship for ascension. We will call this an ascension relationship. Such a relationship provides a ”home” energy that is safe and nurturing to help empower you to see with unconditional love your more challenging mirrors in the other parts of your life.
In an ascension relationship you take full responsibility for everything that happens. You do not hold your partner responsible for anything that takes place. You do not take personally what your partner says or does. When you feel yourself challenged by judgments, blame, fear, or guilt you talk about these things with your partner in a spirit of love, asking for support (or giving support if your partner should be the one coming to you). An ascension relationship is not chosen to fulfill a need or a lack, but to accelerate the process for two people who have already chosen love over fear, who have already committed to realizing their divine nature. It is a relationship that sprouts from the desire to love the other unconditionally and to be of service to the partner. Of course, the love is returned over and over, but to seek another in order to feel loved will not result in an ascension relationship because your partner will have to respond in certain ways in order for you to feel fulfilled. This is conditional love, and you can be sure that it will not lead to ascension.
If your partner is not in conscious agreement, you can still use the relationship for your ascension, but it is a slower and more difficult process. You love unconditionally and have no expectations of your partner. They probably won’t be there to support you when your stuff comes up, so you take responsibility for doing that yourself. It can be easier to be alone, than to try to heal through such a relationship. You may also find that healing through an ascension relationship has become too hard. You may simply have evolved in different ways. It is always alright to leave any relationship. Trust your heart. Your commitment is to yourself first, to your passion, and to Spirit. The commitment to your partner comes next.
Remember your most important relationship is with yourself. Love yourself unconditionally. You deserve everything. You deserve love. You deserve your perfect partner. You deserve ascension. It is your birthright to be free from fear and limitations. I love you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is meant by Right Livelihood?
The Buddhists have a term called Right Livelihood, which is one of the Eightfold Paths. The Eightfold Paths list the ways to overcome suffering and experience enlightenment. Right Livelihood, which is concerned with what you do to make a living, has two parts. The first part is simply to do no harm to others or to the planet. If you desire to find peace, whatever you work with is not to cause damage to any person. Secondly, your work is specialized to you. It is what you are called to do. It is something that nobody else could do in the way that you can. This is the element of Right Livelihood that I would like to look at today.
Some of you know what you came here to do, others have a piece of the puzzle, and the rest of you are just puzzled. For those who know your path, I encourage you to surrender more fully to your purpose, to let go of everything that is unlike it. Trust your own guidance; nobody else can tell you what you are here to do or how to do it.
For those of you who have a piece of the puzzle, it is time to give your life to that piece. Stop doing things that you know are not your purpose. Move through your fear that you will not be supported if you let go of the job that is not fulfilling. If you are worried that leaving your job means that you will lose your health insurance, turn your health over to Spirit instead of selling your soul for your body – a trade that never pays off in the end. Commit to spending more time with your purpose, so that month by month you come closer to realizing just where it is taking you. Where you find there is not enough time, begin cutting out those things (including jobs when it becomes necessary) that can only drag you down, those things which are not a part of your passion. Sometimes this requires surrendering to the reality that doing is more connected to your path than having. Love your path into beingness.
For those of you who are puzzled, there are two directions you can take which are not mutually exclusive. First, move toward anything for which you have passion. Schedule time in your calendar each week to do these things. Don’t think about practicality or how it could support you. Increase the amount of time you give to your passions each month. Second, begin letting go of activities for which you have no passion. Stop doing them or begin to plan how you can let them go. Simplify your life. You can begin by cleaning your physical surroundings of all the things you are no longer using for your passion. More of what you want. Less of what you don’t want. Gradually your purpose will emerge. Enjoy. Ask Spirit for support. Persevere. The universe is on your side.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Is there really going to be a Last Judgment?
Some of you consider yourselves to be Christians and some of you don’t. Some of you have some healing to do with Christianity. I am more concerned about truth than dogma, but all religions have a lot of truth in them if you take the time to dig below the surface.
One of the Christian beliefs is about the Last Judgment. You have probably been listening to me for long enough to know that I don’t talk about a judging God, hell, damnation, and that sort of thing. What is the Last Judgment all about? It’s supposed to come at the end of the world, so when is that? Some would have you believe that it is soon. If we accept that this physical world is an illusion, perhaps the end of the world comes when you drop your illusions about physical reality. This is a bit of a chicken and egg thing, but do you believe in the reality of the physical world because you have judgments, or do you have judgments because you believe in the reality of the physical world?
Does it matter? Chip away at both. Keep reminding yourself that what you are experiencing is not real. Keep reminding yourself that it is all a movie. If nothing is really happening here, nothing is going wrong, and there is no one to blame. Therefore, there is no need for judgment of self or others, who are just reflections of yourself.
Back to the Last Judgment: after you have made your last judgment, after you have absolutely given up judging yourself or others, comes the end of the world. You will no longer find yourself living in the world of illusion. You will totally “get” the unreality of the physical world. The Last Judgment does not belong to God, it belongs to the human.
Meanwhile, as you are releasing judgment from your life, remember to release your judgment on Christianity. If you have no judgment on your brand of Christianity, what about those Christians who don’t believe as you do? If all that is cleaned up, what about Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists, and any other spiritual groups I have failed to mention? All judgments released? If there is a hell, it is the one created by judgments and belief in the illusion. Releasing all of that could be a heavenly experience.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Have you chosen ascension?
If you are not serious about ascension (some call it enlightenment), that’s okay. I would be the last one to try to talk you into it. If that is the case, I sincerely wish that you enjoy your life and suggest you not read any farther now.
Oh, you’re still here! Okay. Some of you have consciously chosen ascension. For others of you, it seems to have been thrust upon you. That is, your life didn’t work out the way you thought it would, or you have had a series of minor to major disasters befall you, or maybe it was just one great shock to the system. Whatever brought you here…welcome. I’m not going to guarantee that your trip will be easy or smooth, but there is an end – or at least the illusion of an end. I want to offer you three simple tips to ease and speed your process.
- Give up your addictions. I’m not just talking about substances, I’m talking about any things, people, ideas, activities, beliefs that you think you can’t live without – that are part of your identity of who you think you are. Let go of the attachments. You don’t have to physically leave everything behind (although you might), but you want to be ready and willing for them to leave. If you are serious about ascension, many of them may disappear. “What!” you say. “This doesn’t sound simple.” Believe me it is much easier to be proactive in releasing your attachments than to have them ripped out of your clenched or grasping hands.
- Remember that this is all an illusion. It is a movie. None of it is real. You are doing it to you. Your main order of business is to find out who you are. Everything that is part of your addictions is not you. What is left when the addictions and the drama are gone? Notice that there is no place that you have to get to. You are already there. Just open your eyes to reality.
- Face your demons. Don’t run away from them. Don’t look the other way. Don’t stay busy with all your addictions as a means of avoidance. Most “spiritual” activities are addictions. All drama is. Immerse yourself in your fears until they don’t scare you anymore.
For those of you who kept on reading after my warning, I love you guys, especially those who weren’t being honest with yourself about being serious about ascension. For those who stopped reading, I love you, too, and respect your decision.
The more that you realize that this is one big karmic joke, the more fun you will have with the rest of this life. I’m having a ball.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What about the planetary ascension of 2012?
We were waiting for 2012 and the advent of planetary ascension for a long time, but now it has come and gone. Some of you had been consciously participating in this momentous transition since the Harmonic Convergence. A few of you were with me on August 15, 1987 in the hill country of Texas for that event, welcoming in this transition time. Others of you have joined the party somewhere between then and now. As Jesus expressed in his parable about the vineyard workers, it makes no difference when you joined in, the same reward is offered to each. The reward is ascension. The only price that is asked is that you give up all the illusions of who you are, and become willing to accept only the truth. This requires, sooner or later, that you surrender every other illusion about where your identity and your security lie. Money, career, relationships, good works, spiritual techniques – none of these will lead you to ascension. All of them can impede your progress. Even that is misleading because there is nowhere to go. The truth of you is right here, right now.
Now is the time to realize it. This is the period you all incarnated for. You were all waiting in line to be here. Keep breathing, deep abdominal breathing. Look at each aspect of your existence. Ask if it represents the truth of who you are. If it doesn’t, let go of your attachment to it. Settle for nothing less than the truth. This is the transition point, the one prophesied by the ancients. It is the time of the “hundredth monkey”. The planetary consciousness is here to help you along. Let go of the “news”. The mass media is not designed to be your guide. Shut off the television. Put down the newspaper. Don’t surround yourself with the nabobs of negativity. Get rid of the background noise of commercialism. Ascension is not for sale. If your friends are bringing you down, spend your time alone. If you are confronted by your fears, welcome them in. Open up to them. Surrender to them. Listen to them. This is the time. I am here with each one of you. It is now.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why do I have so much drama in my life?
It is time to talk about drama. I will define drama as the belief that the events happening around you are real. In fact, these events are no different from those in a movie. Taking your physical life seriously is like taking a film seriously. No actors were really killed or had their hearts broken in the last movie you saw. They were just playing roles, and will go on to their next one. It’s kind of like your incarnations. All the manifestations of fear that you have connected to the drama in your life will be left behind with your body. Why not leave it behind you right now? Are you ready to say goodbye to drama in your life? Drama and ascension are incompatible. If you have made your intention to ascend and it seems to be taking too long, maybe it’s time to speed up the process by making the intention to eliminate drama from your life.
Drama indicates a belief that you are your body, that you are limited rather than infinite, that you are mortal rather than…well you catch my drift. It doesn’t matter whether it is your drama or someone else’s drama that you believe in. It’s all one big story and it isn’t true.
Your drama may be about victimhood, not being appreciated, attachment to something you can’t seem to acquire, or attachment to something you are afraid of losing. It may be about love, sex, money, career, or health insurance. Get over it. The only true security you will ever find is in the truth, and the truth is that none of this is who you really are. You are so much more than that.
All of this drama is nothing but a dream. There is no better time to wake up. It’s not about eating right, meditating right, following the correct spiritual practice, or having transcendental experiences. It is about being you, being the real you. It is about discarding everything that isn’t really you until only you are left. It is about waking up. It is about time. Are you ready?
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is the first step toward realizing my ascension?
How many of you have made a clear intention for ascension? Nothing happens in the universe until you ask for it. Ask and it shall be given. Once you have stated your intention to Spirit (guides, God, the universe, or whatever name you wish to give) nothing can stop it from happening. Nothing can stand between you and your intention but time. And time, as we all know, is an illusion.
You have other desires, in addition to your wish for ascension. These goals could be identified as higher or lower desires. This does not indicate a judgment, it is simply a question of whether the desire is connected to the truth of who you are or to enjoying your experience in a body. Higher desires might be connected to your purpose or to relationships or to healing. Lower desires might have to do with where you live, what you wear, what food you eat, or which experiences you wish to have. Have you given intention for them? I probably don’t need to remind you not to ask for things that might bring harm or loss to others; not because there is any judgment about doing that, but because what you project on another, you also project on yourself. It all passes through you first. You will always receive the things that support you in the highest way toward knowing the truth about yourself, of realizing your divinity.
It is not necessary to ask over and over for the same thing. Once is sufficient. Once is all it takes to put things into motion. Spirit will not act, however, without your permission. This is the planet of free will. Nothing has the power to overcome your will without your expressed permission. You must start the ball rolling. If you have already done that, it is time to trust. Know that your answer is coming to you. Look for it in everything that comes your way today, and it is always today. Your answer may not come wrapped the way you are expecting. Be willing to be surprised. Be willing to be overwhelmed with the enormity of your gift. You might as well start giving thanks right away.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why should I take responsibility for what others do to me?
Some people have expressed concern that the concept of taking personal responsibility for what are seen as negative acts of others amounts to blaming the victim. There is fear that this takes responsibility away from the alleged perpetrator and indeed can be used as an excuse for others’ “negative” actions. This line of thinking continues by suggesting that the actions of others won’t change until they are held accountable for what they do.
Taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life is not about blame or about victimhood. It is about truth and it is about salvation. Either you are powerful and control your world (consciously or unconsciously), or you are a helpless victim of random events or the whims of a loving or not-so-loving God. If the latter is true it’s time to circle the wagons and protect yourself the best you can, knowing anything might happen to you at any time. That choice can lead you to live in fear. True freedom from fear can only come from acknowledging the truth and embracing it.
The truth is very simple. You are a child of God and infinitely powerful and creative. You have forgotten this in the process of coming into a physical body. Healing is the process of remembering. Just because you have forgotten your true power or are denying it does not take away that power. It simply makes it difficult to use effectively or consciously. Used consciously, power combines love with a desired outcome to create your desired experience. Used unconsciously, power uses fear (expressed as any of a variety of negative emotions) to create the seemingly undesired. However, since the deepest desire of those on an intentional spiritual path is always to be healed, even the seemingly undesired is there to support in your healing. Spirit will always shower you with the gifts that nurture healing. The quickest route to healing or the state of always being in love is to own your power by taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life, knowing that you created it even if you don’t understand how or why.
This does not mean you have to stick your head in the lion’s mouth, but if you should find it there do not blame the lion. You have created that lion being there in order to help you move through the fear/judgment that separates you from love, from your higher self, from God. It is okay to choose to stay away from the lion, but if you do that out of the judgment that the lion is evil, you are choosing fear and not love. You have made your healing path that much harder and longer. Choose to stay away from the lion because you feel that in the moment you can heal faster or more easily when not in the lion’s presence, knowing that it is you and not the lion that is to do the changing. Have the intention to one day be in the lion’s presence with only love, without fear.
Because you are infinitely creative, everything that you experience in life is your manifestation. If you find yourself in judgment of what you see, it is yourself you are judging. If you take it as a gift, you can see where your healing is to begin. If you pretend that your judgment is truth, you deny your power and will continue to create the same types of events until there is a healing, until you take responsibility.
Because I care about you and want you to be in a place of experiencing love all of the time, I hope that you find it in your heart to practice only love and forgiveness for yourself and for others.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Can you suggest a prayer for ascension?
As you are all aware, there is either love or fear in each moment of each life. Love is truth; fear is illusion – it is not real. The deep inner knowledge of love as truth is what is called faith. Those who live in faith, live in joy. The absence of fear is an ecstatic experience. Thomas Merton was a 20th century Trappist Monk who understood, lived, and communicated the truth of love and faith to a very high degree. I want to share with you a meditation or prayer he wrote (channeled) concerning faith.
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have the desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (from Thoughts in Solitude)
Allow me to interpret this into my terminology.
“Oh, Spirit, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road before me. I cannot for certain know where it will end. I still feel separate from you. I am following the guidance of my passions, but I’m not certain if I am guided by love or fear. I desire to be guided by unconditional love. I want to feel at one with you. I desire to be always aligned with my true passion. I desire to always listen to the voice of love rather than the voice of fear. I know that no matter which I choose you will lead me to the events that will best facilitate my healing, because I have asked for it. I know that everything that happens is perfect, even if I do not yet understand why. I trust that I am safe and protected no matter how great my fear may be. I know that I am never alone, that the truth of me is immortal and cannot be harmed, and that you and my guides are always with me.”
You are always safe. Everything that happens is perfect. Follow your deepest passions. You are greatly and unconditionally loved.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why have religions been male dominated?
The monotheistic movement, the change from a belief in many gods to the belief in one God, was a most significant event – actually quite a stretched-out event – in the history of spirituality on earth. Though monotheism is true in spirit (pun intended), much is often lost in the translation.
The pagan gods that were outlawed by Judaism were often feminine. The monotheistic God was often perceived as male. This has led to religions that are male dominated. Even though Mary Magdalene ascended as well as did Jesus and each apostle had a female partner who was an equal part of the discipleship, only the males made it into the New Testament. Women have often been denied the role of spiritual leadership or have been delegated to a role as second class citizens due to interpretations of monotheistic scriptures.
Men didn’t come out ahead in this. Part of the covenant that men were asked to make with the male God was to give up their masculinity to Him. They were to follow the dictates of the Father as translated to them by other men in the form of scriptures and the priesthood. In subconscious reaction to this, men have taken out their anger upon women, even blaming them for their “fall”.
Let’s look at the truth of gender and divinity. God has no gender. God is unconditional love and infinite creativity. Only your physical incarnation has gender. The truth of who you are as a child of God is gender-free. The pagan gods often were representative of the guides or angels or even the higher selves of humans in physical form. Truly, when you pray, affirm, or give intention for something – the response comes from Spirit. It may be communicated through guides/angels who are also children of God and interact with the earth. God does not become directly involved with the actions on earth. He loves unconditionally. Earth is our creation and our responsibility.
Gender has an important part to play in the healing process you are going through on earth. But, like the body, it is an illusion and does not represent the truth of who you are. Do your best to visualize God as a divine light or as an infinite ocean or in any way that does not involve personification. You are always loved unconditionally. There is never any divine judgment. The point is approaching where the father images will be the farthest thing from your minds. You are divine.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What does attachment mean?
For those of you not familiar with Buddhism, the Buddha left us the Four Noble Truths.
- Everyone suffers.
- Suffering comes from attachment.
- There can be an end to suffering.
- This end comes from following the Eightfold Path.
I am not going to go into the Eightfold Path today, but it is similar to things I have been sharing with you for years. Let us talk about attachment. It means having your emotional happiness, your peace of mind, dependent on things being the way that you want them to be, now. It might be attachment to the weather being a certain way or to a friend doing as you wish or to having more money or to getting the job you want. Whatever it is that is not the way you want it to be will bring you suffering unless you give up attachment. I wish for you to be free of suffering.
Giving up attachment does not mean giving up desire. It does not mean giving up passion. It works like this. You feel a passion for something. This is guidance from your higher self, your God self. You ask Spirit for support. Then you let it go. Your job is over, except for one small thing. You are to trust that the perfect thing is returning to you. It may not look exactly like what you thought it would. If you knew exactly what would bring about your ascension you would have requested it long ago. All you can do is ask for that part that is revealed to you, and let it go. Whatever is in your life today is the perfect response to your past requests. Give up struggling and accept. Trust the perfection of the moment.
Think about what you are doing when you are attached to things being different than they are. You are affirming your powerlessness and your victimhood. You are expressing your lack of trust in the Divine. This is not only how you are experiencing your present, but it is what you are projecting for your future.
Why struggle? Why make it hard? Just let go. It is so easy. Just let go. Just trust. Just surrender. Just relax. It is all perfect. There is a present here for you now, today. You can’t open it; you can’t receive it until you let go of what you thought would be there in its place. Open it now.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I protect myself from natural disasters?
Some of you have been concerned about the tsunami in Japan, whether about the death, the destruction, or the radioactive danger. Natural disasters are some of the most challenging concerns for the evolving consciousness to make peace with. I will not say anything here that I have not said before, but there is often an enormous gap between the hearing of something and the full integration of that idea into the cellular level, the absolute knowingness of its veracity. I will repeat:
- There are no accidents. There are no victims. Everything that happens on this planet happens through conscious or unconscious human creation. If you have fear of what you might create unconsciously, give clear directions to Spirit. The world is your mirror. What do you wish to be looking at? Notice what your fear is and speak to it.
“I choose to remain protected from natural disasters.”
“I choose to remain protected from man-made disasters.”
“I choose to remain protected from terminal dis-eases.”
Finally do the five-step process.
- You are immortal. Your physical body may die, but the truth of who you are can never be destroyed. Your unconscious may draw to you a life ending event, but the truth of you will remain untouched. You are always safe. Repeat:
“I am always safe.”
You are an innocent unconditionally loved child of God, infinitely creative.
Your body is an illusion that you have created, as is the earth.
What is real is the infinite love from which they were created.
If it is not about love, it is not real.
3. Everything is perfect. Whatever happens is always the best thing that could happen. Your unconscious does not work against your best interests. On the contrary, it has to work around the mixed messages your conscious mind is sending in order to best bring you what your deepest desire is. Repeat: “Everything is perfect.”
Even though you are not aware in the present moment why something is perfect, it is still perfect.
The understanding will likely come later, but allow the trust to be there now.
Relax into the knowingness that there is only perfection.
Don’t worry; be happy.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What was the Arab Spring about?
Many of you are aware of some of the changes that have been going on in North Africa. While I don’t spend a lot of time watching the macro events of the day (I am much more concerned with your individual ascension process), sometimes Michael tugs my chain and wants to know what is going on in the world. This process in the Muslim realm is most interesting, and is, of course, a manifestation of the inner work that is going on worldwide. All religions are one; that is, they all offer equal opportunities to foster personal transformation or, on the other hand, present opportunities for giving away power to others.
What we have going on in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other countries are large numbers of people simultaneously getting that they don’t need to give away their power anymore. Leaders who have ruled through fear are finding out that fear is no longer working. Does this mean that love will suddenly rule throughout the region? Not likely, but the genie is out of the bottle. As in your personal process, there is still a lot of fear to be released. There is always the danger of replacing the old masters with new masters.
Where does all of this leave you? First, I suspect, filled with some sense of excitement and possibility. If these people who face death for their rebellion against the old ways have found the courage to set themselves free, why not we? Few of you have a literal gun at your head. Is it time to take the leap of faith? Is it time to say “no” to the inner fear demons? Is it time to claim your passion and really go for it? The energy of the planet is with you. Mountains are moving.
I would like to go on record as saying, “Go for it!”
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What can I do when I feel like a victim?
For many of you the month of February can be the most difficult of months. You are through with winter, but winter is not through with you. Maybe the most positive thought you can come up with is, “Thank God for only giving us 28 days this month”. I would like to spread a little light into this cavern.
To begin with, I want to remind you that there is no such thing as a victim. Victimhood is an illusion, but the tighter you hold on to it, the more real it seems.
Repeat after me:
I am not a victim.
I am an innocent, totally lovable, infinitely creative child of God.
I create everything in this physical realm.
Nothing can appear here without my permission.
Everything that I do create is with the intention of bringing me closer to the complete awareness of who I truly am.
Therefore, everything that happens is perfect.
My mantra is, “This is perfect”.
This is not a tease. Are you willing to try it? When the car won’t start? This is perfect. When things don’t go as you want them to at work? This is perfect. When you have a fight with someone you love? This is perfect. When your finances trouble you? This is perfect.
Affirm perfection. Do what you can do. Let it go.
It is not necessary to consciously know why it is perfect. That knowledge will come to you in its own perfect time. Trust that it is perfect. Feel that it is perfect. Then you will know that it is perfect.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
How can I get more joy in my life?
This will reach many of you on New Year’s Day. Some of you will be making resolutions, so let me jump on that bandwagon. I want to encourage you to make a resolution to commit to joy.
“What does this mean, Sanhia?” you may be thinking. Remember, it is your passion that connects you to your God-self and it is following your desires that brings you happiness. At the micro-level in each moment, choose the action or the thought that brings you more pleasure. This cannot be predicted in advance; that is, you can’t make a schedule for yourself and trust that it will adhere to the guideline of following your passion. You may have a loose idea of what you would like to accomplish today, but committing to joy may require you to be eternally vigilant to what is burning within you in the moment, and then flow through the day from one thing to another.
In a given moment you may be conscious of feeling a need to attend to something that you do not have excitement for. Simply be aware that you are making that choice. Ask Spirit that the action be experienced as pleasurably as possible and that it lead you in a serendipitous way to increased bliss.
By starting with small choices, you can gradually work your way to the larger choices that will increase your joy. You don’t need to quit your job or leave your relationship today. If it is truly time to do something like that, you will know. In the meantime, find the small actions throughout the day that make the job or the relationship more enjoyable.
Be conscious also about how you are spending money. How many purchases are habit based rather than joy based? Check to see if you truly have passion in that moment for the purchase you are making. Credit can sometimes numb your ability to perceive what your desires truly are. If you are having credit problems, you might want to try buying only with cash (or check or debit card). See what you want most with the funds you actually have.
Commit to joy. Commit to passion. Commit to ascension. Who would want to live in a joyless eternity? Your commitment to joy will prepare you well for whatever awaits you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Will I ever fully heal myself?
Have you been working on your personal healing for years? Have you been doing a lot of “processing”? Does it sometimes feel like there is an infinite amount of crap in there for you to clean up? Past lives, birth trauma, parents, bullies, self-worth issues, relationships, authority figures, the opposite sex, sexuality, purpose………when will it ever end? The answer is that it will never end. As long as your focus is on healing your problems, there will be problems.
What do I do Sanhia? Just give up? That would be a good start, but let me give it a little different focus. All this concentration on healing comes from the belief that there is something (many things!) wrong with you and that you need to be fixed. My job is to remind you that you are perfect; that there is nothing to heal; that you are a divine and innocent child of God. You did not create this body in order to heal; you created it so that you could realize your divine nature.
You are here to love. This could be stated in a variety of ways. You are here to follow your passion, to express, and to be joyful. You are here to love yourself and others, and to give joyful, devoted service. You are here to fully realize the truth of who you are as a divine and innocent child of God.
Choose fun. Choose love. Choose what you want. ‘Tis the season to choose to be jolly (as are all of the others).
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Can I love myself into ascension?
How many of you are successful at being your own worst critic? This is often touted as a valuable skill for those on the spiritual path. It is a common belief that by being able to notice your alleged shortcomings, you are better able to heal and to grow. I wish to go on record as the loyal contrarian. Certainly, what you judge in another is what you judge in yourself, but the question is not how to better notice your faults, but how best to stop judging yourself.
My suggestion is to think of what you would like to hear your best friend (an imaginary best friend, if that helps) say to you as you are judging yourself. What wonderful thing would you like to hear them say about you? Say whatever you would like to hear from your best friend. Say it to yourself. Become your own best friend. That’s the message. It’s short and sweet. Be your own best friend. Give up the “no pain, no gain” philosophy and love yourself into ascension.
Be your own best friend.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Is there a conflict between politics and spirituality?
It is election season in the United States. That reminds me of something Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. I would like to do a deeper interpretation of this statement. Politics has become quite divisive in the United States. Perhaps it has always been that way, but the level of opposition is intensifying. How many of you have demonized the political opposition, whether individually or en masse?
Many of you sense where this is going and are already complaining under your breath, “Aw Sanhia, can’t we have some righteous indignation?” Well that depends. Are you the victim of your political opponents? Do they control your life? Or are you a divine child of God, infinitely powerful and unconditionally loving? You create your own reality. Why would you choose to give that power away to your political enemy? Why indeed would you choose to have a political enemy, knowing that everyone is simply your mirror? Whatever that political figure plugs you in to, is what you are judging yourself for. Thank them for keeping you on your spiritual toes. Transform the triggered anger and judgment by using the five-step process.
Believing that salvation lies in the political system is a denial of reality. Your salvation lies totally within you. Render unto Caesar whatever you must, but do it joyfully, and don’t give up your power. Practice doing Ho’oponopono on the politicians and the pundits.
I am not suggesting that there is no value in becoming politically active. Follow your passion. If a candidate shares your vision, run with it. Support a positive future for the planet. I am only warning you about dwelling on the negative. Choose love always over fear. But, remember that Jesus did not come here to become king. Planetary ascension happens as individuals move toward and into ascension. It is not a product of political battles.
Practice loving everyone on the political stage unconditionally. Oh! And don’t forget to vote (if you want to). Smiles.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is confused in Christianity?
Many of you are Christian or come from a Christian background. Sometimes this causes confusion as your spiritual path opens and develops. I would like to help you separate the wheat from the chaff. The things that may confuse you about Christianity (if not outright run you off) probably did not come from Jesus. As one of his former right-hand people (there were two dozen of us), I would like to try to set the record straight about ten common confused “Christian” beliefs. There is a lot here. Meditate on any that aren’t clear to you.
- If you sin, you will go to hell.
Hell does not exist except in the mind. God loves unconditionally, does not judge, and of course would never condemn. Hell is a creation of the children of God, is fear-based, and is therefore not real. People who live in fear may be experiencing an illusion of hell, but the only thing that is eternal is love. - Jesus died for our sins.
Jesus left his body at the conclusion of his personal ascension process. He was able to ascend because he loved everyone unconditionally. If we define sin as the belief that we are separate from and judged by God, Jesus along with us was a sinner. His departure from his physical body marked the total release of his sin, or his belief in his own separation from the divine. Certainly, his ascension supports us in ours. - Jesus is the Son of God.
Yes, he is, but so are you. We are all one. Jesus never said, “I am the Son of God, but you aren’t”. No, he said, “This and more you shall do.” Jesus is like an older brother who has shown us the ropes. He is not someone who is different from us; he simply matured (ascended) earlier. This is not to downplay the enormity of his gift, only to remind you that you will get there, too. - Jesus suffered for us.
The vision of extreme pain and suffering, which had dominated the story as told by both Catholic and Protestant churches, is a projection painted from a human, separated position. Jesus did not experience pain on the cross. He felt unconditional love for everyone involved. Pain is fear-based; unconditional love experiences only bliss. - The Bible is to be taken literally.
Warnings exist in the Bible not to worship graven images. What is the Bible if not a graven (engraved) image? We could nitpick and talk about how the original texts were in Aramaic or Greek and how something is always lost in the translation, or that even the English versions differ. But what is more important is realizing that these stories were written by people; God has no horse in this race. These stories were sometimes inspired by the teller’s higher self/divine guidance. Your job is to follow your own intuition when reading scripture. If it feels inspired by love, trust it. If it feels fear-based, it probably isn’t guidance for you today. - Christianity is the only path to salvation.
All roads lead to ascension. In the last analysis, ascension is a very personal and private thing. No two people will follow the exact same path. The teachings of those who have come before you are for your enlightenment and support, but the farther you come on your path, the more you are on your own (your connection to infinite love). Any religion is as good an entry place as another. - There is no such thing as reincarnation.
Yeah, you thought that your last lifetime, too. Seriously, this physical plane and the physical body are illusions. They only thing that is real and eternal about you is your soul, your spirit. You created the earth plane to help you heal your separation from God. There is no final judgment. There is not even a starting line. You create each incarnation with what you can use to reach ascension. Or maybe you just came in this time to serve another. Either way, you have unlimited shots (and don’t forget that time is an illusion, too). - Homosexuality is wrong and sinful.
Let’s all repeat the following ten times: “God has no judgment”. Good. Forgiveness is the key to ascension. Releasing all judgments is central to your healing process. - Only men can become spiritual leaders.
As some of you already know there were 24 disciples, not 12. We each had a female counterpart. Jesus, of course, had Mary Magdalene, who also ascended. Male spiritual leaders have been more prominent because this male dominated planet has had less respect for women. Meanwhile, let your inner guidance lead you to the voices that inspire you. Reproductive organs have nothing to do with it. Gender is an illusion, also. Your divine self is neither male nor female. - There is such a thing as a righteous (Christian) war.
I challenge anybody to find a quote attributed to Jesus that supports war. He talked about love, loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek. There is nary a word even about self-defense. This being said, there is to be no judgment of war, simply the realization that it is fear based, not loved based, and not a part of the ascension path.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Why is forgiveness important?
We have spoken about forgiveness with many of you before, but it is a topic that cannot be overdone. Forgiveness could be a daily focus; it is central to all healing. When you hold a grudge or you extend blame toward another or yourself, you block the flow of love from moving freely through your life. Blame and its shadow side, guilt, always are generated by fear, not by love. They are illusions and not the truth. When you blame another, you take the role of victim; you live in the pretense that you are weak and not the author of your experience.
Let us return to the truth of who you are. You are a divine child of God. You are an immortal, infinitely creative, and unconditionally loved being. You chose to believe that you could create separate from your creator. This was an illusion; all is one and cannot be divided. Your creator continues to see you in truth, unconditionally loving and accepting you, but you choose to judge yourself for this separation and to feel guilt and a need for forgiveness and atonement. You created this physical incarnation as a place to heal the guilt and separation.
When it comes to forgiving another, it helps to remember that there is nothing to forgive, that everything in this earth plane is an illusion. The event that is troubling you is your creation intended for your healing. The other people involved in your event are there because you set up their involvement. The aspect of them that is divine agreed to help you out. Nobody is at fault. As you fully realize this, forgiveness is easy because there truly is nothing to forgive. The event is a manifestation of your belief that you need to be forgiven, but God only sees you in your innocent perfection. There is nothing to forgive.
As you run into judgments of yourself and others repeat to yourself (these statements are graciously borrowed from Ho’oponopono):
I love you…… (As God always loves you)
Forgive me…. (It is only yourself who can forgive and let go)
I’m sorry……. (I’m sorry for choosing fear instead of love)
Thank you…. (Thank you for reminding me that there is only love)
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Do I deserve to have my desires fulfilled?
We have spoken about passion. Many questions have come from you on this topic, so we will take another leap into it. Some of you in your spiritual training have learned that suffering is the result of desires. Let’s begin there. I would like to classify desires into two categories which could be called “lower” desires and “higher” desires. The term “lower” is not intended to express judgment, but to merely be descriptive. “Lower” desires are pleasing to the senses and have a more immediate pull on the heart. These might include (but are certainly not limited to) enjoying food and beautiful scenery, listening to music, dancing, drawing, sculpting, walking, having sex, talking, and being with friends. “Higher” desires are often connected with Right Livelihood, the gifts you have to offer to others, your purpose, and ascension.
In those times when you feel blocked off from an awareness of what your “higher” desires are or of the possibility of ever fulfilling them, your “lower” desires exist to help open the doors to trusting the “higher” ones. The bottom line in being able to achieve any aspiration is the belief that you deserve to realize it. Whatever you feel desire for – nurture that feeling and affirm that you deserve to have it fulfilled, that as an innocent, divine child of God, it is your birthright. See it done in your mind.
You may have the fear that if you allow yourself to pursue all of your “lower” desires you will become bogged down in a selfish, hedonistic lifestyle. I wish to remind you that your desires or passions are the way that your God-self speaks to you. Addiction and the self-destructive pursuit of pleasure is the result of self judgment and guilt. Selfishness and greed grow from the belief that there is not enough; that, therefore, what you get must be taken from another. The work that is cut out for you is listening to your passion (both “lower” and “higher”) and following it. Use your masculine side to affirm that there is an abundance of everything for everyone, that you deserve to have whatever comes to you, and that you are an innocent, loving child of God.
The opposite of acting out of passion is doing things because you “should” do them. It is just as important to begin to eliminate the “shoulds” from your life as it is to follow your passion. Each time you eliminate a “should” you create a space which you will want to guard carefully and fill only with a desire. For some of you your biggest “should” is your job. You have a passion to do something else but keep your current position out of fear. Your voices say, “How will I survive without this job”, or “Being a responsible adult means going to a work every day”, or “I need health insurance.” Here we would speak of “lower” and “higher” desires. Sometimes it is easier to focus on the “lower shoulds”, the little places where you say yes, but feel a no. These are perhaps the areas to begin to focus your energies, to remind yourselves that you deserve to do the things you wish to do, and that you are entitled to enjoy your life. You may have to begin by having the courage to change little things before you are ready to confront the larger ones, such as unfulfilling jobs or relationships. Sometimes by transforming the smaller issues the larger ones handle themselves. In other words, as you follow a discipline of obeying your “lower” desires and saying no to the little things, you may begin to experience that your job has improved and that your relationships give you greater satisfaction. You deserve it all.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is the most appropriate way to honor Jesus?
Perhaps one of the subjects that is of greatest interest to those of you in the Western spiritual traditions is the Jesus lifetime. I wish to make a disclaimer explaining my point of view in relation to Jesus. In that lifetime, I was known as Thomas, who has subsequently been saddled with the nickname “Doubting Thomas”. I recorded some of the commentaries of Jesus. The fathers of the Roman Catholic Church in the 3rd and 4th centuries chose to omit that text from what was called the New Testament and made attempts to destroy all copies. As many of you already know, one of the copies has survived and, though it is a later copy with additions and deletions made to the original, there is still much of value to be found in what is called the Gospel of Thomas. Lastly, as to Thomas, some of you may be aware of others who trace their lineage to this apostle. Understand that it is common for beings to manifest what could be called splinter personalities or multiple reincarnations of the same entity.
But let us return now to Jesus. He came here to teach us about ascension and manifested it in a very public way so that it would be recorded for posterity, even if incompletely understood. What is important for us to comprehend about Jesus is that, yes, he is the son of God, but that you and I are also the sons and daughters of God. We are all one. One of the greatest confusions in Christianity as a religion is the separation of Jesus from the rest of humanity. As Jesus said, “This and more you shall do.” Jesus was not the first to ascend, but it was part of his purpose to show us the way. That way consists of unconditional love, affirming oneness with the Creator, forgiveness, acceptance, and the release of judgment. Jesus modeled unconditional love in a manner that was transformational for those of us who were around him. He saw others in their divinity, in their perfection. As people allowed themselves to be enveloped in this unconditional acceptance and forgiveness they found themselves healed, physically and spiritually.
The most appropriate way to honor Jesus is to use him as a model for your own life, neither exalting him above you nor lowering him to a “human” level. Love and forgive yourself and others unconditionally. Accept your place as the innocent child of God, and choose and affirm your ascension. It is not necessary to proselytize the teachings of Jesus, but as you live a life of unconditional love you will draw to yourself those who wish to learn from you.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Can I follow my passions?
I would like to talk about passion. It is the term I use to describe the feminine energy. Passion is the way that you focus your love to manifest in the world. The masculine energy, expressed by the mind, has the task of holding a clear image of where you wish to go, accentuating the positive. But it is your passion that determines what that vision is. Your passion is what connects you to your purpose.
There is the generalized purpose, shared by all beings, to ascend, that is, to remember the truth of who you are and to experience that truth as infinitely creative, loving, forgiving children of God. Yet, even as you are all one and connected, you are also unique and individual. You each have your irreplaceable role to play. This is your specific purpose. How do you find out what it is? By trusting, listening to, and following your passion. This would never be experienced as something you have to or must do. Rather, you have a deep desire to do it. The task at hand is to listen to these aspirations without judgment, to believe that you deserve to have them fulfilled even when the mind says that these yearnings are petty and selfish. It is not for you to judge your passions, but simply to give intention for their fulfillment.
Passion is blocked by fear. Fear is old energy. It is a combination of feeling undeserving, guilty, and powerless. It is feeling yourself to be a failure. This fear can block the ability to act on or to even hear your passions. It becomes the job of your masculine side to “create a protected place for his lady”. The mind is to affirm that it is safe to experience your passion, that you deserve to manifest what you desire. Your mind affirms that you have the ability to manifest your dreams and, reminds you that you are innocent, that God loves you unconditionally and supports your every choice.
You do not need to understand the part that your passion plays in the larger picture. It is only for you to trust that your role is of divine importance and that it can only be fulfilled by listening to and following your passion.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
Are there ghosts or evil spirits?
A question has come in about dealing with evil spirits or energies such as ghosts. There are several levels from which to approach this question, but let us start by focusing on basic truth. We shall begin with an understanding of who we are and how we operate in these physical bodies on planet Earth. We are children of God created in His image. That is to say we are immortal beings of infinite love and creativity. Each of us is unique and yet part of the divine whole or oneness. In creating and inhabiting our physical bodies we forget the truth of our beingness. It is part of our path to remember that the truth of who we are is divine love.
Anything that does not come from unconditional love is not real. The only thing that is true is love; anything that comes from fear or hatred is illusory. Whatever might threaten us is unreal. There is nothing ultimately that can harm the truth of who we are. This is not to say that the physical body cannot experience harm, but our true selves are eternal and indestructible.
It is time now to deal with the next level, that of the planet Earth being a realm of free choice. We are able through our thought processes and emotions to create any possible experience on earth. First of all, it is important to acknowledge that our experiences are our creations, that by the very nature of who we are we cannot be the victims of any other being’s energy. Another being can only give us the illusion of harming us if we give it permission to do so. We do create the reality we experience in these bodies.
If you are experiencing fear that a ghost or any other entity, including one in a physical body, might do you harm there are clear steps to take. First, remind yourself of your divinity, of your oneness with God, of your immortality. Remember that there is only love, that all else is illusion. Affirm that you are safe, that no outside energy or entity can affect you without your permission. State that you do not give your consent for any entity to harm you. Request that your guides or Spirit protect you from any unwanted outside influence. You are in charge here. Nothing can violate your physical body without your agreement.
At this point in the message it is likely that your mind is reacting with a variety of questions and doubts, and this is fine. I am not suggesting that people have consciously chosen their suffering through the ages, only that the beliefs that they hold allowed these events to transpire. Even today there are many who believe that the greatest gift they can give to mankind is the sacrifice of their lives. God has never asked for such an atonement, but holds no judgment for whatever choices are made by those in the “human condition”. I wish you to hear the humor in my voice as I say “the human condition”. By this term, I mean simply the believing of self to be separate from the infinite Creator.
One more level that I wish to address is for those of you who may wish to take action to support the ghost or entity or person that might be perceived as threatening. First repeat silently the four statements, “I love you”, “thank you”, “please forgive me”, and “I’m sorry” over and over. Ask silently what the entity wants in order for it to feel at peace. Using your knowledge of the nature of reality, guide the entity to choose that possibility for itself. Remind it that it is loved and is a divine child of an infinitely and unconditionally loving God.
Know that you are safe and unconditionally loved.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is the most valuable gift to give?
The celebration that you call Christmas has roots that go back far before the birth of Jesus. And, of course, as many of you know it is not even Jesus’ birthday; he was a Pisces. The date was originally a celebration of renewal and hope, as this is the time of year when the sun finally begins its return and the days begin to grow longer. There will once again be a time when the earth bursts forth with green, with flowers, and finally with food.
In a sense, this is a holiday that reminds us of our deep inner knowing of our immortality. No matter how dark and cold things might appear to us in the illusion, in truth, there is always hope…there is always life. Many of you were raised with the knowledge of the Christian trinity of faith, hope, and charity, and that is certainly what this season is about.
Faith…. trusting that everything is and always will be perfect, fine, and safe.
Hope…. as we have just discussed, even in the deepest darkest days knowing that the darkness is illusion and that the light is behind it.
Charity…. giving of ourselves without measure.
This trinity provides the watchwords for all time and places, but we choose to focus on them in particular during the Christmas season through creating more time and space to be outside of regular schedules — spending more time with family and friends, and with the rituals of gift giving. The most valuable gift through this season, and indeed throughout the year, is yourself. Truly be there for others, listening to their needs and desires, and giving with a faith and trust in your infinite supply of energy, time, and sustenance. With each person that you encounter – whether they be familiar or a stranger, friend or imagined enemy – look to see what you can give to them, whether it be a smile, an encouraging word, a meal, money, your ear, or your physical assistance. Mark out for yourself on your calendar Twelve Days of Christmas. Try practicing the dharma of unconditional giving during this time. You will find this gift is one that will always return to you in greater measure.
Merry Christmas
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
What is true thankfulness?
When Americans think of November, their thoughts eventually turn to the Thanksgiving holiday. However, thankfulness is a state of mind I encourage everyone to hold in all seasons and under all circumstances. It may be easy to feel gratitude when surrounded by the bounty of the harvest and your loved ones, but it is equally important to feel grateful when plans and hopes and dreams fall through, when loved ones are lost.
True thanksgiving is in knowing and trusting the perfection of each moment. It lies in the recognition that even though we may not know why or how, we have asked for what we have received. We have done this to help us recognize the truth of who we are, the truth of reality. What we seek above all else is the knowingness of our divinity, our place as the unconditionally loved child of God. This holiday I encourage you to accept your gifts and to know that you deserve far more, but I also urge you to welcome the setbacks, to thank them for being there and to ask them to help lead you to a deeper understanding of the truth of your divinity and your eternal soul.
A suggested mantra:
Everything is perfect.
I welcome everything that comes to me today and I am grateful for this connection to my divine self.
God Blesses You,
Sanhia
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