The Question:
Truthfully, I’d rather not have people like this in my life. It’s like they’re paranoid and I’d have to be constantly on guard in dealing with them. Yes, I know this is all ego stuff but I am at the stage where I am unable to simply “rest and relax” when I am being “crucified”. I’m not there yet and don’t think I ever will be, frankly.
I’m still confused about how long does one stick in a situation before they can say enough is enough! Same with my “friend” Elizabeth who has left me to find new workers quickly and taken my rototiller with her along with my leaf blower.
It just doesn’t seem consistent with Truth that I should permit people to steal from me or even have people working for me that I cannot “trust” even though the Course says to “trust my brother who is one with me”. I have worked with that Lesson many times in my life and I know it doesn’t mean to trust their ego but to trust the Christ in them. But, while I’m trusting the Christ in them, do they have to work for me?
I’m trying to figure out how to apply Truth to these situations.
“All that God created is good or it was not created!” And I get that our rising in consciousness “reveals” this to us. I get this in my head but am far from living it and experiencing it, unfortunately!
I wish that I would reach the tipping point and be free but wishing doesn’t make it so.
C
The Answer:
Hi C,
Doing nothing does not necessarily mean to literally do nothing. It means to not react, and let it affect you, because no conflict in the visible world of appearances is real, and it only has the power we give it by our attention. We have to lose interest in the story of the personality to be free of its seeming ability to pull us in, to get involved. When we are living in our true identity as the spirit of God, we automatically make the right decisions. In the absence of the sense of a separate “me” we are that empty vessel for Pure Awareness to work through.
You say, “I know this is all ego stuff but I am at the stage where I am unable to simply “rest and relax” when I am being “crucified”. I’m not there yet and don’t think I ever will be,”.
But look at what you just said! You are being crucified, but it’s the false you, the you that was never real in the first place. This is why I said in our phone conversation that we have to see these trials as the Holy Spirit’s way of getting our attention, by forcing us to surrender to our I AM Self – that Self that is omniscient and omnipotent and everywhere present as the Essence behind every form and situation we become aware of. This is the Absolute Truth, and it only requires our acceptance of, and willingness to abide in It.
You see, you are the witness of all that arises in your awareness, not the one seemingly experiencing. This I AM Self is Consciousness, not an entity, visible or invisible. If you can realize that YOU are not the one being crucified, it is the false sense of you that is, the one who has a history, a story. You are infinite and boundless, and made only of Love.
You know, the metaphysical teachings that are part of our past, helped us get to where we are now, but at some point they need to be let go of, so that a new higher understanding can be allowed to unfold.
Truth is not static, It is infinite and forever revealing higher and deeper aspects of Itself through us.
When these trials come, we are being asked to rise in Consciousness, to perceive from a higher place – we must get out of the consciousness that is perceiving a “problem” and into our True, Real, Pure Consciousness that sees only Perfection.
We must deal with what is presenting itself to us right now, and only deal with that, not some arbitrary concept that we might be holding onto because it’s familiar, it’s “what we know”. The Truth we need to know for any situation comes through our Consciousness from the unknown, into Now, as we get still and listen.
But are we willing to do that? Do we really want Truth or do we want a better life? If we want Truth, we have to be willing to accept what is, and why it is, and realize that this way of awakening is fraught with turmoil – much of the time. Because in order for us to live authentically, the lie of the ego has to dissolve, and that can be painful in the beginning. But if we have truly been touched by the finger of God, we will not resist the fire, because we will know instinctively, that all that the fire seems to be burning up, is what was not really there in the first place. And after having gone through it a few times, you wonder what it was you were so afraid of!
This is why each problem is a divine gift really, a blessing bestowed upon us so we will reach for Truth, so we will become stronger in our faith with the overcoming. And we find that as we persist, and open more and more, the discord becomes less and less, and one day, when we least expect it, the Kingdom of Heaven opens up in its ineffable, radiant brilliance and is revealed to be right where we are. It was Here the whole time, we just couldn’t see it because we were hypnotized by being identified with a sense of a separate me.
The principle of impersonalization is a very helpful and important one. If we truly accept Oneness as real, then we must be willing to see ourselves and “others” as impersonal, that is, without personhood. The belief in a selfhood apart from God needs to be replaced with the Truth of One Being, One Substance, One Presence, One Intelligence, One Power.
Saying we know this, we understand this, however, is not enough. It must be practiced, lived with and contemplated until it becomes our natural way of Seeing. We really have to dwell with it constantly, until that Spirit of our Being announces the Truth from within as revelation. That is the only way it eventually outpictures as our life.
When we are relaxed in the Truth, because we have allowed it to become part of our Consciousness through contemplation and then Silence, our life flows as Grace, and we either do not experience negativity, or if we do, we barely notice it.
Again, as I said before, we only experience what is in our Consciousness – we are the only ones responsible for what happens in our life, because there is nothing and no one outside of our Consciousness. This has been called the law of externalization, or as Jesus said, in the Gospel of Thomas, “when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, …then you will enter the Kingdom.”
When we don’t react to the appearing trouble, and accept the Truth, we can be at ease, because we know that if God is All, there is not “me and them”. There are not two powers, only One. Therefore nothing can harm us, because nothing would harm itself.
With you in the acceptance of the Perfection of Now,
Much Love,
Octavia
The Response:
Hi Octavia—
Just had to thank you SO MUCH for this response. It seems I need to have something written down to refer to to remind me of what I need to “do”. I took some notes, but they seemed too sparse. This email has really made some points that have hit home—now on to the practice and the living. Thank you again!—C