UNIT 9
Salvation is Yours
What happens in your life is neutral, neither positive nor negative. You decide whether it is positive or negative, spiritual or mundane.
Everything in your experience can be endowed with spiritual qualities by bringing your love, acceptance or forgiveness to it. Even a terminal illness, a rape or a murder can be transformed by the power of your love.
You think you understand the meaning of the events that occur in your life. Nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t understand the meaning of anything that happens. That is because you give it meaning it has for you.
Please stop imposing your “meaning” and let each situation unfold and teach you why it has come into your life. Be willing to look at what happens as a gift, rather than a punishment.
In other words, look beyond your fear. On the other hand, don’t try to live without fear. Just acknowledge the fear and move through to the other end of it.
Don’t try to live without condemning yourself or others. Just see the condemnation and move through it in forgiveness.
Don’t look for salvation, for it does not exist outside of your mind. Look within and you will find the path forward.
I am Not Your Savior
You do not have to buy your salvation from me, from your brother, or from some church or synagogue. Salvation is yours already.
You practice forgiveness not to buy your salvation, but because the practice of forgiveness allows you to experience salvation right here, right now.
You learn to accept what comes as a gift, not because it brings you brownie points with God, but because acceptance reminds you that there is nothing wrong now, nor was there ever anything wrong.
Your entire spirituality is lived in this moment only. It has nothing to do with anything you have ever thought or felt in the past. It is happening right now, with the circumstance that lies before you.
Scarcity and Abundance
You experience scarcity only when you find fault with the situation you are presented with in the moment. When you see the situation as a gift given to help you wake up, you feel only gratitude.
Do not try to move out of darkness. Do not try to move into bliss. The movement takes place of itself. Just be willing to move and let that willingness move you.
Most of what you try to do for yourself will not succeed because you do not know who you really are. You do not know or feel the extent of God’s love for you.
You think that somewhere along the line something in you got broken, or perhaps you are just missing some parts. But that isn’t true. You have no missing or broken parts. All of your wholeness is fully present right now.
Many of you study prosperity consciousness, yet what you do does not seem to prosper. Why is this? Because you do not know your true worth. If you knew your truth worth, you would not feel that something was missing from your life. You would feel grateful for everything you have.
The truth is that every thought prospers. Each thought that you think adds its energy, positive or negative, to the situation at hand. Because you have a mixture of positive and negative thoughts, your external situation reflects both.
However, you won’t be able to make negative thoughts go away by focusing on positive ones. In fact, the more you focus on positive thoughts, the more power you give to your negative thoughts. You cannot escape this paradox.
So forget your affirmations. They are just hocus pocus. Stop trying to change your negative thoughts and just be aware of them. Be aware of the emotions attached to them. And let your awareness move you.
How will you learn to be supported by divine law if you are always interfering in its workings?
You Cannot Fix Yourself
I tell you that you cannot fix yourself. Your attempt to fix yourself just fractures your consciousness into smaller pieces.
It may appear that I am telling you two things which contradict one another, but that is not the case. I am telling you that your life has only the meaning you give it and that any meaning you give it will be limited. Both statements are true.
When you watch your thoughts, you become aware that part of you wants one result and another part of you wants another. You feel that you have to choose between these two parts and that brings pressure and conflict.
When your mind is in conflict, you do not move out of conflict by choosing between two opposing positions. That will just set up a more intense conflict. You move out of conflict by accepting both positions. In other words you accept the positive thoughts and negative thoughts together, without making one “better” than the other.
This is a loving act. Love always transcends any kind of dualism. Love never chooses sides. It always accepts the validity of both sides.
You believe that you must choose between right and wrong. But are you or anyone capable of determining what is right and what is wrong? As soon as you think you know, you have lost the thread of truth.
You need to find a place of neutrality, where you can be a witness of your thoughts. Then you will stop vacillating back and forth and find a stable center in consciousness.
Realize that you are not broken and therefore do not need to be fixed by others or by yourself. Understand that everything is as it should be.
Only that which is not broken can experience its wholeness. Right now, in this moment, you are whole. You are free. You are completely loved.
Journaling Questions
Do you understand your ego-driven attempt to fix yourself and others? Have you seen that this does not work and only increases your suffering?
What happens when you stop trying to fix and just allow things to be as they are?
UNIT 10
Confession
and Transparency
When you have nothing to hide, the light of your conscious attention is no longer compromised by secret shame. Lies no longer need to be upheld. Your relationships are not cluttered with hidden agendas. Simplicity and clarity rule in your life.
Each one of you has this clarity available to you right now if you have the courage to communicate all that you think and feel without hesitation. That is your gesture of trust toward your brother and sister. That is your willingness to be visible and vulnerable.
If you think a thought that condemns another, you can deny it, disguise it or project it onto someone else. or you can bring it up for attention and healing. You can hide your attack thoughts or you can confess them.
The ritual of confession, like most rituals, has ceased to embody the purpose behind it. It has nothing to do with receiving absolution from another. It has everything to do with rejecting the density of deceit and bringing fear and guilt into conscious awareness.
The one who hears the confession is not a judge, but a witness. S/he she does not have to wear robes or be in a position of authority. Any witness will do, so long as s/he understands that her role is not to judge or condemn, but merely to listen with compassion.
There is no one who does not make mistakes. Trespass, one against another, with or without intention, is commonplace. To expect to end all trespass is foolishness. Only one who is out of touch with his human vulnerability would aspire to such a lofty and ungrounded goal.
Mistakes will be made and I urge you to be thankful for each mistake you make. Each error is a gift because it brings you to correction.
Celebrate the opportunity to bring manipulation and deceit to the surface. Be thankful for the invitation to reach into the dark places of your mind and bring the contents to the light of conscious inspection.
When you justify your mistakes, you hang onto them, forcing yourself to defend them over and over again. This takes a great deal of time and energy. Indeed, if you are not careful, it can become the dominant theme of your life.
Let each trespass be openly acknowledged. The density of this world is a result of your lack of courage to admit your mistakes.
Come out of Denial
Denial is a game of pretense in which you endeavor to be more skillful at hiding your mistakes than your brother is. This is a sad and self-defeating game and I ask you to stop playing it.
Confess your errors first to yourself. Then confess to your mate, your boss, even to the stranger on the street. Do not be concerned about what people think.
Your confession gives others permission to look at their own mistakes with compassion.
One who admits her mistakes is a beacon to others. She has shed her cloak of darkness and the light shines through her, for her mind is a clear channel through which truth flows without effort.
I remind you that to end suffering, you must end all forms of deceit in your life. And that can only be done by telling the truth, to yourself, to me, and to your brother.
Suffering is a Choice
Suffering is a choice that you make. Perhaps it is time for you to make a different choice.
You are one facet in the many-faceted jewel of God’s love and grace. You need to value who you are and live with a simple dignity.
The beauty of one facet does not interfere with the splendor of another, but adds to it in both breadth and intensity.
Don’t try to hide your human frailty. Don’t try to disguise your mistakes. For there is no mistake that cannot be corrected and no trespass that cannot be forgiven.
Journaling Questions
What is the worst mistake that you made? Did you acknowledge your mistake, learn from it and correct it?
What is the worst trespass you have suffered? Did the one who hurt you confess his mistake, try to correct it, and ask for your forgiveness?