Lesser and Greater Mysteries

Consciousness

Feb 14

Anyone examining the world today in 2020 is witness to what appears to be the endless struggle between irreconcilable opposites.

The process of evolution continues to produce unbelievable technological advances and simultaneously, mankind is making little if any notable progress toward peace, prosperity, justice, and safety for all, not just a few. At least, it can appear that way.

Is this all existence is?

If this division and struggle did not exist, then I would not be able to say that, obviously, this struggle must have an intended goal and destination.

The universal playing out of this evolutionary process is not only best understood but resolved by looking at your own individual life for it contains the very same ingredients. From this viewpoint, because of the difficulty experienced by most individuals in experiencing stability in an unstable world, it’s not hard to understand and accept the disgust that individuals experience who see this endless struggle as having no destination at all, but rather, a kind of cosmic joke.

In fact, the physical disparity that exists between what it (life) currently is and what it (life) is going to be, is going to be resolved not through a global reckoning but an individual reckoning. The global is an effect. The individual is the cause.

So, I would invite you to understand that you are the world, so, if you don’t like what’s going on in the world, then, at least, you know where to start.

Now, to begin, the language that is required to express the new consciousness that is being born in the world today is not the language of the past. It is not a language of reconciliation because there’s nothing to reconcile.

Transfigure? Yes.

I hesitate to use the word transformation because transformation suggests there is something to transform, something to reconcile. Consciousness does not seek to reconcile. It’s something completely different.

And because of these issues, we are immediately presented with difficulty in expressing the truth.

To simplify this, I would like to give you two examples.

Two individuals get into an argument. One says to the other, “I’ll respect your opinion if you respect mine.” So, compromise and reconciliation are struck. But only one of the opinions is actually true. The other is false but the individual promoting the false position doesn’t know that his or her position is false. What are you to do?
There are approximately 4,200 religions in the world, all claiming to express the truth of God, the truth of life. Can 4,200 different opinions all be right?

And, of course, the answer is no. Let’s be fair and cut all religions a break and say that all 4200 of them are wrong and that they all share the same characteristic: that they’re all wrong. What are you to do? Do you say, “Well, each one has some things that I agree with but not everything.” And what are the religions of the world to do?

Now, let’s get specific.

You have a negative-ground-of-being. This unconscious, mental position tells you that you aren’t good enough, aren’t pretty enough, aren’t smart enough…or whatever. The conscious version says the opposite. This version says that you are God, that you are a spiritual being in a physical body. But, both these versions…the negative ground-of-being and the spiritual being can’t both be true. Trying to reconcile both then results in stagnation and inertia, not to mention the impossibility of doing so. In fact, you can’t reconcile them! One is real. One is not.

So, in terms of languaging what is possible and what is real, it could be said that your life and the world is a differentiated but unified unity. In other words, the unlimited infinite one creates the limited finite many.

Said as simply as I can, we’re all doing the same thing… just differently.

But most importantly, however way you say it, the one creates the many, meaning you are part of the One.

Each one of us is unique with a different personality, but yet the same, from the same source, with the same destination, to realize the divine in the middle of the undivine, the real in the middle of the real, the cosmos in the middle of the chaos. But consider if not accept there is a something, a divine, a God, a oneness, a secret consciousness that is governing it all…and if that is so, and perhaps you are willing to hear this, you are an instrument of that consciousness, of the universal love that holds the world in complete safety and balance.

We’re all doing the same thing… just differently.

You don’t just come from the consciousness…you are the consciousness, your spirit that births into the physical world and becomes imprisoned in your mind as the defining act of the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent force who then must ascend back into the source to transform the mental prison and then again, descend back into your everyday life but now, awakened and capable of redefining and transfiguring the physical life in which you dwell. Up, down, up, down.

I admit it would seem that your only task is to ascend, to escape this world, to escape the drudgery, your suffering, but then, what about the rest of the world?

Can any of us be free unless all of us are free?

If the fate of this world, if your fate was only about the escape to another world, to heaven, then would a second coming be necessary? In fact, it wouldn’t! But the second coming is mentioned in many different spiritual writings, including the Course in Miracles and what happened when your parents told you, “I’m not going to tell you again?” The ante was upped.

The lines become hazy and thin. As the world awakens to this new consciousness and the protests around the globe continue, how will you learn to express this new change, this new journey?

But don’t be concerned about that for I am going to be consistent and say that it is all about the individual…you and no one and nothing else. The central barrier, in fact, the only barrier to the realization of this new consciousness, to living a spiritual life, a life that is founded upon power, joy, and knowledge, is ignorance, and ignorance that you created as a tool for your development.

The ignorance found everywhere is the barrier against which each individual and mankind struggles. Your willingness to acquire this knowledge even to a small degree is the very action, the very force to which your physical world and life will eventually capitulate. It is true that your life will change through pain and suffering but that can take a long time and many lifetimes and this doesn’t have to be the case.

Your life will transform through knowledge. Now, notice more deeply what I am saying. I did not identify behaviors that you should practice. I didn’t say that there was anything that you need to do. This kind of understanding, this knowledge, this kind of seeing is the very thing that causes everything in your physical world to bind itself to your will…which is…the will of the consciousness that freed you in the first place.

What was lost is remembered. What was condemned is blessed. What was narrow is now widened. What was painful morphs into acceptance and joy. When you get even a taste of that kind of understanding, you will insist and demand of yourself to know more. And yet, it seems that every step of the way is going to be met with some form of obstacle. Your (and mine) own stupidity and lack of knowledge is the real barrier.

See, it’s not the obstacle that is the problem. It’s the knowledge you possess that allows you to address the obstacle. And yet again, you will make mistakes that lead to setbacks, say things that you regret saying, and so on and so on. But that’s OK. How can you cure the suffering that you have not suffered? How can you heal in others what you have not healed in yourself?

There is no judgment except your own, no punishment except your own, and no imprisonment except your own.

Darkness, rejection, feeling lost, feeling abandoned is a prerequisite for becoming a master, a guru, of living a spiritual life and you need to stop pretending that living a spiritual life is void of quicksand. It’s full of it. But at least now, it’s good quicksand.

So, you have to accept these principles of how your beautiful Self is functioning and that the understanding that you currently possess does not have the power to transform it because if it did, it would have already done it. You would have already learned to be happy, fulfilled.

The struggle of your existence in a struggling world is a requirement. It’s something that for the time being you have to accept. Each day you seek to free yourself from all forms of limitation but in that process, and I am largely speaking of western, materially-focused societies, in that process, the very things you seek to remove those limitations…money, possession, power…are the very things that imprison you.

It should be clear to you that you do not possess the knowledge you need to somehow escape these patterns of brief reprieve with no assurance of stability in the future. Now what I’m saying is that you wouldn’t care if it wasn’t for that nagging reminder that unfortunately, you know that there’s something else, you know that life can be mastered and lived with absolute certainty because that is who you really are.

But, don’t be naïve. I’m not saying the problems go away and that once you are spiritually awakened, somehow magically, those problems don’t exist anymore. I’m saying that once you have consciously and deliberately initiated a spiritual path, you will see through the problems and pitfalls of life and it is that seeing that will transform your experience of the problems.

If you were your negative-ground-of-being, then you wouldn’t be bothered at all…but you’re not.

So, your beginning can start with:

The conscious realization that you are unconscious.
The conscious realization that emptiness and meaninglessness are the results of a materially based life.
The conscious realization that you do not possess the knowledge that you need to deal with these limitations and become happy.
The conscious realization that nothing is going to change until you do.

Day after day, you (and I mean all of us) go about the busy repetition of habitual patterns that produce the same old outcomes. You live oblivious of your true Self, the Self that can turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary wonder even though the day will come in which you will pass. The mortal life can be transformed into an immortal experience and under those circumstances, death will only be a transition and not a finality.

Even in your moments of feeling lost and resigned, there is always the presence of that which you are unaware of…the timeless, eternal, inner voice which can seem different than the fatigued, limited outer you but in fact, they are one and no one has taught you that. What appears to be opposites are not. They both contrive to bring about your greatest good, your awakening, your realization of your true Self.

Disguised as opposites, disconnected from one another, our senses do not pick up on the essence of the play, the interchange. You do not know nor do you seek to understand the destination of this interchange, this script of becoming, as you focus merely on surviving, on acquiring the objects of your desires but sometimes gently and sometimes violently, the interchange bids you hello and invites you to see something else.

I am saying unequivocally that you will never be happy and at peace until you transcend the cage of your mind. I am also saying unequivocally that omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, are real and that that is who you are. Your destination has been set and that destination is the realization in the physical form of who you truly are. In the meantime, in playing the game of being oblivious to this, each day is nothing more than a repetition of yesterday.

You, me, and all others, we are in love with our own agonies and shortcomings for they give us meaning in an otherwise meaningless world whose true fate lies hidden in the secret invisible of the divine.

Now, certainly, there are a series of levels leading to that awakening and the transcendence of the mind. There are even levels of physical matter that are answering to the calls of higher laws but know, accept, and invite the invincible that lies inside of you to come forward, to be known. You can make all kinds of mistakes and you can damage yourself for long periods of time but you cannot nor will you ever be able to destroy the essence of your being, the eternal fire that grows within.

Now, as you look around for answers to these difficulties, there are a million sources from which to choose. But I warn you, if you go looking for a savior, you’re going to find one, and worse, that savior will find you. Instead, I want to suggest an alternative strategy.

I have suggested to you in previous messages that there are several different levels of time. To be brief, there is a linear time which is about all most people know. There is the circular time that reveals your patterns and cycles of life. There is a simultaneous time in which everything that is going to happen has already happened. If consciousness, the oneness, God, the Absolute is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, don’t you think it already knows the outcomes of its actions, its will, its force? Well, of course, it does!

So, when it comes to your individual fate, there is your will…which can be connected to the dysfunctional, unconscious part of yourself…and there is the will of the Divine…who knows the role you are to play in this world which may be very different than the one you will choose…it knows your fate, the date of your birth and death.

That being said, it can be a dangerous game of insisting that things be a certain way.

There is not a single individual in the world who has not experienced that the very thing you wished for, begged for, was the very thing that brought you sadness, pain, and regret. And there’s not a single individual who has not experienced an unexpected loss or setback, that in time, turned positive. So, you have to be careful what you wish for. The secret to this dilemma is the act of aspiration.

Your very existence has lying within it its destination. That destination, if you’re lucky, exists inside of you not as a dream but as at first potential, which you may turn your back on…but it also exists inside of you as a necessity. That necessity is the reason you took birth, it is your raison d’être.

Now, as part of the preparation for fulfilling that necessity, it may involve being harmed, experiencing abuse, or even torture, for it involves overcoming limitations in order to teach others how to overcome limitations. This secret reality works itself out over time, often without the individual’s awareness but nonetheless an omniscient power running the show. So, let’s assume that you do not know what your destination is. You do not know how to get to where you don’t know where to get.

Aspire.

If what your existence is doing is unveiling itself, unveiling its destination in time, then what that existence is unveiling is what you MUST become, what is necessary to become, what you must be.

But the whole time, let’s assume that you don’t know that. You don’t know where to turn, what to do, what decisions to make, aspire. Aspire because it does know! It knows the next steps and that may scare the hell out of you but now, you’re dealing with good fear, fear that will buckle your knees but burst your heart open with joy and thanksgiving.

Your fate is the truth of who you are working its way through who you pretend to be or who you are not. One of you knows what it is doing, the other doesn’t and I say you know which one you are and you know that you are not stable.

Aspire.

Truth precedes existence. Existence precedes experience. Experience precedes perception. Perception becomes reality when you are trapped.

Aspire.

Aspire to fulfill your destiny. Aspire to know the truth. Aspire to know the reality of who you are and the purpose of your existence. Aspire to live a fulfilled life. Aspire to love. Aspire to be an instrument of the Divine in the evolution of the planet. Aspire to be. Aspire to have a better job…there’s nothing wrong with that. Aspire to buy a new home…there’s nothing wrong with that. Aspire to love yourself, to experience an abundant life but be aware they are but things but it’s OK. I have learned that poverty is not an appropriate platform to teach abundance.

Aspire. Because it knows what it’s doing. It knows the destiny of your life and work, the potential that must be realized. You have only to aspire. You do not have to know-how. The vertical, consciousness, God, the Divine, the Vast, the oneness, it supplies the how. Let me say it again, it supplies the how. I think it can help to know the “what” but it is not required…because it knows the what, too.

Aspire and that is the start.

“I am willing,” I am here,” “I choose to have my life matter,” I choose to fulfill my destiny,” “I choose to fulfill my purpose,” And “Oh my God, did I just say that?”

Because when you do, and you aspire, the consciousness not only listens to your heartfelt aspiration but now goes about the business of fulfilling that aspiration…it provides the how. The reason I know this is because that is what happened to me.

So, I want to share some closing remarks with you.

1. Don’t get saved until you’ve been thoroughly annihilated, decimated, hung, and left out to dry…don’t leave ‘em anything to work on.

2. Living is about dying. You have to figure out how to die and how to have the courage to do it while alive in a physical body.

3. All there is is good and that which is serving the good.

4. The ones who have hurt you the most simultaneously provide you with a mathematically proportional gift of transformation and light. Suffering is a transformation in disguise.

5. Death does not exist. It is only and always a transition into the light. Once you realize this, make sure you die a little bit each day to keep up the pace.

6. Your well-being is not going to be fulfilled by anyone or anything outside of you. Your well-being will be fulfilled by you learning to love you and become who you truly are. The greatest gift you can give yourself and the world is to love yourself.

7. Learning to forgive yourself precludes the need to be forgiven by anybody else. Until you do forgive yourself, their forgiveness won’t matter anyway.

8. Learn to go to war…for the right reasons…and with the right attitude…but don’t be naïve. Learn to go to war when you are called to.

9. And above all, in your darkest moments, whether or not you are aware of it, whether or not you are willing to admit it or take responsibility, remember, you called this moment forth. You drew this moment to yourself. And in the darkness of your design, you’re going to find out what you’re made of. You might be surprised at what you find.

10. Justice is not blind and is completely dependent upon how much money you have. If you want justice, fulfill every single one of your dreams.

11. Revenge is a mental fantasy. Everything that happened to you was perfectly arranged for your unique evolutionary path and was not an accident. Besides, there is no revenge that can assuage your pain. If you want revenge, learn to be happy. Everything else is in the hands of the Divine.

12. Grief is an emotional art. Grief is saying goodbye when you don’t want to. So, as you know, there’s a lot of saying goodbye in life. When you learn to grieve consciously, the tears of your suffering will be replaced by the waters of life.

13. Have the courage to face what is most perilous to you knowing that in doing so, you will be cared for, kept in safety and balance.

14. In moments of darkness, start a fight with God because I can assure you, from my own experience, that if you get in a fight with God, you will lose.

15. Teach yourself that everything is perfect and that what is happening is happening because it has to happen. If you don’t like what’s happening, you have only yourself to blame.

16. And lastly, here is a simple prayer that can be repeated over and over until it comes true: Let the one that is asleep in me awake in me.

Over the course of the unfolding of those events and the complete and total breaking of my heart, my soul would rise to fulfill all of my dreams and learn to see what I had sought my entire life to know: the knowledge and wisdom of freedom, the abundance and empowerment that comes from self-realization, and the art of letting go.

It was through my work with my 3rd teacher that I was able, at last, to create a unified vision of all of those events in my life. I realized at last that I had been prepared to teach the way out of the darkness by having been cast into the darkness. I was prepared to help others transform their grief by being overcome with grief myself.