Lesson 117
(103) God, being Love, is also happiness.
(104) I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
There is only love as there is only God. Everything else is an illusion. Knowing What Is brings joy, knowing what is not real brings temporary pleasure at best and suffering is a certainty. I have one foot in humanity, but that is not my reality. I have the strength of God in me because that is my reality. I can choose to live as if I am only human, or I can choose to live as close to my true nature as is possible.
I choose love in every moment and I am choosing happiness and I am moving closer to Who I Am. In seeking joy, I am seeking my own true nature. In this practice of deciding to be happy and deciding to love everything and to be love in every way possible, I am merely being my Self.
The self I thought I was could not make a decision for happiness because she thought that her feelings were out of her control. Because she believed this, she would not even try. But I have transcended that self at least enough to do this one thing, to decide for happiness regardless of circumstances.
I still have to choose and then choose again at times, but mostly, it only requires that one thought, I decide. Not only is my life better, but I am aware of myself in a different way now. I am not learning to control anything or to become something else, I am simply accepting what was mine and what I always have been.
Regina’s Tips
Regina shared an article called “How I Discovered Meditative Self-Inquiry” by Adyashanti
In this article he explains the steps he takes in contemplation. He begins with a question. He writes only what he knows then he stops and waits for more to come. He never writes a word he does not absolutely know to be true. He starts out writing as if he were teaching and he would write until he had exhausted what he knew from his own experience on the subject.
He said: Sometimes I would sit right at that place for many minutes, sometimes half an hour, sometimes two hours … but I would not write the next word until I knew that it was true and it was accurate. What I found was that the only way to move was to hold still, right there at the edge of my knowledge, and feel into my mind and my body at that threshold. Not to think about the question. Not to go into a lot of philosophizing in mind. But literally to kinesthetically hold at that boundary between what I knew and what was beyond what I knew. And what I found was that by holding at that boundary … by feeling it, by sensing it, by knowing that I wanted to move beyond it … that eventually the next word or sentence would come. When it did, I would write it down. Sometimes I would write no more than half a sentence before I would know, right in the middle, that I had hit the boundary again. I would stop again and I would wait. I’d hold at the boundary.
He went on like this until he had his answer.
My Thoughts
This feels very familiar to me. This is similar to what I usually do. I begin by writing what I know and I try to stick to my experience of it because how do I know what is beyond my experience? If I don’t feel complete, I ask for clarity. My asking is directed at the Holy Spirit, or to say it differently, to my Higher Self.
I know that all understanding is available to us, but it is obscured if we are trying to use our thinking mind to access it. I think the difference between what I do and Adyashanti is that he is probably a lot more careful when he questions himself. I am looser about it, doing my best to write from within rather than to write from my thinking mind, but I am not sure I always succeed.
Manual for Teachers
“The mind therefore seeks to make it true out of its intensity of desire to have it for itself.”
What do I want that is so intensely desired that an entire world was imagined to satisfy this desire? It seems that the wish was for a separate self, independent of God and my brothers. So, what do I gain for my efforts? I get to be different and special. I get needs that must be met and I get to decide how to do that, all by myself.
I have been watching TV lately. I acquired an Amazon Fire Stick, which gives me a lot more options for the types of shows I can watch. What I have noticed is that I like mysteries. I like them in my books as well. I like to unravel or even watch the mystery unravel.
It occurs to me that this mirrors part of the appeal of the world we made. It is filled with mysteries I get to unravel, some as simple as deciding on the brand of toothpaste is best and as urgent as deciding how to deal with a serious problem. In fact, the world presents me with an unending stream of problems for me to solve.
Sometimes I am the hero and sometimes I am the failure. But it is always me, alone, independently making decisions. I have treasured that independence, that separate, special self.
What I have discovered is that it is all a farce. I have never been separate and never been independent. There is no world in which I play out this fantasy. There is only an imagined world seeming to appear in the gap I pretend exists between all things. And even that was dreamed up long ago and is only an ancient memory.
This world of separation was a thought in the mind that existed hardly an instant. I pretend to bring it to life by remembering it and I fool myself into believing I am living in it, all so that I can act as if I am a separate self, making plans and deciding on my own and making things happen. What a goof I am. I used to think this was my super power. Now I think my superpower is my ability to awaken from this soured dream of separation and to live from this awakened state, to live a life of gratitude and happiness.
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The only way I will ever be perfectly happy and perfectly peaceful is if I unite my will with God’s Will. The way I accomplish this is to notice what I want instead of God’s Will and then ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, that is to accept the Atonement for that error in thinking. This is the Holy Spirit’s job, and only what I learn from Him will release my will.
When the Atonement has been accomplished there will be no experience except joy and peace. The only thing that blocks this is the wish for some other experience. What experience could I want that is more important to me than uninterrupted peace and perfect joy? The perplexity that I feel when I think about that occurs because I am confused about what makes me happy.
Here are ideas that used to block me. I would think that if I were thinner and never had to worry about how what I eat affects my body, then I would be happy. I used to think I needed the experience of being loved and respected by my children. Being loved and respected is not the problem. Believing that this is an experience I must have to be happy is the problem.
I used to believe I had to have money and good health in order to be happy. As it turns out, neither is important to my happiness. I prefer to have both, but I can be happy regardless. I used to think my kids had to be ok for me to be happy. I discovered that I can be happy for their challenges just as I am happy for their successes. I can be happy that I am part of their story even when it is a challenging story. I can be happy for the miracle the challenge offers.
What I discovered is that the belief I needed certain things in the world to happen, and that I could somehow accomplish these things on my own, are the very things that were blocking my joy and happiness. These beliefs represent my willfulness, my belief that I want the experience of a personal will rather than that I share the Will of God.
I don’t know what I need or how to get it. The Holy Spirit does know and will teach me if I ask, and if I let go of the belief I already know the answer.
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