Many people believe we are here to learn lessons and grow spiritually. The truth is that we have nothing to learn whatsoever. We don’t have to do anything to become a better or more spiritual person. We are already the best we can be. The only choice is whether or not to become conscious about it. If we choose, we can wake up to ourselves and experience the ultimate experience, the most celestial and godly experience of all: to remember and reconnect with who we really are.
The following story illustrates this.
A farmer’s boy was hiking up in the mountains and discovered an eagle’s nest with an egg in it. He took the egg back with him to the farm and put it in with the chicken eggs. When the eagle hatched, it thought it was a chicken. The eagle grew up and behaved like a chicken, eating worms and insects and clucking. Just like the other chickens, it would fly only a few feet into the air. The eagle lived all its life as a chicken, and grew to a very old age. One day it looked up and saw a beautiful bird circling above the farm. This bird was using the wind to glide along gracefully. The eagle was in complete awe of such magnificence. ‘What kind of bird is that?’ it asked. A nearby chicken answered, ‘That is the king of all birds: an eagle. An eagle belongs to the sky like chickens belong to the earth.’ The eagle died as a chicken because that was its perception of what it was.
If we don’t become aware of our magnificence, we will always behave like the eagle who believed it was a chicken. Actually, most people prefer to be chickens; the reason is that, for most, that is comfortable. Waking up from this illusion is not pleasurable. It means we have to give up many of our limiting beliefs. It means that we have to act and be as we truly are.
The sad truth is that most people don’t really want to become aware and experience their magnificence. The first step we need to make is to realize we are in denial and to become honest with ourselves. We have been in denial for so long that what we have appears real; we start to believe our own illusions. We have learned to be happy in relation to what we have, not what we are. When we don’t have what we want, we are unhappy and we deny our eternal being, who is unconditionally happy. We don’t want to give up getting something for our efforts. We want to see our desires met. The biggest challenge to becoming aware is being willing to open up to a new realm, to let go of the past.
Are you ready to let go of all your old beliefs? How much of the truth can you handle? Most of us are afraid of letting go of what we know, of living on the edge of the unknown, of exchanging our illusions for reality.
The reality is: there is no past and there is no future. There is only now. The past is gone and the future is a mystery. Your now is a present that you give yourself. Can you see the beauty in the now? Can you be grateful for all that you are, and what you have created? Can you stop judging what is good or what would be best and just indulge in the experience that your soul is having right now? Can you heal whatever needs to be healed? Enjoy what there is to enjoy, and speak of what wants to be spoken through you?
Ponder these questions, because then you will grasp who you are and why you are here: to have an experience, to be in the experience. Don’t worry about meaning; meaning will come later when the experience ends and becomes the experiment that you came to know in this dimension.
Actually the past and the future are right now. Many people strive after what they don’t have. What about focusing on what you have created now, so you understand how you created it? By becoming an observer without judgement we can transform ourselves. To become enlightened means to become aware. First you observe what is happening in your life; you realize that you have created these scenarios yourself. So, in order to create a certain situation, you had to think certain thoughts – and once you realize this, you move on to the awareness of your thoughts. Then you realize that someone is having these thoughts, and that someone is you.
The spiritual masters tell us that the prime question in life is: ‘Who am I? What is this entity I call “I”?’ We can understand everything about computers, how to cook food, how to do many things, but if we do not know who the ‘I’ is, we are still unconscious, not knowing what is really going on in the world.
The first step to rouse yourself from unconsciousness is to realize that you want to wake up. Do you understand this? The question is: who is doing the understanding of this? To look at the ‘I’ and become an observer; this will make you discover that you are not free, you are a slave of past conditioning, beliefs that do not serve you, fears you borrowed from your parents, family and teachers. You have become a product of your past experiences and programming.
Free will is a farce if you do not wake up. You are stuck in patterns of what you believe is right or wrong. You are so stuck that you cannot see that everyone else is stuck as well. Everybody is defending their own turf. We make our lives a misery and, like everyone else, believe that it’s other people who make us miserable! The truth is that nobody can make you miserable if you are truly awake.
There is no one to blame for anything; everything is going according to ‘the plan’. Who made this Divine plan? You did! You are the genius behind this plan; there is no one else to blame, and you’ve been clever at creating a plan that has challenged you since the time you arrived in the dream state we call life. Congratulations, you are smarter than Einstein. Now you only have to remember: what was the plan?
Many people ask me, ‘Why are we here?’ My answer is the biggest paradox of all: ‘We are here to find out why we are here!’ Our goal is to remember our purpose, to analyze what has happened and find ways to discover who we really are.
It is painful to realize we have got sidetracked and now believe that certain things are true which are not. It is painful to emerge from unconsciousness and realize that you have been living an illusion.
Who is the person reading this sentence? Who is the reader? Who is the thinker? Who is the observer? Can the observer get to know himself? To understand and define the ‘I’, we need to know first what it is not. God (or whatever you call the spiritual source) is the biggest observer of all. God is the ‘I’ of all there is, all there was and all there ever will be. My ‘I’ is part of the godly ‘I’. ‘I’ am a part of the total universal manifestation. God is universal love, so ‘I’ must be part of universal love.
What am ‘I’ not? ‘I’ am not my thoughts. Although I may have many thoughts – according to some scientists 60,000 of them a day – I am not my thoughts. I do recycle many of my thoughts, up to 90 per cent or more. I keep thinking, but I am not my thoughts.
I asked myself the question, ‘Am I somebody?’ The reality is that I use this body to experience certain sensations (feelings) that I can only experience when I lower my vibrational speed. The body is my ‘spacesuit’, created to explore slower vibrational energy. I slow myself down and limit myself by confining myself to this body. Another paradox is that birth (putting on this spacesuit) was a serious limitation of my being. By becoming human, ‘I’ died to be born. Life is a limited experience. Why would I want that? In one of my workshops, participants walk around for a day blindfolded. For most people this is a very scary experience. They need to rely on others and their other senses. Almost everyone discovers new things about themselves that can change their lives. They discover things they would not have discovered if they were not limited by the loss of sight. The same thing happens when the ‘I’ limits itself by incarnating. It will discover new aspects of itself that are almost impossible to know when there are no limitations.
So, ‘I’ am not my body. I am an entity that inhabits and controls this body. Our bodies change constantly; the only constant is the ‘I’.
I am not my beliefs; beliefs can change. I am not my work. Some people say: ‘I am a lawyer/doctor/clerk.’ That is not true; you cannot just be a lawyer, doctor or clerk. Actually, these are limitations of who you are. A great deal of people box themselves in and become their own limitations. We create labels for our limitations, and then identify with those labels. Same with emotions: ‘I am angry, I am sad.’ That is a faulty use of language; the correct way to say this is, ‘I feel this sensation inside of me that I have labelled anger (or sadness, or fear).’ The ‘I’ is none of these boxes or labels. The ‘I’ is infinitely bigger than that. I-dentification with labels is what creates suffering and pain. The ‘I’ cannot suffer. When you step out of the suffering you observe that it’s not the ‘I’ that is suffering. ‘I’ is I-nfinite, I-mmortal and is not I-dentifying with our earthly desires, labels, wants and needs. It’s these desires, wants and needs that are the illusion we buy into and feel that we need to feel ‘well’.
All suffering eventually comes from desire. Desire comes from our memory (karma); it is only when we believe that we need things that we feel unfulfilled and get out of the state of ‘being’ and into acting to get what we desire.
Most people believe that if they can have what they do not have, they will be more happy, secure, loved or peaceful. So they start taking ‘action’ to get what they want, and in the meantime they are not ‘being’. Many people have spent their lives pursuing what they don’t have, and never being what they truly want to be. Just look around you: are most of the people you know doing things to get what they don’t have so they can achieve some kind of desired state? What about you? Here is how it is for most of us: Desire → Action → Desired state.
The paradox is that we can be any way we want, once we understand that it is a choice.
If you want to be happy, start being happy right now; let go of your misery and suffering and immediately choose to be happy, no matter what. When you are in this state and are doing things from this attitude, you will attract more things that make you happy and you will have all you desire.
When we awaken from unconsciousness, we will realize that everything that has happened in our lives has been perfect for us. We have conspired with thousands, maybe millions if not billions, of other souls to create exactly the perfect circumstances to get where we are now and to read this book. One of the biggest breakthroughs in my life was when I quit worrying about what other people thought of me. I was really free to do what I felt best for me. You become free only when you stop needing approval from external sources. So, to reach the third level of happiness we need to realize that happiness is a choice, not a result or outcome. The key to getting all you want is to start feeling like you already have what you want.
In other words: start living the fantasy first with all your senses: visualize it, allow the feeling as if it were as real as real can get, feel the sensation of being and having every day, so your brain will be inundated with pleasure hormones and will form the synapses that create a magnetic force to attract what you dream of with grace, ease and joy.
By deciding how to feel, you create the conditions that are best for you. The process of creation starts with engaging all your senses and feeling it in your body; you then create a radiance that will set in motion the cosmic laws of manifestation that will attract what you want. This is always true.
So, here comes the next paradox: if you do not get what you want or if you get what you don’t want, it must mean that a part of you wants what you have got. In other words: your conscious and unconscious are not congruent. By uniting the body, mind and spirit in experiencing in advance what you want in full colour, full of feeling and full of detail, you are literally shaping it and becoming it (it’s your virtual reality).
When you add some ‘spiritual spice’ to this recipe, you are creating magic. The ‘spiritual spice’ is: giving others what you desire most, or helping others get what they want. The other spiritual ingredient is to do it from your heart, so that you genuinely want others to be as happy as you. The last and most important ingredient is that, once you shape this in your mind, you can enjoy it without becoming attached to it. What you already are, you are creating effortlessly. By being it, you can shape it and manifest it, easily and without effort. The universe becomes your helper. It will help you to get more of what you already have. So, if you are experiencing misery – that will lead to more misery. By helping others, by giving them what you have in abundance, more will come to you. You will become a magnet for what you are experiencing. Everything in your life so far was created and attracted by you; you have shaped it. All of it has had a purpose; it was part of your beliefs, healing or experiences.
If you want to change what you feel, start with feeling what you want and you will shape your destiny accordingly. Here is your choice now: do you want to create consciously or unconsciously? Creating unconsciously means letting your old programming take over; wouldn’t you rather be the conscious creator of your destiny? You can be unconscious or you can be fully awake. The choice is yours. Are you one of the many or apart from the many? If you realize that everything is interconnected, and you understand that what you give to others is the same as what you give to yourself (and if you can truly enjoy the art of giving), then you are receiving twofold.
This comes when we understand that we are part of the one that consists of all. Awake is the consciousness to be aware of being part of God, the Creator of all. Your thoughts create everything, so when we learn how to control our thoughts we can make them work for us.
Everything that has ever happened in your life is the manifestation of your innermost desires, choices, ideas and concepts of who you are or choose to be. In ‘being’ you reveal who you think you are. By changing your concept of who you are, you change your ‘being’. You are no longer the victim of your uncontrolled thoughts or the collective conspiracy that uses you as part of your karma. You can become the creator and make the collective consciousness your helpmate. On a large scale we all grow together; the more people we wake from unconsciousness, the more we will start giving freely to each other, the more we will shape what we all want – and that is to find happiness in being whole and complete.
Think back to the three levels of consciousness discussed in the Introduction to this book. We can see them now as the three levels of creation:
Level 1: your subconscious, uncontrolled thoughts, which create your reality.
Level 2: the collective consciousness, which, if you choose, can create your reality.
Level 3: your creative consciousness, which creates your reality in partnership with the collective consciousness.
And here is how you perceive these levels:
Level 1: you try to gain control over what you have no control over. Things happen to you, which you put down to good luck or bad luck.
Level 2: you try to adapt to what you have no control over. You become responsible for how you react to circumstances.
Level 3: you become aware of the cosmic laws of manifestation and let the collective conspiracy work for you. ‘You shape it until you become it.’ The ‘it’ here is the one that consists of the many. You are a divine being and start to experience the larger, unified oneness and become part of this reality by choosing to stop creating your own individual reality. Now you are part of the effect of your choices. That is wisdom!
One illusion many of us create is that others can make us feel a certain way. That is not true and not acceptable. Any time you feel negativity toward anyone, you are reliving part of your unresolved or suppressed emotions. The reality is that you have created this situation so you can heal a part of yourself. As such, you are the one in need of healing. Negative feelings create attachment, and attachment means you are not able to let go. If you cannot let go, you remain unconscious and unaware.
When we become dependent emotionally on others, we become enslaved by them. We are then in need of others’ approval to be happy. This becomes a drug. We are not lonely due to lack of company; we are lonely because we are dependent on others to feel happy. The only reason you may not be perfectly happy right now is because you are focusing on what you don’t have in your life right now. Your happiness is conditional. When you are in fear or worry or have any other emotion that is not released, it is because you believe something has been done to you.
These are some of the many things to which we devote our awareness, and they are without merit. We expend energy on areas that do not need our attention. We must learn to control these learned reflexes and focus our awareness on those things that do bring us harmony, peace, love and happiness. When we put negative thoughts or feelings in our mind, we are feeding it depleting and limiting stuff. This saps our life-force. We need to learn how to get control of our thoughts.
It is simple: if we focus on happy thoughts, we produce happiness in our mind. If our minds are happy, our cells are happy. If our cells are happy, we start regenerating and we get more vitality. When we focus on the sadness in our lives, we will be sad. Focus on enjoying life, on gratitude and God’s love. These will erase negative emotions and allow us to have more life-force, more vitality and thus be caring, patient and more accepting of others. Spending time on the negative unresolved issues of our lives deprives us from being in the present. The ‘present’ is a present, a gift to ourselves. We have to live in the now. The most important moment in your life is right now. Start to feel happy and joyful right now. If you stop focusing on what you don’t have, you will start experiencing the happiness of being given the present of now. Happiness comes from being free to choose, and being free makes you joyful and in balance. Ignorance causes fear. Not being aware of your incredible potential causes you to be afraid.
So there are only two choices in life: love or ignorance. Either you understand this paradox or you don’t. If you do not bring it into your life, you will stay fearful. How can you be fearful once you know you cannot die? Dying is actually liberation from all earthly worries. You are an immortal, infinite spirit having a limited human experience. You are not limited to your five senses. Your spirit is an observer; Deepak Chopra calls this the silent witness which never changes. It cannot change because it is part of the One Source most of us call God. The soul is the personal part of us that contains our intellect, memories, personality and the values of our higher consciousness. Your soul is the sum total of all your past feelings. Your soul can change and be cleansed of unresolved issues. Your spirit cannot die and your soul goes with it, with all its memories and unfinished business intact. Our physical bodies we can nourish with food, water and relaxation. Our soul and spirit are nurtured with love and compassion. These heal the soul and are the way to experiencing our ultimate being. Why should we fear death?
Understanding the paradox of death can liberate us from the biggest fear we have. When we are born, our spirit accepts the limitations of being human. When we die, we are liberated and experience ultimate freedom and bathe in the light of the Source of all life. We are returning to our spiritual home. By accepting this truth in our lives, we can stop making hell out of being alive, and stop fearing our transition to the place where we are free of all limitations. We came to this world to experience the limitations of matter and feel things like thirst and physical pleasures such as eating and sex. We can also experience things that are not common in the spirit world, such as anger, fear, hostility and sadness. As spirits we know only love. To define what love really is, we need to know what it is not. It is not greed, selfishness, cruelty, fear, worry, frustration and jealousy. Now we get to experience what love is not, so we can understand the true essence of the only source of life.
And so we come to understand that God does not punish us and that through the laws of karma we can cleanse the past and become our own healing force. So if there is something to learn here on Earth, it is that we need to follow our pure instincts. Our hearts, once calibrated to universal love, will guide us on how to nurture our souls. Having fear, anger or other emotions that consume you from within is not what you want. These feelings block your experience of feeling love, happiness and peace. By not letting negative emotions control you, you can release the hurt of the past.
You should use any encounter to reflect on where you are in your progress. By being aware of what goes on in your heart and not allowing negative emotions to blemish your soul, you can enjoy love at its purest, without fear. Emotions themselves are not negative or positive, though; it is their effect on us that counts. When people, despite our love and compassion, choose to go on with their actions, we can remove ourselves from their lives. We can love them from a distance where they have less effect on us. As we get healed and get stronger, fewer and fewer people can have a negative effect on our emotional state.
Your life is the result of your unconscious desire. If you want something consciously, but you subconsciously believe you cannot have it, you will have what you consciously do not desire. Everything that happens on the outside comes from what happens within. The outside world is the reflection of your inside world. What you are not aware of within you becomes aware outside of you. What you are aware of, you can control; what you are not aware of will control you. When you are suffering it means you are out of touch with your divinity. When you awaken, you will understand the collective conspiracy. The driving force of Level 1 is to keep society in a coma. What is proclaimed ‘normal’ is false, meant to keep everyone wanting what they don’t have. The main intention on this competitive level is to make a profit – but in the end we all lose. The planet is deteriorating because of our ignorance. We have become sheep who believe that if we can get more and more we’ll be lions. The reality is that the more we buy into this illusion, the more we become unhappy and feel inadequate. We start believing we are failures because we are not as happy or beautiful as the people in magazines or on TV. Our role models are the rich and famous and those who have succeeded at Level 1, such as actors, athletes, politicians and musicians. Most of these people are, in fact, miserable.
When we leave our body and are reborn in the spiritual realm, no one will ask us about our bank account or what car we drove. Nobody is interested in your test scores or how expensive your house was. What will be asked is whether you have succeeded in increasing your capacity to love and show compassion. If we have been successful in supporting those who were less lucky than us, how much would we have contributed to helping the cause of consciousness? So being rich and famous has nothing to do with being a success in life. When you awaken, you realize that it doesn’t matter what others think of you. You realize that there is no need to worry about anything. The people who really make it are seldom front-page news; they are the silent ones. They don’t pursue things that are worthless for their spiritual cause. They don’t feel affected by the criticism of others nor their flattery or praise. It is the ego that fears there is not enough and needs external approval. No one can make you happy, because real happiness cannot be created outside of you. Happiness is your birthright and cannot be acquired.
The paradoxical answer to ‘How can I be happy?’ is that you have to let go of your false evidences and illusions. You are looking in the wrong direction. To be happy, you have to let go of the False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR). When you let go of the illusions that cause fear, greed, ambition and craving more and more, you can enjoy your birthright.
When you buy an expensive car, you feel happy and thus have the evidence that happiness comes from stuff outside of you. You associate possessions with happiness. Sooner or later, however, you will discover that this is false evidence, because the ego will have new cravings, new fears, and so you have to buy something else to be happy. We have to unlearn all the hogwash we have been conditioned to believe. When you feel bad, that’s because you have unresolved issues inside you. It’s not your spouse, boss or others who are to blame. It is you!
Your first action is to stop blaming other people or outside circumstances for your suffering. You have to go inside to find the negative feelings. Remember, outside is the reflection of inside. Do not identify with these feelings, just observe them. You have to change; no one else has to change.
The most important paradox is that what we see is just an illusion. When someone rejects you or treats you badly, they are reacting to what they perceive you are. They are responding to an illusion created by their past unresolved emotions. They respond to the image which they project on you, based on their past. What they see is distorted by what they don’t remember and do not know. So, the next time you feel rejected, remember that you can only feel rejected if you don’t understand the workings of the minds of others. When you suffer, this points you to an unresolved part of yourself.
We have to learn to go through life without expectations. We can have preferences and opinions, but we cannot depend on them for happiness. We cannot judge others by what we see; we cannot judge at all, we can only observe. We know that we cannot trust our perceptions because these are coloured by the emotions we never have expressed or resolved. Reality is beyond knowing. We need to be able to observe what is going on within us and outside of us.
When we drop our opinions and judgements, we stop fighting over right and wrong. Spirituality is nothing less than awareness: the awareness that we need nothing and no one to be happy and the awareness that when we are not happy we are living in the past and not in the eternal now. If you do something you do not feel good about, this means you did it in an unconscious state. Once you open your eyes, you understand that freedom comes from living in your heart. When you seek the way of your heart, you lose your craving for external approval and success. Whatever you want for yourself, give it freely to others. The subconscious mind will believe you have abundance and create more of it. God bases your value in the future, not in the past. You can only be where you are right now, because now is the future and the past combined.
Just remember that life is about change. The paradox is that you cannot change anything because you are already everything. The only thing you can do is let go of those things that no longer serve you because you see through the illusion. Your concepts and ideas define who you are. Letting go of old concepts and beliefs redefines you. This accelerates your growth and spiritual evolution.
The three levels of consciousness amount to the following:
Level 1: your reality is created by your subconscious uncontrolled thoughts.
Level 2: you create your reality consciously by choice.
Level 3: you co-create your reality by serving the collective consciousness and letting it work for you.
When you reach Level 3, you submit to the universe and you become totally aware. You understand what universal love is. You understand that we are all related and that what you give to others, you give to yourself. You will be part of the One that is the Many, and not feel separate anymore.
There never was a journey to begin with; you have always been where you should be. The now is not a place to which you can travel. You can focus on the past, future or fantasy and not be aware of the now; this is Level 1 consciousness. Your happiness will be in the past, future or your fantasy. All possibilities come from the now; you have only to decide which possibility you want to embrace. Your purpose is to experience yourself. The journey we undertake is to stay in the eternal moment, the now. It’s all too easy to get distracted and lose our focus. It’s just like meditation. Meditation is a tool to help us learn to stay awake, to stay focused on the now. Then we get in touch with ourselves. The point and purpose of staying in the now is to choose who you really are and who you want to be.
We have nothing to learn; we already know. Our purpose is to remember that we already know.
You create the illusion we call life; do not become mesmerized by your own creation. Stay the observer and, if there are things you do not like, know that a part of you created them. Heal that part and create something you like.
To do this, to create something you like, you first have to accept what you don’t like. You have to accept all of your creations. Talk to that part, discover its motivation and give it what it wants; that’s acceptance without judgement. Judgement means rejecting that part of you. Do not deny or resist this part; if you do, it will only become rebellious and create more of what you don’t like.
By understanding this, you can grasp the concept that silence is the place where the soul will give you the answer. Daily meditation is one way to get in touch with your essence. In this way you will discover more of who you are.
One is the source of All. The whole universe consists of one vibration which vibrates at different speeds, creating the illusion of the many. You cannot separate yourself from the Source. When you feel separated you have become brainwashed by your own illusion. You are not aware, you are in a coma. There is nothing to lose because there is a universal law that says that nothing can be lost; all there is will be all that ever is. What you give away you give to yourself because you are part of the whole. So, everything you do, you ultimately do for yourself. When another person makes you feel bad, it is because you make yourself feel bad. What is bad for another is also bad for you. All you are seeking in this world is already inside of you. Your heart is the temple where eternal love resides.
In Vedantic philosophy there is a saying: ‘The joy of the world is like a bone to a dog.’ The dog finds a bone and starts to gnaw on it. While he is gnawing on the bone, he gets splinters in his gums and they start to bleed. The dog tastes the blood and thinks, This bone is delicious! The more he gnaws on the bone, the more his gums bleed. The more blood he tastes, the more excited and happy he becomes.
This is an ongoing circle of self-realization. Just like the dog, we don’t realize that what makes us happy comes from within. We use the outside world to access a feeling inside of us. That is why we have to find our own source within. To experience true happiness we have to focus our awareness on the inside. The paradox is that we have learned to look outside of ourselves for answers, while all the time they are within us.
The greatest paradox of all is that you can only start living when you are not afraid to die. When you are ready to die, you start living. When you can live each moment as if it were your last, you have truly grasped the meaning of life. There is no routine anymore; everything reveals its beauty, everyone you see gives you joy, because you appreciate that this may be the last time you see them. You treat everyone with love and you forgive easily because you do not want to have any karmic debt. You realize that there is no time for negativity because that takes you away from enjoying the moment. Life is not about safety; it’s a gamble and it’s risky. Most people do not truly live because they seek security; people believe that living is about staying alive. It’s the opposite: living is a dance with death. It’s a deadly tango. Once you let go of the fear, you will enjoy the fluidity, the music, the movement and the rest of life. By accepting death as a friend rather than an enemy, you can focus on being alive and living fearlessly. Fear eats life energy and makes you a zombie, the living dead. Life is about letting go of your attachments and addictions, the need for approval or appreciation. You no longer depend on others to make you happy or miserable. It’s about being, so take on activities that you can engage with your whole being. Love what you do and do what you love. Most people suffer not from the lack of love but from lack of awareness. We let ourselves down. We create deadlines, make demands on ourselves. Start to nurture your soul more, create time to get to know yourself: meditation, nature, music, Qigong, good books, good company. Stop feeding your interest in fame, power, wealth and attention. Otherwise you will become addicted to these sources outside of you.
Journal your thoughts on the paradoxes mentioned so far, reading them again and making notes.
Step 1: be aware there is only now. When you are connected in the now, you feel love, harmony and peace, and you are optimistic. Any time you feel otherwise – miserable, angry, fearful – you are not connected to the Source. Go to Step 2.
Step 2: do not I-dentify, become an observer of the negativity. Realize it is inside of you and that the situation you’ve created is a chance for healing and reconnecting to the Source. As long as you think it’s outside of you, you will leave the present. Accept the feeling and wonder at its sensations. You are experiencing the feeling, but you are not I-dentifying with it.
Step 3: accept and love yourself with the feeling and just let it be. After a short while it will fade away. Just like rain, it will stop and the sun will shine again.
These are three steps to emotional healing; we can access these with the approach we’ll talk more about in the next chapters. But this is where it starts. We have to acknowledge that we are the creator of these feelings and that we are able to change them. Once we understand how this works, we can stay connected to the Source and experience love in all circumstances.
There will be many times when you will fail to follow these simple steps. Do not be too hard on yourself. Not many babies learn to walk gracefully in just a couple of weeks. This is a process that takes time to master. It’s one of our priorities in life to master this process. Life only matters when you become good at it, when you can look death in the eye and smile. If you can do that, you can face any negativity. Everything else is easy compared to overcoming the fear of death. Be aware that most people can say intellectually they have no fears, but few can say it from their heart. That’s the next step we will be working on: to become what we know.
Read the following summary at least 10 times to let all the information really sink in. There is so much in this chapter that goes against normal ideas and concepts that it will take repetition to change the limiting concepts you have in your mind.
Write down your insights and which paradox you will focus on during the coming week, then change to another paradox until you have worked through them all.