The Thought Paradox

Okay. On the one hand I say your thoughts create (or at least effect) your reality. But then, on the other, I say that thoughts are the cause of all suffering. How can these two different points of view be reconciled? Are they simply different steps? Do you first need to control your thoughts, realign them so to speak, before you can do away with them? That doesn’t seem right.

I think it’s easier to understand this way; Thoughts are not the cause of suffering. It is the belief that our thoughts are true which causes suffering. In addition, while it may seem that some thoughts can make us feel “good.” In truth, those thoughts are not the cause of the good feeling. Instead, they simply help remove the blocks we have created to the awareness of our innate “good” feeling, our joy.

So the “good” thought is the one that releases our joy. The “bad” thought--erroneous, unnecessary, judgmental, worry causing, doubt, anger, hate filled thoughts--are the ones that buttress the blocks to inhibit our natural state. So any thought which seems to make you feel badly should be questioned. Where does it come from?

But how do you know which thoughts are valid (or natural) and which are in error? You can’t. They must all be questioned. Let’s look at an example. Perhaps you have a daughter going to a friend’s house after school for a sleep-over. Your daughter doesn’t call to let you know she arrived. Yet the parent’s haven't called either to say she hasn’t arrived. The thought comes into your head: I should call to see that she made it there okay. Then four things can happen.

1) You call and find out. 2) You call because you are worried if you don’t something “bad” might happen. 3) You don’t call and worry. 4) You don’t call and don’t worry.

If you call simply because it comes into your head and you do it--like feeling thirsty and getting a glass of water. Then bravo. You have acted without interference from thought! However, if you called because you were worried your daughter might come to harm, or if you were checking up on her because you didn’t trust her, then you were allowing your thoughts to control your actions. You were buying into the collective consciousness of doubt and fear. You were saying that your daughter could come to harm. You were denying the truth of existence and buying into the illusion of ego consciousness. Had you killed your daughter with your bare hands would have been no different than believing that one thought... 

Then again, you might not call because you don’t want to bother the other girl’s parents, or because you don’t want to embarrass your child, or because you just feel awkward; in that case, your not-calling is in error. You have projected your own fears and foibles onto people you know nothing about. Sure, we’re all connected, and so they are an extension of yourself, but that doesn’t mean they are an extension of your  personality, it means they are extensions of your soul.

You see where this is heading. It’s not what you do, it’s how (or why) you do it. But just to complete the example:

If you don’t call and spend your time worrying if she is okay, what have you done? You have wasted the Now by speculating on the future. But even more than that, you have denied the truth of her--and your--existence. You have bought into the collective fear-based consciousness that demands constant vigilance over the ever present (illusory) danger of death.

What if you don’t call and don’t worry? Are you callous? Uncaring? A bad parent?

Once again, it depends on the motivation. If you don’t call and don’t worry because you’re out partying with your friends and have forgotten all about your daughter, then yes, it’s fair to say that you’re not the best parent. But if you don’t call and don’t worry because you know that nothing “bad” can ever truly happen (but you are also willing to accept whatever does seem to happen, even up to the point of your daughter’s possible kidnapping) then bravo once again. You have learned to act and be in harmony with God’s will.

This is not to say you should not be prudent. It simply suggests that when you live knowing the truth of existence--that we are spiritual beings having a temporary physical--and therefore implicitly illusory--experience, there is no room and no need for fear . . . ever. Its like playing a video game. You may jump into the hot lava every now an then just to see what happens to the character--maybe it’s funny to see the way it screams and turns inside out--but you get more enjoyment by staying alive, moving on, finding your way through the maze, defeating the bosses, and achieving the final goal. 

But it’s no big deal if you fail, you will just try again. You have unlimited lives to try. You have unlimited lifetimes to get it right!

Awakening through Sound

Last night at 6:30 was the annular solar eclipse of the sun. It was also the start time for a New Moon Crystal Bowl Ceremony led by Dominic Moore at the studio.

I touched true being; the Nothingness of Source. I heard absolute silence. I moved in and through the music as I made it, as I heard it, as I was it. The purity of the tones along with the group toning we did affected me much more powerfully that anything else had ever done in my earthly experience. 

I experienced reality from the perspective of Oneness at the same time as I experienced it through the veil of my own illusion. My two closest projections, Chloë and Ava, were in the studio with me. At one point Ava came and lay on my lap. Fidgeting a bit, but in truth, just wanting to be part of the ceremony.

She lay and squirmed . . . and then she began to scratch on the carpet. I did the same and we created an amazing rhythmic accompaniment to the sounds Dominic was making in the center of the room! Then Ava and I played bass drum and gong and crystal bowl. Intense.

And even as I sometimes corrected Ava, for the most part I agreed with her sounds and presence. Still, I didn’t shy away from stopping her when I felt it was right. There was no frustration or worry, though. That was the key. There were many paying customers, eight or nine, but I didn’t let that effect me. Ava was as much a part of that opening experience as was Chloë who was working quietly on her computer in the back room.

I went inside a tone at one point!

I experienced the stopping of time. I felt the enormous power of the earth; sensed the filtered rays of the sun shining down on me through the walls of the studio. I was charged. I am charged. I have been changed drastically, and yet I am still exactly the same. I came home to find cat poo in the bedroom. I cleaned it up.

Chop wood, carry water.

How can this world be an illusion?

There are two schools of thought which fight against the recognition of the illusion, or the Maya as it is called in Hinduism. The first most common complaint is that shit happens and we feel it. How can it be an illusion? 

The second far less common but perhaps even stronger complaint is that God is everywhere, therefore nowhere can be apart from God, therefore nowhere can be untrue--so none of this can be illusion.

But consider that God is eternal and infinite. If we accept that, and if we accept that we are of God, expressions of the Oneness that we call God, then how can we ever die? How can anything ever die?

It can't. Not if we know we are of God. So then, what is happening all around us? How is the universe expanding and slowly dying? How can a person die, or a sun, or a galaxy? 

They couldn't, of course, if they were real. So then . . . they must not be real. The illusion of death is all part of our projection of reality. 

But what's the point of knowing that?

The point is that knowing the world is an illusion allows us to forgive and to accept everything we seem to experience in it. We no longer fight, and by not fighting, we slowly wear down duality toward oneness. By not fighting, we no longer create good and evil and so we return to eden, to paradise, to the state before man tasted the forbidden fruit and "knew of good and evil."

Nothing real can be threatened

Nothing unreal exists.

This (from A Course in Miracles) just means that what we are, God, can not be anything but God. So death, suffering, disease, lack, worry, competition, decay . . . life. None of these are real. What is real is our nature as Spirit. When we understand that we can be at peace.

There is a way that all things can seem illusory and yet be wonderful at the same time. You think this world is a dream--and you are correct--but that does not mean the world is 100% error. It is your perception of the world as all there is which causes it to become 100% error. 

The first foot set on the path toward atonement leads you into the grace of the Holy Spirit. There His gentle guidance accelerates your step, and His love transmogrifies the dream. When you see the world as wondrous, joyful, full of love and light, then you are seeing the corrected version of the world. In the corrected version, all things are possible, because you know it is only a construct, and you know it is an amicable construct. The Holy Spirit allows your way in the world to be soft. Be easy, life is not meant to be so serious.