EXAMPLE, YOUR ONLY TOOL

 

Example is the only teaching tool you have.

Would you not use it?

 

Sculpted native American figure, seated, dressed in cloak and feather, closed eyes, head downturned.

Who do you wish to help?

 

You cannot manipulate, arrange, or cause them to come to whatever you would have them come to.  You cannot make them go back to their partners, or lose their fears, or stop fighting, or choose happiness, or – in short –  put themselves into God’s hands. None of this can you do.

 

Alabaster statue of an angel at rest, chin in hand, in a garden

 

Whenever you arrange something which it is not your business to arrange, plans go awry. Nothing is used the way you intended, and the help you give serves only to magnify a stale situation.

People don’t change because you see the changes they should make.

Stop

Stop trying to control people in any way. To be in the “should” business is to set up vibrations against the very outcomes you want. It’s a waste of time; no one wins. People will do what people will do.  Do not get attached to any of it.

 

Statue of two dancing figures, arms entwined, eyes locked

 

The only tool I have to do good is my example. If I want them to finish what they start, then let me finish what I start. Do I want them to speak their part clearly, without rancor? Then let me speak my part clearly, without rancor.

If I would see them happy, let me model happiness. Let me be content wherever I am, led to activities that give me joy, open to good that could be done by me.

If I would see them harmonious in all their relationships, then let me model that also. Let me forgive all people for whatever I think they have done to me: there’s a long list. Let me start by forgiving them now. 

 

Above all, peace

 

Head and shoulders of a cherub, set among pine needles, looking down in contemplation

 

Whatever it is that I would see, that I must become. Above all, must I become peace. My breathing must be slow and measured, my brain rhythms deepened, my vibrations longer, fuller, more resonant.

All this can be accomplished by merely thinking of it, picturing it, allowing your mind to have this image for seventeen seconds or more.  Do that now.

When you want a person to be different, ask yourself only: how can I incorporate what I want for this person into my own example?

 

Image of a lighthouse at night, casting light on the stars

Photo by Nathan Jennings on Unsplash

Thus the master is content to serve as an example

and not to impose his will.

He is pointed but does not pierce:

he straightens but does not disrupt;

he illuminates but does not dazzle.

Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching

 

A drawing of Lao Tzu, smiling benignly

 

 

 

 

JUDGMENT MUST END


A desert scene with a long single trunked saguaro in the foreground against scudding clouds in a blue sky.

 

The One who knows everything about a situation, does not judge it.

But you who are bounded in time never can know everything about a situation; you are always being surprised by some new development or piece of information. Knowing this, decide now to eschew judgment: you are not equipped for it.

That you judge at all only betrays that you don’t know everything.

 

Knowing this, do not judge

 

Each judgment is a piece of binary code inserted into your mind. If you designate something as disappointing, the whole world is then divided into two categories, disappointing or not, and everything has to fit into one of these two. The creator of a judgment observes the infinity of creation chopped up into categories. Everywhere you see evidence of your judgment, but nowhere do you see new information.

 

A human clutching forehead with his hands, as if overwhelmed. Overlaid on the image zeroes and ones.

Judgment is limiting

 

If you decide someone is irresponsible, your world arranges itself into categories based on this. You see all people as either responsible or irresponsible, and all acts arrange themselves into one or the other. You observe this arranging because you called it into being. So are you forced to watch and consider examples of irresponsibility, and spend time thinking which are better examples than others. And on and on.

 

Judgment is circular

 

As soon as you, even inwardly, designate someone as irresponsible, or highly strung, or divorced from reality, that person feels it and finds it impossible to act naturally in your presence, as he must always be proving one thing or another. Your judgment stops you from ever knowing this person.

 

Judgment is blind

 

Let me eschew all judgments that I would make with my human mind. Let me no longer tease myself with who is a good parent, who is successful, smart, or hardworking. Let me put behind me all the rankings and gradations of worth that we like to make constantly. Let me lay aside all comparisons, which do no one any good. Enough. There is no end to these games. 

 

The only way to win is not to play

 

Judgment admits that there can be more than one kind of anything, that creation wasn’t already perfect. If it be valid to judge, then it follows that there can be more or less, before and after, better and worse, and every other aspect of a landscape which is constantly shifting, changing shape and appearance, in which one thing is measured in relationship to some other thing, which is itself constantly shifting.

A large dune of red sand with tiny human figures climbing up it, and wind whipping the sand off the top of the duens.

 

Judgment is impossible

 

It is impossible to know objectively of anything. All you can know of a thing is what you think of it, since you created it yourself.

You created the meanings of all your words. “Faith” will have a different meaning to you, with your experiences, beliefs, and mental furniture, than it will to any other being on earth.  “Sophisticated” means something different to everyone who uses this word.  So it is with all the words you use.

 

Your world mirrors and molds itself to you

 

The entire world you live in is your own creation, constantly mirroring and molding itself to you, trying to make itself a perfect fit to your stated wishes, your feeling states, your mental pictures.

Knowing this, if you would still judge, judge for perfection. You do this by giving thanks.  To give thanks for any person, thing, or situation, is to admit that it is already perfect, given to God and therefore touched by God. Be in the feeling state of gratitude, and watch with wonder and joy how your world mirrors and molds itself to you.

Judgment keeps you focused on the imperfect; it is the exact opposite of giving thanks. Refuse to be limited by judgment.

It begins with me

 

A desert path bordered by cactuses, but leading away

 

 

 

RESPONSIBILITY: TIME TO ACCEPT IT

 

A chameleon staring into the camera, balefully

 

Everything I see around me, all is the reflection, the creation, the amplification of me. Or, put another way, all I see is what I created.  I am but Mind.

I must accept that I created all of this before one iota of it can change. If I do not accept that I created it all, then I will be looking to assign blame for those parts of it I don’t like.

 

Worried face of a woman

 

Who do you blame?

 

Seek them out. Your mother, for preferring someone else? Your father, for being an alcoholic, disengaged, whatever else you might think of? Do you blame God, or destiny, or fate for what seems out of your control? My child is bi-polar. Why did the accident happen? Life’s not fair; there’s no level playing field. It’s not what you know, but who you know.

And so on.

 

Statue of a cherub, chin in hand, gazing downwards, slight amusement on its face.

 

As long as I am engaged in assigning blame, so long am I refusing to accept responsibility, and so long can nothing really change in my experience.

 

A set of heavy, rusty anchor chains for a ship

 

That is why it is so important not to pick up blame. Blame is a heavy weight bound to you with iron chains. Once you pick it up, you may never put it down.  You may spend the rest of your time here trying to assign blame, wondering who and what is more to blame for your disappointments, your failures, your fears.

 

 

A hand with pointing index finger, dismissing blame

 

Let us refuse ever to pick up blame again, recognizing it as ego’s weapon to keep us from accepting responsibility for every part of our experience. Let us recognize blame at once, and dismiss it.

To each situation that presents something unwanted, turn and face it fully.  Do not try to escape the unwanted thing, whether it is rejection, or failure, or fear. Stand still inwardly, and feel it fully.

After you have done this, it can never have as much power over you again. You have brought the unwanted to consciousness, and the more often you do this, the more the light of your consciousness will shine it away.

 

A little meditation garden with bright spots of color.

 

When will I realize that what I see all around me is my own creation? When will I be ready to take responsibility for all of it, and stop blaming anything or anyone for even the smallest slight?

 

Stop blaming.  That would mean you had also stopped judging. Blame requires judgment to go before it.

 

Suspend judgment and blame disappears

 

A saguaro cactus highlighted against the setting sun

MAKE IT NOTHING TO YOU

Bag of dollars representing the temptations of this world, what must be made nothing

 

What must be made nothing?

 

No less than the world and everything in it. Everything you have been to taught to desire, such as wealth, objects, power. Make them all nothing. Your personality and all the situations that support it – make them nothing as well.  All these situations were created, sought out, chosen by you, to let your personality be real.  You seek out situations to prove you have certain qualities, good or bad as the case may be; it is not for me to say.  Thus do you use the world around you to create who you think you are.

 

A brown and white owl perfectly camouflaged and hiding in a brown and white tree trunk

 

But this is all wasted effort.  You are not a personality; you are eternal. Your body is no more than a vehicle, or a garment you put on for a time. Your personality is an invention, a chimera. You do not need to create situations to validate yourself. There is nothing for you to create; you have already been created. Perfectly. Forever. No more to do.

 

Perfectly formed apple blossom; nothing needed

 

All approbation that soothes the ego, all praise, rewards, admiration, money and power, make them unimportant to you.  All condemnation, drama and discord, which the ego loves just as much, let these all go as well. You but inhabit your personality as a vehicle, using it to create certain experiences.  You decided on these experiences in advance. Knowing this, now offer up your experiences to the power that can bring them to fruition with good to all.

 

 

 

  Everything you now prize, everything you now desire, everything that frightens you, everything you think you are and everything you try to be, all memories of the past, all ideas of the future, make them all as nothing to you now. Only in this way can you be perfectly recreated, made new.

Everything must go; hold nothing back.

 

No one pours new wine into old wineskins.

Luke 5:37

 

Vineyard in evening sun, nothing more needed

ENLARGE ME: MOST POWERFUL INVOCATION

A bird (New Zealand pukeko) walking into grass and bush, as though on a mission to find its home

 

 

Enlarge me.  That is a powerful invocation. Enlarge me.  You know that this will involve some change, which you all resist.

 

A shredded gray garment lying on the ground

 

What if you were to give up your resistance to change now? What if you were to see it as a shredded, gray old garment you had been clinging to all this time? As if to ward off some impending disaster, you have clung to this wretched garment through pelting storms.

Look at it, tattered and full of holes, thoroughly worthless for whatever purpose you wanted to put it to. It is as useless to you as the helplessness you transferred to it. Why not throw your resistance to change into the wastebasket now?

 

Drawing of a figure discarding trash in a trash can

 

Resistance is only another name for fear, which goes by many names: anxiety, stress, nervousness, unease, disease, imbalance, disorder, on and on it goes. But it is all the same thing in the end: fear. Fear of what?  Can you identify your fears? Half the time you don’t even know.

 

A donkey patiently trudging up a hill

 

The next time you find yourself feeling nervous, unhappy, or stressed, confront yourself.  Ask: fear of what? What am I so afraid of here? Invite it out into the open.  Subject it to the light of your attention. Contemplate this fear.  Thank it for becoming conscious to you, so that you can consciously dismiss it.

 

Drawing of open, outstretched, asking hands

 

Enlarge me. For me to be larger, I would have to transcend this human perspective of being trapped in a body.  I must break out of the prison of the ego, starting now. Let me thwart the ego as often as possible. Let me see through its shallow tricks. Let me be impervious to whatever it offers me. All rewards, punishments, successes, failures, drama, movement and change, all are enticements offered by the ego to keep me stuck in superficialities.

 

Enlarge me

 

View of Lake Taupo, New Zealand, seen through thick foliage.

 

PERSONALITY: RELEASE IT

 

Image of a human form floating helplessly in space

 

Who is the person who can obsess over details for an entire day, oblivious to anything else? Who is that person who wonders what she should be doing? Who wakes up in anxiety? Who feels overwhelmed by life?

 

black and white drawing of a business suit, but with no human form inside it

 

Who is the personality that you inhabit unconsciously, sometimes for days at a time? Could you agree that you pick up and put down this personality, like a suit of clothes, an outfit?

Could you picture yourself taking off your personality? Releasing it.  You will do this at the end of your physical body’s life span anyway; why not do it sooner? All the little angers that you seem to enjoy nursing, so often do you take them out and polish them, could you set these down as stones too irksome to carry?

 

Personality is constructed

 

All things of this world that you covet, thirst after, plan for, position yourself to get, all unneeded possessions, all ego gratifications, promotions, awards, prestige, position, power, all that you believed would make you happy, what has any of this done but kept you questing after it?  You are in its power.

 

Closeup of a spider web

Image by George Rosema on Unsplash

 

What if you discarded all of this as a sticky spider web that you had to pull off, piece by piece?  How much power could mangled, broken bits of a web have?

All the fears you have, a whole horde of them seen and unseen, let them out of their cages now, look on them, just a hungry pack of wild dogs. Let them go now; they’ll run away. Why were you keeping them anyway?

All your personality traits, let them go now, like so many garments dropping into the discard basket.

 

You are not a personality

 

Black and white drawing of a human figure dropping trash into a wastebasket

Image by Gary Chan on Unsplash

Once you have discarded all the fears, worries, and busyness associated with projecting this personality, you will reveal your inner core, and allow it space to stretch out and grow endlessly, a drop of dye in an infinite body of water, joined together, evolving together.

Would you not do this now, rather than later?  Would you not choose?

 Enlarge me