DISAPPEARING TIME

Time is a great source of your unhappiness. You worry about someone not coming back on time, or not graduating on time, or they were late, or early, the baby didn’t walk in time, they weren’t here in time to eat with us. If, to these endless sources of distraction, you say, “There is no time but the perfect time”, or, “Everything happens at the appointed time”, then you shrug off one of the negative effects time was having on you. Time retracts its claws.

When time disappears you are very happy. You already know how this feels. When you are absorbed. When you are painting, playing the piano, planting, imagining, praying, meditating, there is no time but the endless, beloved present. Oh, that we could live there always!

And if we are always present in the present, what time is there? The past and the future, twin Pandora’s boxes containing all our ills, have melted away.

It becomes easier to let go of time when you acknowledge that you don’t know everything. Any situation you may be presently paying attention to, you cannot see everything about it. You do not know anyone’s motives. All you know are the motives and attributes you have ascribed to the people you see in the situation, according to whatever story you are telling of it. Why someone got divorced. Why someone else can’t stop talking. Why they can’t have a baby. Whatever the situation, you are only ever seeing your version of it.

You have all had that experience of being flummoxed by something that happened that you didn’t see coming. How could I have been so wrong? you wonder. How could I not have seen this? You spend much time looking for clues.

You would never have that flummoxed, blindsided feeling if you remembered that you don’t know everything about any situation. That would free you to say, “I never can see everything about a situation, so I’ll give up trying to categorize it. How can I help?”

Much time can be saved

TOTAL: IT MUST BE

What must be total? Everything that you want to exist. Can commitment that is not wholehearted be said to exist? Can love that is not unconditional, be said to be love at all? Is anything less than perfect faith any kind of faith at all?

Only what is total exists

What exists at one time, and not at another time, cannot be said to exist at all. Its seeming existence is only a trick played by time, a temporary distraction. What truly exists is independent of, outside of time.

Anything less than complete truth is not truth at all. If not all your words can be believed, then none can. Truth cannot be diced up. You will recognize it by its totality and lack of any opposite.

What is total and exists independently of time is also perfectly quiet. The truth does not need to announce itself; why should it? It is always there. What constantly announces itself does not really exist. Without your attention, it is nothing.

Take refuge in quiet

ALL EGO MUST BE FORGIVEN

When you answer a question in any way but what occurs to you in the moment, it is the ego answering. If you use any stock phrase, gesture, or blandishment that you have used or thought of before, if you plan out what you’re going to say in advance, it is the ego strategizing. As you are loved, you are a purer, stronger being when once you let go forever of these little ego tricks.

All ego must be forgiven. All ego is standing in the way. There is not one bit of it worth salvaging. That being that you think you are is not going to save you. You may have spent enormous focus and energy on polishing that being. What do you habitually think of, when you think of yourself? What adjectives do you use to describe you?

You will have some. Are you clever? Good-looking? Well travelled? Good personality?

Loyal? Honest? Fun?

Do not be seduced by any adjective, by the way.

If you feel pleased or satisfied by any adjective you have taken to yourself, that little ego pleasure you feel in thinking of it tells you that this is part of your false self. It is the same if you have chosen adjectives that create negative feeling spaces. Clumsy. Shy. Worthless. Ugly. The emotional pull you experience in thinking of them tells you that these also come from your false self. Your true Self doesn’t know them.

The ego must be forgiven

Thus, the ego must always be forgiven, laid by, deactivated, as if it never happened.

Then are we ready to move on

ARRANGE NOT, RATHER DELEGATE

It is not for you to arrange, brothers. Whenever you let your mind start arranging events, the ego loves to take over, like a bossy old aunty arranging a wedding. Everything she wants is tawdry, banal, so much less than what you wish. She gives orders left, right, and center, and thinks of everything that could go wrong. She is painful to listen to. Why don’t you do yourself a favor and dismiss her entirely? Tell her you have decided to stop arranging anything. There is nothing to do here; move on, move on.

Things arrange themselves of themselves

It is not your job to arrange. Things arrange themselves of themselves. As ice crystals to a snowflake repair, so do all your affairs want to organize themselves in the most perfect and beautiful way. This can only happen when you get out of the way, give it up, delegate, delegate, delegate. There is no harm in this when you are delegating to angels.

It is not for us to plot and plan

GIVING BACK CREATES MOTION

The pearls in a necklace are all connected, all touching. They share a common fate. To touch one is to touch all.

The carriages of a train are all connected, all touching. When one carriage moves, they all must move. They are part of one whole. It would be silly for one carriage to think it could split off from the train and have an independent life.

And so it is with you and your brothers, whether you realize it or not. To touch one is to touch all. You share a common fate. It would be silly for one brother to think he could split off from the rest and have an independent life.

Thus does all giving become giving back. You cannot give to one of your brothers without receiving the blessing yourself, no more than you can touch a pearl without affecting the others on the string. You are all connected.

All giving is giving back

In the estimation of the world, to give something is to lose it. When you give it away, you have it no more. But when you give with love to another, you cannot lose by the giving. Giving creates motion. Both you and the recipient are part of the same circle, interconnected with others. Giving creates flow in the circle. This forward movement uplifts all, is magnified, increases, and comes back to you. It is not possible to give without receiving, since we are all connected.

If you want to receive peace, give as much peace as possible. You are giving it to yourself. To create peace, you have to be peace. Exude it. Channel it. Become it. Gandhi was right. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” This is the only way. You cannot expect the world to provide what you cannot find within.

What you give, you exactly receive

THOUGHTS CAN BE CHOSEN

A pure thought appears at first as naked as a Christmas tree, waiting for ornaments. A thought can be consciously chosen by you, or unconsciously picked up.

Once it is in your mind, it starts collecting to itself experiences, perceptions, assumptions and other thoughts. It wants to be well-clothed, this thought. It wants to be so well-clothed that you will fail to see it as a random thought. It wants to become part of the wallpaper, as invisible as a belief.

Once you accept a thought, evidence of it pops up everywhere. It is omnipresent because you believe it; you believe it because it is omnipresent. It must be right because it is everywhere; it is everywhere because it is right. Thus does it confirm itself.

How do you want your thoughts to come to you?

Do you want your thoughts to come by chance, picked up from family, others, popular culture, media? As random thoughts that surely were never created or consciously chosen by you?

“I suffer from anxiety.” “My parents messed me up.” “Revenge is right.” “Some people are less worthy than others.” “Compromise is weakness.” “It’s their fault.”

What if

Would you rather have pleasing, lovely thoughts from your real Self?

“I always know what to say.” “I am ready to change for the better.” “Everything arrives on schedule.” “Let me have no other desire than to do good.” “This can change at any time.” “Increase my peace.”

Let Me Maximize You

Transformational change: the least you need to know