Sense Of Self

We value negative states because of the strong sense of self we get from them. This may be very difficult for us to see, but a strong light will show us the freeing facts. No one wants to believe that he or she values things like self-pity, anger, and depression. We would insist we don't, and as evidence we point to the fact that we fight against them, but the struggle gives us a false sense of life and importance...

Have you ever noticed how the more negative you get, the more difficult everything about your life becomes, including being able to do the simplest things? It's like suddenly sinking into dark molasses, where not only can't you move, but everything you don't want seems stuck to you!...

What's the first thing that any of us do when trouble comes? The first thing that happens when we get into trouble is that we start thinking. Our little think machine just gets geared up, and it starts to go. And it goes. Now, what is it thinking about? It's thinking about the trouble it's in and it's thinking about ways in which to get out of trouble...

Living within us dwells an order of being that knows, without thinking about it, what is authentically good for us. The problem isn't that this higher level of being--with its natural, calm command--is actually missing just when we need it most. The real problem is that we forget it!

Just as our bodies grow healthy or not, according to what we take into our mouths, so too do we grow into wisdom, strength, or grace according to what we attend to with our mind. Our thoughts, like all energetic life forms, attract to themselves natures like themselves. The thoughts of a fellow not only flock together, but seek and are sought out by similar invisible creatures...

Everything under the sun wants to be loved. Trees reach up for the sunlight that brings them life. Flowers need the touch of the bees that pollinate them. Babies cry out to be nourished and protected. We can state this same celestial principle in different words: Everything in existence seeks what it needs to complete itself... and this includes negative states like anger, resentment...

Key Lesson: Learn to let your love of exploring new and open spaces replace all of the ever-diminishing pleasures... found in all the old familiar places.

Sensation is but an echo -- a shadow cast by the Real. It belongs to life, yet it is not Life itself. Mistaking sensation for Life... is like mistaking a shadow for the sun whose light lends it form, and from which it has been cast.

It is a big mistake to believe that negative imagination requires we be present to its calculated organization in order to imprison us in what feels like some fearful, or angry sense of self; quite the opposite is true. Truth be known, our most familiar, if not dominant sense of "I" is thus manufactured, and our identification with the works of this dark machinery is the unseen source of most of our fear and sorrow.

Anytime you feel the need to stand in the healing Light of the Divine -- and then act to honor that wish -- you will realize a miracle: you'll see that you are already in it.