1. There is one essential reason why there is so much constant heartache and war on this earth, and why conflict has continued as it has down through the ages. The answer may surprise you.

2. We do not understand the nature of our own pain -- of our suffering. And so it is that... untold billions live with no awareness, let alone any understanding of how it is that we not only feel imprisoned by unwanted moments, but why all of our solutions -- socially, economically, religiously -- have failed to free us.

3. In fact, most of us carry, buried in the depths of ourselves, untold amounts of unconscious conflict with its corresponding pain. Regardless of our conditioning, psychological pain plays no favorites; we all pay the price of the ensuing blame that is born, and part, of what amounts to a futile hope to reconcile that pain.

4. It is a law: what remains concealed can never be healed. Only true self-knowledge can bring an end to our tears, whatever their nature. In the end, the only way out of any "rain of pain" is to wake up and walk away from the self-ignorance from out of which it pours. Use the following new self-knowledge to help you step into the sunlight of your true self.

5. Everything created is brought into existence through the marriage of opposites; birth takes place in the womb of opposing forces. And, though it seems a paradox, the inevitable destruction, or undoing of any creation, is also the play of opposing forces.

6. Not only do these eternal laws create and govern the universe in which we live, their tireless work is exactly the same within us. As we're about to see, self-liberation is directly proportionate to our ability to understand the ceaseless interplay of these timeless forces.

7. Wherever there is opposition, resistance follows. For instance, in nature, in the physical world, this kind of conflict is natural, necessary, and accepted. After the winds pass, the trees they've touched -- having been exercised and duly strengthened, accordingly -- resume their natural course of life. This interaction between what is active (the wind) and what is passive (the tree) sees to the gradual perfection of everything created -- or at least it's intended to.

8. Whenever we experience unwanted moments, or "winds" that challenge both our vessel and our vision of some safe harbor to come, we resist them tooth and nail.

9. We fight with almost anything or anyone who seems to oppose us, struggling in vain to control or avoid what we see as punishing us. And for this opposition we reap its result: the unconscious pain of being in conflict with life's higher purposes.

10. What we fail to realize, however, is that without those opposing forces working their way in and upon us, inertia would rule the day: our nature would be unable to change. Strange as it seems, without consciously realizing our own limitations, it's impossible for our understanding to grow; and, without higher self-awareness, we could never come to this next vital realization:

11. What we now perceive as painful or opposing conditions in life are secretly complementary opposites. They don't just complete one-another, they serve to perfect all of creation through each complete cycle of life and death that they help birth.

12. In other words, without them nothing new can be conceived. Rebirth is made possible because something dies to ensure it. In this eternal law of life hides a new understanding, a great key that many have sought but only few have ever found. As we are about to see, it opens an interior door that leads directly to a conscious relationship with the divinity within us.

13. Life will always give you something greater than what it's asked you for, providing you're willing to let go of that part of yourself that, for fear of the new, favors what's old. It's impossible to cling to who you have been... and be free of yourself at the same time.

14. This great exchange and the self-sacrifice for which it calls is the spiritual secret of secrets. Your willingness to enact it is the same as finding the "perfect love that casts out all fears."

15. Your success depends upon being able to see that real life is secretly a single, beautiful movement incapable of contradicting itself. The more you understand how this one truth includes everything that happens to you, the more you'll be willing to let go and enter into the flow of even your most unwanted moments!

16. In this light, is the possibility of realizing a single new action... born of harmonizing two parts: the need to release yourself from a part of yourself that no longer serves your best interests, and for having seen that fact, the formation of a new wish, and a new willingness to let go and let God.