Opening and Allowing – The Book

When we are triggered by people in our lives, particularly those with whom we have some kind of relationship – not necessarily strangers on the street – what has been activated?  It is an idea about ourselves that is unpleasant or unwanted and may not necessarily be conscious.  We may see qualities in that person that we dislike, we may feel we may never be able to be honest or free with them, we may feel we may never be free of them.  But in the end, it is really something about ourselves that is making us so uncomfortable and that is why these people come to us.  It is hard to see them as a blessing but they are in our life to provoke growth.

In the tangle of emotions and thoughts and ideas that are stirred up in these relationships, it can be very difficult to find the space within ourselves to come to know what is true.  The first thing we must do is find a way to release any judgment about what is happening.  Shame, blame and self-criticism pile onto each other as we find that somehow we are not able to solve the problem of this person – we begin to feel a sense of failure and there is shame for that.  So we must get back to affirming the truth that all is perfect and some good will come from all of this – that this is not an indication of some flaw, failure or weakness in our character but rather an opportunity.

When we are triggered with wounds that are deep, it is confusing and hard to imagine that there could be any good in what is happening.  We must take the focus off the person who is triggering us and instead come back to ourselves, come back to what is real and alive within us.  Our task is to become present to what is real, whatever it is.  Inevitably the trail leads to our own fear of death.  This is not necessarily a straightforward path that we experience. On this path there is anger, hurt, jealousy, loss.

We do not have to unravel this all on our own.  We do not have to be our own therapist.  We do not have to have all the tools and skills to unravel complicated emotional traumas.  We can trust, and let the intelligence within us guide us.  When we are entangled in all that is going on we have forgotten where our trust and faith really belongs – we are in fear – fear of something being exposed, something coming undone, or something awful happening.  If we become present and acknowledge this fear, if we acknowledge that there is something else besides this entanglement – something permanent, infinite, eternal – an intelligence within us is still active, we will be moving towards peace.  Despite all our fear and all our confusion, there is a place of peace within us and if we will trust and allow for guidance, the clarity will come.  If we will just allow ‘what is’ to be without judgment, we will indeed be able to let go, relax and allow the confusion to dissolve.  We will gain insight and understanding and become more conscious, more awake.

We know beyond any doubt that there is truth, that there is something that is always true, something that is infinite, eternal and timeless, something that is unchanging and pure – the source of our lives, the setting for our lives.  Our lives happen within it – not outside of it.  There is an intelligence at work in us always guiding us towards consciousness.  We may fight, we may resist, but it never gives up for it is the very essence of its nature to evolve, expand, express and create.  Being human includes from time to time, confusion, chaos, emotional whirlpools and whirlwinds.  They will pass and we will gain clarity and we will return to knowing who we truly are in more and more depth, and more and more consistently.

We will see that those who cause us the most turmoil bring us the greatest gifts even though it doesn’t possibly seem true at the time.  So in this moment we can relax and let go. We can trust that there is a power and intelligence at work guiding us forever deeper and deeper into connection, openness and knowing.  Our task in this moment is to return to this truth.  All else will be revealed and resolved in time.  Nothing can change what is true.

In this moment there is a force alive within you, an energy that is flowing, creating, activating – it is giving you life.  This energy, this force expects nothing, demands nothing – it’s given freely.  It is not just energy.  It is also intelligence.  It is never withheld, never limited, never given in favor or held in disfavor.  It makes no judgments.  It is freely available to you right now.  The miracle of being human is that we can make conscious use of this energy, this creative power – and we do in every moment.  For the most part we use it to control ourselves.  We use this vital force against ourselves to diminish our own experience of it.  It is as if we were thirsty and given water and splashed it all over the ground.

There is no shortage of this energy.   It is not limited in any way.  It cannot run out.  No one person has earned more than another.  There is no entitlement.  Consider how you are using this vital force in this moment.  Are you controlling it?  Are you using it to hold yourself tightly?  Are you using it to punish yourself?  Are you using it for excessive mental activity?  Or are you allowing it to be freely expressed without interference from your mind and your belief systems?

This power, this force contains all the intelligence of the universe – all of it: infinite intelligence, infinite potential.  There is nothing that it cannot do – nothing.  Because of that infinite potential it is the source of infinite possibility.  There is nothing it cannot do.  It is only limited by our own belief, our own allowing.

We use it to create suffering and misery.  It is alive within you, though.  All of its potential, all of its power, all of its intelligence is here right now – right now.  Not in the future, not in the past, not when you’re good enough, not when you’ve earned it, not when you’re lucky.  Its here right now.  With our development, with our conscious mind, our self-awareness, our ability to imagine and create, we have used this power in many ways.  Our ability to imagine things that aren’t true in the moment is both a powerful creative tool and a most offensive weapon against ourselves.  We think in terms of right and wrong, good and bad, and end up punishing ourselves.  We think things should be a certain way and when they’re not, we use that as a reason to judge, mostly ourselves.

What we don’t seem to see very often is that anything can change in an instant.  Your life, your world, is created anew in this moment right now.  Everything can change right now.  But apparently we don’t want it to because we do not allow it to.  Apparantetly we are actually more comfortable with the way it is despite our unhappiness, our struggle, the limitations we experience.  Apparently we prefer comfort and security, believing that we are in control.  Apparently we don’t really want what we say we want because we are creating what we really want right now – right in this moment.  Our life is an expression of our choice, our use of the creative power and law available to us.  It is easy to see what we want – just look around, look at yourself.  This is not a call to judge yourself or find fault or failure, this is an opportunity to become aware of what you are really using the power for, what, at some level, is what you are seeking.

It is impossible for the mind to comprehend that we are creating our own struggle and difficulty, that we are giving up all the possibilities of health, prosperity, fulfillment, creative opportunity, spontaneous loving.  Why would we give up such a thing?  It must be being withheld from us.  The mind refuses to believe it.  And we trust the mind, we believe it and put our faith in it.  It has been our savior.  The mind equates the free expression of our authentic selves with a threat to our survival.  To the mind we cannot live freely and survive.  We cannot be free, we cannot express ourselves and live.  This is the lesson we learned: life, the spontaneous flow of this power expressed through us in infinitely creative ways, is a threat to our life, a threat to our survival.

There is no fault in this, no blame, no failure, no weakness – there is nothing to judge.  We are waking up.  We are coming to terms and acknowledging our misuse of our power.  It was perfectly reasonable that we would put our faith in control.  We wanted to survive and it seemed that was the only way.  Whether it was or not is irrelevant.  It seemed the only way.

Now, in this moment, we acknowledge that the free expression of who we are scares us.  There is fear and that is why we choose the comfort and safety of control, holding, limiting.  We do not have to judge ourselves or punish ourselves for this.  We can be understanding and compassionate, sympathetic, gentle, and kind with ourselves.  We can let ourselves soften, relax some of the control, let go of the holding, enjoy some freedom, some peace.  We can allow ourselves to stop all the ways we have been distracting ourselves – just stop and let that intelligent and divine power be what it is……… let it heal, let it bring peace, let it bring love.

Just allow it.  Stop blocking it.  It is always real.  It is always here.  It is always perfect.  If we would put our faith and trust in it one hundred percent, our lives would be a miracle.  This is what we all want.  This is what we are all looking for.  It is not lost.  It is real right now.  Let that which is the source of your very life, the intelligence, the power that gives you life, be what you are.  There is no separation, no part where you end and it begins.  For there is only It, always.  There is nothing else.  Give in to that.  Let it be.

If you will simply put your faith in the truth of the one power, the one consciousness, you will simply know with all of your being that that is true and there is nothing that you, as an individual identity, have to do to support that – that in fact, if you will put all your faith and trust in that one power, that one source, your identity will become obsolete and your life will become one of spontaneity and creativity, power and beauty.  No matter what thoughts you are thinking, what ideas you are believing, what your identity is telling you, no matter what any of that, the undeniable, the incorruptible truth is that in this moment that consciousness, that one power, is alive and active within you with infinite possibility and potential to create in any moment.  There is a world of richness and beauty, wonder and awe within you, around you, right now.  Miracles are happening right now.

You do not have to achieve anything.  You do not have to reach a standard.  You do not have to become something or somebody.  If you will simply put your faith and trust in what is real, it doesn’t matter when you do it.  It doesn’t matter how or why.  It only matters that within yourself you agree to surrender your ideas of separation, your belief in duality and control – that you dwell in the truth and deny the illusion, give it no power, and insist and proclaim the truth.

You do not need years of schooling and meditation practice to do that, but all your knowledge and practice brings you to the point where you can do it right now.  Although it is a simple truth, it is not always easy.  Your fear of giving up control and your identity is always deeper than we think.  We do not have to be stopped by it, though.  We need to be willing to see it and face it and let it go.

So it is a simple choice we struggle to make.  But if this is our intention – that we should be free, that we be a full expression of all that is possible within us –  if this is where we live, if we dwell in our commitment to this intention, nothing can stop us.  There is no power against us.  There is only our own fear.  As deep and as entrenched as that may seem, it is not insurmountable.

We have not been in a position to appreciate how ingenious and clever we have been in creating our identity.  It has all kinds of arguments, rationalizations and reasons why we should not trust or surrender, and it knows just how to capture our attention.  We must be clear, crystal clear, that what is not love is not peace, what is not freedom is not real.  Even though we can see no other option at the time, we must still proclaim the falseness of the illusion no matter how real it seems.  We must state the truth no matter how distant it may seem.

Being in the full state of resistance is not the time to deny the truth.  There is no time to deny the truth.  And so how do we do it?  How do we stay focused?  When we affirm the truth, and we say, I know that despite appearances, circumstances and situations that surround me, I know there is only consciousness and all that I see is an effect of consciousness.  There is no cause in the realm of circumstances and situations.  And though I may not feel at peace, I may not feel connected, I may feel separate, alone, and I may feel that duality is absolutely real, but that is not true no matter how much it seems to be.  It cannot possibly be real.  The only thing that can truly be real is the perfection of this moment.  And if this moment is perfect, I am perfect.  Everything is perfect.  If everything is perfect I can relax and know that there is nothing that I need to do to make this moment perfect.  It already is.  I simply need to allow it to be my own experience.

The problem for so many of us is that we don’t take the time in the depth of our resistance, in the stress of our circumstances, we don’t stop and tell ourselves the truth.  We perpetuate and affirm our separation and our duality until we are so stressed that we can’t stop, we won’t stop.  So we continue the cycle.

It is not hopeless.  There is no need for despair.  We simply need to come back to reminding ourselves of the truth.  We all have ways of being reminded powerfully of what is true.  For some it is music.  For some it is the written word.  For some it is the spoken word.  For some it is beauty in art and nature.  Whatever, we have, each one of us, something that connects us.

It is our task to remain firm in our commitment to only allowing the truth to be our reality, whether we feel connected or not.  To find those ways of staying connected, those powerful reminders for us; to take the time to correct our thinking.  For our energy can be transformed in a moment: hearing the right music, hearing the right words, seeing the beauty, can change our experience in an instant. There is no power against us.  There is nothing wrong with us.  Consciousness is alive and at work within us, fully and completely.  Beauty and richness are our true nature.  They cannot be distorted, corrupted or tainted.  That is the single truth of who we are.

We must tell ourselves the truth as opposed to all the lies and illusions we have told ourselves.  We must have respect for our identity.  We have put much effort into it and it does what we wanted it to do extremely well.  Now we must take over telling the truth.  We must take our power away from the identity.  We must not give it power anymore.  For it has no power on its own – only that which we give it.

Let go now.  Dwell in the peace of knowing the truth, knowing that despite anything that appears to be less than perfect, no such thing is possible.  You do not have some difficult journey to become perfect.  You already are.  You cannot make yourself any more perfect, but you can allow yourself to experience your divine perfection.  Its already true.  Its already there.  Its already here right now.

Imagine this.  Imagine you had two homes.  One in a place that you loved to be where life seemed magical and free, where beauty and creativity abounded, where you knew without a doubt you were living the life you were meant to live.  Then you had another house where you had lived most of your life.  One that was full of responsibilities and obligations, one which seemed like hard work to keep living in.  The one that you knew – really – that you did not have to live in.  You knew at any time you were free to go and live in the other house.  Some sense of what people would think of you, what people would be let down, what responsibilities you might not meet or duties you might not perform, keeps you tied to that house.

Is that not the way we live?  We know that our life is capable to magic, creativity, beauty and richness.  We know that we can be free.  But the one thing we can’t bear to give up is our identity and our control.  To go back to the analogy of the two houses, perhaps living in the house that is full of obligations and responsibilities is a place we are well-known and well thought of.  When we go to the other house we are nobody.  Perhaps that is our biggest fear: to be nobody.  But we know, we have met people who have given up the identity at the risk of being nobody and we see very clearly that they are not nobody.  They are rich in their life, they are loving, kind, gentle, creative, wise.  And yet, we cling to being somebody.  We cling to our ideas and beliefs.  We are determined to be somebody in whatever shape that may look to our minds, whatever form that takes.

Our idea of who we are was all that we had to cling to when we were overwhelmed, frightened – when everything seemed so out of control.  The only thing we had was our idea that we were somebody, and with the use of our mind and our willpower we could be somebody.  Now to let that go seems impossible.  Yet we know that is what we want.  Every time we taste that freedom, that richness, creativity, power, freedom, peace, we know that is what we want.  We may not be conscious of how we are trying to make ourselves into that instead of letting go.  We are trying to make ourselves into something, into spiritual people, into creative people, into beautiful people.  That is what we want to be.  The only way we know how to be it is to make ourselves like that.  But we never can, because we are already like that.  All those qualities are already true about us.  But they are masked, colored, suppressed, and denied by our attempts to make our somebody into that someone.  It is surprising how much power, how much energy goes into trying to create that someone instead of letting go and letting that someone emerge just as it is.  How much energy are you using right now for resistance, for blocking, holding on?  How much of your power right now is being used to create and hold onto an identity?

In this moment, stop wasting that power and energy.  Stop clinging to the idea that you can make yourself into someone.  You already are nothing but potential and possibility, the full creative power of the one consciousness behind you, giving you life, supporting you.  That is the simple truth about you.

We must remind ourselves we do not have to figure this all out.  We do not have to know how to do everything.  It is not up to us to create ourselves.  That work is already done by a much greater power than our minds can conceive.  Let yourself go to the place where you are free.  You don’t have to come up with all the answers now.  You don’t have to solve every problem now.  There is a greater power at work, a greater intelligence, a greater wisdom.  Take the load off your shoulders.  You have lived by will and belief.  It is exhausting.  There is no danger in letting go.  There is no threat.  You are not letting go of reality.  You are entering reality.

We speak often of letting go of control, trusting in a greater power, placing our faith in a greater power.  We speak of an infinite intelligence that guides all evolution and creation.  What picture do you hold of this kind of surrender?  How does it look to you?  How does the idea of completely giving up control feel – the idea of living and acting only on that which arises spontaneously from within?

What happens to that which we think of as us – that which we are so accustomed to identifying with?  What happens to that which believes that if we do not make up our minds to act, nothing will happen?  What happens to that which forces us to do things we probably do not want to do, that which believes it must be in control and in charge?

Most of us have come to live our lives by will and force; we make ourselves do things.  We were forced to do things that we had no interest in when we were young.  We have lived by force and will for so long that we cannot believe there is another way.  Even when the truth is plainly laid out before us and we hear and know it is true because it aligns with the truth in us, we will rationalize, argue, be reasonable and say that it is impossible to live like that.

This is the real world, we say, and we must accept struggles, suffering and difficulties we encounter.  Nothing happens by magic or miracle; it’s all by hard work.

The culture, the race consciousness, will have us reminded constantly that the material world is the real world and is the world we have to live in.  We have learned that there are compromises and sacrifices we have to make and things we have to force ourselves to do.  And yet, at the deepest level of our soul we know this isn’t true.  We know, because the destiny of our evolution is to know the truth of ourselves and the truth of life and creation.

And yet the idea of giving up the identity strikes fear at the very core of our being.  Our compromise is to choose what we see as safety over freedom.  The rationalization is that a  long life of suffering and struggle is better than a short life of freedom.  That is the unconscious choice – not the conscious choice.  The conscious choice is that: if I only work harder on myself I will be free and still be able to be me.  I can perfect this identity if I make an effort and try harder and do things I do not really want to do.  I believe I can perfect myself at least in the eyes of others.

Soon, we will run out of energy from all this effort, force and use of will.  Soon we will tire of it all and find it brings no lasting reward, satisfaction or fulfillment – just the emptiness of having to keep on trying.  We keep on trying to overcome our bad, weak and wrong nature.

That is not our destiny.  We will be free – each of us in our own time and in our own way will finally perceive the truth, embrace it, welcome it, release the world of duality and identity.  It can happen in an instant and it will.  In the meantime we must choose where to place our faith, what to trust, what is real.  We must make room for the truth.  We cannot force our transformation; we can only accept and allow it.  We cannot force ourselves to surrender; we cannot make ourselves to let go.  Effort is the opposite of allowing.

Our greatest challenge is to accept and allow this moment just as it is without judgment, without analysis, without expectation or preconceived ideas.  Our challenge is to just be open to the moment as it is, knowing that it is perfect, knowing the unescapable truth that this moment is the product of the divine, knowing this moment is consciousness expressing its infinite intelligence, love and wisdom.

To fully trust and know there is nothing wrong in this moment is our pathway to transformation.  To insist and proclaim in this moment, despite any appearance or circumstance, that there is a divine perfection to all and to accept and allow exactly ‘what is’ is the path that we must follow –  not just in meditation but in life.  This is our first priority.  This is the only fulfillment of our deepest desire: to know and experience ourselves as who we truly are as consciousness in form, as love in action, as life creating.  This is our transformation: to give up our small ideas of who we are and what we are, to allow the magnificence of truth to enter our awareness, to become the experience of oneness.

Don’t stop to think about it; just allow what is in you to be.  When your mind becomes quiet you experience yourself at a deeper level.  Then the mind is not needed.  Then the soul is free to call us deeper into ourselves, deeper into the truth.  Now is the moment.

The question often arises, why have I done so much and still I have so much resistance?  Why am I overtaken by grief, anxiety, fear, and rage?  It seems I should be different.

It is good that we practice surrender, that we dwell in our minds on the truth, but the most difficult challenge seems to be accepting ‘what is’ just as it is.  This is perhaps the greatest human challenge.  We can all learn techniques for surrender and find ways to make ourselves feel better but as soon as we don’t, what happens?   We judge, we condemn, we take on duality, right and wrong, good and bad, and all of its variations.

We do not easily accept the feelings that arise in us.  We have spent so much time controlling our reactions and responses, attempting to achieve some form of behavior that is acceptable, attempting to appear in some way that is acceptable, and that required much control, much suppression, much denial.

The human experience has been one of much trauma, much pain, much denial of freedom of expression, so much control.  When something happens – whether outside of us or inside of us – to trigger emotional reaction very rarely is that emotional response freely expressed, discharged and done with.  We don’t cry when we need to cry, we don’t rage when we need to rage, we don’t express our fear, our sorrow, our grief.  There is nothing bad about this, nothing wrong about it.  What is difficult for us is that we don’t accept life as it comes.  We want it to be different.  We think it should be.  We have an idea about the way it should be.  It is the expectation that it should be different that causes our resistance.  Our resistance is not the result of the circumstances or the situation, but rather the result of our expectation that things should be different.

Often our expectation is that we shouldn’t have certain feelings or be a certain way, as if we knew what should be true, as if we had any control over what is true.  Life is proceeding in its own way with its own intelligence, its own governing force.  Our ideas of what it should be are irrelevant.  Our ideas of how we should be are irrelevant.

Our minds are no match for the infinite intelligence that is the fundamental power in life.  We cannot tell life how to be.  We cannot control life.  Life will express itself.  This is our greatest challenge: to accept that life is the greater power, the greater intelligence.  There is a power always acting for good. 

We do not know what is best for us.  We do not know how to heal a cell that is injured, how to pump our blood, how to breathe oxygen and convert it, how to repair and cleanse our bodies.  We know nothing of how to live.  That intelligence is already at work.  We would be better to lay in our beds and do nothing than to do what we think we should.  We would be better to lay or sit until an honest urge arises within us.

What, in this moment, do you think should be different?  What are you expecting should not be the way it is?  What are you fighting?  What are you resisting?  What is it that you think you know better how it should be?  There is nothing that you know better.  How can you accept that?  How can you surrender your ideas and beliefs and need for control?

Stop.  Stop trying to control life.  Stop trying to make things the way you think they should be.  Life unfolds with infinite potential and infinite possibilities.  There is nothing wrong in this moment no matter how much your mind says there is, no matter how much the identity screams, no matter how much it looks like wrong.  There cannot possibly be anything wrong.  The dualistic mind cannot understand or accept this.  The identity is born of duality – knows only right and wrong, bad and good.

You cannot listen to the arguments of duality.  The one consciousness, the one power, the universal, knows nothing of duality.  Its power is love.  Its true nature is love.  Life is an expression of love in form.  It is all the intelligence there is.  It is everything there is.  Stop trying to control life.  You cannot.  It will not be controlled.  You will only cause yourself suffering and misery.  Acceptance and allowing are the powerful keys to your freedom.  You will not always experience perfect surrender, perfect peace, but they will not be far away if you will practice acceptance and allowing.  If surrender and peace elude you, then you are not accepting and you are not allowing. This is the biggest shift in our idea of how to live that we could possibly make.  We have lived by will, force, control, ideas and expectations.  We have brought these to our spiritual practice and have condemned ourselves when we do not surrender.  When we do not feel peace and do not feel free we have judged and condemned ourselves and brought will, force and control to our very practice causing no end of frustration.  Now we know.

Because we know the truth of one power, one unity, one life, we know that this moment is perfect no matter how it appears or how we experience it.  There is nothing to be judged, nothing to be changed, nothing to be done.  From the eyes of surrender and truth you are perfect.  You are a being of light and love.  You are a unique and precious individual.  That is always true.

The goal of this meditation is to help us move from a state of fear to a state of trust. As we have discussed, fear is the basis of all our ways of being that are not authentic. Each one of us is unique and individual with our own set of experiences and history, our own set of strengths, skills and talents, and no one journey is like any other. But the basis of the problem of not feeling free in peace and love is the same for everyone. It is the basis for our feelings of separation, a feeling that we are alone and on our own, that we are different and separate. It is the basis for our creation and trust and faith in the identity which has no reality at all. It is the basis of our belief in duality, in our need for judgment. This fear is so pervasive that we aren’t even aware of it. Most of us are completely unconscious of any fear but we know it’s there because we don’t feel peace, we don’t feel deep unconditional love for life. We don’t feel free to express ourselves just as we choose. So the task we have set ourselves with our practice, with our study, our affirmations, prayers and reminders, is to move back to a state of trusting and allowing ourselves to be exactly what we are.

One of the chronic conditions of fear is tension. We hold ourselves tightly and block awareness of feelings. This is a form of control. So our first task is to relax, to stop holding. It may seem we have no control over it and that it is happening to us without any way for us to stop it. We feel chronic tension somewhere in the body that does not let go or we may be unaware of any tension. We must understand and acknowledge that it is us, our fear, that creates that tension. We must become conscious of how we are living and holding ourselves, how we are adapting, how we are protecting ourselves, how we are denying or suppressing our free expression. Our attention must be focused on our experience, not on our minds, not on our thoughts, but what is really happening in this moment. Am I tense? Am I relaxed? Do I have tension, blocks or holding? Do I feel peace and energy flowing? What is really happening in me right now? Not what am I thinking – but what am I experiencing?

By the very act of becoming conscious of what we are experiencing, we begin to deepen our experience. If we are lucky we perceive the fear. But we may not be so lucky. We may only perceive discomfort or tension, holding, blocks or any variety of experiences. As we keep focusing our attention on our experience, it will begin to relax. As we become aware of what we are holding we can make the choice to let go. We may not always release, but we need not judge or become anxious and decide that something is wrong or that we are not good enough. There is no room for judgment. It is simply becoming present.

With wholehearted attention on what is real in this moment, fear can be dissolved in an instant, our resistance can be dissolved in an instant. With our acceptance of what is, just as it is, with no judgment, we become present to what is truly real, what is permanent, what is unchanging. As we surrender, we will experience more blocks and more fear, more resistance. Our task is to stay focused. We are not doing anything but reminding ourselves to stay focused. Moving from a state of fear to trust and openness, is not an act of doing – it is an act of allowing – of stopping what we were doing and allowing what already is to be revealed. We do not force it, make it, create it, activate it or anything. It is all already true. We are simply stopping our blocking reality from our awareness, which we do by staying focused on what is, what is real right now. This is our task.

When we need to, we remind ourselves of the truth. We remind ourselves that we are just pure consciousness and form and matter are effects of consciousness. That consciousness is one true power. That consciousness is all there is, infinite and eternal. Which means it has no end, no beginning, and no limit. It is all there is. Our lives, our material world, all takes place within consciousness – never outside of consciousness. We are never outside of consciousness, never separate, never alone, never deprived of consciousness.

The power of the universal divine intelligence is expressing as us, the power of love creating life. That is the truth of who we are. Once again, an infinite, eternal, divine intelligence, consciousness, expressing in form, in us, the power of love, creating this energy called life, the life force – that is who we are. That is what is revealed when we stop. We move from fear to truth. Let yourself give in to the truth. Allow the truth to be revealed to you. It is there. It is here now. It is real. It is always here, always alive within you, always giving you life. Say “yes” to it.

Consider this: in this moment you could experience serene calm and peace. You could experience divine light and grace. You could experience a sense of oneness and wholeness, a deep knowing of the fundamental beauty and richness of life. And this is what lies within you, lies at the very core of your being, the source of your life right now. This could be your experience in this moment. If it is not your experience, most likely you are identified and aligned with the identity and struggling to be free of it.

For most of us who are listening to or reading this meditation, the identity is like an old friend or family member that we have outgrown. This person has a particular trait which is to continuously talk, and even if we feel we have something to say we get no attention from them. They just continue to talk to us. This has been going on in our lives for so long that we don’t even notice. But at some point, we finally realize we don’t want to listen to this anymore. And the only way out is to turn away and walk away.

That is the only way out of the identity – we must turn our attention away from it and look at, see, hear, and listen for a whole different experience. When we are aligned and captivated by the identity we believe that there are things wrong, there are things that need to be fixed, that need to be done, that have to change. We believe all kinds of things.

When we turn away from the identity, we can stop trying to change anything and stop trying to fix anything. Now we are going to fix our minds on truth. This is how we silence the identity, how we put an end to duality, for only in the realm of duality can there be things wrong or bad, or any ideas that we fall short, are not good enough, or are not worthy. We can let all those ideas dissolve in the light. We cannot get rid of the darkness with other darkness. We can only get rid of it with light. We cannot get rid of a faulty belief with a new belief that is as dualistic as the old belief.

So we turn away from the endless stream of judgments, noise, and we acknowledge the truth. We deny all ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, and know that there only is what there is – an expression of the one true power. There only is the one true source. Everything, absolutely everything, originates from this one perfect source. Nothing is outside of it. Nothing can oppose it. Nothing can corrupt it. There cannot possibly be anything bad or wrong. We cannot let our identity distract us from this truth. We cannot go along with the identity in any way. For the moment we believe in duality, we are separated from the truth and the illusion and the dream of duality.

If we have symptoms or illness, if we have lack or poverty, if we have depression or unhappiness, if we have failure in our lives, this is not the work of God. It is the work of our identity. God cannot create suffering. Only we can do that. We have tremendous power at our disposal that we mostly use to punish ourselves. We use the creative power of the universe to limit ourselves, to make our lives hard, to punish ourselves. We will not be judged for this. There is no blame or shame. For we will see our own perfection one day and know there never ever was anything wrong, never was anything bad, never was any failure or mistake. Life is not capable of mistakes. Life is only capable of living – the creative power evolving and expanding, every entity a unique expression, completely individual, unlike any other expression. There cannot be any mistakes because there are no rules, no expectations. There is only the spontaneous expression of Life in this moment.

So the source of all our struggle, unhappiness, and suffering, is our idea that we should be any different than we are. Our efforts to control result from that idea. If we truly, deeply, fully acknowledged our own perfection, our own divine nature, the presence of God as us, we would be free.

And so we must walk away from the endless monotony of the identity and listen to God within us. We must choose to set our minds on the truth. We must break the spell of the identity and walk away. The identity has no power but that which we give it. We can stop now. There is nothing to do. For we know the truth of our own divine nature. We know that this truth is the only power there is. Even though we may be distracted, that does not change the truth. Nothing changes the truth. Nothing changes what is true about us in this moment. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves imperfect, to make ourselves bad or wrong, failures or unworthy. It is not possible. So we can give in, we can stop and say “yes” to the truth.

Although it doesn’t seem rational or logical, most of us prefer discomfort, struggle and belief in limitation to the uncertainty of surrender.  We prefer to be in control, even though we are clearly beginning to understand the negative consequences of being in control.  Control is still our choice by default.  We have all seen the child who prefers to do something herself even though it leads to tears and failure.  We have been conditioned to believe that we must be able to make it on our own – that we must be prepared for independent action.   We think it is a question of honor, survival and integrity to look after ourselves on our own.

In truth there is nothing to judge, label wrong, or consider as a failure or inadequacy.  It’s just the way it is.  The journey has come to this point.  There will come a time when we will choose surrender over control, and we will be most comfortable with trusting and allowing.  Then we will wonder how we could have put up with so much struggle for no reason.  For some of us that time may not come until it is time to give up the physical body.  In the end it really doesn’t matter when we do it, because the moment we do, we enter into the infinite, timeless space where the past doesn’t matter.

As we sit here now we are faced with the choice.  We may long for surrender, long for love, long for the peace and freedom of simply and authentically being ourselves, but we are attached to our identity and to what appears to be right and wrong and good and bad.  We are driven by our need to fit in; we feel pressure to stay in control.  There are a million reasons not to trust.  If we are honest and open with ourselves, we can find many ways that we refuse to trust – many reasons that we are attached to.  Perhaps we believe we must control our body, we must control our health, we must control what we say and do, we must be productive, we must accomplish.  The list goes on and on.

In the meantime love has no expectation of us whatsoever.  Love has no judgment and no time frame.  It just is.  We live in a whole universe, complex and enormous beyond the scope of the human imagination, built out of love, out of nothing – infinite in magnitude, infinitely microscopic, and infinitely huge with no end. This is the power of love.  This is the power we refuse to give in to.  We choose to be in control.  We choose the certainty of struggle and limitation.  We say no to the power that creates beyond our ability to understand.

So in this moment, be aware of your choice.  Acknowledge and recognize the truth of your choice whether it is conscious or unconscious.  There is no power pushing you in one direction or the other.  It is all happening within you.  Recognize and take responsibility for your choice to use control and limitation out of fear, and become conscious of the power you are denying.  You can say, yes, I know I am saying no to unlimited possibility and potential.  I recognize I am saying no  to unconditional love and infinite peace and freedom and I see that somewhere in me is a fear that believes I am better off in control and limitation.  I know that is true; I am becoming conscious and aware.

There is no need to judge, compare, or think it should be any way other than it is.  The profound moment is the moment we acknowledge the truth just as it is in this moment without judgment or expectation that it should be any different.  We just become open to the truth.  We need no longer pretend that anything is true but that which exists in this moment.  This life is not a competition.  It is not a race for enlightenment or a measure of our worth.  Nothing is better than any other.  Surrendering to the truth is not good.  Being attached to limitation is not bad.  In our most profound moments change occurs when we completely and totally accept what is, no matter what it is.  Then we are free.

Your mind, your ego and your identity, all have different views.  They think you should be better.  They think some things are better than others.  They think some things aren’t good enough.  There is no truth in these ideas and beliefs.  You can choose to let go of the pressure to be anything other than what you are in this moment.  You can choose to let go of all the ways you have believed you are not good enough – all the ways you think there is something wrong with you.  Claim the truth that all there is, is God – that everything about you is God and that everything about you that you judge is a judgment of God.

Will you proclaim the failure of God – the failure of the power that creates this universe from nothing in this very moment somehow got it wrong with you?  Will you proclaim that the power behind a million miracles, awe-inspiring beauty and profound magnificence is flawed in you?  Is this what you will proclaim?  Your ability to believe such an idea, to choose a story that is not true, is because of the gift of your imagination.  You have, in a remarkable evolutionary leap, the ability to imagine that which does not exist and then to believe in it.  Or perhaps, this is the very process by which the universe was created – to imagine something that doesn’t exist and then believe in it.

We are like children learning to use tools.  Often as we learn we hurt ourselves by using them incorrectly or because they are too powerful for us.   We have the power of imagination and mostly we use it to create limitation.  Let us be conscious of how we use our imagination.  Let us free ourselves now of any non-acceptance or any judgment and instead dwell in the truth, the truth of our perfection – the truth of the divine source of our being.  We can let go now.  We can give up.

What does it mean to come to a stop, to move to a state of allowing?  You may think when we are sitting in meditation that we have come to a stop because we are not moving, but what we are really talking about is stillness and quiet.  We can actually have stillness and quiet and move at the same time.  The stillness we are looking for is the silence of the mind, the relaxation of the body, the surrender of control.  We may not be aware of how active we are even when sitting still; our mind is processing, going over problems either from the past or the future, figuring, calculating, ruminating.  Our body may be in survival mode, there may be tension and holding, we may be holding ourselves tightly.

The metaphor of dying is used often in spiritual traditions to describe the process of letting go of our identity, giving up being anything that we think and just being what we are.  While we are listening to our mind, we are distracted from what is real.  If we are afraid to be without our identity, we are afraid to die.  We believe that our identity fills in the darkness and blackness of nothingness.  We look to our identity to comfort ourselves from feeling that we are nothing.  The reality is that the identity is nothing; it is only an idea in our mind and has no reality at all.  There is nothing to it.  We cannot know who we are through thought.  We can only experience it.  We cannot experience it while we are distracted.

Giving up the identity, dying to ourselves, does not mean the end and does not mean nothingness or blackness.  It is the beginning.  It is the experience of truth and light, of richness, beauty, depth and authenticity.  We lose nothing when we die to ourselves.  We fear a letting go because we made a decision that what was in us was bad or unsafe, dangerous, uncontrolled – based on the response of those around us to our free expression.  We are afraid of our own spontaneity, our own creative ability, our own free expression.  We are afraid of our uniqueness, our difference, our own special qualities.  Yet that is where the fullness of life will be experienced – the depth of love, the exhilaration of connection, oneness and authentic self-expression.

So we must understand and recognize that our fear is from the past and does not represent reality.  We can turn that fear to excitement, to anticipation of the rewards of authenticity, knowing who we truly are, of being just who we are.  There is nothing wrong with us.  There is nothing bad in us, nothing broken.  There is power in us, creative power and intelligence, love and light.  There is freedom and there is peace.  There is a deep knowing of our oneness.  This is what we fear.  This is what we die to.  We do not need to do anything to make this real; it already is.  It is real in its complete fullness whether you are aware of it or not.  Say yes now, yes to quiet, yes to stillness, yes to what is real.