The Teachings of Spirit

Question: How do we not fear each other?

Answer: The question that you have asked is a good first question, and I want to take you deeper than your question in order to give you the answer that you seek, for your question is truly deeper than the words you have used.

You ask, “How do we not fear each other?” But in that question you have put an idea of “each other.” Of course, where ever there is an idea of “other”, there is fear, because “other” is not truthful or natural. Therefore, the idea must engender fear.

Your true question has nothing to do with each other, although you experience an “each other” and you project your fears and judgments there. “Each other” is truly nonsense, and this is what you know and want to see.

So your true question is not ‘how do we not fear each other.’ Your true question is, “How do we not fear?”

Do you see how that is a better question? Do you see how that is truly the answer you seek together as one? It is not each other that you fear. It is fear itself that seems to be the issue. It is fear itself that keeps you paralyzed and afraid of being you. So let’s dive below the surface of your seeming question and look at the meat of what you truly want to know:

How do we stop listening to our ideas of fear?

Fear is an addiction, which we have already touched upon. An addiction is nothing but a habit, as I have told you before. All habits take focus to change, which means you cannot be lazy if you want to change a habit. In laziness, habit is maintained. This is why I have told you that the habit of fear is lazy.

In your realm of experience, two can be better than one, and this is why you have come together. You have come together because you are aware of this advantage and you want this help that you have made available to yourself. You want this partnership. You feel these words deeply, because you recognize this is the path you have chosen together.

When you look at each other, recognize you have chosen each other as helpfulness in reaching your truest of desires, and that ‘truest of desire’ is to let go of fear. You have made this choice because you know that fear is the only true obstacle to love, and so above all else you want to let go of fear. Therefore, because you have decided it will be this way, you shall let go of all fear through partnership. It will be helpful if you see this as already done, even as you seem to walk through the experience of letting it go.

When you look at each other, you can remember that the one your eyes rest upon is your symbol of ‘no fear,’ which is love. You can remember that you have chosen each other because you want the same thing. You can remember that you do not look upon the one who wants to judge you. When your eyes look upon each other, you are looking upon yourself, so you are looking upon the one that is the reflection of your desire to be free of fear…the one who wants this freedom the same as you. And you look upon the one who has come to you in this exact form in order to help you…in order to enable you to do exactly what you have come to do. You look upon the one you have chosen to join with you in letting go of fear.

And so you ask, “How do we let go of our ideas of fear?” And I answer you in complete joy when I say:

By looking upon one another
and remembering your purpose together,
you do much more than you imagine
in the process of letting go of all ideas of fear.

This is your first step.

Question: Good morning, my Friend. What would you share with a mind addicted to fear and judgment?

Answer: Relax into yourself, and realize that addiction is only illusion. The undercurrent wave that drives all things is love. Fear and judgment are only surface thoughts covering up the love of all that is. But since the surface is surfacy, like dust on furniture, it takes no effort to look beyond the surface to the undercurrent wave. You can see the dust and the furniture beneath it. You know which has true substance, which is foundational, and which is fleeting and meaningless.

The key is not to kill the fear and judgment. We are not here to extinguish anything. The key is to look through it to what is really there, what is truly guiding, what is honestly happening now. When you look beneath the surface of your mind, filled with its meaningless chatter, crazy fears and useless judgments, you find the heart. The heart is strong and solid, and you have uncovered the buried treasure enough to know it and feel it in any moment. It is merely a shift in what you listen to that is required. Shift your ears…your attention and belief…from your surface-thinking to your heart-knowing.

Surface-thinking is louder, but heart-knowing is more foundational. Surface thinking comes from not-knowing and fear. Heart-knowing is knowing and so it is solid in trust, even when the knowing seems to be a state of not-knowing now. It is the knowing beneath the not-knowing. It is the solidity of knowing, “I am love and I am driven by love. I do not know why I am doing this now, but I know this action comes from love because I am love and love drives me now.”

Surface-thinking will interpret that same action as coming from fear, but you can easily dive below the surface and find your current action always comes from love because love is what you are.

Question: Tell me how to do this, please.

Answer: The first step is to step away from thinking. As you pointed out yesterday, the thinking mind is learning right ideas and it will use them in fear to hide from its own judgments. This is all surface and being caught up in the surface so that the reality of the foundation is dreamed of but not known. We do not want to bring reality into the dream as an idea. We want to sit in it as a known, even as we experience the dream.

So the first step is to step away from thinking. This is done through remembering. You remember that you truly want to know the known now. You want to feel it, not think it. You want to know it beyond the words that come and go through the thinking mind.

An idea that will help you to settle into knowing is the idea that you want to settle into the truth of yourself. Put no thinking to this idea. Put no thinking into what the truth of yourself might be. Just know it is what you want, and it will be done. You will feel it; you will touch it; you will know it. And when you feel that certainty of the love that you are, you will know also that thinking of that truth is not the same as knowing that truth. This is why you want to move beyond thinking to knowing as an experience. Because thinking is not a substitute for the absolute that is knowing.

Knowing becomes better known as you simply want to know more. You do this by wanting without thinking and by knowing that the thinking you see is not knowing, so you gently and easily shift your listening from what thinking says to what knowing knows.

Holy Spirit: Let Me talk to you about spiritual awakening, for there is great confusion in the world about where to look for the Light.

Many people who look for the Light continue to look and search outside of them. This is a very important message, because many of the ones who look and search outside of them believe they are looking within, and yet their attention is misdirected. At the same time, there is a subtle inner-guidance that they are listening to, and it is leading them to use symbols that seem to be outside.

This is where the terms “within” and “outside” become useless. The only true distinguishing factor is the purpose or motive of the underlying “seeking.” And by the time we finish this message, we shall see that the idea of “seeking” itself is an error.

The Son of God is guided by knowledge or he is guided by lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge is a perception, as it can never be true, but when the Son of God is led by lack of knowledge, he strengthens that perception within him.

I teach that “I don’t know” is a means to knowing. This is true when “I don’t know” is accompanied by an underlying trust that knowledge is in the lead. “I don’t know” accompanied by trust, by a feeling of peace and restfulness and with a general feeling of happiness for whatever seems to be now…that is knowledge. In this not-knowing there is no lack. There is no seeking or grasping. There is only a trust-awareness of a constant state of perfection, even if that perfection is realized only through mastery of trusting the mystery of all things.

There is also another “I don’t know” that is fed by fear. It is fed by lack and judgment of that lack, which is truly judgment of Self. It is this “I don’t know” that leads to seeking. And since this “I don’t know” believes in lack…believes it is separate from knowledge…this “I don’t know” looks outside itself for something it believes it does not have. This searching or seeking is not helpful, because it strengthens the wrong perception that you are that which you are not. This idea of seeking…the idea that “I do not know and I must obtain knowledge from outside of me”…this search for spiritual truth is an obstacle to finding that exact truth of which you are.

Here is My advice, and this advice will end all seeking. When you follow this advice, you may still use teachers and books and tapes as a part of your learning…your learning to see and remember again. But even as you continue on your path and even as you use resources I have provided that seem outside, you will not be lost and you will not be seeking, because you will know that you follow your own way.

Here is My advice:

Trust that all knowledge is within you right now. You lack nothing. It is true that you do not know all knowledge at a conscious level. Accept and be ok with that. Accept that knowledge guides more than it is known consciously. Accept that knowledge is a movement, and it moves through you in order to move with you at the perfect time in harmony with total knowledge. What this means is that in each moment you may not seem to understand all there is to see and understand, but in each moment, if you are fully willing, you will see and know that which you need to see and know now.

Knowledge, when asked for and trusted, will tell you what book to read. It will direct you to a specific teacher for a time, and it will also guide you away from that book and away from that teacher when the time is right. And knowledge will use all things that seem to be outside to awaken realization within. Knowledge does not lead seeking; knowledge is known now and it is a guide within the total experience of remembering.

Seek not outside yourself. This will only strengthen the idea that you are lack and that you are guilty for being the being of lack that you are. This is not true about you and this misperception can only lead to additional suffering.

Put aside all seeking. Trust that you do know now and you do not need to know all consciously in order to live the knowledge that you are. You only need to know now what you know now. This knowing, even if it is only the knowing to pick up a specific book and read from it now…this knowing is perfection, and in trusting it you are knowing You now.

Question: Holy Spirit, what would you share with one who is afraid to let go of projection because projection is seen as protection from something really, really horrible?

Answer: My teachings have been misunderstood. There is nothing really, really horrible. There is only the belief in something really horrible.

There is fear attached to the word “belief” because there is a belief that belief makes real. But belief does not make real. Belief only makes belief. What is not real remains not true always. This is why there is nothing to fear.

But the mind that fears will project, because it believes projection is protection. Again, we are only talking about beliefs, but beliefs can seem real to the one who believes them. This is why beliefs must be released first. Beliefs are let go before projection is, because the mind cannot let go of projection as long as it believes fearful beliefs.

Do not fear that your projections will be taken away while you still hold to your fears. This cannot happen. Projections can only be given away when you no longer have use for them.

When you are willing to say that persons is just experience, you are not putting yourself in a dangerous position. You are only teaching yourself that you do not want to believe the untrue anymore. When you teach yourself this lesson, you are speaking from your heart and any idea that could be called fearful is melting away through your love and your desire. Trust your own desire to do its job in healing the mind. Know that as the mind is healed, fears are taken away. But fears will be released before projections are, so you need not fear that you will ever have to face something you cannot bear because you are still in need of protection.

Question: Can you tell us how desire melts fear?

Answer: I can explain it in a way that you will understand. Desire is quite literally a creative force. Now, the desire for untrue cannot make untrue, but it can create an experience that you can believe if you choose to. Likewise, a desire for only the true, or a desire for only that which reflects truth, or even a desire to see the untrue truly, changes all things because it is a change in desire.

It is literally as simple as turning to face another direction. When you look in one way, you see what you see there. When you look in another direction, you see completely anew.

Do not fear that you will hurt yourself. You cannot. To have the experience of Self devouring or torturing Self in that horrible way that you feel you could not bear…to have that experience you would have to desire it wholly and you cannot desire it wholly now. You have never desired it wholly, which is why you made projection. Therefore, it is a fear that can never be. It cannot be in reality and it cannot be in experience, because it is something you shall never desire to be.

You are love, and you can never be separate from love. No matter how afraid you are, you know you want love. No matter how much you seem to hate, you know you want love. Even the projection of the world is proof that you want love. You created this projection, because you are love. You have the desire to be gentle with yourself and you shall always be gentle with yourself. There will never be anything to fear.

Hello friends,

With love,
Laurent

Question: Holy Spirit, Laurent has questions, which I bring to you.

1. What would you share regarding independence from the world, moving toward sole dependence on God?
2. What would you share to help with confusion between discernment and judgment?
3. What would you share to help one discern between the Voice for God and the voice of confusion?

I surrender completely to you for all answers to the questions.

Answer: Before talking to Laurent, I will talk to you, the scribe of the messages given to him. In order to deliver My message clearly, you must have no personal ideas of your own. By this I mean that you must put aside all ideas that you are one person and he is another. It is most helpful to scribing if you see yourself as not a person at all, but as merely a vessel through which messages come. And it is most helpful if you see these messages as coming from mind given to mind, so there is no difference between the mind receiving or asking and the mind that is giving the answer. Your only job is to take the formless and allow it to be born into form, because that was the request of mind. But do not see yourself as taking from one place and giving to another, because that is not the case. Ideas have not been moved outside of where they exist. Nothing has changed by you writing them down. It is only birth into form.

Laurent also must stop seeing himself as a separate person. He does not realize it now, but seeing himself as separate is the greatest challenge facing him. He thinks his thoughts are the challenge, but his thoughts are only the effect of his believing.

My recommendation to each of you is that you focus on dissolving. Dissolve the idea of person. Dissolve the idea of one and another. Let go of thinking you are separate. This obstacle is greater for you than you realize.

Question: How do we dissolve the idea of persons?

Answer: You must see that “persons” is merely experience. Hold the idea in your mind as you speak to another or think of another:

“Persons is just experience.
All that is happening now is happening in one mind.”

This idea, held to firmly, can dissolve the idea of persons immediately. Held to consistently, the idea of persons can fade away.

When you realize there is only mind, all of the other questions you have asked are answered automatically. Those questions can only have meaning if there is an other.

If there is no other, no world, no actual form but only ideas in one mind, can you be dependent on anything but God? The idea of dependence, then, becomes only an idea since there is no other to be dependent on.

If there is no other, can there be judgment? There is no other to judge. There is only discernment, and discernment merely recognizes the untrue as false. Discernment does not lead to judgment, because it sees nothing tangible to judge.

If there is no other, can confusion share a story that will confuse? The voice of confusion only speaks of others. It sees you as a separate person, but if you are not a person, the voice of confusion can have nothing useful to say.

Question: Holy Spirit, I can follow what you are saying, but I cannot imagine letting go of the idea of person to the degree that you are asking us to.

Answer: Look at that. Look at the idea that you cannot let go of the idea of person and realize that is a statement of your willingness more than a statement of your ability.

There is no ability…or better-said…there is no lack of ability in mind. There is only willingness, which is will or desire.

Do you desire to see that you are not a separate person? Is this what you truly want?

Let this question ring in your heart today. Realize this question and this message came into form because mind wanted it birthed. If mind did not want it birthed, it could not come into being. Therefore, this is the message that you sought. These are the words you wanted to see. This is the message you wanted to hear within your consciousness.

Let go of separateness. Let go of the idea of other. Let go of seeing yourself as person. Expression of idea is all that you experience, and idea occurs within one mind. Step back and watch the expression unfold. Be willing to be moved by it…in experience be a part of it…while realizing nothing is separate from it. It is all one movement of idea.

Question: How can I learn trust?

Answer: Trust can come from identifying with the strength or the power within. The difficulty in identifying with this power is that it has no form, and you are much too attached to form. Yet it is form that cannot be trusted. It is form that does not last and is not consistent. If you continue to look to form for trust, you will not find it, and you will only continue to learn lack of trust.

Shift your focus from the outside…from the self…to the inside, the Strength. Know and feel this Strength within. Do not look to form. Know and feel this Strength within that overlooks form.

That Which is Constant

When you are able to watch form move in and out of experience without looking to it as an attachment for trust, you will be able to feel the constancy of Strength, which is trust. Then you will be able to trust no matter what seems to be happening in form. And this includes that which seems to be happening around you, but most importantly, it also includes that which seems to be happening in the aspect of form that you call mind.

The Strength is constant. Place your trust there, with the formless. Then your trust will not waver with form.

Holy Spirit: Your will is everything. This is a lesson I have sent you to learn. This is the lesson you have wanted to learn, because it is your will to learn it.

Now that the lesson has become clear within your awareness…now that there is no doubt as to what must be done if your goal within this lifetime is to awaken…now that you realize your goal is to awaken and your will is the way, I would like to talk to you about ways you can increase your will to awaken.

The most effective way to increase your will to awaken is through awareness. Whenever I speak of awareness, I am speaking of seeing or noticing or being aware of without judgment. In reality, you cannot be aware with judgment. Judgment is the tool of illusion. So by definition and through purpose, whenever you judge you are choosing illusion, and so you are also choosing not to be aware. Illusion is not seeing as it is, so illusion is also not being aware.

The most effective way to increase your will for awakening is by being aware of the ego. The ego is something you do not want, but you do not realize you do not want it when you are blinded by illusions. When you are blinded by illusions through judgment you create the illusion of ‘choose between’. Choose between is a trick, because it seems to give two options and to hold one above the other. You then feel attracted to the one that seems to be held above, and you believe you have chosen something you want. But you have not chosen something you want. You have simply been blinded by the false glimmer of the ego so you would not look at and be aware of the ego. If you were to look at and be aware of the ego with the natural unblinded heart of the Son of God, you would know that you do not want it.

Know that whenever you choose to listen to judgment…whenever you choose to believe that one option or possibility is better than another…you are also choosing to be blinded so that you do not see. When you realize that this is what ‘choose between’ is, you will begin to lose your desire for choose between. As you naturally no longer experience the desire to be blinded, through an observable awareness that this is what you have been choosing to do, you will also naturally begin to choose differently, and this is the beginning of the end of choosing judgment.

The most effective way to increase your will for awakening is to be aware of the ego without judgment. Again, judgment does not let you be aware. Remember this, and you will lose your taste for judgment.

Awareness is watching, knowing and seeing without attachment, but awareness is not lack of desire. Awareness is clear on desire without distraction and awareness watches from the purpose of desire. In this way, awareness, without effort, directs everything through desire. This is not a conscious effort, although consciousness can be enlisted in support of it. This is simply the quiet power of awareness that is aware without the blinding distraction of judgment.

Awareness is the way to increase your desire for awakening, because awareness is pure awareness of desire without distraction. In truth, as you have been told before, the Son of God has one true desire. This is the desire to know the Son of God.

Awareness, without an intellectual conception of this desire, is this desire. So awareness, not covered by the blind distraction of judgment, directs all things in the fulfillment of its only desire.

Awareness is the light of the Son of God, because awareness is His awakened desire known and unhidden by the misperceptions of judgment.

Holy Spirit: You are experiencing a feeling of emptiness or incompleteness, which you are trying to fill with some experience within the world. You go about your way of trying to fill this emptiness in many ways…through spiritual seeking, through eating, through a change in your career or through achieving better health. But always you are judging now as incomplete and always you are thinking a different now would be better.

Do you not see how this is merely a repeat of the tiny mad idea…the wish that as it is now be different?

I ask you to notice how much you desire for now to be different…for there to be some change in your current experience in order for you to be happy. And then I ask you to notice that within this wish that now be different, you make the choice not to be happy now.

Just notice at first. Notice that wanting something to be different is choosing not to be happy now.

And then, after you have noticed, continue to be willing to notice how much you wish now were different. You may come to see that this wish is much more prevalent than you were aware. And you may wish for that to be different…wish that you did not have the wish. But when you see this last thought, pause, and notice what you are looking at. The wish not to have the wish is a clear echo of the judgment of the tiny mad idea.

Now, with this realization in your mind, can you choose to look at everything differently? Can you choose to be happy with the wish in your mind? Can you notice that you want now to be different, see clearly that wanting now differently is an obstacle to feeling happy now, and then choose to be happy with that?

If you can choose to be happy with the wish to be different, you can choose to be happy with yourself. For whenever you judge your ideas, you judge the essence of you. And when you choose to judge the essence of you, you choose the experience of unhappiness.

Do not think much about what the effects of this decision may be. If you are looking to effects hoping they will be different, you are caught up in judging the moment and not seeing the judging that you do. Instead, notice you hope for different effects. Notice that is a judgment of the moment and allow yourself to be happy with your wish. Say, “Yes, I want things to be different. Yes, I wish they were different than they are. What a magnificent mind I have that I can wish for difference and experience the light of untrue.”

Question: I admit that I am feeling fear at the idea of practicing this message.

Holy Spirit: That is your feeling of being “foundationless” again. Allow that feeling in joy.

Judgment is a foundation, because it is the building block of this experience of illusion. Without the building block, the foundation and the illusion must crumble. Your judgments that keep the untrue in place are very subtle, and it is time we begin looking at these subtleties now. You notice some judgments as judgments and you choose to let them go, but others you see as right and keep them out of a belief in rightness. Judging the moment through wishing is judgment, and judging the wishing is judging more. To see this without judging is shaking the foundation of illusion, and this is why you feel fear.

Remember that fear is resistance to letting go of the false as true. Accept your resistance without judgment, then step forward into My request remembering that patience is key. We are going very deep into the mind now, and this is the answer to the questions that you ask. We will continue to step into the mind by going in one little bit at a time, but we are going in at the core, so the effects of the going shall be great.

Holy Spirit: The desire to be loved by others is the desire to avoid your own perceived self-hatred. I say “perceived self-hatred” because you do not truly hate yourself. You hate an illusion of yourself. This is very important for you to see, and it is this realization that will allow you to let go of everything that you fear.

Think for a moment about your desire to be loved…your desire to be approved of, to be liked or to be looked at favorably by others. When you are honest with yourself, you will see that this is one of your greatest worldly desires. When you do not love someone in the world, it is often because you believe they did not love you first. When you love someone, it is usually because you feel loved by them. There is a direct connection between your feeling for others and how you perceive they feel about you.

The desire to be loved is a great obstacle to awakening, because it covers your greatest fear. It is also an obstacle to following guidance or to “being authentic” because you will deviate from the guidance you hear, at least to some measure, if you feel that you may not be approved of by others.

I’d like you to take a moment now to look within your mind at your human memory and realize what an obstacle the desire for love is.

Now that you’ve realized what I say is true, let’s look at the reason for this obstacle. The reason is clear and easy to see. Below the desire to be loved there is an intense and boiling belief in the hatred of Self. This feeling…the belief…is so intense that you seldom look it right in the eye. Instead, you prefer to look in the eye of illusory approval, but do not lie to yourself. Illusory approval is illusory and not based on truth. You realize this when you notice that illusory approval is shifting and changing. It is never consistent and it is not something you can count on in trust. This is why you are always acting in some way, not being truly authentic. You are fearing the loss of illusory approval and doing (or not doing) whatever you feel it takes to maintain the approval you crave so desperately.

Now that I have painted this picture for you, and you are looking at it honestly with Me, I’d like to talk about what you are doing to yourself. It is important that you see this as an obstacle to your true happiness. If you do not see this as an obstacle, you will not let it go, because you believe illusory approval is love and you know love is the only means of happiness.

When you seek illusory approval or when you believe illusory approval has been found, you are placing your trust with something that is not real. Because you are the Son of God, you know at a level that is intuitive that you are trusting the false as if it is something true. You also know this is a lie and that as a lie, it must fail you. Therefore, at a level that may not seem conscious, you live your life of illusory approval as a life of fear. This is why you can never relax. The foundation you have placed your faith for happiness on is not solid, and as the Son of God, you know this.

I said that this idea that you cannot trust illusory approval seems unconscious. I say it seems unconscious because in truth, it isn’t. If you look at it carefully with Me, you will see that the fear of loss of approval is never truly unconscious. You may not admit to yourself that you are doing this or that, never truly being fully authentic, because you seek approval. But if you look at it slowly with Me now, you know it is true. The idea that you must win approval is always there, lurking in the open back of the mind. Therefore, it is not unconscious. And if it is not unconscious, you can look at it more directly with Me.

Now let’s look at your greatest worldly fear. Let’s imagine no approval. Let’s imagine there is not a shred of it. Let’s imagine that everywhere you look, you encounter open hatred directed toward you. There isn’t a single soul you can count on. The entire world is joined in agreement on one thing, and that one thing is that they don’t like you. They don’t want you. They don’t want to lay eyes on you. They don’t even want the thought of you crossing their minds because it causes them such terrible agony. The one thing that the entire world is in agreement on is this: They thoroughly and completely hate and are disgusted by you.

Sit in this for a moment, and notice how much you fear this idea. Don’t worry that it can be true. It can never be true. It is impossible to be totally abandoned by love. But look at this for a moment as if it is true, and notice how much you fear this as an idea of truth.

Now let’s look beyond this idea, because there is another idea that you fear more. Hold My Hand and willingly engage your free flowing imagination as we step in together and look closely at what you truly fear.

When you see the world hating you, despising you and cutting you off, you are lost in a terrible suffering. But do not look away from why you suffer. Your suffering is not truly coming from them. Look carefully, honestly and completely at what you are feeling now. You are suffering because you believe the hatred they project onto you is true. You believe it is real. And you believe it is real, because you believe it is deserved.

In a whoosh…a quick change in perspective…you see clearly that the judgment you fear is not really theirs. You fear your agreement with their judgment. You fear your judgment of you. You fear your final and complete, self-devouring hatred of your Self. And whenever you seek approval…whenever you want someone outside of you to love you…what you are not seeing is that what you truly desire is simply to love yourself.

Loving yourself is not as difficult as you may think it is. Loving yourself is simply a matter of learning to see yourself as you are instead of as you are not. And although your eyes are trained to see you as you are not, both when you look at yourself and when you look at others, your mind naturally directs your attention also to see that which you are. It is simply a matter of recognizing one as your truth and the other as that which is not the truth of what you are.

This is why I ask you to look beyond the body as you look for the truth of what you are. You can never limit your view to your body, or to any aspect that represents individual as self, and love you as you because separate is not what you are. You must broaden your view to all things in order to love Self. You must let your eyes gaze out the window and land on a bush or onto a specific leaf on a bush, or on an airplane, a car, or a piece of rolled up paper moving through the street with the wind. Let your eyes land on anything that seems not to be the body and say to yourself, “That which I see is also me.”

As you broaden your view by holding this thought in the mind repeatedly day-after-day, one moment of remembrance to the next, you will begin to see that you do not truly hate Self. You fear hating Self, but that is because you accept Self as less than all it is. When you broaden the view of Self to everything, you cannot hate it. Everything can only be loved. To judge and to hate, you must separate. But without the illusion of separation, there is only love.

Willingly broaden your view of self. You can’t love an illusion of you, because it isn’t true. But love of truth is flowing, and you cannot be separate from that flow when you accept that the flow of everything is you.

Question: Holy Spirit, I have several friends who seem to believe they are victim of their own minds or victim to the thoughts in their mind. They are caught in a loop of believing and experiencing that they cannot seem to emerge from, and they are clearly feeling trapped in hell. What is most helpful to share with these friends who are seeking help? I surrender all thought to you and wait gratefully for your answer.

Answer: The answer lies in remembering who you are all of the time. Although you may not have the experience of being creator, you have the knowing of it, at least intellectually. That little bit of knowing is enough to take you very far. But when you remember yourself as victim, you forget who you are. In that moment you are being you, pretending to be something else, and the entire experience you are having is coming from you.

When you remember what you are, and you decide to trust that knowledge with faith, you begin to create an opposite driving force. It is the opposite driving force that will begin to create an opposite driving experience. Then experience and faith can be combined to create a stronger opposite driving force.

The beginning of reversal is most challenging. It is helpful to praise even the smallest of gains with intense gratitude during this time. Remember that where ever you focus you carry yourself, and be willing to focus your mind in the direction you want to go.

The first step in reversal is the choice for patience. If you expect some kind of perfection from yourself when you believe you are not experiencing perfection now, you will only have the experience of failure through judgment. This isn’t helpful to your goal. Decide on patience, not perceived perfection. Remember that patience is a symbol of love in what seems to be a world of time, and remember to love yourself through patience.

Patience is more than being nice to yourself, and it definitely is not treating yourself with the gloves of weakness. Patience is a powerful, powerful trust in yourself, which teaches that you will reverse the energy of the universe through will. And patience also knows that the energy of the universe is never reversed through force, but always through cooperation. So as you see, the energy of patience is love.

Once you have decided for patience, you have taken a giant step toward the reversal of energies that seem to harm you. Take time to be grateful for patience. Take time to celebrate your decision. Through these simple actions, the energy of patience is increased, and the energy that seems to surround you is softened through love.

Now that you have decided for patience, decide to take the time to do the work I have already asked you to do. Will for awareness of your thoughts, and will for awareness in gratitude. When you remember who you are, you are grateful to see all that you do, because you know all that you experience comes from you. To not see is to feel trapped, but to see is to know clearly that you are free.

When you see, you will notice a temptation to judge. Notice this temptation and feel the power of the attraction it seems to have. Stay there, feeling the attraction. As you stay in the attraction without following it, the attraction in time will grow weak.

When you are in the attraction to judgment, it is helpful to consciously choose to be there. Decide that you want to feel its pull. Imagine yourself standing in a strong current of water, and feel the rush of the water about your legs. This is the experience you want. You do not desire the experience of riding the current or pull. You also do not desire the experience of pushing upstream or fighting it. You desire the experience of being in it, feeling it and letting it rush by you, without the desire to surrender to it.

As you enjoy this current, the current will grow weaker over time. This is the power of the choice to embrace your experience.

When the waters have calmed, and this may seem to take several days of standing within the current, you are now ready to look more carefully at the thoughts you were tempted to judge. You will not see all of your thoughts immediately, but they will float to you one at a time like leaves floating upon a stream.

When a thought that isn’t helpful floats into your awareness, pick that leaf up out of the stream. Look at it. Always take the time to examine the leaves that float into your awareness. As you examine them you accept them, and through acceptance they can be seen as not wanted and released.

It is helpful not to think too much as you examine a leaf you have picked from a stream. Do not try to understand it or identify it with the intellect of a scientist. Look at it with the innocence of a child. A child does not care about the variety of leaf or wonder about the analysis of the tree from which it came. A child just looks at the leaf exactly as it is and decides, based on the pleasure that it brings, if he will keep the leaf or let it go, thereby setting himself free.

The work that you do is restful and patient, and it is love. Remember that you love yourself through doing this work in patience. It is a sunny day in the country, and there is no reason to hurry. Just stand in the stream, enjoying the work that you do, and wait patiently and willingly for the next leaf.

Now, let’s look at the thought that tells you that you can’t do this. You can feel the rush of the water as we pick up this thought. Suddenly the water is fearful, and you are afraid you will lose your footing and it will carry you away. Look up. There is a branch there. It is a thick branch and it is connected to a very strong tree. Reach up and grab onto that branch. Now, you cannot fall. Holding onto the branch, knowing that the tree is also holding onto you, go back to your memory of who you are. Remember to be patient, and remember that patience is love. Be in the rush of water and let it rush by you and around you and through you. As you stand here in this place of being, letting the fear be the fear it seems to be, the fear will grow gentler. This is a giant step into the calmness of knowing that is you. Each time you remember to allow the rushing of water, you choose the experience of peace. Through calmness, the work is more effectively done, and calmness is the effect of choosing not to panic now. Patience is not panic. Being in it is not running from it. Resting is knowing that despite appearances, all is well.

Let’s look at the idea that one idea is different from another. It tells you the work can be done with one type of thought, but another thought is fact. Feel the panic and the rush of waters. Grab onto the overhead branch and know, within the depth of your being, that this is never true. Let the water rush by you and around you and through you, and rest, knowing the idea of difference or specialness, including specialness of thought, is only an idea. And in itself as an idea, the process of letting it go is the same.

Nothing is ever different, and patience is the key because patience is love.