Ideas and Essence

" It is the false self... which is insulted by spiritual facts. Who we are in reality is someone else entirely... Although undeveloped at present, there is an authentic part of us that loves hearing the truth and responds with delight. Though people search the world over, happiness can never be found without discovering and living from the true self within. It is illusion that any success in this world can make us content..

Watch how people actually see only what they want to see and nothing more... As the world increasingly spirals downward, it seems safer to hide one's head... in the sand. But of course this doesn't work... Consider what some of these distractions are. Keeping busy, pursuing the trivial, never slowing down long enough to watch our own thoughts and feelings, obsessing over something.

We're thinking our way through life rather than seeing/understanding our way... We must begin to make connections and to know clearly that as long as we live from ideas, nothing will ever be any different no matter what we do... ' There is nothing to do, there is only something to see.'

The world believes, thinks and demands that we have to invent progress, stay busy, make something of ourselves, become someone, accomplish something, live life to its fullest, re-invent ourselves, chase our dreams, fulfill our fantasies, consult an expert, seek help, pay a psychologist for advice, talk to the animals, find a soul mate or a friend, help someone, go fly a kite, save the planet, jump in the lake, etc. ... There are a million different activities and things to do but somehow none of them seem to work. There's a temporary relief, reward or satisfaction but it never lasts...

One of the most stubborn beliefs that human beings cling to is the certainty that something outside themselves can make them feel better. But this is simply an IDEA of happiness masquerading as the genuine article... 'thinking it over' with the habitual, self-absorbed mind can never lead to real relief...

The reason people can't get along and marriages don't last is because we are living from an artificial idea of happiness. The reason we can be easily manipulated to spend money foolishly through advertising is because we are living from an idea. The reason we are taken over by negative states... is because we are living from an idea. The reason we fall into depression is because we are living from an idea... The reason we can be fooled into going to war over and over and over again is because we are living from ideas. Insane human beings must have an enemy so that they can keep the sick vibration and thrill of hatred going...

We are allowing someone or something else to live our lives for us. It was intended that we be in charge of our own lives. If we ever want to wake up, get out, be enlightened, experience higher wisdom, we need to go beyond the realm of ideas... The mind is incapable of escaping itself. So there has to be something else, something above it, something of a different nature that is not of the human intellect...

Somehow, someway we must start to see more deeply how this society, this world keeps us captured, fooled and hoaxed... See the difference between mechanical thinking... and consciousness, which is coming from essence. Living from essence has nothing to do with what the world is teaching us...

If we can begin to get ourselves out of the way and to slow down the tyrranical mind,... we can begin to hear... whispers that will lead us all the way out... There is a higher way, a spontaneous, instantaneous, unrehearsed way to handle and deal with life and all its challenges...

It is not a belief or an idea that God exists but a personal experience. But this 'pearl of great price' requires sacrifice on our part. The interruption of thought is absolutely essential. To live from what is higher, the lower must go... before the health and healing of the new nature can replace it."

( From New Life Foundation, Spring/Summer 2010 Bulletin )