Foreword

I have heard about a natural happiness, a smile that lies behind and beyond, within and without all forms, all life and events. Unlike the feeling of happiness with its unpredictable appearances and disappearances, this natural happiness, once known, becomes the solid pillar or background on which all other experiences are built. A baby’s first smile melts the hearts of its parents, allowing them to be made anew. This is not a feeling of happiness; this is happiness itself, the great furnace from which everything is forged.

I have followed, to the best of my expanding abilities, the encouraging advice found in this book and sense the smile spoken of. The fact that these encouraging words have been available to a wretch like me supports the conviction that this smile, without exception, is available to everyone.

The initial six chapters of this book look at “individual experience” and at the easy methods of transforming it. The entire spectrum of human experience, from the greatest mental, emotional and physical discomforts to life’s blissful ecstasies, is the spectrum of mind. The good news that I wish to relate is that anything in mind can be changed. Even the dubious experience of “I” with its sorrowful reflections can be transformed and even transcended.

The consequent six chapters invite the reader to learn not only how to transform experience, but how to purify the mind of all conditions that do not serve the true life of Self.

Though these ideas sometimes seem to relate only to a specific, hard-pressed individual who is endlessly at war with himself, the underlying principles spoken of do point toward universality and so can be helpful to all. To experience these principles needs only that the reader accept his own experience totally and move deeper into it. The method of mind purification described later in the book has its source in the nature of consciousness itself and is therefore totally universal.

There is nothing written here that I feel belongs to what we normally think of as truth or falsity – such distinctions belong in cold clinics and are far divorced from life itself. If there is any truth in what has been written, it can only be tested through examining the real transformations of personal experience. Your experience of who you now has to be the starting point for all investgation. This reality, of your experience, is also the key that can be used to open many other doors and eventually lead you beyond experience itself.

As with life, you may take what is written seriously, this is your prerogative. At the same time it is only fair that you are reminded that life takes nothing seriously.

Introduction

Life! What on earth is life?

Life has taken many forms in your past, it is taking many forms now, and it will be taking many forms in your future. I put emphasis on your past and future because from the higher perspectives of Self, the past and future are merely dimensions of the Now. Your limited perception of Self and erudite allegiance to your physical mind hinder you from seeing that everything happens simultaneously. Like when you stir a cup of tea, there is tea behind the spoon and in front of it; as far as the spoon is concerned there is a past and future tea – for you, the stirrer of life, there is only one delicious, turbulent cup of tea… Now.

So life is a cup of tea is it? Well now I know – thanks for your invaluable council, how could I ever have imagined it to be a cup of coffee… Please tell me more, great Tetley in the sky.

Since the teacup analogy is obviously beyond you, I suggest you drop it and return to your coffee. May I resume?

Sure, you make little sense, but I am enjoying our conversation.

Ultimately there is only One Life. The forms this One supports are countless, not merely because of a vast numerical configuration, but because of movement and change within the configuration. Sort of like detonating a thousand tons of TNT and a second later trying to estimate the number of subatomic particles, their locations and the relative distances individually between them, over a period of a hundred years. A task only a god or an irreversible lunatic would undertake.

What you mistakenly call life is merely your mind and its contents. When we use the word “life” we have to include that which is truly living. That which you truly are – the true Light of being.

Now that was beyond me…what light are you talking about?

Yes, it is beyond and within all life. The light you perceive with your physical eyes is a relative light that can only exist in darkness, or rather; darkness and light are mere polarities of mind. Try and see that both night and day arise in what we call the Now: it is the Now which allows day and night, and for that matter everything else, to arise. The Now is a very important aspect, if not the body of this Life giving Light.

If you could remain in the Now for just a few minutes without referring to thoughts of the future and past, you would notice a lightness of being – it is this lightness of being that is the true Light, that which is beyond polarity. The lightness you sometimes experience when you are listening to my words is a reflection of this Living Light. When we listen with open, comfortable interest, it happens easily that we drift into a larger expression of the Now and a partial release from the mind constructions we call past and future. The Now is the One way we all share that leads us to the One Living Light.

What you refer to as life is the form aspect of this Living Light: the diversification of The One Light in form. This Living Light is moving in manifest and un-manifest directions, through countless possibilities, through innumerable lives and myriad deaths. You ask what life is? Because life is truly what is, it is everything – as it manifests in form it can be absolutely anything. However, all attempts to define and label Life’s essence are totally futile. All definitions belong to mind. Mind is the medium, or universal substance through which life manifests – it is the potter’s clay. The clay can never know the potter; likewise, mind can never know or define Life. Mind is limitation. Life’s es­sence is without limitation and so remains untouched by mind.

And my life, what is that?

Your life is with The One and is The One. As a “mind experience”, it can be known as a central point of radiance within you – a pin-prick of light so pure that even though it touches every­thing, it is touched by nothing. Its reality is so solid that diamonds be­come fluid in its presence; its stillness so absolutely unmoving that all that it touches vibrates. Everything moves because it is still; everything is becoming because it is in everything; its total emptiness fulfils everything that is known.

This is your life, a life so bright the physical sun becomes its shadow – you are Self, endlessly and tirelessly creating and exploring possibilities.

How wonderfully perfect – the fact that I experience life as being a manifestation of discomfort is surely my fault. Your words are indeed stirring but they have no practical use in my life. I am sorrowful, I am empty, I am alone. I feel fear, disgust, hate – this is my life. Your assertions are designed for fairies, the pure hearted, the gifted and to those to whom providence is a guiding friend.

I hear you clearly, but I do not understand you. Although your words give me comfort, no sooner have I grasped them and they have gone.

If you want to help me talk to me of this life, this pain that I am living, why I never get what I want. Tell me of mundane things; tell me of that which I can under­stand, answer the questions pertaining to this life so that I may at least suffer in knowledge.

The specific is always relative. Your questions of pain, fear and desire pertain to specific and individual needs; therefore, the answers are also specific, individual and at best relative. As the lion sinks its teeth into the terrified gazelle there is suffering and great joy. What business has the lion or gazelle to question this joy and suffering? The suffering of the gazelle eventually moves into joy as its life falls back upon its greater self and the group consciousness it is part of; it excels itself and lightens the world as it lets go of the small life. This is a movement away from darkness; the pain has now become pleasure and release. The lion moves on from pleasure, fattened by its kill, nourished by the gazelle’s flesh toward future hunger and pain.

You are not the discomfort you experience; you are the master of all your experiences. You are the artist of imagination, the voice of intuition, the light of inspiration. The world and the life you call painful is at your command, you need not entertain it with sorrow.

Of what use are your words to me and my infirm body, erratic emotions and confused mind? My limbs are made of lead, my feelings burn like sulphur and my mind is akin to a monkey’s cage. I need to know about what is real for me. If this reality I experience is mine, then why is it so difficult for me to live in it? Your visions tell me of joy, my sight knows only dismay. Leave your lofty abode in the sky and tell me of what is real for me!
My suffering may seem relative to you but for me it is everything that I know. It is to the prob­lems of life I am addressed and I demand that you tell me of these things. It matters little to me whether the things I experience are relative, untrue, ungodly, the tricks of Lucifer or the games of the angels in light – if I am these glorious and all powerful things that you say that I am, I demand that you answer my questions.

Then Beloved Self, let us begin.

 

One

Why are so many of my relationships so difficult and often painful?

Everything is related. If any part of the universe were to suddenly loose its relationship to the rest it would disappear. A tree that lost its relation­ship to the ground would surely fall over; a bird that lost its relationship to the winds would plunge to the ground. The total constitution of Life is just one sensational relationship. This ceaselessly rejoicing, univer­sal relationship of all of life’s aspects and forms, is a reflection of the true ubiquitous Oneness and its dance in matter. Everything is connected to the whole and therefore in relation to it.

The main reason for your pain is that instead of de­veloping your relationship to the whole, you prefer to concentrate on a few of its questionable parts. If you could walk across a painting like a small insect you would experience many colours, shapes, shades and sizes. You would not understand the relationships between these colours, shades, shapes and sizes and would therefore miss the picture. It is our ability to observe the painting from a distance that enables us to see the relationships betwixt these colours, shades and shapes and discern the intelligible beauty within the painting.

The pictorial landscape of your life is filled with different colours, shades and shapes in the form of events, people, feelings, thoughts and sensations. You take these life manifestations and piece them together on the sequential thread of your own individual physical-mind consciousness. If you could stand back from your attachment to all these feeling-shades and shapes, you would sense the entire landscape you call your life as one great picture. All the hues, forms, intensities and tones of personal experience would suddenly start making sense as the beauty of your Whole Life became apparent.

To a certain degree this is what happens when you take one of your woodland walks. The natural connectedness of every tree and plant awakens within your own sense of Unity. This on occasions, as you well know, helps you to accept some difficulties associated with your relationships. Even your mother senses the effect your walks have on you and it is for this reason that she so often suggests you leave the house.

You are in relation to the whole of your life; not just the people you believe are causing you discomfort. It is your limited understanding of your relationship with life that causes you sorrow. As you learn to understand the larger relationship you have with life, you will let go of the sorrow that is connected with the smaller relationships. This is tantamount to stepping back from your own painting of life and observing it from a less painful distance, or should I say, from a less acute angle.

When you cut your finger you put a plaster on it and forget it, knowing that it will recover by itself. You are aware of the fact that it is connected to the rest of your body and that the healing powers contained in the whole of the body will take care of it. You do not focus your attention on the cut finger and protest, “I am a miserable cut finger”. You cut your finger a few weeks ago cutting vegetables: if you had been more aware of yourself and your divine relationship to life, instead of focusing on the limited relationship you have with your mother, this wouldn’t have happened.

Letting go of pain is letting go of ignorance. We can take waking up from a dream as an example. As you awaken from a dream your understanding and relationship to life increases – the fear and sorrow associated with a certain dream is released. The sorrow seemed real in the dream; as you awakened to your greater connection and relationship with life, the pain subsided. All sorrow, seen in retrospection, belongs to dreams.

All experiences of life are products of relationships; you are related to all your experiences, be they physical, emotional or mental. All of your experiences arise because of the relationship between Self and matter – your Self and what matters for you. All relationships are perfect; all relationships are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing – all relationships are connected in accor­dance with the Law of Nature.

I have a relationship with my father that is far from perfect. I feel tense and afraid in his com­pany. He’s always telling me what I should be doing or how I have done something wrong. He really doesn’t like me – what’s so perfect about that? And my mother with her sad, pleading eyes – I feel such anger and irritation sometimes. Why do I have so many difficulties with my parents?

All relationships are propelled by previous relationships and guided by coming relationships. They are intricately interwoven; they are parts of each other. The relationships you have with your parents are parts of the relationship they have with each other. Going back we can also say that the relationships that your parents had with their parents are affecting your present relationships with them. This can be carried back hundreds of generations. They are all connected. If you think about this and try to sense this connectedness you may be able to experience what I mean when I say that: the sorrow experienced in the relationships you have with your parents existed before you were born: it is not your own personal sorrow, it is universal sorrow, universal ignorance of the connectedness of everything.

If you want to understand what you call your own personal sorrow better, I suggest you ask your parents to describe their own personal sorrow. You will find that in essence it is the same sorrow. Find out what life has taught them and you will discover what they have taught you.

If you understood the similarities between your mother’s relationship with her father and your relationship with her, you would find it much easier to let go and forgive her for what you feel she has done and is doing wrong. As you learn to understand that it isn’t necessarily her fault that she is the way that she is, you will discover ways of helping her change her mind and so release her from her own individualized interpretation of universal sorrow. As you understand and see her more clearly, you will understand and see yourself more clearly; as you help and release her from her sorrow, you will help and release yourself from your own sorrow. This is not a flower-power-peace-plan; it is The Law of Nature. Because everything is connected, what is given is received, and what is received is given.

You may believe that your parents’ tutorials are far from commendable, but this is also true of your own. Look at the way you treat the people you are in relation with, look at the way you blame everyone for your discomfort. What are you teaching people through your relationships with them? That they are guilty, punishable, that they are not good enough? Teach them what I teach you and you will simultaneously teach your self. Teach them that it is not their fault and that they are not punishable, guilty and unworthy. Teach them the truth: that they are loveable, innocent, and all-powerful Light. Teach them that they can change anything in their lives. Teach them what I teach you; give them what I give you: Unconditionally.

What can I possibly do when I am being threatened by dad or fighting against mother’s emotional contortions? Step back and observe my life from a greater distance! What kind of metaphysical acrobatics are you describing here?

All relationships are made for and with each other. Water flows from the mountains toward sea level, following the natural course offered to it. In the same way, all energy follows the natural course offered to it. All relationships are energy transactions. In a relationship you take what is given and you give what can be taken in accordance with a supreme natural balance governed by Law. You need only observe a tree to understand this truth. The tree takes water from the ground and sunlight from the sun; it gives its leaves to the soil, oxygen to the air and its fruits to life. The life of a tree is a perfect equation: on an energy level it has taken what it has given and given what it has taken. I repeat for the sake of clarity: all relationships are perfect.

This knowledge can help you understand what is happening the next time that you experience your parents as a trifle less loving. Try and experience what is happening as a mere flow of energies, be your experience physical, emotional or mental. To do this is to step back from what is happening in your life and allow a greater understanding.

Right, the Law of Nature has decided that it is my lot to accept abusive energies from my father and that everything is perfect. Well in that case I’ll just get on with my totally miserable life as best I can. Is this what you are saying? Tell me more about this miserable equation!

The energies that your father emanates – in your direction that is – are predominantly mental. There is something within you that accepts these energies – they move you. A note played on a guitar can cause, through resonance, the same note to vibrate on another guitar placed at the other side of the room. There is a mental frequency within you that is the same as the one being transmitted by your father. Do you see that he thinks you should be doing better than you are? Do you see that you think everyone else should be doing better than they are? If you could raise this mental vibration within yourself and start to think that everyone is doing the best they possibly can, you would eventually notice that you are no longer vibrating with your father’s lower mental energies. You will have ceased to be an open channel for this particularly bad broadcast. This will either force dad to re-direct his transmitters, or change frequency.

When we raise our own frequency we always encourage others to do the same. In your more superficial relationships, you may discover that people simply disappear out of your life, making room for people that can utilise your higher or more connecting energies.

Furthering our analysis of your relationship to your father, it can also be noted that you preside over an abundance of what can be called “poor poor me” energies. Have you noticed how your father picks up on these energies that you so willingly transmit to him? Likewise: if your father could change his own “poor poor me” energies, he would aid you in transforming your own. The give and take relationship you have with your father is perfect – an equation par excellence.

The energy relationship you have with your mother is also governed by Nature. In short, home for her has always meant a lot of abuse and denial of her self for someone else. This is one of the lessons life has taught her and so, in her attempts to make things homely, she sacrifices herself and encourages everyone else to do the same. You will probably find it easier to observe the connection between her sacrificial energies and Dad’s “poor, poor me” energies, rather than finding this correspondence and resonance within yourself and your own “poor poor me energies”. You have already noticed that as soon as dad starts feeling sorry for himself, mum, in complete subjugation, comes to the rescue with her “Oh, you poor thing, it must have been a dreadful day – allow me to fetch your slippers and fall over backwards, just for you”. As you have seen, this seldom helps dad, in fact, quite the reverse – he normally turns on the abuse. This mum, in accordance with her sacrificial energies, accepts.

You of course believe she should sacrifice herself and willingly accept her emotional transmissions. As a sacrifice, you even cut your fingers on occasions, “poor, poor you”. Your part of the energy exchange with your mother is of course similar to your dad’s: those violent outbreaks, those aggressive tantrums you throw off. Your mother accepts your aggressive energies. If she could change her ideas on sacrifice and stop doing this, she would aid you in leaving behind the sorrow of aggression you experience.

All relationships, especially family ones, are paradoxically very simple whilst being extremely complex. Simple in the fact that they happen, on all levels, all by themselves; complex insofar as if we try and look at them and discover what is happening and why it is happening we easily become lost.

A relationship has many different energy exchanges on many different levels that simply happen. So, don’t be tricked by my superficial descriptions, but understand that there are actions and interactions of mental and emotional energies of many degrees and intensities.

So what we have then is a perfect energy configuration where everyone gets his or her piece of the action and reaction. If you ponder a while on this living equation, I am sure you will see my point.

I think I have sensed on occasions what you are describing. Only a few weeks ago dad confronted me with a letter he had received from my maths teacher. Angrily he questioned, “Why these ridiculously bad results in maths?” I was feeling confident that morning and answered, “I just don’t understand mathematics dad”, to which he submissively replied, “Oh”. I walked past him and out through the door without any problems. Later in the day, in the midst of one of my afternoon depressions, he confronted me again. I was feeling a lot less confident this time around, which I think he picked up on. He seemed to be even more infuriated and dominating than he had been earlier in the morning. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself… I remember that I kept trying to make excuses.

A lot of friction in relationships arises when one of the partners involved tries to change or evolve a certain energy flow. This friction does of course ultimately lead to improvements, though initially it can seem to worsen the situation. Like when you stir your cup of coffee and suddenly change the direction of rotation – first there is turbulence and then a return to an even flow.

When we try and change a flow in energy the result is at first normally resistance: this means that in the case of your father, he will at first become even more dominating. Learn to see this, as it is, which is a manifestation of fear, the fear of change, the inability to let go of a sorrowful identification. We hold onto the conditions of mind, be those conditions good or bad. It is sometimes easier to continue being unhappy than having to face the fear of letting go.

An important aspect of the Law is that “as one form appears, another disappears”. As ice appears, water disappears – as gas appears a liquid or solid disappears. If we are unwilling to let go of water, we will never create ice; likewise, if we are unwilling to let go of sorrow and unhappiness, we will never know happiness. Law governs all.

Remember that it is the higher more subtle energies that guide and control the lower. Thought is the more subtle energy that is the controlling factor of all your weapons of destruction, space rockets, political movements and economic and social systems. On a humanistic level we can say that mind is over matter; thought controls the movement of energy within the human framework.

In short, all of the energy movements found in your relationships are controlled by your thoughts, conscious and unconscious. Your beliefs about your relationships are thought patterns on conscious and subconscious levels. It is these belief-thought patterns that are causing your sorrow.

To alleviate your sorrow you must become aware of your own directives of experience, that is, the thoughts and beliefs that you carry. To be able to do this entails complete honesty and the willingness to accept a few basic ideas.

Even though a negative condition in your life may seem to have its source in the actions of others, you will find, if you look for it, a belief or thought in your own mind that is helping to create and support that condition. Taking your “poor poor me” energies as an example, you also have “poor poor me” beliefs. Your poor energies are following your poor beliefs and thoughts about yourself. A belief-thought construction in your mind – nobody else’s – keeps telling you that the person you believe you are today is the product of family maltreatment and that your sorrowful condition is eternally etched on the substance of your mind… poor you. If there were any truth in this belief I would really be out of business – until the next cosmic round that is. The fact is that this belief can be changed and through that changing a new experience can arise. This life-inhibiting belief you so fearfully cherish has to be replaced by a belief that serves you a little better and allows you to flow into higher areas of experience.

What should I believe then?

Our beliefs about reality are continuously being rebuilt and modified as we live our lives. Because we are all individual, we have to find out which beliefs are best suited to our development at a certain point in our lives. Our age, maturity, character and much more decide what beliefs we hold. Children have the beliefs of children, intellectuals the beliefs of intellectuals etc. Beliefs about reality are individual and are a part of the individual road each of us are following.

Well you seem to know me quite well, what individual beliefs should I adopt?

To start with, those that make you and the people around you smile.

Surely you have a few suggestions?

You have to choose for yourself. I can however give you a universal precept that can be used as a ground on which to build your own personalised beliefs:

What I am goes beyond all thought and experience.

If you take this basic idea and truly learn how to believe in it, you will eventually start to manifest, in your experience, a sense of personal control over your life. However, the nature of earthly manifestation can be a little constrained and slow at times so one has to be persistent in this new belief and give Nature a chance to work.

When you are consciously choosing a new thought or belief you are literally rebuilding your own mind-reality. This happens irrespective of the warring feelings and ideas that appear in mind that try and sway you from your new belief. Mind does not like to be changed and so it will activate all the devilish means possible to distract you from your task. The nature of mind is that it goes round in circles, repeating everything and anything. Having a bad melody in one’s head, that repeats itself without our permission, is merely a tame indication of mind’s larger circulations. A repeating melody works on the surface level of the mind, your compulsive thoughts and personal afternoon depressions are a little deeper, but nevertheless, follow similar corridors in the revolving mad house you call your mind.

The only good thing about the relentless, repeating stupidity of the mind is that once you have imprinted a good idea upon it, it will repeat that idea and experience in all situations with the same tenacity as it repeated negative ideas and experiences.

The simple belief that people are generally amiable attracts people to us that are generally amiable. This automatically strengthens this belief. The belief that people are generally unfriendly attracts people that are unfriendly. Those people that you have met that never seem to be deterred when things go wrong have imprinted on the substance of their minds, the belief that if they continue, they sooner or later have to be successful. As you have noticed, these people are always ultimately successful: The belief in mind that one will succeed in the end directs and channels energies into the manifestation of that experience. The law of Nature is such and can not be broken.

Thoughts have a magnetic nature that attracts and repels other thoughts, people and even events. In much the same way as a dog can sense a person’s fear, so do we sense the thoughts of people around us and act upon those thoughts, consciously and unconsciously. Intuition belongs to this field of experience.

As a more obvious example of how your thoughts and beliefs affect your reality, you may remember your last cycling accident? If I could show it to you on video you would be quite amazed. Your first thought, as the car pulled out of the drive-way in front of you, was “Oh no, I’m going to crash.” This belief was so strong that even though you had the chance of cycling just a little to the left and missing the car, you instead actually steered into it. If your initial thought had been, “okay, this is a difficult situation, but I can handle it”, you would have missed the car.

If you choose to see and believe that your parents have done and are doing the best that they are capable of and that even you are doing the best you possibly can, your pain and dissatisfaction will gradually subside. As you learn how to steer around you parents instead of driving into them, things will get better.

This is so difficult to do. I try, but it feels as if I am going against my very nature, in fact that I am being false. Saying that you love someone does not make you love them; saying that you forgive someone doesn’t mean that you have forgiven them. The fact is that they are lousy parents. And what’s this business about choosing a belief. When I choose a higher thought, a lower thought seems to appear in mind and take the stage and throw me out of balance. I feel guilty and disappointed with myself – that I can’t even choose a thought and think it makes me angry.

You have to first accept the precept that I have laid down as being true. Until you have done this difficulties will persist.

The precept states that you are beyond experience. All experiences are dualistic; they arise in mind and are products of a subject-object relationship – you, the subject, experiencing the “not-you”, the object. You are not dualistic – you are one. When I say that you are not the bowl of cornflakes you experienced for breakfast you believe me; when I say that you are not the feelings you experience you question me. You are beyond all experience: start to believe this and before long the power to control experiences and change them will be at your command.

You say that when you choose a higher thought, a negative thought appears, takes the stage and leaves you feeling guilty and angry? What has happened? There are thousands upon thousands of different thoughts that enter our minds every day. In essence these thoughts are nothing other than energy frequencies. Some of them are high and some of them are low. Your parents have thoughts about you that you accept as truth. This is because you have frequencies around you that resonate with the thought frequencies of you parents, this I have explained. When mum thinks “poor poor you” you experience “poor poor me”.

The general misunderstanding is “or belief as you wish”, is that our thoughts arise from within us and that they are our own personal possessions. It is quite easy to see that the empty mind of the new born baby eventually becomes filled with and conditioned through the experience of it’s immediate surrounding. The child’s thoughts and feelings are the property of its surrounding also. These thoughts and feelings do not arise from some murky place embedded in the child’s psyche.

In the same way that you react and act upon the thoughts your parents throw in your direction, so do you react and act upon the superabundance of thoughts coming to you from your environment. Out of an immeasurable dimension of infinite thought-frequencies, you choose those that suit your beliefs best. Your daily thoughts come to you on invitation – your beliefs are those invitations. To avoid bogging you down, we can turn away from what you call hypothetical drivel and as an example take what happened yesterday.

You broke a glass in the kitchen and dad said, “can’t you do anything right?” You felt dismay and went to your room. You sat on your bed and to the best of your capabilities chose to think the thought, “I can do many things right”. The initial experience was good but after a while the only thoughts you had in mind were those related to the things that you had done wrong in your life. The guilt arose and the anger swelled. What happened? You chose a higher thought whilst simultaneously believing in a lower feeling. On the surface of your mind you were saying that you can do many things right. At the same time, at the depths of your mind, you hold the belief that you are useless. You think your higher thoughts whilst listening to the feelings in your abdomen that are telling you something else. Unfortunately you believe your feelings about who you are to be more real than your thoughts. You are firing water into the flames of misery and missing the burning coals – you are affirming strength through your new thought and inviting weakness through believing that your feelings are depictive of whom you really are.

The next time something like this happens you have to bear in mind the reality of the situation, which is: The fact that you are experiencing a bad feeling and thought is proof that you can not be the bad feeling and thought. You are a subject experiencing an objective feeling or thought: How can the subject be the object! Because these bad thoughts and feelings have arisen within you does not mean that you have to identify with them and claim them to be adjuncts of your true reality. Let them go as soon as you become aware that you are experiencing them and return to your new belief. The bad feeling may remain for some time but has ultimately to follow the Law of Nature and disappear.

I don’t seem to understand what is meant by “feeling”. You say thoughts and feelings arise in mind. What is the difference between them?

The difference is basically frequency. When you think thoughts about a chocolate cake you experience an empty, flat, intellectual thought-picture. As the feeling of desire arises in you, your picture acquires more depth and you discover that feelings seem to colour your experience. As you let go of the thought of the cake, you may find that the feeling of desire remains. Thoughts, having a faster vibration, arise in mind and leave mind at a greater speed than feelings. Feelings and thoughts are, however, in essence the same. The desire-feeling will subside and disappears just like the thought, unless of course you choose to dwell on the feeling and start craving for chocolate cake. The craving for chocolate cake, like your affinity for bad feelings and thoughts about whom you are, are habit patterns – conditions of mind.

Since the beginning of your earthly sojourn you have been conditioning your mind. The extent of this conditioning is such that any experience that you may have is dependent on this conditioning. All feelings, thoughts and sensations, all desires and aversions are decided in accordance with the conditions of mind. Everything you think or feel yourself to be is steered by the conditions found in your mind. Whenever negativity, or even something positive arises in mind, it is due to the conditioning in mind.

These thoughts and feelings that come to you are neither good nor bad in essence; they are merely energy frequencies. It is the conditioning in your own mind that decides whether something is negative or positive for you. These feelings and thoughts have little value per se; they are merely life reflections that reveal the conditionings of your own mind.

When a thought of a chocolate cake comes to mind, your mouth starts to water as you see visions of large pieces of cake disappearing between your teeth. The conditioning in mind tells you that it will be a pleasant experience. When a thought of visiting the dentist arises, your mind confronts you with visions of bright lights, hairy nostrils and whistling drills. You feel discomfort, your experience is negative. The quality of mind decides the quality of experience.

It is these conditionings in mind that are your beliefs. It is not enough that we simply choose a new belief and expect a new experience to immediately manifest itself. We have to literally change our minds, change the conditions.

The secret of success lies in not allowing one to be overthrown by intruding negativity and thoughts. The entire field of experience is the field of mind. Learn to see it as a battlefield. The enemy is the renegade thoughts and feelings that that try and throw you off guard. As a negative thought or feeling arises on the field of consciousness remember the following points:

That you are not your thoughts and feelings.

That they are mere energy.

That you can change your experience of them through changing the beliefs you have about them.

Never lay down in battle, hopping that the enemy will pass you by; never give yourself to these thoughts and feelings. You are not the field of consciousness; you are not the battlefield. You are the commanding chief of all experiences: remember this.

If you feel that the enemy is getting too strong, sit with a straight back and deepen your breaths. Through deepening your breath you will succeed in keeping your focus. Give your entire attention to your breathing. Experience the air entering and leaving your nostrils to the exclusion of everything else… Now. In doing this you are forcing the enemy to retreat. You will find that two minutes of this is more than enough to get the enemy on the run. Every time you are glorious in battle, you will notice that you have weakened the enemy and the attacks will come less often.

Sometimes a thought will overpower you; this is inevitable in the beginning. The worst thing we can possibly do in this situation is to allow the attack to continue through inviting thoughts and feelings of disappointment. This is just one small fight. Stand up with the knowledge that if you just continue, you are bound to be victorious.

As you do this you will start to understand the childish nature of your mind and its infantile circulations and invitations. Know that anything that arises in mind has to fall away and that things only arise because you are willing to entertain them. Don’t entertain negative thoughts and feelings, allow them to fall away. If you identify with them you give them strength, which means the next time they come around they will be stronger. Through the practice I have described, your negative thoughts will loose their strength – they may return but they will be weaker.

A point of vital importance is that it is futile to oppress or deny negative thoughts. If you attempt to stop a river from flowing, it will build up strength. It is necessary that we first recognise that negative thoughts are present and understand that they will leave by themselves if we choose higher thoughts. We allow them to flow into our experience and flow out of it: weakened by our refusal to follow them. Through treating them with divine nonchalance, they will seek to manifest elsewhere or disappear completely.

The belief that your feelings and thoughts are representative of who you are creates your dependence upon them and your inability to change them. By mentally lifting the landscape of your mind you can force the rivers of mental and emotional misery, to flow in the valleys of joy and fulfilment. You have to snap out of the wrong beliefs you hold so dear and jump. In the same way you jumped from the diving board last week. You saw the water beneath you, you felt your trembling body, you felt the paralysis. But then you jumped and immediately the fear disappeared – you became the action of fearlessly falling through the air and hitting the water.

On an energy level this is exactly what you have to do in your fearful relationships. You feel the misery and fear arise within you; you feel your body trembling as the enemy approaches. See these things objectively. Feel your body and emotions, don’t try to deny them, allow this inner cry and universal misery to be, without your intervention and evaluations. Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by what is happening; stand absolutely still and refuse to be moved. When you are doing this you are negating the false belief that is causing the discomfort. You don’t even have to be aware of the belief. And now choose your new belief, for example: “this experience has no power over me because I know it is ultimately not true”. Acting on this belief is tantamount to taking the jump.

I am aware how difficult this is to do; nevertheless, once you have taken the jump and are flying through the air you will be free. Changing our beliefs and mind constructions when we are alone is a very profitable enterprise; choosing a positive belief and acting on it when we are in the midst of a real-life negative situation, is divinely ordained – a bit like dropping “The Bomb” on the enemy: unconditional devastation of non-truth. The energy invested in turning a negative situation into a positive one is returned to the investor, laden with dividends.

When we are creating positive beliefs through positive thinking we are removing bricks from the unholy edifice of personal ignorance; when we are observing a negative emotion and contending with the difficulty of acting against it through jumping into a positive belief, we are driving a bulldozer through the conditions of ignorance. We are sweeping the mind with an intent of great poignancy and although we are experiencing discomfort, the rewards always outweigh the sorrow. Having a bad tooth pulled can be painful; nevertheless, you will feel happy about it afterwards. If you remember and believe what I have told you, you will be successful in all your endeavours. You are individualised light and the creator of all your experiences: you are eternally in love and therefore eternally safe. If you could imprint this belief on the substance of your mind, you would be able to bounce between stars as I do – you really wouldn’t need any other belief. Accepting this belief would develop all of your other beliefs and thus develop all of your relationships, not between just family and friends, but your relationship with everything that is born of Life.

You speak of conditions of mind, wouldn’t it be better to take away all the conditions in mind?

Yes, this is ultimately the best thing to do.

Tell me how.

Your questions form a resistive shield that surrounds you and until this shield has been removed, through silencing your questions, the door that opens to the unconditional has to remain closed.

Mind is conditioned through the senses, you must be willing to turn away from sense-experience, to turn away from the external world and look inward. Until you are prepared to do this, my words will have little import. First understand your mind and how to master your experiences. Understand that through changing the conditions in mind your experiences change.

I have understood how this is achieved. All my feelings and thoughts are steered by the beliefs or conditions found in my mind. All I have to do is change my beliefs and my experiences will change.

Until you have succeeded in doing this, my words and your understanding are only intellectual appellations. What I have said has to be grasped at the experiential level. When you have done this you will have attained the individual wisdom needed for the sacred purification of the mind.

The total de-conditioning of the mind is equivalent to what you call enlightenment. All experience as you know it ends: all doing is replaced by pure being: no me, no I, no you, only the indescribable state, eternally Now in eternal bliss.

Heavy levy!

Divine inspiration! The process of de-conditioning mind is the art of living so the law of nature binds us, to touch upon the subject again.