What is the true path
to God? Is it through renunciation, as some yogis believe? And what of
this thing called suffering? Is suffering and service the path to God as
many ascetics say? Do we earn our way to heaven by "being good," as so
many religions teach? Or are we free to act as we wish, violate or ignore
any rule, set aside any traditional teachings, dive into any
self-indulgences, and thus find Nirvana, as many New Agers say? Which is
it? Strict moral standards, or do-as-you-please? Which is it? Traditional
values, or make-it-up-as-you-go-along? Which is it? The Ten Commandments,
or the Seven Steps to Enlightenment?
You
have a great need to have it be one way or the other, don't you ... Could
it not be all of these?
I don't know. I'm
asking You.
I
will
answer you, then, as you can best understand- though l tell you now that
your answer is within. I say this to all people who hear My words and seek
My Truth.
Every
heart which earnestly asks, Which is the path to God? is shown. Each is
given a heartfelt Truth. Come to Me along the path of your heart, not
through a journey of your mind. You will never find Me in your mind.
In
order to truly know God, you have to
be out of your mind.
Yet
your question begs an answer, and I will not step aside from the thrust of
your inquiry.
I will begin with a statement that will startle you-
and perhaps offend the sensitivities of many people. There are no such
things as the Ten Commandments.
Oh, My God, there
aren't?
No,
there are not. Who would I command? Myself? And why would such
commandments be required? Whatever I want, is. Nest ce pas? How is
it therefore necessary to command anyone?
And,
if I did issue commandments, would they not be automatically kept? How
could I wish something to be so so badly that I would command it- and then
sit by and watch it not be so?
What
kind of a king would do that? What kind of a ruler?
And
yet I tell you this: I am neither a king nor a ruler. I am simply- and
awesomely- the Creator. Yet the Creator does not rule, but merely creates,
creates- and keeps on creating.
I
have created you- blessed you- in the image and likeness of Me. And I have
made certain promises and commitments to you. I have told you, in plain
language, how it will be with you when you become as one with
Me.
You
are, as Moses was, an earnest seeker. Moses too, as do you now, stood
before Me, begging for answers. "Oh, God of My Fathers," he called. "God
of my God, deign to show me. Give me a sign, that I may tell my people!
How can we know that we are chosen?"
And
I came to Moses, even as I have come to you now, with a divine covenant-
an everlasting promise- a sure and certain commitment. "How can I be
sure?" Moses asked plaintively. "Because I have told you so," I said. "You
have the Word of God."
And
the Word of God was not a commandment, but a covenant. These, then, are
the...
TEN
COMMITMENTS
You
shall know that you have taken the path to God, and you shall
know that you have found God, for there will be these signs,
these indications, these changes in you:
1.
You shall love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. And
there shall be no other God set before Me. No longer will you worship
human love, or success, money, or power, nor any symbol thereof. You will
set aside these things as a child sets aside toys. Not because they are
unworthy, but because you have outgrown them.
And,
you shall know you have taken the path to God
because:
2.
You shall not use the name of God in vain. Nor will you call upon Me for
frivolous things. You will understand the power of words, and of
thoughts, and you would not think of invoking the name of God in an
unGodly manner. You shall not use My name in vain because you cannot.
For My name- the Great "I Am"- is never used in vain (that is,
without result), nor can it ever be. And when you have found
God,you shall know this.
And,
I shall give you these other signs as well:
3.
You shall remember to keep a day for Me, and you shall call it holy. This,
so that you do not long stay in your illusion, but cause yourself to
remember who and what you are. And then shall you soon call every
day the Sabbath, and every moment holy.
4.
You shall honor your mother and your father- and you will know you
are the Son of God when you honor your Father/Mother God in all that you
say or do or think. And even as you so honor the Mother/Father God, and
your father and mother on Earth (for they have given you life), so,
too, will you honor everyone.
5.
You know you have found God when you observe that you will not
murder (that is, willfully kill, without cause). For while you will
understand that you cannot end
another's life in any event (all life is eternal), you will not choose to
terminate any particular incarnation, nor change any life energy from one
form to another, without the most sacred justification. Your new reverence
for life will cause you to honor all life forms- including plants,
trees and animals- and to impact them only when it is for the highest
good.
And
these other signs will I send you also, that you may know you are on the
path:
6.
You will not defile the purity of love with dishonesty or deceit, for this
is adulterous. I promise you, when you have found God, you shall not
commit this adultery.
7.
You will not take a thing that is not your own, nor cheat, nor connive,
nor harm another to have any thing, for this would be to steal. I promise
you, when you have found God, you shall not
steal.
Nor
shall you...
8.
Say a thing that is not true, and thus bear false
witness.
Nor
shall you...
9.
Covet your neighbor's spouse, for why would you want your neighbor's
spouse when you know all others are your
spouse?
I
0. Covet your neighbor's goods, for why would you want your neighbor's
goods when you know that all goods can be yours, and all your
goods belong to the world?
You
will know that you have found the path to God when you see these
signs. For I promise that no one who truly seeks God shall any longer do
these things. It would be impossible to continue such
behaviors.
These
are your freedoms, not your restrictions. These are my
commitments, not my commandments. For God does not order
about what God has created- God merely tells God's children: this is how
you will know that you are coming home.
Moses
asked in earnest- "How may I know? Give me a sign." Moses asked the same
question that you ask now. The same question all people everywhere have
asked since time began. My answer is likewise eternal. But it has never
been, and never will be, a commandment. For who shall I command? And who
shall I punish should My commandments not be kept?
There
is only Me.
So I don't have to
keep the Ten Commandments in order to get to heaven.
There
is no such thing as "getting to heaven." There is only a knowing that you
are already there. There is an accepting, an understanding, not a working
for or a striving.
You
cannot go to where you already are. To do that, you would have to leave
where you are, and that would defeat the whole purpose of the
journey.
The
irony is that most people think they have to leave where they are to get
to where they want to be. And so they leave heaven in order to get
to heaven- and go through hell.
Enlightenment
is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody
you have to be
except exactly who you're being right
now.
You
are on a journey to nowhere.
Heaven-
as you call it- is nowhere. Let's just put some space between the w and
the h in that word and you'll see that heaven is now ... here.
Everyone says that!
Everyone says that! It's driving me crazy! If "heaven is now here," how
come I don't see that? Why don't I feel that? And why is the world such a
mess?
I
understand
your frustration. It's almost as frustrating trying to understand all this
as it is trying to get someone to understand it.
Whoa! Wait a minute!
Are you trying to say that God gets frustrated?
Who
do you suppose invented frustration? And do you imagine that
you can experience something I cannot?
I
tell you this: every experience you have, I have. Do you not see I am
experiencing my Self through you? What else do you suppose all this
is for?
I
could not know Myself were it not for you. I created you that I
might know Who I Am.
Now
I would not shatter all of your illusions about Me in one chapter-
so I will tell you that in My most sublime form, which you call God, I do
not experience frustration.
Whew! That's better.
You scared me there for a minute.
But
that's not because I can't. It's simply because I don't choose to. You can
make the same choice, by the way.
Well, frustrated or
not, I still wonder how it can be that heaven is right here, and I don't
experience it.
You
cannot experience what you don't know. And you don't know you are in
"heaven" right now because you have not experienced it. You see, for you
it is a vicious circle. You cannot- have not found a way yet to-
experience what you do not know, and you do not know what you have not
experienced.
What
Enlightenment asks you to do is to know something you have not experienced
and thus experience it. Knowing opens the door to experience-and you
imagine it is the other way around.
Actually,
you know a great deal more than you have experienced. You simply don't
know that you know.
You
know that there is a God, for instance. But you may not know that you know
that. So you keep waiting around for the experience. And all the
while you keep having it. Yet you are having it without knowing-
which is like not having it at all.
Boy, we're going
around in circles here.
Yes,
we are. And instead of going around in circles, perhaps we should be the
circle itself. This doesn't have to be a vicious circle. it can be a
sublime one.
Is renunciation a part
of the truly spiritual life?
Yes,
because ultimately all Spirit renounces what is not real, and nothing in
the life you lead is real, save your relationship with Me.Yet
renunciation in the classic sense of self-denial is not
required.
A
true Master does not "give up" something. A true Master simply sets it
aside, as he would do with anything for which he no longer has any
use.
There
are those who say you must overcome your desires. I say you must simply
change them. The first practice feels like a rigorous discipline, the
second, a joyful exercise.
There
are those who say that to know God you must overcome all earthly passions.
Yet to understand and accept them is enough. What you resist persists.
What you look at disappears.
Those
who seek so earnestly to overcome all earthly passions often work at it so
hard that it might be said, this has become their passion. They
have a "passion for God"; a passion to know Him. But passion is passion,
and to trade one for the other does not eliminate it.
Therefore,
judge not that about which you feel passionate. Simply notice it, then see
if it serves you, given who and what you wish to be.
Remember,
you are constantly in the act of creating yourself. You are in every
moment deciding who and what you are. You decide this largely through the
choices you make regarding who and what you feel passionate about.
Often
a person on what you call a spiritual path looks like he has
renounced all earthly passion, all human desire. What he has done is
understand it, see the illusion, and step aside from the passions that do
not serve him- all the while loving the illusion for what it has brought
to him: the chance to be wholly free.
Passion
is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation.
It changes concepts to experience.
Passion
is the fire that drives us to express who we really are. Never deny
passion, for that is to deny Who You Are and Who You Truly Want to Be.
The
renunciate never denies passion- the renunciate simply denies attachment
to results. Passion is a love of doing. Doing is being, experienced.
Yet what is often created as part of doing? Expectation.
To
live your life without expectation- without the need for specific results-
that is freedom. That is Godliness. That is how I live.
You are not attached
to results?
Absolutely
not. My joy is in the creating, not in the aftermath. Renunciation is
not a decision to deny action. Renunciation is a decision to deny a
need for a particular result. There is a vast difference.
Could you explain what
You mean by the statement, "Passion is the love of turning being into
action"?
Beingness
is the highest state of existence. It is the purest essence. lt is the
"now-not now," the "all-not all," the "always-never" aspect of
God.
Pure
being is pure God-ing.
Yet
it has never been enough for us to simply be. We have always yearned to
experience What We Are- and that requires a whole other aspect of
divinity, called doing.
Let
us say that you are, at the core of your wonderful Self, that aspect of
divinity called love. (This is, by the way, the Truth of you.)
Now
it is one thing to be love- and quite another thing to do
something loving. The soul longs to do something about what it is,
in order that it might know itself in its own experience. So it will seek
to realize its highest idea through action.
This
urge to do this is called passion. Kill passion and you kill God. Passion
is God wanting to say "hi."
But,
you see, once God (or God-in-you) does that loving thing, God has realized
Itself, and needs nothing more.
Man,
on the other hand, often feels he needs a return on his investment.
If we're going to love somebody, fine- but we'd better get some love back.
That sort of thing.
This
is not passion. This is expectation.
This
is the greatest source of man's unhappiness. It is what separates man from
God.
The
renunciate seeks to end this separation through the experience some
Eastern mystics have called sarnadhi. That is, oneness and union
with God; a melding with and melting into divinity.
The
renunciate therefore renounces results- but never, ever renounces
passion. Indeed, the Master knows intuitively that passion is the path. It
is the way to Self realization.
Even
in earthly terms it can be fairly said that if you have a passion for
nothing, you have no life at all.
You have said that
"what you resist persists, and what you look at disappears." Can You
explain that?
You
cannot resist something to which you grant no reality. The act of
resisting a thing is the act of granting it life. When you resist an
energy, you place it there. The more you resist, the more you make it
real- whatever it is you are resisting.
What
you open your eyes and look at disappears. That is, it ceases to hold
its illusory form.
If
you look at something- truly look at it- you will see right
through it, and right through any illusion it holds for you, leaving
nothing but ultimate reality in your sight. In the face of ultimate
reality your puny illusion has no power. It cannot long hold you in its
weakening grip. You see the truth of it, and the truth sets you
free.
But what if you don't
want the thing you are looking at to disappear?
You
should always want it to! There is nothing in your reality to hold
onto. Yet if you do choose the illusion of your life over ultimate
reality, you may simply recreate it- just as you created it to
begin with. In this way you may have in your life what you choose
to have and eliminate from your life what you no longer wish to
experience.
Yet
never resist anything. If you think that by your resistance you
will eliminate it, think again. You only plant it more firmly in
place. Have I not told you all thought is creative?
Even a thought that
says I don't want something?
If
you don't want it, why think about it? Don't give it a second thought. Yet
if you rnust think about it- that is, if you cannot not
think about it- then do not resist. Rather, look at whatever it is
directly- accept the reality as your creation- then choose to keep
it or not, as you wish.
What would dictate
that choice?
Who
and What you think you Are. And Who and What you choose to
Be.
This
dictates all choice- every choice you have made in your
life. And ever will make.
And so the life of a
renunciate is an incorrect path?
That
is not a truth. The word "renunciate" holds such wrongful meaning.
In truth, you cannot renounce anything- because what you resist
persists. The true renunciate does not renounce, but simply chooses
differently. This is an act of moving toward something, not away
from something.
You
cannot move away from something, because it will chase you all over hell
and back. Therefore resist not temptation- but simply turn from it. Turn
toward Me and away from anything unlike Me.
Yet
know this: there is no such thing as an incorrect path- for on this
journey you cannot "not get" where you are going.
It
is simply a matter of speed- merely a question of when you will get
there- yet even that is an illusion, for there is no "when" neither is there a "before" or
"after." There is only now; an eternal moment of always in which you are
experiencing yourself.
Then what is the
point? If there is no way not to "get there," what is the point of
life? Why should we worry at all about anything we do?
Well,
of course, you shouldn't. But you would do we// to be
observant. Simply notice who and what you are being, doing, and having,
and see whether it serves you..
The
point of life is not to get anywhere- it is to notice that you are, and
have always been, already there. You are, always and forever, in the
moment of pure creation. The point of life is therefore to create--who
and
what you are, and then to experience that.
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