THE PRECIPICE 1

Our world is not an erroneous one but rather that the universe in which we live is the realm of reality about wish man entertains a false concept. The work of bringing health and harmony into our experience is not then getting rid of four even changing immortal material universe but correcting the finite concept of our existence.   The Infinite Way by Joel Goldstein

P. 117

Let us begin with a few ideas it came up in class this morning. You might recall that we left off last week with the image of standing on the precipice and an aspect of that “growing edge” is being willing to release our histories or our over identification with our history.

What that does not mean is that we leave our learning behind. We are aware, as we grow in awareness, we learn how to respond to life situations differently. We also learn that our sense of who we are is continually evolving and expanding. We are not letting go of that learning, what we are letting go of is the continual unconscious movement of doing what we are doing without any idea all of our motivation.

Yes, we are all influenced by our history and not only by our own personal history but we can also be influenced and take on the history of others especially our parents/family/ethnic origins, etc. All of this learning can influence our actions, beliefs and attitudes.

“We would like you to know things about why you do what you do unconsciously, why you make choices that you don’t understand, and why you don’t consider the options that may be made available to you if you learn to trust yourself in a true way. Many of you act on principle, “This is the right thing to do,” “This is the wrong thing to do,” but you do not consider that principles are inherited behavior. You do not ask yourself why you adhere to them because you were told not to ask. Now, we are not telling you not to do things in a certain way that you have become accustomed to. But we are also telling you that you must know that when you act in principle without understanding why you are doing what you are doing, you are merely adhering to your history.”

Often times through our religion of origin we also take on another deep form of History about what is right and what is wrong, most often without any reason why simply because I said so. We can also be tremendously influenced by dualistic thinking, right/wrong; good/bad, along with creating a role or identity for ourselves as a sinner, someone separate from God. Most of us are quite aware of how deeply imbedded some of these illusions can be. 

Often times attached to our old religious beliefs is an old internal sense that I have carried with me for a long time. It translates something like this, “I feel good, everything seems to be going my way, therefore I must be good and God must be smiling on me.” On the other hand, I might be feeling bad and things might not be going my way and so I translate that as “There must be something wrong with me” or “God is frowning on me for some reason.” Although many of us, in different ways, with different words have adopted these beliefs as part of our history we come to realize the message is just not true. It no longer serves me.

My feelings have nothing to do with how close God is to me. In fact, there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God. 

Romans 8:38-39 New International Version (NIV)

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.

Even though that is true many of us including myself still do not live in the Presence of that unconditional love. We could go through all sorts of reasons why or why not, but what is most important, to remember and to practice, is that by living in and choosing and becoming in alignment with those thoughts and actions which are of higher vibration, I become more and more open more and more receptive to the Truth of the love that I am. Which includes the love I accept as well as the love I give. “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Even though Unconditional Love remains unconditional love, I do have choice insofar as how I am open or receptive to it. Eventually, however, all blocks and barriers will be gone. The way Marianne Williamson expressed it was “God will ultimately out with your self-hatred.”

 I would like to add that being on the precipice is not a bad thing. In fact, if we were truly aware we would realize that every moment we are on that precipice of choice to be in love or to be in fear. Essentially all that we are leaving behind are all of those things, those thoughts, ideas and patterns of behavior, which no longer serve us. We are leaving behind an unconscious existence and opening ourselves to a higher consciousness, higher vibration, a deeper sense of receptivity to the truth of Who We Are.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ― Anais Nin

My personality self would like to create the drama of struggle around being on the precipice/being in choice at this present moment, but this does not have to be so. Here again is our choice, “How am I going to hold this present moment as a struggle, as a difficulty, as something wrong with me, as God taking away taking away his grace or do I hold it as a moment to choose love beyond all human understanding. You see that latter choice is a reflection of my worth. Think about that one for a moment.

I was really struck the other day as I was reading this over, the title of our book is The Book of Knowing and Worth. What caught my attention was “When I know my worth, when I fully embrace my worth as the truth of who I am, that's it. That's what the whole trip is all about--working through and letting go all of this stuff that might get in the way of that truth until I am at the point where I know my worth and there is literally nothing else that needs to be done.

Our lesson today--we are being encouraged to ask ourselves--”What is motivating me here (in this moment, in this action)?” This is not about moral judgment. We are not even being asked to change our behavior, but to become more aware of why I am doing what I'm doing. 

The book gave the example of lying. Why would I choose to tell an untruth? Most of the time it would be to protect my own butt. But then I am being asked to delve deeper. “Why do I need to protect myself?” Well, if you found out I did such and such, you might not like me. You might be angry at me and because I am so attached to who you think I am I am afraid of that vision becoming tarnished or all sorts of other fearful reasons. 

Then, if we even want to delve deeper we might ask ourselves, “Am I willing to tell the truth even though there might be consequences; it might not be comfortable.” I shared with you the example of telling the truth because I did not want a lie or an untruth to get in in the way of the integrity of a relationship. You will notice if you examine situations like that in your life, sometimes choosing a higher vibration does not always necessarily feel good emotionally. As we talked about above that is a tremendously important distinction to be able to make.

This work is not about emotional comfort although sometimes that comes. 

This feels a bit open-ended for me, which means that I could probably ramble along for a few more pages but I also sense it's a good time to close and so I will end with one of my favorite one-liners from a song by Harry Chapin called Circles:

“There’s no straight lines make up my life and all my roads have Ben's there's no clear-cut beginnings and so far no dead ends.”

In love and peace Grace and acceptance in Truth. Thank you.