Remembering Oneness

A while back, I asked every one of my spiritually-focused friends, "How can I increase my conscious awareness of the truth of who I am?" No one had any idea. Most didn't even understand the question. Then I remembered that while we share this journey each of us walks our own path. The truth is within each of us, according to what we are to do with it. My passion and purpose lies in remembering the truth of who and what I am and living with that conscious awareness. I share each step of my journey to help anyone else who feels the need to remember.

Sometimes the answers we seek are so simple that we miss them. That was the case for me on this one for a while. As soon as I asked the question, I began to live the answer. It began with a choice, a choice to do whatever it takes to remember the truth. I understand that this dualistic reality is in fact an illusion of the mind, albeit a persistent one. The illusion serves the purpose of knowing all that we are through experience. However, I have long felt absolutely compelled to gain conscious awareness of the truth while yet living in the illusion. "Be in the world, but not of it."

I believe that we are creators becoming conscious of the act of creating. Most of the time we create from fear, a belief in lack, and from separation. The results are not what most of us choose to experience any more. How can we change that? By becoming conscious of who we are. When we know, in experience, that we are one, that all is one, we have nothing to fear. There is no lack in oneness, and no separation. In oneness, there is perfect peace, boundless joy, and absolute love. I know this without doubt because I have experienced it twice in my life, once when I died and returned and once during a profound meditation. But how do we live with that awareness?

First, we have to choose it. Then we intend to experience it. Then we give thanks that it is done. If you are reading this post, you have some memory of oneness. If you didn't, you would not have found it. There is something in the core of your being reaching for remembering. No matter how much or how little you know for sure about oneness, part of you remembers. Give thanks for that. Your attention to it and gratitude for it is affirming that you can consciously experience your truth.

I use affirmations that I repeat to myself whenever I'm not in conversation or focused on a mental task. "I remember the truth of who and what I am. I remember oneness." This simple statement is helping me more than I can explain in one post. I am more peaceful, confident, relaxed, and inspired. My health has improved tremendously and continues to do so every day. My life is becoming more and more graceful and all my relationships healthier. The only thing it hasn't helped me with is my Geology labs! :(

The more of us remember oneness and begin living according to this awareness, the less conflict we will see in the world, the less lack and disease. We have an impact on the Earth and humanity as a whole by our thoughts and emotional states. Our individual awareness of oneness supports everyone's remembering. Your healing is everyone's healing. Remember who and what you are. I remember you!

A New Take on Gratitude

We know that we should be grateful and express our thanks, but how often do we give thanks for the things we don’t like? It may sound strange, but it is of greater value and benefit to us to give thanks for that which we dislike than it is to give thanks for the things that make us happy.

When you say “thank you” for something, you’re not resisting it, but allowing it to be. Remember, what we resist persists. What we bless, we have no resistance toward. It is our resistance to things that causes us pain, not the thing resisted, so it makes sense to want to put an end to resistance. We know we can’t stop resistance by fighting against it or willing ourselves into acceptance. Then how do we stop resisting people, things, and circumstances?

Gratitude is the beginning, but blessing is the full answer. Every one and everything that exists in our awareness is there to bless us in some way, whether we see it or not. That means that even the most unpleasant or downright painful holds a gift for us. It is not necessary to identify the gift in order to end the resentment. Just acknowledging that there is one is enough.

Think of all the things and people in your life that upset you, hurt you, or you just don’t like. List them, and then give thanks for them. Take it one step further and bless them. It may feel awkward at first, but with daily practice, this will begin to feel natural. You will find yourself resisting less and less in your life. As you do so, the things that you don’t like will cease to bother you, will transform, or will leave your life all together.

Sometimes, we all have a tendency to hold onto our anger and resentment. We’re human. It happens. How do you feel when you do that? We wish that certain people were not in our lives at all, but we know that we don’t have control over other people. We do have control over our thoughts and feelings. We can choose to stay in our anger, letting it eat away at us and make us miserable, or we can choose to change our focus. Giving thanks for our antagonists and blessing them puts an end to our resistance against them and our anger. It may take some time to completely let go of some of them, but the situation or relationship will begin to change immediately.

How much do you want to change? Do you want it bad enough to do anything? Try giving thanks for and blessing all that you dislike. You will be amazed at the results, and feel better about yourself in the process.

Resistance: The Chains in My Hands are My Own

True serenity is not the absence of problems. It is remaining peaceful and centered in the midst of them. It is being able to equally accept what we like and what we don’t like. Serenity is the absence of resistance, not the absence of problems. It is acceptance to the degree of being able to bless all that is.

I don’t have to love or like everything. I just have to appreciate that it all has a purpose and not by my attitude make it bad. “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.” What I judge as bad, I naturally resist. It is my own resistance that causes me pain, not the thing or person that I am resisting.

“Resist not temptation.” (Holy Bible) This does not mean to give in to temptation. It means that we should not resist because in so doing we give it power over us. Rather, “judge not” and turn your attention to something else. Likewise, resist not those things which we do not like or want to experience because our resistance ties us to them and gives them power over us. Only that which we resist can hold us in bondage. Further, it takes great exertion to press against anything, so resistance causes fatigue.

Think about those things that you don’t like to do but know you must do. Are they a struggle? Do you frequently meet obstacles while trying to do them? Do you feel tired or drained either while doing them or directly after? These are indications that you are resisting. It is natural to resist that which we don’t like, but we have the power to change our attitude about anything. Try to see your obligations in a different light. How do you benefit from doing them? Are you benefiting someone else by doing them? We can also choose to occupy our minds with pleasant thoughts while accomplishing unpleasant tasks.

Our experience begins in our mind. Whatsoever we dwell upon in our thoughts will be our experience. The more we think about what we don’t like, the more it persists in our experience.

The Power Within

I have heard and read that we have the power within us to create anything in our experience that we desire. What we create in our experience is our choice, which is usually made unconsciously but can be made consciously. I understand the concept and agree with the premise, but there's a big difference between understanding and realizing.

Realize means to make real. It's the feeling part of understanding, or knowing that we know. My experience has been that I have to get to that deep, inner knowing and then I will live according to my understanding, consciously.

Like most people, my life has been filled with all kinds of "evidence" that we are victims of fate, chance, and circumstances beyond our control. Intellectually, I know that these old beliefs are not true, but I still experience their effects to some degree. How then do I get to the point of knowing that I know and fully realizing that I choose and create what I experience? I read somewhere that a belief is simply a thought that has been thought enough times or long enough to be accepted as truth. If that's true, then I need only replace my false beliefs with new beliefs and keep thinking on the new beliefs until they become my reality. It sounds too simple.

Even if it is that simple, it's going to take time. My false beliefs didn't become ingrained in me overnight. I think the first step is choosing what I want to believe and getting really clear on that. I did an exercise in which I wrote down everything that I believe as true and then questioned all those beliefs. Some of them were clearly false and it was easy to see where they came from. Some, not so much! It took doing this exercise a few times to get all my beliefs written down. So many of them were not things that I ever think about consciously.

I challenged every one of my beliefs and looked for the experience that started them. Most of them came from childhood and were passed on from my parents. Not everything my parents taught me was false, and some of the false things were told to me to keep me safe. I don't fault my parents for teaching me limitation because I know they were doing the best they could with what they knew. I'm not a child anymore though, so its time to choose my own beliefs.

There are more things that I question now than what I accept as definitely true. I am making new choices about what I believe and my life has changed drastically. I've changed. I never really was the person I thought I was, but I believed the illusion so I lived the illusion. It's time for me to take this understanding to the next level and live more of my life consciously. Being present in each moment is helping me do that.

After The Secret

After The Secret is an educational and stimulating lens on Squidoo.com. After The Secret is also a wikizine on Zimbio.com The lens and wikizine are the webchild of Conscious Change International and its founder, Jacqueline Stone.

After The Secret on Squidoo has videos of the stars of The Secret, polls about experiences after watching The Secret, and resources related to the movie. You can vote in polls, participate in discussions, read informative articles, find great resources, and leave a comment.

After The Secret on Zimbio is an online magazine, called a wikizine. (Just think Wikipedia, but magazine). It contains many videos of the stars of The Secret, several polls, a large photo album, and intriguing articles.

Beyond Acceptance: Blessing What Is

Its been said that acceptance is the key to all our problems, but what does that really mean? How are we supposed to accept everything? Does that mean that we don’t ever fight against of for anything? Are we to be doormats, letting others take advantage of us, in order to be at peace? No, I don’t think that’s how it works.

Acceptance is the opposite of resistance, but it is not giving in to injustice or giving up on creating change. In fact, we can’t change anything until we accept the way it is as what is. With acceptance, we can say, “This is the way it is. I don’t like it or think its right, so I’m going to change it.” While we are in resistance, fighting against what is, our mind and energy is languishing in the problem. No problem can be resolved with the same energy that created it, so we need to get out of the problem. That doesn’t mean that we ignore it and hope that it goes away. It doesn’t mean that we pretend the problem doesn’t exist. That’s avoidance, not acceptance.

When we accept a condition as being what it is, we have the opportunity to turn our attention to possible solutions. Some times, its not a matter of solving a problem, but of learning from the unfavorable condition. Our greatest strides in personal growth often come through our greatest challenges. While we struggle against the challenge, unable to accept it, we prolong the condition and delay our blessing. There is always a blessing at the end of the challenge, but we can only get to the blessing, the gift, when we accept the challenge and start looking for how we can benefit from it.

Getting to the point of acceptance of what is is a great beginning, but we need to go further. We’re not talking about begrudging acceptance here. We need to get to joyful acceptance. In order to do that, we must believe that there is something good in all that is happening. Now lets take it one step further. True acceptance includes blessing all that is, as it is. Bless the gift, even when you can’t see a gift in the situation. It is there, but we often don’t perceive the blessing until after we have overcome the challenge. Give thanks for that blessing now. Bless the situation, as it is, knowing that it will in some way bless you.

When you bless what is, you cease to resist it; you cease to judge it. At that point, you can gracefully move through it fairly quickly. When you bless a situation or condition, you are immediately empowered to change it because you are no longer fighting against it. You don’t have to know what the blessing in it is to bless something. Just believing in your heart and mind that there is indeed a gift in it is enough to release you from judgment and resistance.

Try blessing your struggles. Bless your relationships. Bless your job and co-workers. Bless the traffic. Just try it and see what happens. Watch how you feel. Then you can decide how you want to react to the conditions in your life.