Question:

Thank you for you wonderful books, they have helped me enormously. I am conflicted about what society tells me to do in order to prosper and be successful. Work hard, early bird gets the worm, no pain-no gain; and many more sayings we've heard growing up. But deep inside, I don't want to suffer and sacrifice, and be in constant action to prosper and be successful. How do I resolve my inner conflict between messages which say, "You must work all day and take a lot of action and keep doing to prosper and succeed," and spiritual teaching which guides me to ease and effortlessness?

 

Answer:

Part I: The conflict you refer to is you talking to yourself. You are "society." You made up the sayings that you refer to. And you are the one who chooses to give validity to those sayings.

You are also the one who knows that ease and effortlessness is your natural state.

The practical problem that we all face is that in order to stay in the human we had to hide the power that we are. We also had to scare ourselves so much if we came near our power, that we would back off.

I wrote THE JOURNEY to give the reader an idea of how we hid our power, what it takes to find the hiding places, and then reclaim the power. Explaining the process is the easy part; following the process is the part that requires a deep commitment and committed support.

When a person is ready, the support appears. Becoming clear on the process is the first step. You asked for that clarity and you are receiving it now.

Part II: The next part is asking your Self how important it is to you to reclaim your power. The challenge you feel when you answer that question is that you are face-to-face with the defenses you put in place to keep you away from your power. If you didn't keep yourself away from that power, there would be no opportunity to have what we call our human experiences.

The power I am referring to is the Power of the God Presence -- the ultimate power in the Universe. We are that Power, and we have used all of It to make it seem that the Power is outside of us. We do this by vesting power in those things and people that we deal with on a daily basis. All that we see is our own creation and we experience the creations precisely as we intend them to be.

Part III: Everything we see is a figment of our imagination. Wars, the IRS, diseases are our creations. Their existence in each of our lives is dependent upon our leaving the power within these creations.

When we are ready, we can reclaim that Power. However, we must be clear: that we are the Power; that we did in fact vest the Power in someone or something outside of us; and, that we are committed to reclaim that Power.

Part IV: The trickiest part of the process is appreciating all of our creations -- particularly the ones we do not like. However, before we are ready to appreciate these creations, we go deeply into the feelings that we have convinced ourselves are most distasteful, most scary and most painful.

As a practical matter, you won't go in there without the support of someone who:

1. Sees clearly at all times who you really are -- the Power and Presence of God, and

2. Has no emotional investment in the creations that are so distasteful, scary and painful to you.

When you are ready to proceed with each of these steps, you will know it. The motivation within you will lead you.