Excerpt from "The Awareness of Self-Discovery"

by William Samuel

The honest action of our daily experience appears to be a quiet middle ground, a delicate balance. Consider, for instance, the cautious balance between not yielding and not contending—or not contending and not yielding.

In the human scheme of things, the refusal to yield to something we have come to perceive as a false authority is accompanied by the world's moral demand to do battle with that authority and set it straight—always for the idealistic benefit of others, of course. Such action is the product of human "education" and has become the intuitive reflex of a society geared to "progress." But there is another course of action open to us wherein we quietly refuse to yield to any authority but the Divine, yet remain careful (for our own peace and the benefit of the world) not to overstep that refusal thence to begin contending with the binding, confining false authority.

Of course, the world holds this course in grand contempt. Even the world's metaphysicians, by and large, attempt to rectify appearances, but our tangible freedom in daily experience will never be found outside this delicate balance between not yielding and not contending.

No, we do not cow before the supposed power of images, signs and symbols, that have no power; we do not act as floor mats nor yield ourselves servants to obey the appearances of the world and its sundry enslaving ideas. But neither do we take those actions that constitute a battle with the world's pseudo-authority. When this delicate point is perceived and lived (and lived!) our vision of war, rebellion and personal inharmony is ended.

__________________

We do not belong to an organization no matter how many of them include our names on their roster of members. Rather, the organization, institution, fraternity, religion, church or government or whatever, "belongs" to us, included within and as the Consciousness we are.

How can life belong to an idea it includes within itself? While the tangible point in time and space (called Bill or Mary) may "belong" to this or that organization for intellectual or social purposes (and there is nothing wrong with that!) that does not mean that identity-I has surrendered its heritage. Our slowly arrived-at knowledge of this fact is the start of the conscious recovery of our holy Birthright. In Truth, it has never really been surrendered except in the binding, blinding belief that there is a medical fraternity, a scientific or religious organization, a marriage institution, a business and financial institution, a human society, government or body organization to which we are subservient members and, therefore, supposed to bow down, salaam three times and do what "they" say or pay the consequences "they" dictate.

The dominion is ours. "And God gave man dominion ..." "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are...?" The New English Bible puts it: "You know well enough that if you put yourself at the disposal of a master, to obey him, you are slaves..."

Now, does this mean that we are to do battle with the appearances of "principalities and powers" "out there"? Not at all. It means that we see the Power here as I, not there as that. And then act in accord, and then act in accord.

"What if the institution will not permit me to act in accord?" Then we are forced to live (in order to know) that the institution has no authority to prevent the Self-all-is from being the Self-all-is. This is what is going on in the world of appearances right now. The only institutions that will survive the growing turmoil are those that yield up their pseudo-authority to let ISNESS be the Authority.

Now hear this: That yielding is not done out there with the appearance of the institution. It is done here as this awareness we are! Do you see this?

________________

The Golden Thread of the Absolute exists. We know because we have found it. We feel, know and see the Fact of Singleness—evidence of Gods' ALLNESS. We who discern the Thread are come as the savior of our own appearing, the Christ to the Experience we are.

As I see it now, it makes no difference whether we are inside an organization or outside it, provided we do not feel a sense of restriction. Even then, cutting ourselves away does not mean we will find the restriction gone. It is the sense of being an identity capable of being restricted that appears to me as a "me" bound by an ailing body, oppressive organization or flat pocketbook. The axe at the root has to do with this one's position, not the "Church's." Identity is a matter of SELF determination and in the end, no organization, not even the body, can prevent the discovery.

Therefore, I do not presume to tell anyone whether he should join an organization or leave one. We each follow what seems the Heart-directed course of action. For myself, I once thought the wisteria vine was the most beautiful of all the flowers in the garden. As a gardener, I worked with my wisteria to the exclusion of all else and awakened one day entangled, no longer free to follow the sunlight outside the shadows. For me (though not necessarily for thee) it seemed wise to come out and be separate from that clinging vine because I could neither speak nor write of my own self-unfoldments without violating rules to which I had willingly agreed. So I cut myself away from the organizational rules and found the more distant purview of the wisteria lovelier than ever! More: I found the beauty of the orchid! I found the larkspur, the rose, the dandelion, the sassafras root and the wild woodland outside the regulated boundary of the garden!

Every flower in the garden is ME and I take my nectar from any book or blossom I see I be at the moment. Only those organizations that permit such freedom can survive.

In all fairness I must point out again that my entanglement with the wisteria of old theology was not the wisteria's fault. A vine is a vine—neither good, bad, right nor wrong-but who can make wisteria into heather or a dandelion into a rose? If there isn't enough shade beneath the pine, we sit under an oak, but we don't cut down the pine nor strip it of its limbs. Its shade may be quite enough for the tufted titmouse, the bushy-tailed squirrel or the mercenary who thinks that tree is the only tree capable of dropping an "apple" in his lap.

————————

Which is easier: to play the role of a great crusading contender doing impossible (and miserable) battle with society and its organizations, or to stop playing that role and rest in the happy Already? For myself, I prefer to let pine trees be pine trees and wisteria vines be wisteria vines. If, in blaming the vine for my own entanglement, I should succeed in pulling it up by the roots, what will I have to show for it except a hernia, a sore back and the sight of a wretched society ripped apart by excessive zealousness?

God's Phoenix of ALREADY does not have to rise from the ruins of a shattered society. It will appear to, of course, but those who know the forthright way of the middle ground—of the already Infinite—will not be troubled as the dream's last soliloquy is sounded, as the curtain falls with a crash and the mortal arc lights give way to the Light of the Eternal, sunshine of the Real.

William Samuel "The Awareness of Self-Discovery"

www.williamsamuel.com

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -