"Strawberries" by Sandy Jones

Celestial Song

Excerpt from

by William Samuel

CHAPTER XIII

Practicality

Mankind thinks consciousness is the activity of his personal mind. He thinks of "images" or "things" as external objects upon which his personal mind places its attention.

Well, this is a lot of applesauce. The belief that this is true is all there is to "original sin." The belief that one is the possessor of Awareness creates the personality, the ego, that poor, miserable misidentification. The pseudo-possessor of Life is the misidentification, the identity we are not, the "old man"; and when we operate from that idiotic viewpoint we must appear to suffer all the distortions of its perspective. Some of them are corkers!

In order to see Truth as Truth is, it is only necessary to be the Truth one already is—and cease from the false identification, from the one who uses, manipulates and "possesses" Truth. Letting go the identification as a personal ego, that is, as the one who contains this Now-Awareness within himself, we comprehend as the proper Identity, immediately and effortlessly.

This statement is often followed with the question, "But how do I do this?" The answer is simple and easy to understand; we do this by simply being motiveless Awareness only—which, among other things, is to perceive without opinions (judgments), without saying "this is good" and "that is evil," "I like" and "I don't like." Inevitably, the first step is to end judgment, then to perceive that our real Identity is Awareness itself, not the ego-container. It is as simple as this. Words cannot tell of the wonders that become apparent when this effortlessness is put into practice!

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CONVERSATION ABOUT PERFECTION AND IMPERFECTION

STATEMENT: There are not two selves—God and me. Or, we could say, there is not God and humanity. There is God and God being Self-aware. God's Self-awareness is this Self-being-reader, aware of these words. There is no other "you" or "me."

God (Perfection) is being this Self, which is Self-aware. Because God is all, Awareness is seeing what God is and this Awareness is perfection—aware—Perfection aware of Perfection. No matter what is seen and no matter what terrible label has been put on it by the entire world even one second ago, the scene remains Perfection's view of itself. We cannot be aware of real imperfection. The one who says the scene is "bad" is that idiotic, dream-liar who exists with the same authority as Cinderella, a figment of the imagination.

LISTENER: Well, it certainly seems I can be aware of imperfection, Mr. Samuel.

ANSWER: Listen closely: God does not see what God calls "bad"—yet THAT "seeing" is THIS seeing going on right here and now. An appearance humanly judged "bad" has no actual power to upset the Awareness-I, within which all images are appearing.

LISTENER: So, what do we do about threatening appearances?

ANSWER: What do we have to do about them? We need only see them as the "faithful witness" we are—as motiveless, judgeless, opinionless AWARENESS.

LISTENER: Tell me precisely HOW to do that when I'm suffering the agony of a mortgage about to be foreclosed.

ANSWER: We perceive the powerlessness of the old man's "bad" picture by the knowledge that ISNESS is being every picture, including the one presently being called "bad." A very Perfect Isness is being pictures perfectly. Then, with this "in mind," we respond to the "appearing" as a picture that does not have the authority it professes to have to alter this Tranquility-identity-I-am; that is, we respond to the appearing as an appearing.

We do not merely profess this while we continue to react to the appearing as something to be feared, as something to be healed, as something to be changed or overcome. And, most especially, (listen, listen) we do not ignore the picture as a “nothing claiming to be something"!

LISTENER: But, what physical action do we take?

ANSWER: We do whatever comes as the simple thing to do, but in so doing, we observe the "mal-appearing" itself as a guiltless, powerless myth. We do all that appears to us to be the sensible thing to do (if it is to breathe, we breathe; to eat, we eat) I and we do it knowing that the judged picture of imperfection has no more power to alter Perfection being-this-Tranquility-I than any other picture within Consciousness. We react to the images as images—as images—not as a "nothing," or as a something to be feared or seen in another way; NOR DO WE REFUSE TO ACT, fearing such action indicates we are "making a reality of error"!

When we actually respond to the myth as a powerless picture, the human judgment of power-in-it very quickly goes out of it. It cannot seem upsetting to the Identity-I-am. What metaphysics terms a healing is instantaneously perceived.

LISTENER: What do we see?

ANSWER: Not necessarily a change; we find the "seeming" itself is neither the good nor the bad it was personally judged to be. In fact, using those particular terms, it will appear to be a big fat blessing!

The Deific Self-being-I sees nothing that could or would deprive Self of joy; consequently, it is a foolish waste of time, an affront to Serenity, to decide that something is about to, can, or has deprived us of joy.

The Single Self-being-I is very consistent in this stand because it is the only honest position to take. Every ill "appearing," every threatening situation, is a judgmental opinion of good or evil never made by the Single Self of Serenity; it is an opinion of the impostor, the liar, the phantom judge-of-what-is-good-and-what-is-evil. The Holy One being this Awareness-I-am is not that one; the Selfhood of God is being me—never less than unchallenged joy, Supernal Serenity!

This is the "reidentification" one comes home to in the presence of trouble. THIS is the Identity to re-mind ourselves we are. As surely as we do—and act it—we come to discover that there is no power (to do aught to awareness) vested in the images included within Awareness, no matter what portentous power the entire world of human judgment insists they have. We stop reacting to the rope across the trail as though it were a snake, or to the whirlwind as if it were a bull.

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ABOUT GRIEF

Dear Janet,

You write that you have just seen something that induces terrible grief.

Look away for a moment. Look up. The sun is shining; the December wind blows cold across the field; the birds seek out and find their winter sustenance; the forest sends its sap into the roots. With all your apparent grief, nothing has been altered. Neither sight nor sound nor emotion can change the perfect Isness being the apparent universe. The earth isn't spinning off course because of the appearance of a pseudo-ego who lies and labels the Superlative and claims to judge the Unjudgeable! Janet, the world isn't wobbling the least, least bit—much less the Universe! Perfection REMAINS Perfection. Look away for a moment, Janet; look up, and joy in this knowledge.

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Dear Janet:

It seems we must be firmly convinced that the power is the Ineffable Reality which is being this Identity-I and that power is not in the multitude of images seen "out there," or even in the thoughts and feelings "within."

This does not mean that feelings and images are the detail of a dream. They are "real" enough, but they are not Reality. Rather, Reality is being images. It has been argued that this difference is merely academic, and very small at that, but it is this "difference" that allows us to understand, and test ourselves in this understanding, that the images within Awareness (including "feelings") do not have the values and the powers we have been accustomed to giving them for so long.

The old nature of us has many arguments to the contrary, and they are every one supported by a mistrust of the Transcendent Reality being this Identity. To "gird up the loins" is to be mind-full of this Reality again, despite the appearance of an "external" trying to prevent it. Our ability to do this lies in the surrender of the old nature—which is simply the gentle admission that Reality enjoys the "mind-full"—and not in an impossible "old nature." We recognize that Reality is not distrustful of Itself.

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Dear Janet,

Of course it "works"! And I understand your joy; but we joy in the BEING and not in the "works." Now that we have found out that appearances do NOT have the power to upset Tranquility, we do not succumb to the desire to rearrange appearances to fit a personal idea of how they should appear. This was one of the early temptations Jesus battled with. We rest and let the Supernal Godhead be this Awareness-we-are, assuming no responsibility whatever for the what, why and how "we" (Awareness) see.

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IMAGES ARE EQUAL

Reality is exactly "where" the pebble, the trees and the mountains are, but the authority is in the Reality-being-images and is not fragmented within the multitude of forms. Images are equal in no-authority; everyone is a perfect monument to Reality—a monument with which Reality attests Its nature to Itself.

Reader, we are that attesting going on!

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If we are agreed that no appearing can upset Deity and that no other actual Identity exists, why should we react to appearances as though we were a mortal identity which certain appearances upset? As some folks I know who live in the Alabama hills say, "That's just chittlin' choppin' crazy."

How do we respond to images? As images simply being images within this Awareness-I-am!

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 -