Excerpt from
A Guide To Awareness and Tranquillity

by William Samuel

CHAPTER XIV

A Lollygog Lecture on Thinking, Thought, Meditation and Miracles

Very often one wonders how he managed to get into the mess he appears to be in at the moment. He looks about himself and sees a faltering business here; a quarrelsome home there; a philandering husband or a nagging wife; a monotonous, humdrum, lackluster life of limitation. "If only I had done such-and-so," he berates himself, "this trouble would not have occurred."

Reader, if such a thing appears to be our experience, rest assured we are attempting to hold this Now-awareness in bondage to a long history of causes. This Now-awareness-I-am (and you are) is not so bound! Mankind believes he sees the accumulative results of an infinite number of prior events. To such a belief the future must appear to depend on present action, so the believer battles constantly with his own "cause and effect." He creates an experience governed by self-made karmic law. "Success" to him is merely the adroitness with which he and others are able to think, plan and calculate their way through this self-imposed, self-binding jungle, and come out smelling like a rose. Saddest of all, the greater the attempt to think oneself out of trouble, the greater the bondage appears.

"Who by taking thought . . . ?" the Christ asks. "In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." (Sion of Man, that's you, yourself, you realizing your pure selfhood - the pristine Child you are )

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Few have discovered that we are able to "think" or to listen and see without an individual intellect. Mankind, mighty container of awareness, is proud of that great possession of his. He prides himself in his ability to analyze every sight and sound within it and react accordingly. All education has trained him this way. Indeed, the mark of the ego's intelligence, it is said, is its ability to (1) comprehend with alacrity, (2) compare situations in a flash to past experiences stored away in memory, (3) judge righteously, (4) plan a personal action accordingly, and then (5) execute that plan.

Without doubt, the primary "action" of humanity is "thinking"—thinking construed to be evaluating, analyzing, reasoning, calculating, planning and judgment making, not to mention the worry that ordinarily accompanies all its decisions.

Well! This is the very business that has gotten the world into its apparent trouble! This is the activity that produces the intellect's trials and tribulations—just plain, everyday "thinking."

For generations, the slogan has been "THINK! PLAN AHEAD! CALCULATE!" Cocktail lounges, psychiatrists' couches and hospitals are filled with those who have had their fill of such thinking—without success, without finding happiness, and without discovering the first thing about their Identity.

The time has come to stop thinking, planning and evaluating. The time has come to stop the incessant judgment of every sight and sound. Why? So we may go about our daily activities with unencumbered vision and unabated enthusiasm and see everything as it is: beautiful and perfect. I tell you, when we end this personal, intellectual evaluation habit, our desert, seemingly barren of health, wealth, companionship, love or happiness, will run with rivers again! When we stop all this "I like-I want; I dislike-I don't want" nonsense, our desert will blossom as a rose! Sorrow and sighing shall flee away! When worried thinking ends, we find that Perfection is already established and at hand!

Extravagant statements? Don't take my word for it; listen to your Heart and your own experience will be the proof!

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 -