William Samuel

William Samuel
William Samuel

Friday, January 27, 2017

To Discover Tranquillity


"Buttercups" by Sandy Jones 

Celestial Song 

Excerpt from  "A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity"  
by William Samuel  


CHAPTER II

Now

Note: The following lecture is as good a place as any to begin. It has served countless times to call home the prodigal wandering in the pigsties of worry, frustration and fear. Just as much of the work in this volume, it serves well to be read aloud.


TO DISCOVER REALITY AND UNCOVER TRANQUILLITY WE BEGIN WITH THE NOW.

  Now is the only "time" one is ever concerned with. Reader, consider this a moment, because here and now, a magnificent first fact of Truth begins to unfold. It has to do with now; the primacy of now; the allness of now; the absoluteness of now.

  When do we see a flower? That is, what time does the seeing take place? I see the flower now, we say.

  When do we see the picture of a flower in a book? Now. When do we smell the fragrance of a rose? When do we touch it, enjoy it, experience it? Now.

  When does one hear a voice or a melody? When does one experience the occurrence of any event? Now!

Listen carefully: When do we remember the event? When do we reminisce about the event? When do we think about the past? Now; always now!

  When do we dream of a future event? When do we plan and calculate concerning future activities? Now. All experience, all activity. All memory of the past, dream of the future, thinking and thought taking are inevitably, invariably "happening" in the now. Isn't this so?

  So you see, it becomes evident to anyone who stops long enough to acknowledge it, now is the only time we are ever concerned with. It is always now! We cannot escape it.

  Even so, what has humanity done to now? What has man done to this ubiquitous, all-inclusive, ever-present now? He has made it the most infinitesimal part of a great time system. He has sandwiched it between a past that stretches infinitely in one direction, and a future that extends forever in the other. He has relegated it to the merest razor's edge on a sliding scale between a past and a future. Is this not so? To humanity, now—this very moment of Awareness—is so fleeting, so ephemeral and transitory, that one cannot find it on the very device used to measure it. Try to point to now on your watch and it is instantly past, a memory.

  Ah, but when do we recall the memory? Now. When do we see the watch? Now. When does one speculate about the fleeting nature of humanity's time? Now. When does one awaken to the fact that he is never concerned with a past or a future except right now? Now! When does one experience? Now. So, reader, when do you expect to discover Reality? When do you expect to experience a "healing" or a "demonstration"? When do you expect to experience completeness and happiness? Now!


THINKING ACTS LIKE A VEIL

  Look at a flower. We see it now. We behold its form now. We are aware of the flower, right here, right now; but suppose we think about something else while looking at the flower. Think about that big bill that is past due and worry a little. What seems to happen to the awareness of the flower? We are not as aware of it as before, are we? We are looking at it with eyes that hardly see. It seems fuzzy, hardly noticed, but the same rose is there; the same beauty, the same form, the same grace and magnificent delicacy is right before us to be beheld and enjoyed, but we hardly see it. We are too busy worrying about the bill. We are too busy thinking.

  The bill is not now. All that is now is the awareness of the rose. The rose in all its loveliness is now. The bill is nothing more than a memory that is not in this now-awareness unless we choose to put it there.
  We see that thinking is like a film spread over the eyes; like a mist that covers the whole face of the land; like a veil; like looking at the flower—and everything else—through a glass darkly.


NOW IS ALWAYS ALL RIGHT!

  We view the rose again. It is here, within Awareness which is aware now. The time of Awareness is always now. Right now, Awareness includes a rose. Look at it closely. See it with rapt and undivided attention. Behold with enthusiasm! This is beauty here and now! While so aware, can we be aware of worry, fear or grief in the same now? Are we? Absolutely not! The "return" to "now" is an automatic departure from the not-now, past and future.

  As we shall point out in the coming pages, now is always all right! It is filled with beauty, grace and magnificence, containing no sight, sound nor sensation that is not absolutely harmless and altogether perfect. You shall very soon see and understand—even before you finish this volume—now is filled with peace, serenity, sassy and sparkling happiness. It is filled to running over with everything one thinks he needs.

  So, as we turn from the memory of the past and dreams of the future—as we turn from thinking—we are neither ignoring Reality (as the world contends) nor burying our heads in the sand to escape the "press of circumstances." Contrariwise, we find ourselves returning to the perfection at hand, to discover anew that now is all that is real and all we ever need be concerned with!

  Here "troubles" are not ignored, nor is a home or business neglected. Here we see with the clarity with which the rose is seen when we are not weighted down with fear and consternation. Here we see things as they are, and accordingly, know better what to do.

  Have you heard these words?: "Behold, now! Now is the time. Now is the day of salvation. Now I am with you always. The kingdom is here and now. You can tell the signs in the sky but you do not know to test this now. Now are we the sons of God. Now! Now! Here and now! I will never leave you nor forsake you."

  Reader, this now, here and now, is a basic fact of Isness, God, Reality. There is no need to be over-concerned with a past or future when the transcendent NOW exists to enjoy and be.

*******************

"BUT WHAT IF ... ?"

  Those who have just begun to hear about and ponder the transcendent nature of now are ever anxious to create hypothetical situations and present them to us in the gravest tones to see how "this new way of looking at things" will take care of it. "But, what if such and so . . . ?" they ask, picturing something they think most awful. "Suppose you should see this or that horrible mess, what would you do then?" they ask, to see how we will rationalize or explain away a situation that is not even a part of this now in the first place—except as a harmless dream! 

  Over-concern with the not-now is a portion of the farcical foolishness that has us so in the habit of overlooking the beauty, wonder and perfection of the moment. Jesus admonished those who questioned Him along these lines to "look on the living One (the now-awareness) as long as you live . . . " He likened their concern about the not-now to a corpse.

  Reader, before I found Tranquility, I had to concede honestly that I was ever concerned with the present now-awareness, alone and only. I had to see that all speculation about a not-now was a silly waste, tending to hide the beauty of the moment. It is the business of dreaming, wondering and worrying, so to speak, that appears to present a confused now in need of correction. To stick to the now is to find it perfect, without need of correction—and containing nothing to fear!

  When these hypothetical situations are tossed into my lap, I can only ask where is any of it happening in this here-and-now? To those who persist in struggling with the not-now, I say again as it was said before, "You have dismissed the living One—Now—that is before you and have spoken about a corpse." (Thomas, Log. 52.)

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discovery you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -   
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Thursday, January 26, 2017

Suffering and Death




Excerpt from 
"The Child Within Us Lives! A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics" 
by William Samuel 

18
*****
ABOUT SUFFERING AND DEATH

Winter comes with a rush this year. From summer to winter without a fall at all. Freshly cut hickory and oak are all set to burn in Ben, the Franklin stove, tonight. The water pipes have been wrapped. Sam and Sally have their doses of anti-freeze. If it gets really cold, I may try a little anti-freeze myself.

Dear Loretta, It is the human sense of of things that moves in circles and seasons. It is the human sense of things that watches the cycles of human existence from birth to death, from joy one moment, to suffering and anguish the next. And it is the human sense of things that insists on understanding the why, why, why of suffering, anguish and death.

Once a man came here from England and wanted me to talk about my personal suffering—apparently to better understand his own. I refused, asking him why I should tell of my suffering rather than the Light I had come to discover. “Why not talk abut the positive side of the coin rather than the negative? Why not tell of what is delineated rather than the delineator?” He left unsatisfied and angry. Were he to ask me about suffering today, I would do my best to answer, albeit I'm not certain I could say much that makes sense to the human sense of us, or to our vaunted “understanding.”

To this tangible human viewing, I have suffered as much as anyone. Perhaps more. It is only the human viewing that believes “enlightenment” does away with tangible anguish and suffering. There is the common belief among metaphysicians that since the Truth “heals,” the advent of enlightenment must surely bring an end to suffering—even an end to death. But in the human scene, the enlightened do not suffer less, but often more. Jesus cried in anguish, asking God why He had forsaken him. His disciples, with the exception of John, suffered all the way to their own executions. Paul carried his “tormentor” with him to his appearance of death. Mrs. Eddy suffered on and ON. Aiken suffered on. Goldsmith suffered on. Watts, deWaters, Laird. None of their enlightenment prevented the appearances, within tangibility, of bodily decline and death.

The human sense of “me” (the fiction, the belief) has had an awful (to human sense) “tormentor” most of my life. But does burning the sheet of music do anything to the principle of music? Does the torment we dream do anything to the dreamer on the bed except eventually awaken him?

So we find reference to pain and suffering in K's journal—again and again. But he, as I, speaks about a state of mind that is beyond feeling and thought, about meditation that is explosive in nature and sometimes accompanied by physical pain.

For me, the viewing of suffering out there with others has been my external delineation of Joy “here as I”—the feeling of anguish and suffering “here, as 'myself'” is the delineator of Joy supernal—accepted on faith alone, internally. Oh, this doesn't say it at all!

Loretta, do the flowers and grasses suffer when the first frost hits them? Do the insects that perish suffer when winter descends as it inevitably does? Do they really suffer death from the cold? Or is it like a circle, a cycle, that renews itself with the spring that is also inevitable? Holistically speaking, the grasses, the flowers, the bugs come back when the cycle turns warm again—and “death: is only a resting in time and its seasons. Holistically speaking, there is no end of human or personal life even though there appears to be a suffering decline unto death to our tangible viewing. But our tangible viewing is the action of Awareness, of Life itself, which sees the seasons repeat themselves in an endless flow of seasons, called “Eternity.” How do I know this is so?  Because I see the cycles repeat themselves and I see the seasons return.

When I finally heard and felt and saw the Symphony for which this physical body is the sheet of music, I became the Symphony, no longer limited as the printed page. But, listen, listen, to hear and feel the Symphony is only to accept it on faith alone! We merely accept the existence of the Symphony for which all tangibility is the sheet of music. That is all. It takes the sting from death and allows us to understand the “why” of tangibility's suffering. It says that suffering, here or there, is like the dark night that makes Light plain. The Light is real. The darkness only a seeming. Joy is real. The suffering only a seeming—albeit seeming very real. When we begin thinking holistically (solipsistically or subjectively), we stop believing ourselves to be mere leaves on the tree and begin thinking in terms of tree. The leaf falls off the tree, so what? The Tree lives. This body grows old and perishes, so what? LIFE goes right on, untouched. Life is individual, alone all in all. It only appears divided into billions of people and countless forms of life... in the same way a single light appears divided into many colors when it flows through a prism.

The REAL of Bill, Loretta, Rachel and Paul is NOT suffering unto death. The real of us is LIFE, GOD-Life—and it is single, only and all. Paul and Bill may seem to suffer and decline—but that seeming, seen holistically, is not real and has no power. The seeming is an “is-not” making the IS of Reality plain to Awareness—just as darkness makes the Light plain. The Light is REAL, darkness its means of being understood. 


Loretta, like you, I grow tired of words and their limitations. I am weary of trying to explain things that are purely HEART-felt and have to do with simple faith beyond thoughts and feelings. This is why I publish so little now. The overtones have said it all already, as nearly as it can be said in words.

19
*****
SIMPLE SCENE, ORDINARY LITTLE PLACE
Journal Entry

A lady called. There was panic in her voice and she was suffering mightily. I told her what I could. She quieted. “Think back to one of your Glimpses,” I told her, “and really think about it. Remember some of the  events.”

In a bit, I went out to get a box of tea for Rachel. It was a cool winter evening and I stopped at a little roadside restaurant to get a hamburger. I was thinking of the lady in anguish.

As I sat there eating my double beef with lettuce, tomatoes, extra mayonnaise and onions, I was suddenly, gently overcome with the joy. I looked at the ordinary little place and it had become extraordinary. The windows sparkled. The greenery was especially green, and the healthy plants hanging from giant baskets, all but conversed with one another. The little people who waited on me were accommodating. Clean, smiling, enthusiastic. I sat alone at a small table near eight or ten others in the dining room. Everyone was bright and beautiful. Soft Christmas music filled the dining room and I heard myself singing “Santa Claus is coming to town” as I went for extra catsup. The carpet was clean as a pin, the tables sparkled, a sweet-faced lady busied herself wiping them. The good taste of the designer was apparent in the subdued lighting and bright colors of the Tiffany lamps overhanging the tables. I have bumped my head on them more than once over the years. I sat there with my hamburger and felt extraordinarily HAPPY. Just plain happy and full of gratitude that my affairs still let me look on a simple scene, seeing and being all the scene was intended to be—a happy place for strangers to get something good to eat. On the way out I stopped and asked the clerks if I might speak to the manager. Their faces fell immediately “Is anything wrong? Was everything all right?” the little order-taker asked, her smile gone. She asked again, “Was anything wrong?”

“Oh, no!” I smiled. Then I told the manager how nice things were looking and going, and his face broke into an enormous smile.

“I needed to hear that,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “I know.”

Well, a lot of words. What comes to mind right now is that this afternoon was spent, in part, looking at an old paper on suffering—why suffering happens and what it does for us. Most surely one of the grand things it does in spades is let someone like me, when the anguish has stopped for a time, be able to see the extraordinary beauty of small, ordinary things. Yes, yes. Tonight I looked at that ordinary little place and saw absolute perfection at every wall, in every nook and cranny and along the brass rails that gleamed like gold. The atmosphere was crisp with excitement. I felt wonderful for having been there to see it all. In the mind's eye I had taken the panicked lady with me, and she had seen the beauty of it all. I said to her, “All right, little Lady, find one of those Glimpses in the mind's Eye and consider it to be the Treasure of God. That's what it is. Nothing less. It will do its good work. It didn't appear in your affairs for nothing. Savor it, my friend, and let it bring an end to your fear. God's Glimpses do wonders for us.”

I walked into Woodsong just as the phone rang. It was the lady. “The panic has gone!” she said triumphantly. “Just as quickly as I brought a glimpse of light to mind,  I felt bright and sparkling inside!”

I do not know how this works. But I know what one is to do—and why.

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discovery you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -   
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Sunday, January 22, 2017

Two Plus Two Equals Reality

   


Everyone, every single person on this earth can arrive at a precise understanding of God! How can this be so? Because God is uncomplicated and easily understood! When one lets go all the things they say about God and stops accepting them blindly as his own beliefs, God becomes remarkably apparent. And why not? What sort of God would it be that withholds Himself from all those who have not suffered enough, studied hard enough, searched diligently enough or prayed earnestly enough in just the right way? What sort of God would it be who absents Himself from those who have not been baptized in this or that fashion, or have not joined this organization or that one?  What sort of Love would it be that withholds itself from half the population of the world because it is not Christian or Muslim, because it is not acquainted with this or that arcane, unprofaned wisdom; what sort of Love withholds itself from those not subscribing to this or that set of dogmas and beliefs, not honoring this or that ritual and that ceremony? 

     Well, be assured, God does not withhold Himself from aught. God is right here, right now, closer than fingers and toes, closer than breathing. There is no distance nor separation between oneself and God, mentally or otherwise. You will find that God is all that is here, and “They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, saith the Lord.” 

     God's simplicity is astounding. It is this very simplicity that the pompous intellect of mankind can neither see nor understand while struggling through its jungle of erudite beliefs. 

     Let the beliefs go. Let what “they say” go. Drop all the old personal opinions no matter how near and dear they seem. You start anew, turning within to the heart. Then when you arrive at your own meaning of God, you happily find you are also discovering your own real Identity and its childlike simplicity. 

     This is not a slow process of spiritual refinement over a hot fire of personal ordeals. You do not have to wade through thousands of volumes of ancient and occult lore, to join various and sundry organizations or practice their precepts with fanatical diligence. No need to spend years doing good deeds, here a little, there a little. You might very well DO some of these things; good works are not disparaged here. But you do them, ultimately, because you enjoy them and want to—indeed, because you cannot keep from it—not because some special favor is supposed to accrue from doing them, and not because you are afraid of what might happen if you do not. 


     One simply does not have to delay his awakening from agony. He does not have to “put off the old man” bit by bit or “die to the self” a little every day or laboriously educate himself. One does not have to delay for any reason at all. He may drop the “old man” with all his trials and tribulations here and now if he chooses and immediately experience a joy and tranquillity beyond belief—all of this as easily and quickly as awakening from a daydream. 
Read More   Two Plus Two

Excerpt Continued  Two Plus Two 



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