Only Truth is True. I think of the line from a Jack Nicholson movie: “Truth, you can’t handle the truth!” We grow up in a family, adopt their beliefs, we pick up some of their habits, both good and bad. We are told: This religion is truth. These political beliefs are truth. The list goes on.
We accept what we are told as truth. We don’t question it at first because we believe the people we love or respect. If we wake up from the hypnotic state we start, questioning the beliefs we grew up in.
Watching the news today is so confusing. The commentaries are not truth; they are opinions. The newscasters do not search for truth—they seek to prove their opinion is right. They run stories that prove their opinion is truth and leave stories out that don’t support their opinion. That is chaos. How do we weed through everything? How do we find the truth? How do we sift through all this disinformation?
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I have come to some answers. First, I sit quietly, get calm, ground myself, let the noise in my head quiet down, and try to get in touch with my higher self and listen. I settle down for a while, but I have to do it again and again. So much of the outside world is so convincing, it takes constant vigilance.
Vigilance is necessary because:
The lessons I have taught myself have been so over learned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains to obscure the simple and the obvious.
Living a Course in Miracles
Suzuki was the musician who created the Suzuki method for learning music. He said that for every time you played the wrong note, you would have to play it 100 times properly to correct the problem. If not, the wrong note would stay in your memory, and your fingers would remember the wrong note over the right one. Just as correcting a note takes work, so does unlearning what has been ingrained in us.
The beliefs around the word “freedom” has become so skewed in today’s society. The ego sees freedom very differently than the higher self. Freedom to the ego, is getting what you want when you want it. I hear, “This is a free country, I can say what I want,” or “I don’t have to wear a mask if I don’t want t,”’ with no regard to how that might affect someone else. Freedom has respect, love, and concern for others. Freedom is not something you come to understand externally. As with wisdom, it is internal, and then is brought into the external world.
When I was in my twenties, to the outside world I had everything. That was not true. I was searching because I knew there had to be more to life. What’s it all about, Alfie? At that time in my life, I was searching for happiness externally. I would think, if I just had a new car, I would be happy. I would get the new car, be happy for a day or two and, once again, wonder what I needed to be happy. The possessions I had to have became more and more expensive. Maybe the new house would do it. NO NOT AGAIN! Still unhappy. I also would eat too much one day, drink too much another, shop too much on yet another day, but the ache in my heart would not leave.
The insanity is that I would do the same thing over and over. Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Guess I was insane. I wanted to be free of pain but could not be until I would start looking at things differently. The freedom does not start until you switch your perspective from the external to the internal.
That went on until I was about 30. I kept searching, and then it happened. I had my first God experience. I tasted the peace, and I needed more. I went on a retreat, and the flood gates opened. I knew it was the beginning of something new. Can I say I am free yet? No, but I do have some tools now to help. I know when I go for food, or alcohol, or shop, I am trying to deal with what is happening internally, externally. Inside out and backwards.
I once had a dream. I was floating down a river with hundreds of people. Everyone was having a blast. We came to a fork in the river. On the right side of the river, the water was calm. The left side was rapids. I went to the left while most people went to the right. It was scary being in the rapids, but then, suddenly, the water became calm. Everything around me was peace and beauty. I tried to call for others to come, but sadly they did not. Here was freedom. This dream made a statement that reminded me of a verse:
“God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself alone.”
Living a Course in Miracles (T-13V.6:6-7)
No wonder so many people are lonely because they see themselves alone. The journey can be rough waters at the beginning, and, periodically, throughout the journey, but it is well worth it. Without making the choice for God and the life we were meant to live, there is only sadness and suffering. I used to think that I was supposed to pray for everything else; that it was selfish to pray for myself. As I moved through my thirties and forties, I began to realize the best way to start changing the world was by going inward and change myself.
As always, thank you for your time. May you take time this day to hear the still small voice within.
Theresa Contaxis 
[http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/2f9bfef0a1880f4b7ef93c51472e7d49?s=96&d=identicon&r=G]
theresacontaxis
Nov 16
Only Truth is true. I think of the line from a Jack Nicholson movie: “Truth? You can’t handle the truth!” We grow up in a family, weadopt their beliefs, we pick up some of their habits, both good and bad. We are told: This religion is truth. These political beliefs are truth. The list goes on.
We accept what we are told as truth. We don’t question it at first because we believe the people we love or respect. If we wake up from the hypnotic state we start, questioning the beliefs we grew up in.
Watching the news today is so confusing. The commentaries are not truth, they are opinions. The newscasters do not search for truth—they seek to prove their opinion is right. They run stories that prove their opinion is truth and leave stories out that don’t support their opinion. That is chaos. How do we weed through everything? How do we find the truth? How do we sift through all this disinformation?
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I have come to some answers. First, I sit quietly, get calm, ground myself, let the noise in my head quiet down, and try to get in touch with my higher self and listen. I settle down for a while; but, I have to do it again and again. So much of the outside world is so convincing, it takes constant vigilance.
Vigilance is necessary because:
The lessons I have taught myself have been so over learned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains to obscure the simple and the obvious.
Living a Course in Miracles
Suzuki was the musician who created the Suzuki method for learning music. He said that for every time you played the wrong note, you would have to play it 100 times properly to correct the problem. If not, the wrong note would stay in your memory, and your fingers would remember the wrong note over the right one. Just as correcting a note takes work, so does unlearning what has been ingrained in us.
The beliefs around the word “freedom” has become so skewed in today’s society. The ego sees freedom very differently than the higher self. Freedom to the ego is getting what you want when you want it. I hear, “This is a free country. I can say what I want,” or, “I don’t have to wear a mask if I don’t want to,” with no regard to how that might affect someone else. Freedom has respect, love, and concern for others. Freedom is not something you come to understand externally. As with wisdom, it is internal, and then is brought into the external world.
When I was in my twenties, to the outside world, I had everything. That was not true. I was searching because I knew there had to be more to life. What’s it all about, Alfie? At that time in my life, I was searching for happiness externally. I would think, if I just had a new car, I would be happy. I would get the new car, be happy for a day or two and, once again, wonder what I needed to be happy. The possessions I had to have became more and more expensive. Maybe the new house would do it. NO NOT AGAIN! Still unhappy. I also would eat too much one day, drink too much another, shop too much on yet another day, but the ache in my heart would not leave.
The insanity is that I would do the same thing over and over. Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Guess I was insane. I wanted to be free of pain but could not be until I would start looking at things differently. The freedom does not start until you switch your perspective from the external to the internal.
That went on until I was about 30. I kept searching, and then it happened. I had my first God experience. I tasted the peace, and I needed more. I went on a retreat, and the flood gates opened. I knew it was the beginning of something new. Can I say I am free yet? No, but I do have some tools now to help. I know when I go for food, or alcohol, or shop, I am trying to deal with what is happening internally, externally. Inside out and backwards.
I once had a dream. I was floating down a river with hundreds of people. Everyone was having a blast. We came to a fork in the river. On the right side of the river, the water was calm. The left side was rapids. I went to the left while most people went to the right. It was scary being in the rapids, but then, suddenly, the water became calm. Everything around me was peace and beauty. I tried to call for others to come, but sadly they did not. Here was freedom. This dream made a statement that reminded me of a verse:
“God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself alone.”
Living a Course in Miracles (T-13V.6:6-7)
No wonder so many people are lonely They see themselves alone. The journey can be rough waters at the beginning, and, periodically, throughout the journey, but it is well worth it. Without making the choice for God and the life we were meant to live, there is only sadness and suffering. I used to think that I was supposed to pray for everything else; that it was selfish to pray for myself. As I moved through my thirties and forties, I began to realize the best way to start changing the world was by going inward and change myself.
As always, thank you for your time. May you take time this day to hear the still small voice within.
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