Connie'sHeadshotFor those of you struggling and searching for answers about this difficult experience of physical existence and consciousness here that we call “life”, take a few moments to absorb and meditate on the following. If you are honest with yourself, it will resonate with truth in your heart of hearts, unlike anything you have been told to believe by Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

First of all, though this experience we are having often appears hopeless and chaotic, do not doubt that there is definitely a Higher Power. Ironically, organized religion has done the most damage to impede your correct understanding of what that Higher Power is.

There is “creative design” to all of this we are a part of. Again ironically, organized religion has impeded your understanding of your part in that creative design, with the false man-made myth of “The Creation Story” and the “Garden of Eden”. The horribly damaging lie of organized religion is that the Higher Power is a judgmental EXTERNAL God that is totally separate from you, looking down on you, and who is solely responsible for creating everything.

The truth is the exact opposite: You are not, and could never be separate from your Higher Power. You are actually a co-creator, or co-designer with your Higher Power. The challenge that we each have, and that we all will surely eventually master, is the process of “waking up” and learning to use those co-designing skills here in a healing, loving and forgiving way… ALL THE TIME.

By the way, when we talk about learning to love and forgive others in all things ALL THE TIME, that does not mean we have to be a doormat to those who betray our trust or treat us badly, etc. It doesn’t mean you are no longer supposed to stand up for yourself, as many followers of the helpful manuscript “A Course In Miracles” mistakenly would have you believe.

It doesn’t mean you can’t speak out in a form of “necessary correction” in the name of love, to address behavior that goes against love and The Golden Rule. It doesn’t mean you have to let others who have acted in a harmful or dishonest way, continue to be closely involved in your circle of affairs and activities.

What it does mean however, is that you MUST sincerely forgive them for such perceived wrongs, and understand that their actions were not “sin”, but merely temporary mistakes in their learning process here. It does mean you must see everyone, including them, as EQUAL spiritual brothers and sisters, no matter what their differences and beliefs. You must recognize them as equally a holy part of what “God” is. We all will make mistakes in this physical experience. That is part of our eternal learning process.

We will make mistakes even after this physical experience. Eternity is ours, we are in eternity now, and eternity is an eternal creative adventure and learning process. One of the most important spiritual truths you must learn is that mistakes are not “sin”, as organized religion would have you believe in order to keep you in a constant state of guilt.

Real Spiritual Truth, as opposed to the longstanding lies of the Big Three religions (that have caused more hate, wars, violence and genocide throughout man’s history by the way, than any other reason) is that the Higher Power (God) is actually your “Higher Self”. It is what you are eternally a part of, and have NEVER been separate from…And it is what you have to learn and train yourself to listen to, and live in tune with.

It simply requires a conscious decision on your part that you want to do so, and then a reasonable amount of daily effort (prayer/meditation) to back that decision up, not unlike the practice that is involved in learning to play the guitar or piano. Simply put, the Higher Power of your Higher Self is not found “externally”. It is found within you. It isn’t a Higher Power waiting to condemn you for eternity for not accepting a certain doctrine taught in a certain book. One of the biggest lies of the Big Three religions is that God is external to you, and you have to ask for “him” to enter you, or you will forever be damned as “unsaved”.

Deep in your heart, these words will resonate with truth, even if at first you try to repress them, and think you should resist accepting them. Usually such a resistance is fear based, from conditioning by organized religion that you must believe only one way or be damned to burn in Hell forever. My, what a strange and contradicting image to have of a supposedly unconditionally loving God! We couldn’t just be sent into oblivion of non-existence anymore? That wouldn’t suffice? God must torture us by burning us for all eternity? And God is Love? C’mon now, time to get real everyone.

This experience we are having on this temporary physical plane we call “life on earth” can best be described and understood as you at the level of your Higher Self, having a sort of “nightmare”. In other words, what we are experiencing here that is often so frightening and full of seemingly endless pain, sickness and despair, that we keep trying so hard to understand, is like your Higher Self having a dream, and you here at the level of your “lower self” are trying to make sense of all the senseless madness of the dream.

Now don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying this experience is absolutely a dream. It is however, a temporary “creation” you are a part of creating, but that is not the true reality of Divine Will, and therefore it is much LIKE a dream.

You on this physical level are actively living the nightmare in which it seems very real to you. Granted, sometimes it doesn’t feel like a nightmare, but as you get older it seems like a very bad dream more often than not. Think about bad dreams that you have, and how very real they themselves seemed until you bolted awake, at which point you were shocked and thankful that it wasn’t actually real…Or the flip side, when it was a beautiful dream, and you awoke to such disappointment that it turned out to be a dream after it felt so real.

In all dreams, except in very rare instances of what are called lucid dreams, we generally have zero control of the chaos, which is what makes them so frightening. In life, we also generally have zero control of the chaos, which is what makes life so frightening. The good news is, this experience we are having that we call “life” can become what you could call a kind of “lucid dream” ( in which you begin to have more and more healing creative control).

This miracle begins to develop when you reach the point of deciding one thing: That there is no separation between you, your brothers and sisters who share this experience, and “God”, that there is no condemnation of anyone for any reason, that all is forgiven, and that all is loved here in this scary experience you are having.

Make a commitment to try that new mindset, and get ready for the miracles of healing change that will begin to enter your life. This occurs when you at this lower level make the decision that the ONLY thing you want is “Highest Wisdom” or “Divine Will”, meaning that you only want your Higher Self to guide you in this experience at this level.

When you make that decision, you have turned the nightmare of pain, sickness and death into more of a sort of lucid dream in which you begin to have more and more control to HEAL and CHANGE the physical experience you are having here, both for yourself and for others because we are all connected as spiritual brothers and sisters.

The control and healing positive changes come from your Higher Self after you finally recognize that you are eternally a part of what “God” is. Then you will begin witnessing the nightmare of this experience changing slowly, day by day, into a permanent sort of good dream instead. (And ultimately when you “awaken” from it, it won’t be in sadness and disappointment that it is over. )

When you make that decision described above, the miracles your Higher Self knows that you NEED will begin to happen in your life here on this level, where before you were in frequent despair, so afraid of what bad things waited around the corner or in the future. You slowly begin learning that all the scary things of life are just illusions of your “lower self” who was asleep or distracted. You begin learning more and more, day by day that everything is OK because your Higher Self, which is forever only concerned and dedicated to “God’s Will”, is what you have decided is all you want while you are in this “dream”.

Once again, the key is recognizing you are not separate from what “God” is. It is in forsaking all beliefs in condemnation of any kind toward others, and instead embracing total unconditional forgiveness – FIRST of yourself, and then of all others, because you have at last recognized yourself and all others as an eternal holy part of what “God” is.

Realizing this holiness you are eternally a part of and could never be separate from, it doesn’t make you “egotistical”. On the contrary, it changes you in the most humble way, because it brings to your awareness the realization that you have an obligation to live in a holy way, and to commit yourself to unconditional love and forgiveness at all times and in all things. Try this, and very quickly you will begin to feel as though you are no longer “swimming against the current” as it were.

Then watch the powerful miracles that begin to happen for you, because your heart’s desire is only to seek and create the Divine purpose your Higher Self has for you – no longer guided by your lower self as you have been doing up to now. You simply ask for that guidance, and it is given to you because that is Divine Will.

But you have to commit yourself to a daily practice of asking for it, and deciding that is all you want, after having become so fearfully distracted by a misleading dream that you were forever separate from, and not an actual part of what “God” is.

Connie Bryan is a freelance editorial writer in Sacramento, CA.
www.conniebryan.com