T o defend himself against her
pain-body’ s atta ck, which he sees as totally unwarranted, he wil l become
even mo re deeply entrenched in his mental positions as he justifies,
defends himself, or counterattac ks. Eventually , this may activate his own
pain-body . When  both partners h ave thus been taken over , a level of deep
unconsciousness has been reached, of emotional violence, savage attack
and counterattack. It will not subside until both pain-bodies have
replenished them selves and then enter the dormant stage. Until the next
time. This is only one of an endless number of possible scenarios. Many
volumes have been written, and  many more could be written, about the
ways in which unconsciousness is brought out in male-female
relationships. Bu t, as I said earlier , once you understand the root of the
dysfunction, you do not need to explore its countless manifestations. Let’ s briefly look again at the scenario I have just describe d. Every
challenge that it contains is actually a disguised opportunity for
salvation. At every stage of the unfolding dysfunctional process, freedom
from unconsciousness is possible. For example, the woman’ s hostility
could become a signal for the man to come out of his mind-identified
state, aw aken into the Now , become present — instead of becoming even
more id entified with his mind, even more unconscious. Instead of
“being” the pain-body , the woman could be the knowing that watches the
emotional pain in herself, thus accessing the power of the Now and
initiating the transmutation o f the pain. This would remove the
compulsive and automatic outward projection of it. She could then
express her feelings to her partner . There is no guarantee, of co urse, that
he w ill listen, b ut it gives him  a good chance to become present and
certainly breaks  the insane cycle of the involuntary acting out of old
mind pa tterns. If the woman m isses that opportunity , the man could
watch h is own  mental-emoti onal reaction to her pain, his own
defensiveness, r ather than being  the reaction. He could then watch hisown pain-body being triggered  and thus bring consciousness into his
emotions. In this way , a clear a nd still space of pure awarene ss would
come in to being — the knowing, the silent witness, the watcher . This
awareness does not deny the pain and yet is beyond it. It allows the pain
to b e an d yet transmutes it at the same time. It accepts everything and
transforms everything. A door would have opened up for her through
which she could easily join him in that space. If you are consistently or at least predominantly present in your
relationship, thi s will be the greatest challenge for your partn er . They
will not be able to tolerate your presence for very long and stay
unconscious. If they are ready , they will walk through the door that you
opened for them and join you in that state. If they are not, you will
separate like oil and water . The light is too painful for some one who
wants to remain in darkness. WHY WOMEN ARE CLOSER T O ENLIGHTENMENT
Ar e the obstacles to enlightenment the same for a man as for a woman? Y es, but the emphasis is dif ferent. Generally speaking, it is easier for a
woman to feel a nd be in her body , so she is naturally closer to B eing and
potentially closer to enlightenment than a man. This is why many ancient
cultures instinctively chose female figures or analogies to represent or
describe the formless and transcendental reality . It was often s een as a
womb that gives birth to everything in creation and sustains and
nourishes it during its life as form. In the T ao T e Ching , one of the most
ancient and profound books e ver written, the T ao , wh ich could be
translated as Being , is described as “infinite, et ernally present, the
mother o f the universe.” Natural ly , women are closer to it than m en since
they virt ually “e mbody” the Unmanifested. What is more, all creatures
and all things must eventually return to the Source. “All things vanish
into the T ao. It alone endures.” Since the Source is seen as female, this is
represented as the light and dark sides of the archetypal fem inine in
psychology and mythology . The Goddess or Divine Mother has two
aspects: She gives life, and she takes life.When the mind took over and humans lost touch with the realit y of their
divine e ssence, they started to think of God as a male figure . Society
became male-dominated, and th e female was made subordinate to the
male. I am  not suggesting a return to earlier female representations of the
divine. Some people now use the term Goddess  i nst ead of God . They are
redressing a balance between m ale and female that was lost a l ong time
ago, and that is good. But it is still a representation and a concept,
perhaps tempora rily useful, just as a map or a signpost is temporarily
useful, b ut more a hindrance th an a help when you are ready t o realize
the reality beyond all concept s and images. What does rem ain true,
however , is that the ener gy frequency of the mind appears to be
essentially male . The mind resi sts, fights for control, uses, man ipulates,
attacks, tries to grasp and possess, and so on. This is why the traditional
God is a patria rchal, controllin g authority figure, an often angry man
who you  should  live in fear of, as the Old T estament suggests. This God
is a projection of the human mind. T o g o b eyond th e mind and rec onnect with the deeper reality o f Being,
very dif ferent qualities are needed: surrender , non-judgment, an openness
that allo ws life to be instead of r esisting it, the capacity to hold all things
in th e loving em brace of your knowing. All these qualities a re much
more closely related to the fem ale principle. Whereas mind-ener gy is
hard and rigid, Being-ener gy is soft and yielding and yet infinitely more
powerful than mind. The mind r uns our civilization, whereas Being is in
char ge of all life on our planet and beyond. Being is the very Intelli gence
whose visible manifestation is the physical universe. Although women
are potentially closer to it, men can also access it within themselves. At this time, the vast majority o f men as well as women are still in the
grip of the mind: identified with the thinker and the pain-body . This, of
course, is what prevents enlightenment and the flowering of love. As a
general rule, the major obstacle for men tends to be the thinking mind,
and the major obstacle for women the pain-body , although in certain
individual cases  the opposite m ay be true, and in others the tw o factors
may be equal. DISSOL VING THE COLLECTIVE FEMALE P AIN-BODYWhy is the pain-body mor e of an obstacle for women? The pain -body u sually has a col lective as well as a personal aspect. The
personal aspect is the accumula ted residue of emotional pain su f fered in
one’ s ow n past. The collective one is the pain accumulate d in the
collective human psyche over thousands of years through disease,
torture, war , murder , cruelty , m adness, and so on. Everyone’ s personal
pain-body also partakes of this collective pain-body . There are dif ferent
strands in the collective pain -body . For example, certain races or
countries in which extreme forms of strife and violence occu r have a
heavier collective pain-body than others. Anyone with a strong pain-
body and not enough consciousness to disidentify from it will not only
continuously or periodically be forced to relive their emotional  pain but
may also easily become either t he perpetrator or the victim of violence,
depending on whether their pain-body is predominantly active or
passive. On the other hand, they may also be potentially closer to
enlightenment. This potential is n’ t necessarily realized, of course, but if
you are trapped in a nightmare you will probably be more strongly
motivated to awaken than som eone who is just caught in the ups and
downs of an ordinary dream. Apart fr om her personal pain-bo dy , every woman has her share in what
could be described as the colle ctive female pain-body — unless she is
fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suf fered by women
partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery ,
exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of
years. T he emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and
coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-body in its collective aspect
that awakens from its dormancy at that time, although it can be triggered
at other times t oo. It restricts the free flow of life ener gy thr ough the
body , of which menstruation is a  physical expression. Let’ s dwell on this
for a moment and see how  it can become an opportu nity for
enlightenment. Often a woman is “taken over”  by the pain-body at that time. It has an
extremely powerful ener getic char ge that can easily pull you into
unconscious identification with it. Y ou are then actively possess ed by anener gy field that occupies your inner space and pretends to be you —
but, of course, is  not you at all. It speaks through you, acts through you,
thinks th rough y ou. It will create negative situations in your life so that it
can feed on the  ener gy . It wants more pain, in whatever form. I have
described this process already . It can be vicious and destructive. It is pure
pain, past pain — and it is not you. The number of women who ar e now approaching the fully c onscious
state already exceeds that of me n and will be growing even faster in the
years to come. Men may catch up with them in the end, but for some
considerable time there will be a gap between the consciousnes s of men
and that of women. W omen a re regaining the function that is their
birthright and, therefore, comes  to them more naturally than it does to
men: to be a bridge between the manifested world and the Unma nifested,
between physicality and spirit. Y our main task as a woman now is to
transmute the pain-body so that it no longer comes between you and your
true self, the essence of who you are. Of course, you also hav e to deal
with the other obstacle to enligh tenment, which is the thinking m ind, but
the i ntense presence you genera te when dealing with the pain-b ody will
also free you from identification with the mind. The first thing t o remember is t his: As long as you make an identity for
yourself out of t he pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of
your sense of self is investe d in your emotional pain, you will
unconsciously re sist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that
pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and
the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious
process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it conscious. T o s uddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pai n can be
quite a shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you have
broken the attachment. The pain-body is an ener gy field, almos t like an
entity , th at has become tempora rily lodged in your inner space. It is life
ener gy that has become trapped, ener gy that is no longer flowing. Of
course, the pain-body is there because of certain things that happened in
the past . It is  the living past in you, and if you identify with it, you
identify with the past. A victim identity is the belief that the past is more
powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the
belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who
you are now , fo r your emotional pain or your inability to be your trueself. Th e truth is that the only power there is is contained w ithin this
moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that,  you also
realize that you  ar e responsible for your inner s pace now — nobody else
is — and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now . So identification  prevents you from dealing with the pain-body . Some
women who are already consc ious enough to have relinquished their
victim id entity o n the personal level are still holding on to a collective
victim identity: “what men did to women.” They are right — and they
are also wrong. They are right inasmuch as the collective female pain-
body is  in lar g e part due to male violence inflicted on women an d
repression of the female princip le throughout the planet over millennia. They are wrong if they derive a sense of self from this fact and thereby
keep themselves  imprisoned in a  collective victim identity . If a woman is
still holding on to anger , resentment, or condemnation, she is holding on
to her pain-body . This may giv e her a comforting sense of identity , of
solidarity with other women, but it is keeping her in bondage to  the past
and blocking full access to her essence and true power . If women
exclude themselves from men, that fosters a sense of separation and
therefore a strengthening of the ego. And the stronger the ego, the more
distant you are from your true nature. So do not use the pain-body  to give you an identity . Use it for
enlightenment instead. T ransmute it into consciousness. One of  the best
times fo r this is during menses. I  believe that, in the years to com e, many
women will enter the fully conscious state during that time. Usually , it is
a time of unconsciousness for many women, as they are taken over by
the collective female pain-body . Once you have reached a certain level of
consciousness, however , you ca n reverse this, so instead of becoming
unconscious yo u become mor e  conscious. I have described the basic
process already ,  but let me take you through it again, this t ime with
special reference to the collective female pain-body . When yo u know that the menstrual flow is approaching, before  you feel
the first signs o f what is commonly called premenstrual tension, the
awakening of the collective female pain-body , become very alert andinhabit y our bod y as fully as possible. When the first sign appears, you
need to be alert enough to “catch” it before it takes you o ver . For
example, the first sign may be a sudden, strong irritation or a  flash of
anger , or it may be a purely physical symptom. Whatever it is, catch it
before it can take over your thinking or behavior . This simpl y means
putting the spotlight of your attention on it. If it is an emotion, feel the
strong e ner gy c har ge behind it. Know that it is the pain-body . At the
same tim e, be the knowing; that is to say , be aware of your c onscious
presence and feel its power . An y emotion that you take your presence
into wil l quickly subside and become transmuted. If it is a purely
physical symptom, the attention that you give it will preven t it from
turning i nto an emotion or a thought. Then continue to be alert and wait
for the next sign of the pain-body . When it appears, catch it again in the
same way as before. Later , w hen the pain-body has fully awakened from its dormant state,
you may experience considerab le turbulence in your inner sp ace for a
while, p erhaps for several days. Whatever form this takes, stay present. Give it your com plete attention. W atch the turbulence inside you. Know
it is there. Hold the knowing, an d be the knowing. Remember: Do not let
the p ain-body use your mind and take over your thinking. W atch it. Feel
its e ner gy directly , inside your b ody . As you know , full attentio n means
full acceptance. Through sustai ned attention and thus acceptance, there comes
transmutation. The pain-body becomes transformed into radiant
consciousness, j ust as a piece of wood, when placed in or ne ar a fire,
itself is transformed into fire. Menstruation will then become n ot only a
joyful and fulfilling expression  of your womanhood but also a sacred
time of transmut ation, when you give birth to a new consciousness. Y our
true nature then shines forth, both in its female aspect as the Goddess and
in its transcendental aspect as the divine Being that you are beyond male
and female duality . If y our male pa rtner is conscious enough, he can help you with the
practice I have just described by holding the frequency of intense
presence particularly at this time. If he stays present whenever you fall
back into unconscious identification with the pain-body , which can and
will hap pen at first, you will be  able to quickly rejoin him in t hat state. This means that whenever the p ain-body temporarily takes over , whetherduring m enses o r at other times, your partner will not mistake it for who
you are. Even if the pain-body attacks him, as it probably will, he will
not react to it as if it were “you,” withdraw , or put up some kind of
defense. He will hold the spac e of intense presence. Nothing else is
needed for t ransformation. At other times, you will be able to do the
same for him o r help him reclaim consciousness from the mind by
drawing his attention into the here and now whenever he becomes
identified with his thinking. In th is way , a permanent ener gy  field of a pure and high frequency will
arise bet ween y ou. No illusion, no pain, no conflict, nothing that is not
you , a nd nothing that is not love c an survive in it. This represents the
fulfillment of the divine, transpersonal purpose of your relationship. It
becomes a vortex of consciousness that will draw in many others. GIVE UP THE RELA TIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF
When one is fully conscious, would one still have a need for a
r elationship? W o uld a man still feel drawn to a woman? W ould a woman
still feel incomplete without a man? Enlightened or not, you are eith er a man or a woman, so on the level of
your for m identi ty you are not complete. Y ou are one-half of the whole. This incomplete ness is felt as male-female attraction, the pull to ward the
opposite ener gy polarity , no matter how conscious you are. But in that
state of inner connectedness, yo u feel this pull somewhere on the surface
or p eriphery of y our life. Anything that happens to you in that state feels
somewhat like that. The whole world seems like waves or ripples on the
surface o f a vast and deep ocean . Y ou are that ocean and, of co urse, you
are also  a ripple, but a ripple that has realized its true identity as the
ocean, a nd comp ared to that vas tness and depth, the world of waves and
ripples is not all that important.This does not mean that you don’ t relate deeply to other people or to
your partner . In fact, you can relate deeply only  i f you a re cons cious of
Being. Coming from Being, you are able to focus beyond the veil of
form. In  Being,  male and fema le are one. Y our form may continue to
have certain needs, but Being has none. It is already complete and whole. If those needs are met, that is b eautiful, but whether or not they  are met
makes no dif ference to your deep inner state. So it is perfectly possible
for a n e nlightened person, if the need for the male or female polarity is
not met, to feel a sense of lack or incompleteness on the outer level of his
or her being, yet at the same ti me be totally complete, fulfilled, and at
peace within. In the quest for enlightenment, is being gay a help or a hindrance, or
does it not make any differ ence? As you approach adulthood, uncertainty about your sexuality followed
by t he r ealization that you are “ dif ferent” from others may force you to
disidentify from socially conditioned patterns of thought and behavior . This will automatically raise yo ur level of consciousness above that of
the unconscious majority , whose members unquestioningly take on board
all i nherited patterns. In that respect, being gay can be a help. Being an
outsider to some extent, someone who does not “fit in” with others or is
rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life dif ficult, bu t it also
places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes
you out of unconsciousness almost by force. On the other han d, if you then develop a sense of identity based  on your
gayness, you have escaped one  trap only to fall into another . Y ou will
play roles and g ames dictated by a mental image you have of yourself as
gay . Y ou  will become unconscio us. Y ou will become unreal. Un derneath
your ego  mask, you will become very unhappy . If this happens to you,
being gay will have become a hindrance. But you always get another
chance, of course. Acute unhappiness can be a great awakener . Is it not true tha t you need to have a good r elationship with you rself and
love you rself befor e you can ha ve a fulfilling r elationship with another
person? If you cannot be at ease with yo urself when you are alone, you will seek
a r elationship to cover up your unease. Y ou can be sure that th e unease
will then  reappear in some othe r form within the relationship, and you
will probably hold your partner responsible for it. All you really need to do is ac cept this moment fully . Y ou ar e then at
ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself. But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can’ t
you just be  y oursel f? When  you have a relationship with yourself, you
have spl it yourself into two: “I” and “myself,” subject and object. That
mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity , of
all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you
ar e  you rself — “yo u” and “yourself” mer ge into one. Y ou do not judge
yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of
yourself, you do not love yours elf, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The spl it caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse
removed. There  is no “self” that you need to protect, defend, or feed
anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no
longer have: the relationship wit h yourself. Once you have given  that up,
all your other relationships will be love relationships.CHAPTER NINE
B E Y O N D  H A P P I N E S S
 A N D  U N H A P P I N E S S
 T H E R E  I S  P E A C E
THE HIGHER GOOD BEYOND GOOD AND BAD
Is ther e a differ ence between happiness and inner peace? Y es. Happiness depends on cond itions being perceived as positive; inner
peace does not. Is it not possible to attract only positive conditions into our lif e? If our
attitude and our thinking ar e a lways positive, we would manifest only
positive events and situations, wouldn’ t we? Do y ou truly kn ow what is posi tive and what is negative? Do you have
the total  picture? There have b een many people for whom limitation,
failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their
greatest teacher . It taught them to let go of false self-images and
superficial ego-d ictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility ,
and compassion. It made them more r eal . Whenever anyth ing negative happens to you, there is a dee p lesson
concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Ev en a briefillness o r an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life,
what ultimately matters and what doesn’ t.
Seen from a higher perspective, conditions ar e  always positive. T o be
more pre cise: th ey are neither po sitive nor negative. They are as  they are. And when you live in complete  acceptance of what is  — which is the
only sane way to live — the re is no “good” or “bad” in your life
anymore. There is only a higher good — which includes the “bad.” Seen
from th e perspective of the m ind, however , there is good-bad, like-
dislike, love-hate. Hence, in the Book of Genesis, it is said that Adam
and Eve were no  longer allowed to dwell in “paradise” when they “ate of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
 
This sounds to me like denial and self-deception. When s omething
dr eadful happen s to me or someone close to me — accident, illn ess, pain
of some  kind, or death — I can pr etend that it isn't bad, but the fact
r emains that it  is bad, so why deny it? Y ou are not pretending anything . Y ou are allowing it to be as it is, that’ s
all. T his “allowing to be” takes you beyond the mind with its resistance
patterns that create the positive-negative polarities. It is an essential
aspect of for giveness. For givene ss of the present is even more i mportant
than for g iveness of the past. If you for give every moment — allow it to
be as it i s — then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs
to be for given at some later time. Remember that we are not talk ing about happiness here. For example,
when a loved on e has just died, or you feel your own death app roaching,
you cannot be happy . It is impossible. But you can  be at peace. There
may be  sadness and tears, bu t provided that you have reli nquished
resistance, underneath the sadness you will feel a deep serenity , a
stillness, a sacred presence. Thi s is the emanation of Being, this is inner
peace, the good that has no opposite. What if it is a si tuation that I ca n do something about? How can I allow
it to be and change it at the same time? Do w hat you have to do. In th e meantime, accept what is . Since mind
and resistance are synonymous, acceptance immediately frees you from
mind do minance and thus reconnects you with Being. As a result, the
usual eg o motivations for “doing” — fear , greed, control, defending or
feeding the false sense of self —  will cease to operate. An intelligence
much greater than the mind is now in char ge, and so a dif ferent quality of
consciousness will flow into your doing. “Accept whatev er comes to you  woven in the pattern of your de stiny , for
what could more aptly fit your needs?” This was written two thousand
years ago by Marcus Aurelius, one of those exceedingly rare humans
who possessed worldly power as well as wisdom. It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suf fering
before they will relinquish resistance and accept — before they will
for give. As soon as they do, one of the greatest miracles happens: the
awakening of Being-consciousness through what appears as evil, the
transmutation of  suf fering into i nner peace. The ultimate ef fect of all the
evil and suf fering in the world i s that it will force humans into realizing
who the y are beyond name and form. Thus, what we perceive as evil
from ou r limited  perspective is actually part of the higher good that has
no opposite. This, however , doe s not become true for you except through
for giveness. Until that happens, evil has not been redeemed and therefore
remains evil. Through for giveness, which essentially means recognizing the
insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is,
the mira cle of transformation happens not only within but also without. A silent space of intense presence arises both in you and around you. Whoever or whatever enters tha t field of consciousness will be  af fected
by it, sometimes visibly and im mediately , sometimes at deeper levels
with visible changes appearing at a later time. Y ou dissolve discord, heal
pain, dispel unconsciousness —  without doing  anything — simply by
being  and holding that frequency of intense presence.THE END OF YOUR LIFE DRAMA
In th at state of acceptance and  inner peace, even though  you may not
call it “bad,” ca n anything still come into your life that would be called
“bad” fr om a perspective of or dinary consciousness? Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people’ s lives are due to
unconsciousness. They are self-created, or rather ego-created. I
sometimes refer to those things as “drama.” When you are fully
conscious, dram a does not come  into your life anymore. Let me remi nd
you briefly how the ego operates and how it creates drama. Ego is the unobserved mind tha t runs your life when you are not present
as the witnessin g consciousness , the watcher . The ego perceives itself as
a separate fragment in a hostile universe, with no real inner connection to
any other being, surrounded b y other egos which it either sees as a
potential threat or which it will attempt to use for its own ends. The basic
ego patterns are designed to combat its own deep-seated fear and sense
of lack. They are  resistance, control, power , greed, defense, attack. Some
of the ego’ s strategies are extremely clever , yet they never truly solve
any of its problems, simply because the ego itself is the problem. When egos come together , whether in personal relationships or in
or ganizations or institutions, “bad” things happen sooner or later: drama
of o ne kind or  another , in the form of conflict, problem s, power
struggles, emotional or physical violence, and so on. This includes
collective evils such as war , genocide, and exploitation — a ll due to
massed unconsciousness. Furthermore, many types of illness are caused
by the ego’ s continuous resistance, which creates restrictions and
blockages in the flow of ener gy through the body . When you r econnect
with Bei ng and are no longer run by your mind, you cease to create those
things. Y ou do not create or participate in drama anymore. Whenever two or more egos come together , drama of one kind or another
ensues. But even if you live t otally alone, you still create y our owndrama. W hen you feel sorry fo r yourself, that’ s drama. When you feel
guilty or  anxiou s, that’ s drama. When you let the past or future  obscure
the p resent, you are creating time, psychological time — the stuf f out of
which drama is made. Whenever you are not honoring the present
moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama. Most pe ople are  in love with their particular life drama. Their  story is
their ide ntity . The ego runs their life. They have their whole sen se of self
invested in it. Even their — usually unsuccessful — search for an
answer , a solution, or for healing becomes part of it. What they fear and
resist most is the end of their drama. As long as they ar e  their mind, what
they fear and resist most is their own awakening. When you live in complete acceptance of what is , tha t is the end  of all
drama in  your life. Nobody can even have an ar gument with you, no
matter h ow hard he or she tries. Y ou cannot have an ar gument with a
fully conscious person. An ar gument implies identification with your
mind and a mental position, as well as resistance and reaction to the
other pe rson’ s position. The result is that the polar opposites become
mutually ener gized. These are the mechanics of unconsciousness. Y ou
can still make yo ur point clearly and firmly , but there will be no reactive
force be hind it, no defense or at tack. So it won’ t turn into drama. When
you are fully conscious, you ce ase to be in conflict. “No one w ho is at
one with himself can even co nceive of conflict,” states A Course in
Miracles . T his refers no t only to confl ict with other people but more
fundamentally to conflict withi n you, which ceases when there is no
longer any clash between the d emands and expectations of your mind
and what is . IMPERMANENCE AND THE CYCLES OF LIFE
However , as long as you are in the physical dimension and linked to the
collective huma n psyche, physical pain — although rare — is still
possible. This is not to be confused with suf fering, with  mental-
emotional pain. All suf fering is ego-created and is due to re sistance. Also, as long as you are in thi s dimension, you are still subj ect to its
cyclical nature and to the law of impermanence of all things, but you no
longer perceive this as “bad” — it just is .Through allowing the “isness ” of all things, a deeper dimension
underneath the play of opposites reveals itself to you as an abiding
presence, an unchanging deep stillness, an uncaused joy beyo nd good
and bad. This is the joy of Being, the peace of God. On the level of form, there is birth and death, creation and destruction,
growth and dissolution, of seem ingly separate forms. This is reflected
everywhere: in the life cycle of a star or a planet, a physical body , a tree,
a flower; in the  rise and fall of nations, political systems, civilizations;
and in the inevitable cycles of gain and loss in the life of an individual. There ar e cycle s of success, w hen things come to you and thrive, and
cycles o f failure , when they wi ther or disintegrate and you ha ve to let
them go in order to make room for new things to arise , or for
transformation to happen. If you cling and resist at that point, it means
you are refusing to go with the flow of life, and you will suf fer . It is not true that the up cycle is good and the down cycle bad, except in
the mind’ s judgment. Growth is usually considered positive, but nothing
can grow forever . If growth, of whatever kind, were to go on a nd on, it
would eventually become mon strous and destructive. Disso lution is
needed for new growth to happen. One cannot exist without the other . The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. Y ou must
have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain
to b e drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very  success
became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure. Failure
lies con cealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this
world, w hich is to say on the le vel of form, everybody “fails” sooner or
later , of course, and every achie vement eventually comes to naught. All
forms are impermanent. Y ou can  still be active and enjoy  manifesting and creating new f orms and
circumstances, b ut you won’ t be identified with them. Y ou do not need
them to give you a sense of self. They are not your life — only your life
situation. Y our physical ener gy is also subject to cycles. It cannot always be at a
peak. Th ere wil l be times of low as well as high ener gy . There will be
periods when you are highly active and creative, but there may also be
times w hen everything seems stagnant, when it seems that you are notgetting anywhere, not achieving anything. A cycle can last for anything
from a few hour s to a few years. There are lar ge cycles and sma ll cycles
within these lar ge ones. Many  illnesses are created through fighting
against the cycles of low ener g y , which are vital for regeneration. The
compulsion to do, and the tend ency to derive your sense of s elf-worth
and identity from external facto rs such as achievement, is an inevitable
illusion as long as you are identified with the mind. This makes it hard or
impossible for you to accept the low cycles and allow them to be. Thus,
the intelligence of the or ganism may take over as a self-protective
measure and create an illness in  order to force you to stop, so  that the
necessary regeneration can take place. The cyclical nature of the universe is closely linked with the
impermanence o f all things and situations. The Buddha made this a
central part of his teaching. All conditions are highly u nstable and in
constant flux, or , as he put it, impermanence is a characteristic of every
condition, every situation you will ever encounter in your life. It will
change, disappea r , or no longer satisfy you. Impermanence is als o central
to Jesus ’ s teaching: “Do not la y up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. . . .”
As l ong as a condition is judged as “good” by your mind, whether it be a
relationship, a possession, a social role, a place, or your physical body ,
the mind  attaches itself to it and identifies with it. It makes yo u happy ,
makes you feel g ood about yourself, and it may become part of who you
are o r th ink you are. But nothing lasts in this dimension where moth and
rust consume. Either it ends or it changes, or it may under go a  polarity
shift: The same condition that was good yesterday or last year has
suddenly or gradually turned into bad. The same condition that made you
happy th en makes you unhappy . The prosperity of today becomes the
empty consumerism of tomorrow . The happy wedding and honeymoon
become the unhappy divorce or the unhappy coexistence. Or a condition
disappears, so its absence makes you unhappy . When a condition or
situation that the mind has attac hed itself to and identified with changes
or d isappears, the mind cannot accept it. It will cling to the disappearing
condition and resist the change. It is almost as if a limb were b eing torn
of f your body . W e som etimes h ear of people w ho have lost all their money or whose
reputations have  been ruined committing suicide. Those are the extremecases. O thers, w henever a major loss of one kind or another oc curs, just
become deeply unhappy or make themselves ill. They cannot distinguish
between their life and the ir life situation. I recently read about a famous
actress who died in her eighties. As her beauty started to fade and
became ravaged  by old age, she grew desperately unhappy and became a
recluse. She, too, had identified with a condition: her external
appearance. Firs t, the condition gave her a happy sense of self , then an
unhappy one. If she had been able to connect with the form less and
timeless life within, she could h ave watched and allowed the fading of
her exte rnal form from a place of serenity and peace. Moreover , her
external form would have become increasingly transparent to the light
shining through  from her ageless true nature, so her beauty would not
really have faded but simply be come transformed into spiritual beauty . However , nobody told her that this is possible. The most essential kind
of knowledge is not yet widely accessible. The Buddha taught that even your happiness is dukkha  — a Pali word
meaning “suf fering” or “unsatisfactoriness.” It is inseparable from its
opposite. This means that your happiness and unhappiness are in fact
one. Only the illusion of time separates them. This is not being negative. It is simply recognizing the nature of things,
so th at you don’ t pursue an illusion for the rest of your life. Nor is it
saying that you should no longe r appreciate pleasant or beautiful things
or condi tions. But to seek something through them that they cannot give
— an identity , a sense of perma nency and fulfillment — is a recipe for
frustration and suf fering. The whole advertising industry and consumer
society would collapse if people became enlightened and no longer
sought to find their identity through things . T he more you s eek happiness
in th is w ay , the more it will elud e you. Nothing out there will ever satisfy
you exc ept temporarily and superficially , but you may need to
experience many disillusionments before you realize that truth. Things
and conditions can give you pleasure, but they will also give you pain. Things a nd conditions can give you pleasure, but they cannot give you
joy . No thing can give  you joy . Joy is uncaused and arises from within as
the joy of Being . It is an essential part of the inner state of p eace, thestate that has been called the peace of God. It is your natural state, not
something that you need to work hard for or struggle to attain. Many people never realize that there can be no “salvation” in anything
they do, possess, or attain. Those who do realize it often become world-
weary and depressed: If nothin g can give you true fulfillment , what is
there left to strive for , what is the point in anything? The Old T estament
prophet must have arrived at such a realization when he wrote: “I have
seen eve rything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a
striving after wind.” When you  reach this point, you are one s tep away
from despair — and one step away from enlightenment. A Buddhist monk once told me : “All I have learned in the twenty years
that I have been  a monk I can sum up in one sentence: All th at arises
passes away . This I know .” What he meant, of course, was this: I have
learned to of fer no resistance to what is ; I  have learned to allow the
present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things
and conditions. Thus have I found peace. T o o f fer no res istance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and
lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a
certain way , good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your
inner dependency on form is g one, the general conditions of y our life,
the outer forms, tend to improve greatly . Things, people, or conditions
that you  though t you needed fo r your happiness now come to you with
no strug gle or ef fort on your  part, and you are free to enjoy and
appreciate them  — while they last. All those things, of course, will still
pass aw ay , cycle s will come an d go, but with dependency gone  there is
no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease. The happiness that is derived from some secondary source is never very
deep. It is only a pale reflection of the joy of Being, the vibrant peace
that you  find within as you ente r the state of nonresistance. Be ing takes
you beyond the polar opposites of the mind and frees you from
dependency on form. Even if everything were to collapse and crumble all
around y ou, you  would still feel a deep inner core of peace. Y ou may not
be happy , but you will be at peace. USING AND RELINQUISHING NEGA TIVITY
All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another . All negativity is  resi stance. In this context, the  two words are almost
synonymous. Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce
anger , from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair . Sometimes the resistance triggers the emotional pain-body , in which case
even a minor si tuation may produce intense negativity , such as anger ,
depression, or deep grief. The ego believes that through ne gativity it can manipulate reality and get
what it wants. It believes that through it, it can attract a desirable
condition or dissolve an undesirable one. A Cours e in Miracles  rightly
points out that, whenever you are unhappy , there is the unc onscious
belief th at the unhappiness “bu ys” you what you want. If “you” — the
mind — did not believe that unhappiness works, why would y ou create
it? T he fact is,  of course, tha t negativity does not work. In stead of
attracting a desirable conditio n, it stops it from arising. Instead of
dissolving an undesirable one, it keeps it in place. Its only “useful”
function is that it strengthens the ego, and that is why the ego loves it. Once you have identified with some form of negativity , you do not want
to let go, and on a deeply unco nscious level, you do not want positive
change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry , or hard-
done-by person. Y ou will then ignore, deny , or sabotage the positive in
your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane. Negativity is totally unnatural. It is a psychic pollutant, and t here is a
deep lin k between the poisoning and destruction of nature and  the vast
negativity that has accumulated in the collective human psyche. No other
life-form on the planet knows negativity , only humans, just as no other
life-form violate s and poisons the Earth that sustains it. Have you ever
seen an unhappy  flower or a stressed oak tree? Have you come across a
depressed dolph in, a frog that has a problem with self-esteem, a cat that
cannot r elax, or a bird that carries hatred and resentment? T he only
animals that may occasionally experience something akin to negativity
or show signs of neurotic behavior are those that live in close contact
with humans and so link into the human mind and its insanity .W atch a ny plant or animal and  let it teach you acceptance of what is ,
surrender to the Now . Let it tea ch you Being. Let it teach you integrity
— which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real. Let it teach you how
to live and how to die, and how not  to mak e living and dying into a
problem. I ha ve lived wit h several Zen m asters — all of them cats. Even ducks
have tau ght me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a
meditation. How peacefully the y float along, at ease with themselves,
totally present in the Now , dignified and perfect as only a mindless
creature can be. Occasionally , however , two ducks will get into a fight —
sometimes for no apparent reaso n, or because one duck has strayed into
another ’ s private  space. The fig ht usually lasts only for a few seconds,
and then the ducks separate, swim of f in opposite directions, and
vigorously flap their wings a few times. They then continue to swim on
peacefully as if the fight had never happened. When I observed that for
the f irst time, I suddenly realize d that by flapping their wings they were
releasing surplus ener gy , thus preventing it from becoming trapped in
their bod y and turning into negativity . This is natural wisdom,  and it is
easy for  them because they do n ot have a mind that keeps the p ast alive
unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it. Couldn’ t a negative emotion also contain an important message? For
example, if I often feel depr essed, it may be a signal that  ther e is
something wr ong with my life, and it may for ce me to look at my life
situation and make some change s. So I need to listen to what the emotion
is telling me and not just dismiss it as negative . Y es, recurring negative emotion s do sometimes contain a messa ge, as do
illnesses. But any changes that you make, whether they have to do with
your wo rk, your  relationships, or your surroundings, are ultimately only
cosmetic unless they arise out of a change in your level of consciousness. And as far as that is concerned, it can only mean one thing: becoming
more pre sent. When you have reached a certain degree of presence, you
don’ t need negativity anymore to tell you what is needed in your lifesituation. But as long as negativity is  th ere, use it. U se it as a kind of
signal that reminds you to be more present. How do we stop negativity fr om arising, and how do we get rid of it once
it is ther e? As I said, you stop it from arising by being fully present. B ut don’ t
become discouraged. There are as yet few people on the planet who can
sustain a state of  continuous presence, although some are getting  close to
it. Soon, I believe, there will be many more. Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you,
look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is tel ling you:
“W ake up. Get out of your mind. Be present.”
There is a novel by Aldous Huxley called Island , written in his later
years when he became very interested in spiritual teachings. It tells the
story of a man shipwrecked on a remote island cut of f from the rest of
the worl d. This island contains a unique civilization. The unusual thing
about it is that its inhabitants, unlike those of the rest of the world, are
actually sane. The first thing tha t the man notices are the colorful parrots
perched in the t rees, and they se em to be constantly croaking t he words
“Attention. Here and Now . Attention. Here and Now .” W e later learn that
the islanders taught them th ese words in order to be reminded
continuously to stay present. So w henever you feel negativit y arising within you, whether c aused by
an exter nal facto r , a thought, or  even nothing in particular tha t you are
aware of, look o n it as a voice saying “Attention. Here and No w . W ake
up.” Even the slightest irritation is significant and needs to be
acknowledged and looked at; otherwise, there will be a cu mulative
buildup of unobserved reactions. As I said before, you may b e able to
just drop  it once you realize that you don’ t want to have this ener gy field
inside y ou and that it serves no  purpose. But then make sure that you
drop it completely . If you cannot drop it, just accept that it is there and
take your attention into the feeling, as I pointed out earlier .As an alternative to dropping a negative reaction, you can make it
disappear by imagining yourself becoming transparent to the external
cause of  the reaction. I recommend that you practice it with li ttle, even
trivial, things first. Let’ s say that you are sitting quietly at home. Suddenly , there is the penetrating sound of a car alarm from across the
street. Irritation arises. What is the purpose of the irritation? None
whatsoever . Why did you create it? Y ou didn’ t. The mind did. It was
totally a utomatic, totally unconscious. Why did the mind create it? Because it holds the unconscio us belief that its resistance, w hich you
experience as negativity or unh appiness in some form, will somehow
dissolve the undesirable condit ion. This, of course, is a delusion. The
resistance that it creates, the irritation or anger in this case, is far more
disturbing than the original cause that it is attempting to dissolve. All this  can be transformed into spiritual practice. Feel yourself
becoming transp arent, as it were , without the solidity of a material body . Now allow the noise, or whate ver causes a negative reaction, to pass
right through you. It is no longer hitting a solid “wall” inside y ou. As I
said, pra ctice wi th little things f irst. The car alarm, the dog barking, the
children screami ng, the traf fic ja m. Instead of having a wall of resistance
inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that “should
not be happening,” let everything pass through you. Somebody says something to yo u that is rude or designed to hur t. Instead
of g oing into unconscious reaction and negativity , such as attack,
defense, or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you. Of fer no
resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That  is
for giveness. In this way , you become invulnerable. Y ou can stil l tell that
person th at his or her behavior is unacceptable, if that is what yo u choose
to do . B ut that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. Y ou are then in your power — not in someone else’ s, nor are you run by
your mind. Whether it is a c ar alarm, a rude person, a flood, an
earthquake, or the loss of all you r possessions, the resistance mechanism
is the same. I hav e b een prac ticing meditatio n, I have been to workshops, I h ave r ead
many bo oks on spirituality , I try  to be in a state of nonr esistance — but ifyou ask me whether I have found  true and lasting inner peace, my honest
answer w ould h ave to be “no.” Why haven't I found it? What else can I
do? Y ou are still se eking outside, and you cannot get out of the  seeking
mode. Maybe the next worksho p will have the answer , maybe that new
technique. T o you I would say: Don’ t look for peace. Don’ t loo k for any
other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set  up inner
conflict and unconscious resist ance. For give yourself for not being at
peace. The moment you completely  acc ept your no n-peace, your non-
peace becomes transmuted into p eace. Anything you accept fully will get
you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender . Y ou ma y have heard the phrase “turn the other cheek,” which a great
teacher of enlightenment used two thousand years ago. He was
attempting to convey symbolically the secret of nonresistance and
nonreaction. In this statement, as in all his others, he was concerned only
with your inner reality , not with the outer conduct of your life. Do you know th e story of Banzan? Before he became a great Ze n master ,
he s pent many y ears in the purs uit of enlightenment, but it elu ded him. Then on e day , as he was walk ing in the marketplace, he ove rheard a
conversation be tween a butcher and his customer . “Give me the best
piece of  meat you have,” said the customer . And the butcher  replied,
“Every p iece of meat I have is the best. There is no piece of meat here
that is not the best.” Upon hearing this, Banzan became enlightened. I can see you are waiting for some explanation. When you accept what
is , every piece of meat — every moment — is the best. That is
enlightenment. THE NA TURE OF COMP ASSION
Having gone beyond the mind-m ade opposites, you become like a deep
lake. Th e outer situation of your life and whatever happens there is thesurface of the lake. Sometime s calm, sometimes windy and rough,
according to the cycles and seasons. Deep down, however , the lake is
always undisturbed. Y ou are the whole lake, not just the surface, and you
are in touch wit h your own de pth, which remains absolutely still. Y ou
don’ t re sist change by mentally clinging to any situation. Y our inner
peace d oes not depend on it. Y ou abide in Being — unchanging,
timeless, deathless — and you a re no longer dependent for fulfi llment or
happiness on the outer world o f constantly fluctuating forms. Y ou can
enjoy th em, play  with them, crea te new forms, appreciate the be auty of it
all. But there will be no need to attach yourself to any of it. When you become this detached, does it not mean that you also become
r emote fr om other human beings? On the contrary . As long as yo u are unaware of Being, the reality of
other hu mans will elude you, b ecause you have not found your own. Y our mi nd will like or dislike their form, which is not just their body but
includes their mind as well. T rue relationship becomes possible only
when th ere is an awareness of  Being. Coming from Being, you will
perceive anothe r person’ s body and mind as just a screen, as  it were,
behind which you can feel their true reality , as you feel yours. So, when
confronted with someone else’ s suf fering or unconscious behavior , you
stay pres ent and in touch with Being and are thus able to look beyond the
form and feel t he other person’ s radiant and pure Being through your
own. At the level of Being, all suf fering is recognized as an illusion. Suf fering is due to identifica tion with form. Miracles of healing
sometimes occur through th is realization, by awakening  Being-
consciousness in others — if they are ready . Is that what compassion is? Y es. Com passion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and
all creat ures. Bu t there are two  sides to compassion, two side s to this
bond. On the on e hand, since y ou are still here as a physical body , you
share th e vulnerability and mortality of your physical form with every
other human and with every living being. Next time you say , “I have
nothing in common with this p erson,” remember that you have a great
deal in common : A few years from now — two years or seventy years, it
doesn’ t make much dif ference —  both of you will have become rotting
corpses, then piles of dust, the n nothing at all. This is a sobe ring and
humbling realization that leaves little room for pride. Is this a negative
thought? No, it is a fact. Why close your eyes to it? In that sense, there is
total equality between you and every other creature. One of the most powerful spiritual practices is to meditate deeply on the
mortality of physical forms, in cluding your own. This is ca lled: Die
before you die. Go into it deeply . Y our physical form is dissolvi ng, is no
more. T hen a moment comes when all mind-forms or thoughts also die. Y et you  are still there — the divine presence that you are. Radiant, fully
awake. Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions. The realization of this deathless  dimension, your true nature, is the other
side of compassion. On a deep f eeling-level, you now recognize  not only
your own immortality but through your own that of every other creature
as well. On the level of form, you share mortality and the precariousness
of ex istence. On the level of Be ing, you share eternal, radiant li fe. These
are the two aspects of comp assion. In compassion, the seemingly
opposite feelings of sadness and joy mer ge into one and become
transmuted into a deep inner peace. This is the peace of God. It is one of
the most noble feelings that humans are capable of, and it h as great
healing and transformative power . But true compassion, as I have just
described it, is as yet rare. T o have deep empathy for the suf fering of
another being certainly require s a high degree of consciousness but
represents only one side of compassion. It is not complete. T rue
compassion goe s beyond empathy or sympathy . It does not hap pen until
sadness mer ges with joy , the joy  of Being beyond form, the joy o f eternal
life.T OW ARD A DIFFERENT ORDER OF REALITY
I d on’ t agr ee th at the body nee ds to die. I am convinced that we can
achieve physical immortality . W e believe in death and that’ s why the
body dies . The body does n ot die because you believe in death. The body exists, or
seems to, because you believe in death. Body and death are part of the
same illusion, created by the ego ic mode of consciousness, which has no
awareness of the Source of life and sees itself as separate and constantly
under threat. So it creates the illusion that you are a body , a dense,
physical vehicle that is constantly under threat. T o perce ive you rself as a vulnerable body that was born and a little later
dies — that’ s the illusion. Body and death: one illusion. Y ou can not have
one without the other . Y ou want to keep one side of the illusion and get
rid o f the other , but that is impossible. Either you keep all of it or you
relinquish all of it. However , you cannot escape fr om the body , nor do you have to. The
body is an incre dible misperception of your true nature. But y our true
nature is  concealed somewhere within that illusion, not outside it, so the
body is still the only point of access to it. If you saw an angel but mistook  it for a stone statue, all you would have
to do is adjust your vision and look more closely at the “stone  statue,”
not start looking somewhere els e. Y ou would then find that there never
was a stone statue. If be lief in death cr eates the body , why does an animal have a body? An
animal doesn’ t have an ego, and it doesn’ t believe in death. . . . But it still dies, or seems to.Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state
of co nsciousnes s. Y ou are not separate from it, and there is no objective
world out there. Every momen t, your consciousness creates the world
that you inhabit. One of the greatest insights that has come out of modern
physics is that o f the unity betw een the observer and the obse rved: the
person conducting the experiment — the observing consciousness —
cannot b e separated from the ob served phenomena, and a dif ferent way
of looking causes the observed phenomena to behave dif ferently . If you
believe, on a de ep level, in sepa ration and the struggle for survi val, then
you see that belief reflected all around you and your perceptions are
governed by fear . Y ou inhabit a world of death and of bodies fighting,
killing, and devouring each other . Nothing is what it seems to be. The world that you create and see
through the egoic mind may see m a very imperfect place, even a vale of
tears. Bu t whatever you perceive is only a kind of symbol, like an image
in a dream. It is how your consciousness interprets and interacts with the
molecular ener g y dance of the universe. This ener gy is the raw material
of so -called physical reality . Y ou see it in terms of bodies and birth and
death, or as a struggle for survival. An infinite number of co mpletely
dif ferent interpretations, completely dif ferent worlds, is possible and, in
fact, exists — all depending o n the perceiving consciousness. Every
being is a foca l point of consciousness, and every such fo cal point
creates its own world, althoug h all those worlds are interco nnected. There is a human world, an ant world, a dolphin world, and so on. There
are coun tless beings whose consciousness frequency is so dif ferent from
yours th at you are probably unaware of their existence, as they are of
yours. Highly conscious beings  who are aware of their connectedness
with the Source and with each other would inhabit a world that to you
would appear as a heavenly realm — and yet all worlds are ultimately
one. Our collective human world i s lar gely created through the level of
consciousness we call mind. Even within the collective human world
there are vast dif ferences, many dif ferent “sub-worlds,” depending on the
perceivers or creators of their respective worlds. Since all worlds are
interconnected, when collective human consciousness becomes
transformed, nature and the animal kingdom will reflect that
transformation. Hence the statem ent in the Bible that in the com ing age“The lion shall l ie down with the lamb.” This points to the poss ibility of
a completely dif ferent order of reality . The world as it appears to us now is, as I said, lar gely a reflection of the
egoic mind. Fear being an unavoidable consequence of egoic delusion, it
is a wor ld dominated by fear . Just as the images in a dream are symbols
of in ner states an d feelings, so o ur collective reality is lar gely a symbolic
expression of fear and of the heavy layers of negativity t hat have
accumulated in the collective human psyche. W e are not separate from
our world, so when the majo rity of humans become free of egoic
delusion, this inner change will  af fect all of creation. Y ou will literally
inhabit a  new world. It is a shift in planetary consciousness. The strange
Buddhist saying  that every tree and every blade of grass will eventually
become enlightened points to the same truth. According to St. Paul, the
whole of creation is waiting for  humans to become enlightened. That is
how I interpret his saying that  “The created universe is wait ing with
eager ex pectation for God’ s sons to be revealed.” St. Paul goes on to say
that all of creation will becom e redeemed through this: “Up to the
present. . .the w hole created universe in all its parts groans as if in the
pangs of childbirth.”
What is being born is a new consciousness and, as its inevitable
reflection, a new world. This is also foretold in the New T estam ent Book
of Reve lation: “ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first
heaven and the first earth had passed away .”
But don ’ t confu se cause and e f fect. Y our primary task is no t to seek
salvation through creating a better world, but to awaken out of
identification wi th form. Y ou are  then no longer bound to this w orld, this
level of reality . Y ou can feel your roots in the Unmanifested an d so are
free of attachment to the manifested world. Y ou can still e njoy the
passing pleasure s of this world,  but there is no fear of loss anymore, so
you don’ t need to cling to th em. Although you can enjoy sensory
pleasures, the craving for senso ry experience is gone, as is the constant
search for fulfillment through psychological gratification, through
feeding the ego. Y ou are in touc h with something infinitely greater than
any pleasure, greater than any manifested thing. In a way , you then don’ t need th e world anymore. Y ou don’ t even need it
to be dif ferent from the way it is.It is only at this  point that you begin to make a real contribution toward
bringing about a better world, toward creating a dif ferent order of reality . It is only at this  point that you are able to feel true compassion and to
help oth ers at the level of caus e. Only those who have transce nded the
world can bring about a better world. Y ou ma y remember that we talked about the dual nature of true
compassion, wh ich is awareness of a common bond of shared mortality
and immortality . At this deep level, compassion becomes healing in the
widest s ense. In that state, your healing influence is primarily based not
on doin g but on being. Everybody you come in contact with will be
touched by your presence and af fected by the peace that you emanate,
whether they are conscious of it or not. When you are fully present and
people around you manifest unconscious behavior , you won’ t feel the
need to react to it, so you don’ t give it any reality . Y our peace is so vast
and deep that anything that is not peace disappears into it as if it had
never ex isted. This breaks the karmic cycle of action and reaction. Animals, trees, flowers will feel  your peace and respond to it. Y ou teach
through being, through demonst rating the peace of God. Y ou become the
“light of the wo rld,” an emanation of pure consciousness, an d so you
eliminate suf feri ng on the level of cause. Y ou eliminate unconsc iousness
from the world. This do esn’ t me an that you m ay not also teach through doin g — for
example, by pointing out how to disidentify from the mind, recognize
unconscious patterns within on eself, and so on. But who you ar e  is
always a more vital teaching a nd a more powerful transformer of the
world than what you say , and more essential even than what you do. Furthermore, to recognize the primacy of Being, and thus wor k on the
level of cause, does not exclude the possibility that your compassion may
simultaneously m anifest on the level of doing and of ef fect by alleviating
suf fering whenever you come across it. When a hungry person asks you
for b read and yo u have some, yo u will give it. But as you give the bread,
even though your interaction may only be very brief, wh at reall y matters
is this moment o f shared Being, of which the bread is only a symbol. Adeep healing takes place within  it. In that moment, there is no giver , no
receiver . But ther e shouldn’ t be any hunger and starvation in the first place. How
can we cr eate a better world without tackling evils such as hunger and
violence first? All evils are the effect  of unco nsciousness.
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Power_of_Now__A_Guide_to_Spiritual_Enl_-_Eckhart_Tolle.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        T o defend himself against her
pain-body’ s atta ck, which he sees as totally unwarranted, he wil l become
even mo re deeply entrenched in his mental positions as he justifies,
defends himself, or counterattac ks. Eventually, this may activate his own
pain-body. When  both partners h ave thus been taken over, a level of deep
unconsciousness has been reached, of emotional violence, savage attack
and counterattack. It will not subside until both pain-bodies have
replenished them selves and then enter the dormant stage. Until the next
time. This is only one of an endless number of possible scenarios. Many
volumes have been written, and  many more could be written, about the
ways in which unconsciousness is brought out in male-female
relationships. Bu t, as I said earlier, once you understand the root of the
dysfunction, you do not need to explore its countless manifestations. Let’ s briefly look again at the scenario I have just describe d. Every
challenge that it contains is actually a disguised opportunity for
salvation. At every stage of the unfolding dysfunctional process, freedom
from unconsciousness is possible. For example, the woman’ s hostility
could become a signal for the man to come out of his mind-identified
state, aw aken into the Now, become present — instead of becoming even
more id entified with his mind, even more unconscious. Instead of
“being” the pain-body, the woman could be the knowing that watches the
emotional pain in herself, thus accessing the power of the Now and
initiating the transmutation o f the pain. This would remove the
compulsive and automatic outward projection of it. She could then
express her feelings to her partner. There is no guarantee, of co urse, that
he w ill listen, b ut it gives him  a good chance to become present and
certainly breaks  the insane cycle of the involuntary acting out of old
mind pa tterns. If the woman m isses that opportunity, the man could
watch h is own  mental-emoti onal reaction to her pain, his own
defensiveness, r ather than being  the reaction. He could then watch hisown pain-body being triggered  and thus bring consciousness into his
emotions. In this way, a clear a nd still space of pure awarene ss would
come in to being — the knowing, the silent witness, the watcher. This
awareness does not deny the pain and yet is beyond it. It allows the pain
to b e an d yet transmutes it at the same time. It accepts everything and
transforms everything. A door would have opened up for her through
which she could easily join him in that space. If you are consistently or at least predominantly present in your
relationship, thi s will be the greatest challenge for your partn er. They
will not be able to tolerate your presence for very long and stay
unconscious. If they are ready, they will walk through the door that you
opened for them and join you in that state. If they are not, you will
separate like oil and water. The light is too painful for some one who
wants to remain in darkness. WHY WOMEN ARE CLOSER T O ENLIGHTENMENT
Ar e the obstacles to enlightenment the same for a man as for a woman. Y es, but the emphasis is dif ferent. Generally speaking, it is easier for a
woman to feel a nd be in her body, so she is naturally closer to B eing and
potentially closer to enlightenment than a man. This is why many ancient
cultures instinctively chose female figures or analogies to represent or
describe the formless and transcendental reality. It was often s een as a
womb that gives birth to everything in creation and sustains and
nourishes it during its life as form. In the T ao T e Ching, one of the most
ancient and profound books e ver written, the T ao, wh ich could be
translated as Being, is described as “infinite, et ernally present, the
mother o f the universe. ” Natural ly, women are closer to it than m en since
they virt ually “e mbody” the Unmanifested. What is more, all creatures
and all things must eventually return to the Source. “All things vanish
into the T ao. It alone endures. ” Since the Source is seen as female, this is
represented as the light and dark sides of the archetypal fem inine in
psychology and mythology. The Goddess or Divine Mother has two
aspects: She gives life, and she takes life. When the mind took over and humans lost touch with the realit y of their
divine e ssence, they started to think of God as a male figure. Society
became male-dominated, and th e female was made subordinate to the
male. I am  not suggesting a return to earlier female representations of the
divine. Some people now use the term Goddess  i nst ead of God. They are
redressing a balance between m ale and female that was lost a l ong time
ago, and that is good. But it is still a representation and a concept,
perhaps tempora rily useful, just as a map or a signpost is temporarily
useful, b ut more a hindrance th an a help when you are ready t o realize
the reality beyond all concept s and images. What does rem ain true,
however, is that the ener gy frequency of the mind appears to be
essentially male. The mind resi sts, fights for control, uses, man ipulates,
attacks, tries to grasp and possess, and so on. This is why the traditional
God is a patria rchal, controllin g authority figure, an often angry man
who you  should  live in fear of, as the Old T estament suggests. This God
is a projection of the human mind. T o g o b eyond th e mind and rec onnect with the deeper reality o f Being,
very dif ferent qualities are needed: surrender, non-judgment, an openness
that allo ws life to be instead of r esisting it, the capacity to hold all things
in th e loving em brace of your knowing. All these qualities a re much
more closely related to the fem ale principle. Whereas mind-ener gy is
hard and rigid, Being-ener gy is soft and yielding and yet infinitely more
powerful than mind. The mind r uns our civilization, whereas Being is in
char ge of all life on our planet and beyond. Being is the very Intelli gence
whose visible manifestation is the physical universe. Although women
are potentially closer to it, men can also access it within themselves. At this time, the vast majority o f men as well as women are still in the
grip of the mind: identified with the thinker and the pain-body. This, of
course, is what prevents enlightenment and the flowering of love. As a
general rule, the major obstacle for men tends to be the thinking mind,
and the major obstacle for women the pain-body, although in certain
individual cases  the opposite m ay be true, and in others the tw o factors
may be equal. DISSOL VING THE COLLECTIVE FEMALE P AIN-BODYWhy is the pain-body mor e of an obstacle for women. The pain -body u sually has a col lective as well as a personal aspect. The
personal aspect is the accumula ted residue of emotional pain su f fered in
one’ s ow n past. The collective one is the pain accumulate d in the
collective human psyche over thousands of years through disease,
torture, war, murder, cruelty, m adness, and so on. Everyone’ s personal
pain-body also partakes of this collective pain-body. There are dif ferent
strands in the collective pain -body. For example, certain races or
countries in which extreme forms of strife and violence occu r have a
heavier collective pain-body than others. Anyone with a strong pain-
body and not enough consciousness to disidentify from it will not only
continuously or periodically be forced to relive their emotional  pain but
may also easily become either t he perpetrator or the victim of violence,
depending on whether their pain-body is predominantly active or
passive. On the other hand, they may also be potentially closer to
enlightenment. This potential is n’ t necessarily realized, of course, but if
you are trapped in a nightmare you will probably be more strongly
motivated to awaken than som eone who is just caught in the ups and
downs of an ordinary dream. Apart fr om her personal pain-bo dy, every woman has her share in what
could be described as the colle ctive female pain-body — unless she is
fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suf fered by women
partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery,
exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of
years. T he emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and
coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-body in its collective aspect
that awakens from its dormancy at that time, although it can be triggered
at other times t oo. It restricts the free flow of life ener gy thr ough the
body, of which menstruation is a  physical expression. Let’ s dwell on this
for a moment and see how  it can become an opportu nity for
enlightenment. Often a woman is “taken over”  by the pain-body at that time. It has an
extremely powerful ener getic char ge that can easily pull you into
unconscious identification with it. Y ou are then actively possess ed by anener gy field that occupies your inner space and pretends to be you —
but, of course, is  not you at all. It speaks through you, acts through you,
thinks th rough y ou. It will create negative situations in your life so that it
can feed on the  ener gy. It wants more pain, in whatever form. I have
described this process already. It can be vicious and destructive. It is pure
pain, past pain — and it is not you. The number of women who ar e now approaching the fully c onscious
state already exceeds that of me n and will be growing even faster in the
years to come. Men may catch up with them in the end, but for some
considerable time there will be a gap between the consciousnes s of men
and that of women. W omen a re regaining the function that is their
birthright and, therefore, comes  to them more naturally than it does to
men: to be a bridge between the manifested world and the Unma nifested,
between physicality and spirit. Y our main task as a woman now is to
transmute the pain-body so that it no longer comes between you and your
true self, the essence of who you are. Of course, you also hav e to deal
with the other obstacle to enligh tenment, which is the thinking m ind, but
the i ntense presence you genera te when dealing with the pain-b ody will
also free you from identification with the mind. The first thing t o remember is t his: As long as you make an identity for
yourself out of t he pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of
your sense of self is investe d in your emotional pain, you will
unconsciously re sist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that
pain. Why. Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and
the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious
process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it conscious. T o s uddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pai n can be
quite a shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you have
broken the attachment. The pain-body is an ener gy field, almos t like an
entity, th at has become tempora rily lodged in your inner space. It is life
ener gy that has become trapped, ener gy that is no longer flowing. Of
course, the pain-body is there because of certain things that happened in
the past. It is  the living past in you, and if you identify with it, you
identify with the past. A victim identity is the belief that the past is more
powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the
belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who
you are now, fo r your emotional pain or your inability to be your trueself. Th e truth is that the only power there is is contained w ithin this
moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that,  you also
realize that you  ar e responsible for your inner s pace now — nobody else
is — and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now. So identification  prevents you from dealing with the pain-body. Some
women who are already consc ious enough to have relinquished their
victim id entity o n the personal level are still holding on to a collective
victim identity: “what men did to women. ” They are right — and they
are also wrong. They are right inasmuch as the collective female pain-
body is  in lar g e part due to male violence inflicted on women an d
repression of the female princip le throughout the planet over millennia. They are wrong if they derive a sense of self from this fact and thereby
keep themselves  imprisoned in a  collective victim identity. If a woman is
still holding on to anger, resentment, or condemnation, she is holding on
to her pain-body. This may giv e her a comforting sense of identity, of
solidarity with other women, but it is keeping her in bondage to  the past
and blocking full access to her essence and true power. If women
exclude themselves from men, that fosters a sense of separation and
therefore a strengthening of the ego. And the stronger the ego, the more
distant you are from your true nature. So do not use the pain-body  to give you an identity. Use it for
enlightenment instead. T ransmute it into consciousness. One of  the best
times fo r this is during menses. I  believe that, in the years to com e, many
women will enter the fully conscious state during that time. Usually, it is
a time of unconsciousness for many women, as they are taken over by
the collective female pain-body. Once you have reached a certain level of
consciousness, however, you ca n reverse this, so instead of becoming
unconscious yo u become mor e  conscious. I have described the basic
process already,  but let me take you through it again, this t ime with
special reference to the collective female pain-body. When yo u know that the menstrual flow is approaching, before  you feel
the first signs o f what is commonly called premenstrual tension, the
awakening of the collective female pain-body, become very alert andinhabit y our bod y as fully as possible. When the first sign appears, you
need to be alert enough to “catch” it before it takes you o ver. For
example, the first sign may be a sudden, strong irritation or a  flash of
anger, or it may be a purely physical symptom. Whatever it is, catch it
before it can take over your thinking or behavior. This simpl y means
putting the spotlight of your attention on it. If it is an emotion, feel the
strong e ner gy c har ge behind it. Know that it is the pain-body. At the
same tim e, be the knowing; that is to say, be aware of your c onscious
presence and feel its power. An y emotion that you take your presence
into wil l quickly subside and become transmuted. If it is a purely
physical symptom, the attention that you give it will preven t it from
turning i nto an emotion or a thought. Then continue to be alert and wait
for the next sign of the pain-body. When it appears, catch it again in the
same way as before. Later, w hen the pain-body has fully awakened from its dormant state,
you may experience considerab le turbulence in your inner sp ace for a
while, p erhaps for several days. Whatever form this takes, stay present. Give it your com plete attention. W atch the turbulence inside you. Know
it is there. Hold the knowing, an d be the knowing. Remember: Do not let
the p ain-body use your mind and take over your thinking. W atch it. Feel
its e ner gy directly, inside your b ody. As you know, full attentio n means
full acceptance. Through sustai ned attention and thus acceptance, there comes
transmutation. The pain-body becomes transformed into radiant
consciousness, j ust as a piece of wood, when placed in or ne ar a fire,
itself is transformed into fire. Menstruation will then become n ot only a
joyful and fulfilling expression  of your womanhood but also a sacred
time of transmut ation, when you give birth to a new consciousness. Y our
true nature then shines forth, both in its female aspect as the Goddess and
in its transcendental aspect as the divine Being that you are beyond male
and female duality. If y our male pa rtner is conscious enough, he can help you with the
practice I have just described by holding the frequency of intense
presence particularly at this time. If he stays present whenever you fall
back into unconscious identification with the pain-body, which can and
will hap pen at first, you will be  able to quickly rejoin him in t hat state. This means that whenever the p ain-body temporarily takes over, whetherduring m enses o r at other times, your partner will not mistake it for who
you are. Even if the pain-body attacks him, as it probably will, he will
not react to it as if it were “you,” withdraw, or put up some kind of
defense. He will hold the spac e of intense presence. Nothing else is
needed for t ransformation. At other times, you will be able to do the
same for him o r help him reclaim consciousness from the mind by
drawing his attention into the here and now whenever he becomes
identified with his thinking. In th is way, a permanent ener gy  field of a pure and high frequency will
arise bet ween y ou. No illusion, no pain, no conflict, nothing that is not
you, a nd nothing that is not love c an survive in it. This represents the
fulfillment of the divine, transpersonal purpose of your relationship. It
becomes a vortex of consciousness that will draw in many others. GIVE UP THE RELA TIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF
When one is fully conscious, would one still have a need for a
r elationship. W o uld a man still feel drawn to a woman. W ould a woman
still feel incomplete without a man. Enlightened or not, you are eith er a man or a woman, so on the level of
your for m identi ty you are not complete. Y ou are one-half of the whole. This incomplete ness is felt as male-female attraction, the pull to ward the
opposite ener gy polarity, no matter how conscious you are. But in that
state of inner connectedness, yo u feel this pull somewhere on the surface
or p eriphery of y our life. Anything that happens to you in that state feels
somewhat like that. The whole world seems like waves or ripples on the
surface o f a vast and deep ocean. Y ou are that ocean and, of co urse, you
are also  a ripple, but a ripple that has realized its true identity as the
ocean, a nd comp ared to that vas tness and depth, the world of waves and
ripples is not all that important. This does not mean that you don’ t relate deeply to other people or to
your partner. In fact, you can relate deeply only  i f you a re cons cious of
Being. Coming from Being, you are able to focus beyond the veil of
form. In  Being,  male and fema le are one. Y our form may continue to
have certain needs, but Being has none. It is already complete and whole. If those needs are met, that is b eautiful, but whether or not they  are met
makes no dif ference to your deep inner state. So it is perfectly possible
for a n e nlightened person, if the need for the male or female polarity is
not met, to feel a sense of lack or incompleteness on the outer level of his
or her being, yet at the same ti me be totally complete, fulfilled, and at
peace within. In the quest for enlightenment, is being gay a help or a hindrance, or
does it not make any differ ence. As you approach adulthood, uncertainty about your sexuality followed
by t he r ealization that you are “ dif ferent” from others may force you to
disidentify from socially conditioned patterns of thought and behavior. This will automatically raise yo ur level of consciousness above that of
the unconscious majority, whose members unquestioningly take on board
all i nherited patterns. In that respect, being gay can be a help. Being an
outsider to some extent, someone who does not “fit in” with others or is
rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life dif ficult, bu t it also
places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes
you out of unconsciousness almost by force. On the other han d, if you then develop a sense of identity based  on your
gayness, you have escaped one  trap only to fall into another. Y ou will
play roles and g ames dictated by a mental image you have of yourself as
gay. Y ou  will become unconscio us. Y ou will become unreal. Un derneath
your ego  mask, you will become very unhappy. If this happens to you,
being gay will have become a hindrance. But you always get another
chance, of course. Acute unhappiness can be a great awakener. Is it not true tha t you need to have a good r elationship with you rself and
love you rself befor e you can ha ve a fulfilling r elationship with another
person. If you cannot be at ease with yo urself when you are alone, you will seek
a r elationship to cover up your unease. Y ou can be sure that th e unease
will then  reappear in some othe r form within the relationship, and you
will probably hold your partner responsible for it. All you really need to do is ac cept this moment fully. Y ou ar e then at
ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself. But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all. Why can’ t
you just be  y oursel f. When  you have a relationship with yourself, you
have spl it yourself into two: “I” and “myself,” subject and object. That
mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of
all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you
ar e  you rself — “yo u” and “yourself” mer ge into one. Y ou do not judge
yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of
yourself, you do not love yours elf, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The spl it caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse
removed. There  is no “self” that you need to protect, defend, or feed
anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no
longer have: the relationship wit h yourself. Once you have given  that up,
all your other relationships will be love relationships. CHAPTER NINE
B E Y O N D  H A P P I N E S S
 A N D  U N H A P P I N E S S
 T H E R E  I S  P E A C E
THE HIGHER GOOD BEYOND GOOD AND BAD
Is ther e a differ ence between happiness and inner peace. Y es. Happiness depends on cond itions being perceived as positive; inner
peace does not. Is it not possible to attract only positive conditions into our lif e. If our
attitude and our thinking ar e a lways positive, we would manifest only
positive events and situations, wouldn’ t we. Do y ou truly kn ow what is posi tive and what is negative. Do you have
the total  picture. There have b een many people for whom limitation,
failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their
greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and
superficial ego-d ictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility,
and compassion. It made them more r eal. Whenever anyth ing negative happens to you, there is a dee p lesson
concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Ev en a briefillness o r an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life,
what ultimately matters and what doesn’ t. Seen from a higher perspective, conditions ar e  always positive. T o be
more pre cise: th ey are neither po sitive nor negative. They are as  they are. And when you live in complete  acceptance of what is  — which is the
only sane way to live — the re is no “good” or “bad” in your life
anymore. There is only a higher good — which includes the “bad. ” Seen
from th e perspective of the m ind, however, there is good-bad, like-
dislike, love-hate. Hence, in the Book of Genesis, it is said that Adam
and Eve were no  longer allowed to dwell in “paradise” when they “ate of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ”
 
This sounds to me like denial and self-deception. When s omething
dr eadful happen s to me or someone close to me — accident, illn ess, pain
of some  kind, or death — I can pr etend that it isn't bad, but the fact
r emains that it  is bad, so why deny it. Y ou are not pretending anything. Y ou are allowing it to be as it is, that’ s
all. T his “allowing to be” takes you beyond the mind with its resistance
patterns that create the positive-negative polarities. It is an essential
aspect of for giveness. For givene ss of the present is even more i mportant
than for g iveness of the past. If you for give every moment — allow it to
be as it i s — then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs
to be for given at some later time. Remember that we are not talk ing about happiness here. For example,
when a loved on e has just died, or you feel your own death app roaching,
you cannot be happy. It is impossible. But you can  be at peace. There
may be  sadness and tears, bu t provided that you have reli nquished
resistance, underneath the sadness you will feel a deep serenity, a
stillness, a sacred presence. Thi s is the emanation of Being, this is inner
peace, the good that has no opposite. What if it is a si tuation that I ca n do something about. How can I allow
it to be and change it at the same time. Do w hat you have to do. In th e meantime, accept what is. Since mind
and resistance are synonymous, acceptance immediately frees you from
mind do minance and thus reconnects you with Being. As a result, the
usual eg o motivations for “doing” — fear, greed, control, defending or
feeding the false sense of self —  will cease to operate. An intelligence
much greater than the mind is now in char ge, and so a dif ferent quality of
consciousness will flow into your doing. “Accept whatev er comes to you  woven in the pattern of your de stiny, for
what could more aptly fit your needs. ” This was written two thousand
years ago by Marcus Aurelius, one of those exceedingly rare humans
who possessed worldly power as well as wisdom. It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suf fering
before they will relinquish resistance and accept — before they will
for give. As soon as they do, one of the greatest miracles happens: the
awakening of Being-consciousness through what appears as evil, the
transmutation of  suf fering into i nner peace. The ultimate ef fect of all the
evil and suf fering in the world i s that it will force humans into realizing
who the y are beyond name and form. Thus, what we perceive as evil
from ou r limited  perspective is actually part of the higher good that has
no opposite. This, however, doe s not become true for you except through
for giveness. Until that happens, evil has not been redeemed and therefore
remains evil. Through for giveness, which essentially means recognizing the
insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is,
the mira cle of transformation happens not only within but also without. A silent space of intense presence arises both in you and around you. Whoever or whatever enters tha t field of consciousness will be  af fected
by it, sometimes visibly and im mediately, sometimes at deeper levels
with visible changes appearing at a later time. Y ou dissolve discord, heal
pain, dispel unconsciousness —  without doing  anything — simply by
being  and holding that frequency of intense presence. THE END OF YOUR LIFE DRAMA
In th at state of acceptance and  inner peace, even though  you may not
call it “bad,” ca n anything still come into your life that would be called
“bad” fr om a perspective of or dinary consciousness. Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people’ s lives are due to
unconsciousness. They are self-created, or rather ego-created. I
sometimes refer to those things as “drama. ” When you are fully
conscious, dram a does not come  into your life anymore. Let me remi nd
you briefly how the ego operates and how it creates drama. Ego is the unobserved mind tha t runs your life when you are not present
as the witnessin g consciousness, the watcher. The ego perceives itself as
a separate fragment in a hostile universe, with no real inner connection to
any other being, surrounded b y other egos which it either sees as a
potential threat or which it will attempt to use for its own ends. The basic
ego patterns are designed to combat its own deep-seated fear and sense
of lack. They are  resistance, control, power, greed, defense, attack. Some
of the ego’ s strategies are extremely clever, yet they never truly solve
any of its problems, simply because the ego itself is the problem. When egos come together, whether in personal relationships or in
or ganizations or institutions, “bad” things happen sooner or later: drama
of o ne kind or  another, in the form of conflict, problem s, power
struggles, emotional or physical violence, and so on. This includes
collective evils such as war, genocide, and exploitation — a ll due to
massed unconsciousness. Furthermore, many types of illness are caused
by the ego’ s continuous resistance, which creates restrictions and
blockages in the flow of ener gy through the body. When you r econnect
with Bei ng and are no longer run by your mind, you cease to create those
things. Y ou do not create or participate in drama anymore. Whenever two or more egos come together, drama of one kind or another
ensues. But even if you live t otally alone, you still create y our owndrama. W hen you feel sorry fo r yourself, that’ s drama. When you feel
guilty or  anxiou s, that’ s drama. When you let the past or future  obscure
the p resent, you are creating time, psychological time — the stuf f out of
which drama is made. Whenever you are not honoring the present
moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama. Most pe ople are  in love with their particular life drama. Their  story is
their ide ntity. The ego runs their life. They have their whole sen se of self
invested in it. Even their — usually unsuccessful — search for an
answer, a solution, or for healing becomes part of it. What they fear and
resist most is the end of their drama. As long as they ar e  their mind, what
they fear and resist most is their own awakening. When you live in complete acceptance of what is, tha t is the end  of all
drama in  your life. Nobody can even have an ar gument with you, no
matter h ow hard he or she tries. Y ou cannot have an ar gument with a
fully conscious person. An ar gument implies identification with your
mind and a mental position, as well as resistance and reaction to the
other pe rson’ s position. The result is that the polar opposites become
mutually ener gized. These are the mechanics of unconsciousness. Y ou
can still make yo ur point clearly and firmly, but there will be no reactive
force be hind it, no defense or at tack. So it won’ t turn into drama. When
you are fully conscious, you ce ase to be in conflict. “No one w ho is at
one with himself can even co nceive of conflict,” states A Course in
Miracles. T his refers no t only to confl ict with other people but more
fundamentally to conflict withi n you, which ceases when there is no
longer any clash between the d emands and expectations of your mind
and what is. IMPERMANENCE AND THE CYCLES OF LIFE
However, as long as you are in the physical dimension and linked to the
collective huma n psyche, physical pain — although rare — is still
possible. This is not to be confused with suf fering, with  mental-
emotional pain. All suf fering is ego-created and is due to re sistance. Also, as long as you are in thi s dimension, you are still subj ect to its
cyclical nature and to the law of impermanence of all things, but you no
longer perceive this as “bad” — it just is. Through allowing the “isness ” of all things, a deeper dimension
underneath the play of opposites reveals itself to you as an abiding
presence, an unchanging deep stillness, an uncaused joy beyo nd good
and bad. This is the joy of Being, the peace of God. On the level of form, there is birth and death, creation and destruction,
growth and dissolution, of seem ingly separate forms. This is reflected
everywhere: in the life cycle of a star or a planet, a physical body, a tree,
a flower; in the  rise and fall of nations, political systems, civilizations;
and in the inevitable cycles of gain and loss in the life of an individual. There ar e cycle s of success, w hen things come to you and thrive, and
cycles o f failure, when they wi ther or disintegrate and you ha ve to let
them go in order to make room for new things to arise, or for
transformation to happen. If you cling and resist at that point, it means
you are refusing to go with the flow of life, and you will suf fer. It is not true that the up cycle is good and the down cycle bad, except in
the mind’ s judgment. Growth is usually considered positive, but nothing
can grow forever. If growth, of whatever kind, were to go on a nd on, it
would eventually become mon strous and destructive. Disso lution is
needed for new growth to happen. One cannot exist without the other. The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. Y ou must
have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain
to b e drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very  success
became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure. Failure
lies con cealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this
world, w hich is to say on the le vel of form, everybody “fails” sooner or
later, of course, and every achie vement eventually comes to naught. All
forms are impermanent. Y ou can  still be active and enjoy  manifesting and creating new f orms and
circumstances, b ut you won’ t be identified with them. Y ou do not need
them to give you a sense of self. They are not your life — only your life
situation. Y our physical ener gy is also subject to cycles. It cannot always be at a
peak. Th ere wil l be times of low as well as high ener gy. There will be
periods when you are highly active and creative, but there may also be
times w hen everything seems stagnant, when it seems that you are notgetting anywhere, not achieving anything. A cycle can last for anything
from a few hour s to a few years. There are lar ge cycles and sma ll cycles
within these lar ge ones. Many  illnesses are created through fighting
against the cycles of low ener g y, which are vital for regeneration. The
compulsion to do, and the tend ency to derive your sense of s elf-worth
and identity from external facto rs such as achievement, is an inevitable
illusion as long as you are identified with the mind. This makes it hard or
impossible for you to accept the low cycles and allow them to be. Thus,
the intelligence of the or ganism may take over as a self-protective
measure and create an illness in  order to force you to stop, so  that the
necessary regeneration can take place. The cyclical nature of the universe is closely linked with the
impermanence o f all things and situations. The Buddha made this a
central part of his teaching. All conditions are highly u nstable and in
constant flux, or, as he put it, impermanence is a characteristic of every
condition, every situation you will ever encounter in your life. It will
change, disappea r, or no longer satisfy you. Impermanence is als o central
to Jesus ’ s teaching: “Do not la y up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. ”
As l ong as a condition is judged as “good” by your mind, whether it be a
relationship, a possession, a social role, a place, or your physical body,
the mind  attaches itself to it and identifies with it. It makes yo u happy,
makes you feel g ood about yourself, and it may become part of who you
are o r th ink you are. But nothing lasts in this dimension where moth and
rust consume. Either it ends or it changes, or it may under go a  polarity
shift: The same condition that was good yesterday or last year has
suddenly or gradually turned into bad. The same condition that made you
happy th en makes you unhappy. The prosperity of today becomes the
empty consumerism of tomorrow. The happy wedding and honeymoon
become the unhappy divorce or the unhappy coexistence. Or a condition
disappears, so its absence makes you unhappy. When a condition or
situation that the mind has attac hed itself to and identified with changes
or d isappears, the mind cannot accept it. It will cling to the disappearing
condition and resist the change. It is almost as if a limb were b eing torn
of f your body. W e som etimes h ear of people w ho have lost all their money or whose
reputations have  been ruined committing suicide. Those are the extremecases. O thers, w henever a major loss of one kind or another oc curs, just
become deeply unhappy or make themselves ill. They cannot distinguish
between their life and the ir life situation. I recently read about a famous
actress who died in her eighties. As her beauty started to fade and
became ravaged  by old age, she grew desperately unhappy and became a
recluse. She, too, had identified with a condition: her external
appearance. Firs t, the condition gave her a happy sense of self, then an
unhappy one. If she had been able to connect with the form less and
timeless life within, she could h ave watched and allowed the fading of
her exte rnal form from a place of serenity and peace. Moreover, her
external form would have become increasingly transparent to the light
shining through  from her ageless true nature, so her beauty would not
really have faded but simply be come transformed into spiritual beauty. However, nobody told her that this is possible. The most essential kind
of knowledge is not yet widely accessible. The Buddha taught that even your happiness is dukkha  — a Pali word
meaning “suf fering” or “unsatisfactoriness. ” It is inseparable from its
opposite. This means that your happiness and unhappiness are in fact
one. Only the illusion of time separates them. This is not being negative. It is simply recognizing the nature of things,
so th at you don’ t pursue an illusion for the rest of your life. Nor is it
saying that you should no longe r appreciate pleasant or beautiful things
or condi tions. But to seek something through them that they cannot give
— an identity, a sense of perma nency and fulfillment — is a recipe for
frustration and suf fering. The whole advertising industry and consumer
society would collapse if people became enlightened and no longer
sought to find their identity through things. T he more you s eek happiness
in th is w ay, the more it will elud e you. Nothing out there will ever satisfy
you exc ept temporarily and superficially, but you may need to
experience many disillusionments before you realize that truth. Things
and conditions can give you pleasure, but they will also give you pain. Things a nd conditions can give you pleasure, but they cannot give you
joy. No thing can give  you joy. Joy is uncaused and arises from within as
the joy of Being. It is an essential part of the inner state of p eace, thestate that has been called the peace of God. It is your natural state, not
something that you need to work hard for or struggle to attain. Many people never realize that there can be no “salvation” in anything
they do, possess, or attain. Those who do realize it often become world-
weary and depressed: If nothin g can give you true fulfillment, what is
there left to strive for, what is the point in anything. The Old T estament
prophet must have arrived at such a realization when he wrote: “I have
seen eve rything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a
striving after wind. ” When you  reach this point, you are one s tep away
from despair — and one step away from enlightenment. A Buddhist monk once told me : “All I have learned in the twenty years
that I have been  a monk I can sum up in one sentence: All th at arises
passes away. This I know. ” What he meant, of course, was this: I have
learned to of fer no resistance to what is ; I  have learned to allow the
present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things
and conditions. Thus have I found peace. T o o f fer no res istance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and
lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a
certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your
inner dependency on form is g one, the general conditions of y our life,
the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions
that you  though t you needed fo r your happiness now come to you with
no strug gle or ef fort on your  part, and you are free to enjoy and
appreciate them  — while they last. All those things, of course, will still
pass aw ay, cycle s will come an d go, but with dependency gone  there is
no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease. The happiness that is derived from some secondary source is never very
deep. It is only a pale reflection of the joy of Being, the vibrant peace
that you  find within as you ente r the state of nonresistance. Be ing takes
you beyond the polar opposites of the mind and frees you from
dependency on form. Even if everything were to collapse and crumble all
around y ou, you  would still feel a deep inner core of peace. Y ou may not
be happy, but you will be at peace. USING AND RELINQUISHING NEGA TIVITY
All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another. All negativity is  resi stance. In this context, the  two words are almost
synonymous. Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce
anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair. Sometimes the resistance triggers the emotional pain-body, in which case
even a minor si tuation may produce intense negativity, such as anger,
depression, or deep grief. The ego believes that through ne gativity it can manipulate reality and get
what it wants. It believes that through it, it can attract a desirable
condition or dissolve an undesirable one. A Cours e in Miracles  rightly
points out that, whenever you are unhappy, there is the unc onscious
belief th at the unhappiness “bu ys” you what you want. If “you” — the
mind — did not believe that unhappiness works, why would y ou create
it. T he fact is,  of course, tha t negativity does not work. In stead of
attracting a desirable conditio n, it stops it from arising. Instead of
dissolving an undesirable one, it keeps it in place. Its only “useful”
function is that it strengthens the ego, and that is why the ego loves it. Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want
to let go, and on a deeply unco nscious level, you do not want positive
change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry, or hard-
done-by person. Y ou will then ignore, deny, or sabotage the positive in
your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane. Negativity is totally unnatural. It is a psychic pollutant, and t here is a
deep lin k between the poisoning and destruction of nature and  the vast
negativity that has accumulated in the collective human psyche. No other
life-form on the planet knows negativity, only humans, just as no other
life-form violate s and poisons the Earth that sustains it. Have you ever
seen an unhappy  flower or a stressed oak tree. Have you come across a
depressed dolph in, a frog that has a problem with self-esteem, a cat that
cannot r elax, or a bird that carries hatred and resentment. T he only
animals that may occasionally experience something akin to negativity
or show signs of neurotic behavior are those that live in close contact
with humans and so link into the human mind and its insanity. W atch a ny plant or animal and  let it teach you acceptance of what is,
surrender to the Now. Let it tea ch you Being. Let it teach you integrity
— which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real. Let it teach you how
to live and how to die, and how not  to mak e living and dying into a
problem. I ha ve lived wit h several Zen m asters — all of them cats. Even ducks
have tau ght me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a
meditation. How peacefully the y float along, at ease with themselves,
totally present in the Now, dignified and perfect as only a mindless
creature can be. Occasionally, however, two ducks will get into a fight —
sometimes for no apparent reaso n, or because one duck has strayed into
another ’ s private  space. The fig ht usually lasts only for a few seconds,
and then the ducks separate, swim of f in opposite directions, and
vigorously flap their wings a few times. They then continue to swim on
peacefully as if the fight had never happened. When I observed that for
the f irst time, I suddenly realize d that by flapping their wings they were
releasing surplus ener gy, thus preventing it from becoming trapped in
their bod y and turning into negativity. This is natural wisdom,  and it is
easy for  them because they do n ot have a mind that keeps the p ast alive
unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it. Couldn’ t a negative emotion also contain an important message. For
example, if I often feel depr essed, it may be a signal that  ther e is
something wr ong with my life, and it may for ce me to look at my life
situation and make some change s. So I need to listen to what the emotion
is telling me and not just dismiss it as negative. Y es, recurring negative emotion s do sometimes contain a messa ge, as do
illnesses. But any changes that you make, whether they have to do with
your wo rk, your  relationships, or your surroundings, are ultimately only
cosmetic unless they arise out of a change in your level of consciousness. And as far as that is concerned, it can only mean one thing: becoming
more pre sent. When you have reached a certain degree of presence, you
don’ t need negativity anymore to tell you what is needed in your lifesituation. But as long as negativity is  th ere, use it. U se it as a kind of
signal that reminds you to be more present. How do we stop negativity fr om arising, and how do we get rid of it once
it is ther e. As I said, you stop it from arising by being fully present. B ut don’ t
become discouraged. There are as yet few people on the planet who can
sustain a state of  continuous presence, although some are getting  close to
it. Soon, I believe, there will be many more. Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you,
look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is tel ling you:
“W ake up. Get out of your mind. Be present. ”
There is a novel by Aldous Huxley called Island, written in his later
years when he became very interested in spiritual teachings. It tells the
story of a man shipwrecked on a remote island cut of f from the rest of
the worl d. This island contains a unique civilization. The unusual thing
about it is that its inhabitants, unlike those of the rest of the world, are
actually sane. The first thing tha t the man notices are the colorful parrots
perched in the t rees, and they se em to be constantly croaking t he words
“Attention. Here and Now. Attention.
They may activate their own pain-body, leading to a deep unconsciousness and a cycle of emotional violence.
What happens when a person is not present in a relationship and becomes entrenched in their mental positions?
According to the text, women are naturally closer to this reality because they embody the unmanifested, whereas men are not.
Why do women have a natural advantage in accessing the divine or transcendental reality?
No, as an enlightened being, you would not feel incomplete or drawn to the opposite polarity, as you have transcended the need for a relationship.
Is it possible to still feel attraction or a sense of incompleteness in a relationship, even after achieving enlightenment?
Acceptance of the present moment and the impermanence of all things.
What is the key to overcoming the ego's influence and achieving inner peace?
The author argues that seeking happiness through external means is an illusion, and that true fulfillment comes from within, through the acceptance of the present moment and the impermanence of all things.
What is the author's perspective on the idea of seeking happiness and fulfillment through external means?