Your thoughts, words and actions can be attacked.
Your body and life situation can be attacked.
But you—your “self”—cannot be attacked.

To believe you have been attacked—and that you are losing anything by attack—is identity confusion. You are consciousness, spirit, love, being—the life force, itself. You are consciousness visiting this world of form. Your thoughts, ideas, opinions, actions, words, and life situation is not who you are. That’s just temporary stuff—ultimately unreal because it is impermanent. YOU are eternal and beyond threat.

Confusion over identity is the cause of attack. Egos attack other egos to build up a false identity. This battle of who’s right and who’s better is the ego’s foolish strategy for happiness, which never works in the end. All the roles of ego—Victim, Prosecutor, Offender, Defender, Judge, and Jailer—are all concerned with making attack seem real…as if it has any power. This is a game that never works and never ends until we decide to stop playing.

When Jesus said, “forgive them, they know not what they do,” he was teaching this lesson. To forgive is to see that attack has no power over the real you. It is only a foolish error. It accomplishes nothing real. A game that causes suffering in the world of hell. When you understand your identity—who you really are—you recognize that you are beyond attack and forgiveness becomes just a natural way of seeing.

The interesting thing is that, when you align your thoughts, words, and actions with your true identity as love, there will be far less attack on your physical form as well. Even when it happens, you will not suffer or feel anything negative. Now you can enjoy life.

One of Don Miguel Ruiz’ 4 Agreements for life is this: don’t take anything personally. After applying this principal to my life, I found out that other people’s thoughts or opinions have nothing to do with me and, therefore, no longer touch me in any real way.

Even if there is an opinion or judgment directed straight at me, I only consider it valid if I agree that it is true. If it is true, then what is there to get upset about? I can be honest and deal with it. If it is untrue, then there is also nothing to get upset about because I cannot be diminished by a perception that isn’t true.

Furthermore, I don’t need anyone’s blessing to state my truth, to experience my life the way that I do, to choose my own  preferences, tastes, or anything else. I do not require anyone to understand what it feels like to carry the burdens of a middle-aged white man, nor do I need them to agree with my politics, choice of profession, spirituality or anything else.

Nobody holds me back from being me, and the same is true for each of us. The Tao Te Ching says, “Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.” (verse 9)

If something that someone else says or does bothers you, then perhaps the real problem is that it bothers you. The solution is not found in the fight to change everyone else; rather, to go within, discover the true self, learn self-love, and embody all truth and freedom without asking anyone’s permission.

Why do we want so badly to change the world? Because we long for paradise, or even just a temporary retreat from the madness. We want the darkness of this world to end so that peace, love, justice, and kindness might reign.

But can we really ask more of the world than what it is? I don’t think so. From my perspective, the world is not dark. It is filled with so much beauty and perfection that it cannot be fully experienced in 1,000 lifetimes. There is so much light, so much color, so much warmth, mostly balance, the right amount of excitement, and pervasive beauty available to all the senses. It is all here, surrounding us right now. Even human beings, if looked upon in this light, are the most magnificent creation of all.

Where anything is wrong, it is that we have retreated from the natural state of beauty into the darkness of our own minds. We have assumed our own fictitious stories and identities, and have withdrawn into our own darkness. Yes, we have been conditioned unjustly and led astray; but this tragic outcome is nothing more than an individual choice for each of us.

Why do we claim to want light when we have sought only darkness and have cared only about the darkness? The end of this tragic error starts now.

What I call the light is life, which is experienced as the energy of love. Its energy pervades the world and it is what we are. We are innocent, the doors of this so-called prison are wide open, and we need only take a single step toward the light. See only the light within and without—be only that, ignoring all else because nothing else has any reality.

Did Jesus not already give us the answers to all our prayers when he spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, unconditional love, forgiveness, and eternal life? By applying exactly what he taught, God ensures lasting joy, perfect health, and total safety in this life and into eternity.

Did Lao Tzu not provide the answers to all our prayers in the Tao Te Ching? To practice Taoism is to arrive at the same destination by ending the problems of the mind. The same can be said about the teachings of The Buddha and so many other ancient sources of eternal wisdom. They have provided the correct answers to all our prayers.

But religious texts like the Bible can be confusing, and organized religions are confused institutions bound to muddy the original message. Thankfully, the answers to your prayers can be found outside organized religions. If you decide to, for example, become a student of A Course in Miracles, and practice the teachings literally, then you will find perfect health and the end to all your problems. Study Eckhart Tolle, practice what he teaches, and you will also reach the awakened state of consciousness, where problems do not exist.

Countless human beings have become awakened / saved / enlightened / spiritually conscious / found God. We have found the answers to all prayer and, by putting eternal truth and wisdom into practice, we have allowed God to end our problems. Ask any of us and, I assure you, we want nothing more than to help show you the way to stop suffering unnecessarily.

If it seems that your prayers have not been answered, it might be because you have unsure where to look, or have been afraid of walking a new path, or have been unwilling to apply the lessons. Still, the answers to your prayers are there.

Is it not yet already perfectly clear that all the fighting, resisting, arguing, debating, attacking, doing something about, and getting outraged has no impact at all?

With each new news cycle, each new election, each movement to change the world comes a swell of hope that ultimately fades or implodes. For how many more thousands of years will humans continue to believe in these illusions when reality is perfectly clear? I think we have reached the end of this fiction.

Is it not obvious that, however forcefully you might splash your hand into the ocean, you cannot change the natural balance, the very equilibrium of the ocean? You will create a wave, believe it is real for a brief moment, then the wave will fall in the exact opposite direction just as far, and finally, in calm weather, it will rest near its natural balancing point where it all began. Such is all of life. 

What you can do is to accept reality; which means always tell the truth, which means want only truth, which means greet everything that is and everything that happens with nothing other than complete acceptance. It is as it is. Align with the natural balance of reality and let it carry you. To resist reality, truth itself, is the ultimate act of foolishness.

There will be challenges, there will be errors of all sorts by all kinds of people. None of it is ultimately real because, in the end, every pendulum returns to its natural resting position. Rest there eternally, starting now. Remain there in the eternal now. This is wisdom and it is yours.

These aren't just words. They are meant literally and are meant to be lived (if you want joy, peace, the end of suffering for yourself and others).

“You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began.” You cannot see the world and at the same time see the spiritual reality. There is a choice: one must be made real and the other denied. One contains everything you want, the other everything you do not want.

When you allow pollution to come into your awareness—whether it be the fear-mongering of the government, the corporate media, the deception of advertising, or negative ideas and conversations—you are pulled away from joy, which is your natural state of being. What you give your attention to must not pull you away from joy, from an underlying sense of ease, from the state where there is calm and peace within. When it does pull you away, you can stop, change course, do a meditation, take a nap, you can do something that makes you feel good and then start again. This is how real problems are solved and progress is made.

Anything done, said, or created when you don’t feel good is a miscreation. All the ugliness of this world was miscreated by people who were detached from the natural state of joy within. All that ugliness cannot be fought from a place of ugliness, but it can be ignored in bliss and left to die.

I do not give any attention or reality to error. I do not debate. I do not get outraged. I am not afraid—for this would make error seem real, to give it power it does not have, and to pull me away from joy. Spiritual vision looks within to recognize and embrace reality, and my reality is identical to yours if you will do the same. It is our choice for love.

Our lives are shaped by where we put our attention. Find the source of love within, where you remember perfectly well that you are innocent and complete. Feel your positive energy growing. Stay connected to this place in all your thinking and doing, ignoring all else. The reality of love, the only reality, is the only power, the energy of life itself, which contains everything you want within it.

The power and clarity of this message from A Course in Miracles spoke to me recently during a daily reading. I immediately reached for my guitar and tried to interpret the message in song.

"Beyond the Body", is taken word for word from the first part of Chapter 18 in A Course in Miracles.

We are consciousness. There is nothing outside of this, as the one divine aliveness...the invisible force of life, itself...flows through everything. This temporary experience of human life on earth is for the purpose of consciousness learning, growing, expanding just as the life force must do.

We are not separate from God. Heaven is not elsewhere; rather, experienced within when aligned with perfect, unconditional love. Safe in the Oneness, for eternity, with nothing else to give or to receive because nothing else exists.

This is the Peace of God. If this passage can be fully understood, Salvation is yours.

T-18.VI.1. There is nothing outside you. 2 That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. 3 For God created only this, and He did not depart from it nor leave it separate from Himself. 4 The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father and dwells not apart from Him. 5 Heaven is not a place nor a condition. 6 It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within.

T-18.VI.2. What could God give but knowledge of Himself? 2 What else is there to give? 3 The belief that you could give and get something else, something outside yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven and of your Identity. 

The Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, is an inspiring story about a greedy, grumpy business man and how people perceive him in a generally moral, loving society.

When the spirits force him to witness the joyful, loving attitudes of the people around him...when he is confronted with real poverty and suffering...he is ultimately persuaded to fundamentally change his ways. He becomes kinder, more generous, and the community instantly forgives and embraces the new, improved version of the old man.

The story is inspiring, but it occurred to me in watching the 1984 TV movie version of the tale, that there is a fundamental flaw in the story as it relates to today's society. Today, poor families are generally not as loving and joyful as that of Bob Cratchett. Employees are not grateful or respectful to their bosses. Nephews do not invite their uncles to celebrate holidays. Kind words and gestures are not appreciated. In short, all of society is now comprised of Scrooges.

In the fictitious world of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is the cold-hearted, greedy and slightly psychopathic misfit surrounded by good, moral people with traditional, family values. Today, however, the vast majority of people think and live much more like Scrooge than any of the other characters. It is the joyful, loving, generous, kind-hearted person or family that is now the misfit. Such a person is rarely appreciated, at least openly and publicly, in a community where hearts and minds are closed like Scrooge.

No matter, we misfits can continue to shine our light of love, friendliness, kindness, and inspiration anyway. It is the right way to live, the optimal state of being in this dark world, even as we might dream of a better society.  

Complete identification with the mind (the belief that I am my thoughts) is the cause of failure, suffering and insanity.

Still today, most people make exhaustive efforts to blame other people and situations as the cause of suffering. The thinking goes, "If only this person would change, or if only I could find a way to accomplish this, then I could finally be happy.” This story appears to make sense when we are young, but as we pass through life something changes.

As we mature, we look back upon all the things that were supposed to make us happy. Much of what we wanted in our youth was eventually experienced or accomplished. But just as soon as we get what we want, we find the next problem. When we eventually recognize this pattern, most people surrender to despair and grumpiness. The other alternative is to find out how to simply observe thoughts, not take them too seriously, and mostly ignore the stories of the mind.

Through daily meditation and a spiritual practice, you can awaken to the fact that the voice in the head isn’t really you; rather, the conditioning of the world. This is the recognition of reality an the undoing of ego.

All that which is real is beyond the mind and can be best described as unconditional love. When we align with unconditional love, the mind functions optimally and the suffering ends. Awakened, you live in alignment with reality rather than in a state of resisting it. The scattered thoughts no longer cause emotional reactions. Now the sane, creative, productive mind has humbled itself to the vast realm of consciousness.