Everyday Life

Dear Students, Many of you write to me (privately) of your problems in every day life. Some of these seem so overwhelming that you do not know how to solve them. THIS IS THE POINT! YOU do NOT know how to solve them. And yet you continue to try, using the same techniques which have failed you in the past, or maybe seemed to work for awhile, but will not work with your new situation.

As I write in Lesson Five (which some of you have not yet received) Einstein said that no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

This means that we must rise above our old level of thinking. When we rise as high as we can in our thinking and the problem persists...the next logical and healthy step is to admit our own powerlessness over the situation. Admitting that you are powerless does not mean that you must feel helpless. You are not helpless (without help) just powerless to affect the change you want. Being powerless does not mean you should stop, stagnate, give up, take no action. It just means that perhaps you should be willing to stop reacting from unhealthy patterns of thinking.

Perhaps Gandhi could have decided he was helpless and given up when he failed to affect immediate change in his world. Perhaps Mother Teresa could have looked at the starving faces in India and decided she was helpless and given up too! I am sure that these people also went through tremendous soul-searching, even their own doubt and fear...and they continued along the path of their dharma (duty) to fulfill their highest destiny.

When you "show up" and take the small steps in front of you; when you let go of trying to control the outcome; when you acknowledge the limitations of your thinking, then you are ready to turn to a higher source. If you do not have much practice turning to this Source - you may at first feel only a trickle of love, compassion, and wisdom emanating from this Source - you may feel only the doubt and fear of your own limited thinking - and decide that the doubt and fear is proof that nothing higher exists.

This is why the School offers small steps. Small homework. Let yourself be in kindergarten. Remember how much fun it was to just play, how excited you were to learn new things? Tell yourself that you do not have to be a big stuffy grown-up today. You can play and be light in your School. You will probably have a hard time believing this, but say it to yourself anyway. Even if people around you are being uptight and stuffy, you do not have to follow suit!

I know that when many of you look around life, it does not look so pleasant. I know that you see the mirror of your own fearful thinking. I know that some of you are experiencing some pleasant times right now. And I know that for many of you, if those pleasant times should leave you, you would fall into despair - unless you are firmly rooted in a higher consciousness. If our inner contentment is based upon anything that is impermanent, it is a false idea of happiness - because true happiness is free and independent of anything at all.

Exactly as you walk down a path, one step at a time, so must we walk through life. This may seem like a simplistic statement; I assure you it is not.

Most of you have been walking your spiritual path for a long time - you have been in therapy, workshops, read books, been educated in many ways. Many of you are teachers, business owners, parents, healers, and therapists in your own right. There are no "slouches" in the School. You could not be here if you were.

And now, even with all your accomplishments, I ask you to make yourself a beginner. I ask you to examine your belief systems. I ask you to be WILLING to throw away everything that is not YOU. And I tell you that simply reading your lessons, even a little, month by month, and applying yourself to your homework, even a little, will make a difference in your life.

The same consciousness that created the problem cannot solve it. When you gently and CONSISTENTLY apply yourself to the School over a period of time, your consciousness is gently and consistently transformed. The School is called a School because it is on-going; it is here to guide and assist you on your path. You, yourself, must show up and do the work.

Can you feel the love in these words? Can you feel compassion reaching out to you? You are not alone, even when it seems like it.