What are you seeking?
What are you finding?
This thought came to me one morning as I was coming out of a dream, in what Robert Moss calls, “the hypnogogic state,” — the twilight time when you’re not asleep but not awake. It is a time when we can be in touch with our Higher Self, other Beings of Light, angels, guides, and ancestors. It is a part of my dreaming with which I am just starting to become familiar.
That I heard this phrase is, in and of itself, not particularly profound. It is a phrase almost everyone in Judeo-Christian Western culture has likely heard before. It comes from Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount,” and can be found in Matthew 7. The entire passage is,
Ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
Hearing this phrase was not especially profound, but what caught my attention was an intuitive thought that I had along with the phrase. The meaning of the phrase came clear to me in a flash in that twilight state:
Whatever it is that you seek, you are certain to find it.
In other words — and in relation to the principles we learn and practice in Prosperity Now! — you always get exactly what you are looking for, because you create your world with your thoughts.
Seek ______ and you shall find _______ whatever that ________ is !
I contemplated this in the light of the political situation in the United States. People are so encamped, entrenched, locked-down and dug into their “reality” their “truths” their “facts” their beliefs — that they only seek out what conforms and reinforces their biases. They only hear, see, read and “know” that which they seek.
Myself included!
Therefore, we have our biases and our beliefs. We look out into the world of appearances, with Faith, and — Behold! we find exactly what we were looking for!
And what we find isn’t new information or anything revelatory. It merely confirms what we already think — a worldly mirror of our inner beliefs.
Truth: We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.
Truth: Life is not having more, to do more, so we can be more.
Life is being more. Then we can do more. Then we will have more.
In other words….
Life Is Lived from the Inside Out
The world has things backwards. Experiences do not come upon us from outside. Life is not happening to us. That is a victim mentality.
Instead, our outer life reflects our inner state of mind. Life happens from us, in us, through us, and for us.
Life, change, and growth always happen from inside out. If you want to change your outer circumstances, change your inner landscape, your thinking and beliefs.
The miracle is the perspective shift. Inside is where to focus your attention. No matter what the outer world is presenting, resist your natural, human tendency to try to fix the outer—as we said in Week 1—to “set it right.”
Your job is to see it right. Mind is the problem, and mind is the solution. Mind (spirit) is the only reality that really is.
So, “Seek and ye shall find” is not a cute aphorism or something to stitch on a pillow. It is a formula for how we see the world — how the world of form and illusion and perception actually works!
It isn’t saying, “maybe or maybe not....” It asserts with assurance that if you look for something, you will find it!
Further, this phenomenon can be tested and more importantly, it can be escaped!
There is a way out of the either/or dilemma, to raise our eyes up to a Truth that is really True, a solid foundation on which to build a belief system that has meaning, in Spirit and in Truth, to escape the insanity of the world, which is maddening and which goes nowhere....
Here is the test: read and listen to media, to information that is 180° away from the perspective you hold. Listen carefully and spend some time in that arena. What do you notice about your inner feelings and thoughts — your reaction?
If you are like me, it’s something like fingernails on a blackboard. My entire being is jangled, on edge — angry and upset.
How can they think that?
That is ridiculous!
Wow!
Stupid!
Crazy!
The hate!
The evil!
Do you relate? If you listen to that other news channel, or read that other commentator, do you feel peaceful or enraged? If you’re like me, you probably feel pretty angry.
And I will guarantee! that people on the opposite side of the debate feel the exact same way when they listen to my preferred news stations and hear my opinions....
So, what is the way out? Remember, “Seek and you shall find” and then don’t seek to reinforce your opinion. Dont seek to change other people’s opinions.
Instead, seek for the two things that can bring us up and out of our distress. Seek only:
Peace and Forgiveness.
A Course in Miracles has much to say on these two subjects.
Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers that appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last.
The unforgiving mind is full of fear....
The unforgiving mind is sad....
The unforgiving mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees; afraid and angry, weak and blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of light....
The unforgiving mind is in despair.... It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears witness that its judgment is correct. It does not ask, because it thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right.
Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind.... forgiveness must be learned....
Today we practice learning to forgive. If you are willing, you can learn today to take the key to happiness, and use it on your own behalf.
I LOVE the line, “Here are all questions answered.”
By practicing forgiveness, we have a solid place on which to stand in all circumstances, no matter which way the winds are blowing.
Some will equivocate, saying there are things that are unforgivable, there are grudges, resentments, angers and hatreds that need to be held onto.
Or they will say forgiveness can only be given to those who apologize, who admit they are wrong, who atone and do penance.
Still others say, “Forgive yes! But don’t forget!” Make sure you never forget what was done to you....
These are the ways the world thinks. As the Course points out, forgiveness is the way to your peace. If my peace is dependent upon what the other camp does or doesn’t do, I will never have peace. My peace is contingent, and dependent on things outside of my control.
If my peace is non-negotiable, I must forgive without reservation or indecision. If forgiveness is the key to my happiness, what am I waiting for? Acknowledging that forgiveness is not easy — for our egos — and not automatic, allow for the process and forgive yourself for being unforgiving, but keep at it! Know that it is the way out of all distress, disturbance and fear.....
Seek and you shall find, then becomes a real solution to any concern, to all my troubles. I seek (and I will find) solid ground on which to stand, fully protected and completely at peace.
This is the question that must be asked: "Where can I go for protection?" "Seek and ye shall find" does not mean that you should seek blindly and desperately for something.
— ACIM Text 4.V.5.1-2
Stop casting about wildly for any anchor, any safe harbor to hold you safe against the random ways of the world. No matter which camp you are in, there is nothing solid to be found there.
Instead, seek to give and to receive peace, and seek to give and to receive forgiveness. This, this is the way up and out of the madness of the world.
In A Course in Miracles, Chapter 6, The Lessons of Love, we find this:
To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It
It reads in part....
All who believe in separation have a basic fear of retaliation and abandonment. They believe in attack and rejection, so that is what they perceive and teach and learn. These insane ideas are clearly the result of dissociation and projection. What you teach you are....
Still strongly aware of the ego in yourself, and responding primarily to the ego in others, you are being taught to react to both as if what you do believe is not true.
Upside down as always, the ego perceives the first lesson as insane....
There can be no conflict between sanity and insanity. Only one is true, and therefore only one is real. The ego tries to persuade you that it is up to you to decide which voice is true....
You are not asked to make insane decisions, although you can think you are. It must, however, be insane to believe that it is up to you to decide what God’s creations are. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is. Therefore, His second lesson is:
To have peace, teach peace to learn it.
The choice is not between opposing camps, political, religious, economic, cultural, sexual, moral or otherwise. The choice is between sanity or insanity. Between a sane system of thought that is true in all cases, always, or one that is mercurial, situational, conditional and subject to change.
We all know of things, ideas that once were “true” that no longer are. They were never true, but were the accepted “wisdom” at the time. They evolved, changed or disappeared as new thinking replaced them.
And in turn, that new thinking, what we swear is the solid truth, will evolve, change and disappear as it is replaced by new thinking.
While that new thinking is likely an improvement, it is still conditional and not a solid basis on which to rest.
If you want a solid, unchanging and certain thought system that is based in reality and will serve you in all circumstances, no matter what the political, economic, social, cultural or physical weather — look no further. Seek no more.
Seek and you shall find. Forgiveness and Peace in infinite abundance.
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