THE WAY OUT And what is the way out? Not looking to the world for happiness, but looking to the place where happiness is right within us, within our own consciousness. Unlimited joy and freedom is our natural, inherent state. We have, through ignorance, undone it by imposing concepts of limitations: I need this, I need him, I need her, and if I don’t get what I want, I am hurt, I have trouble. Growth, on the other hand, is letting go of these concepts of lack and limitation or, on the positive side, going within and seeing this unlimited Being that we are and choosing to remain as such. Any time we have trouble, any time we have a problem, we are trying to express the Self through the limited ego, and it is too small, so we get squeezed and it hurts. So, if there is a problem, the thing to do is to ask yourself, “What am I doing? Wherein am I demanding with ego motivation?” If the answer comes, if you see how ego wise, you’re causing this so-called problem; you will pull the causative thought up from the subconscious into the conscious, and once it is conscious, you will naturally let go of it. If you don’t let go of it, it is because the cause, the thought that initiated the difficulty, remains subconscious. So, we must make the thought conscious and let go of it or, and this is the higher and the better way, we must remember that we are the Self. Knowing that we are the perfect Self, that we are not this limited body and mind, all problems immediately resolve! It probably sounds quite indicting when I say that all problems, all troubles, are ego motivated. But if you investigate this for yourself, you will find that is true. When you are just your Self, there are no problems; there is only that which is perfect, harmonious, without effort. The more ego motivated you are, the more difficult it is to accomplish something, the less harmony and more misery you have. IT IS REALLY AS SIMPLE AS THAT What is hard is letting go of the habits. What is hard is moving beyond the limits of the ego. Habits are very strong and have been deeply ingrained over thousands of years. However, the moment we choose to let go of them, we can. If we say we can’t let go, it’s because we really don’t want to. The desire to let go isn’t strong enough. Do I make this too simple? You have probably heard it presented in more complicated ways, with a lot of things added to it that make it more difficult to see. But once we see the simplicity of it, all we need to do is effect it. And no one can do it for us. We have to do it ourselves. I have a friend who has problems. She is religious and seems very pious. When things get blackest and she has no more hope and is at the bottom, at that very moment something happens so that everything turns out right. Do you know why she must reach bottom? Because she does not really have faith. She is not really pious. This is her trouble. You see, faith would cause her to let go and let God. Being pious, being humble and surrendering would cause the same thing. Outwardly, she’s the way she says, but inwardly she’s the way I’m saying. You see, she tries to control everything, and that is not letting go and letting God. She prays, but she wants it the way she wants it. She has found out that her praying for it does not help her. If you surrender, you do not have to pray. She has got to let go and let God. When does she let go and let God? When she, herself, can not do anything any more, she lets go. She lets go in the extreme. And the moment she lets go, everything resolves itself. Can you see that? When things reach the extreme, she feels “Oh, there’s nothing I can do,” and that is when she lets go and lets God. If she could see this point, she would be more consciously able to use it. For Conviction, which is stronger than faith, absolute conviction of God — that will do it! Let go and let God and then everything straightens out. But when we try to do it, we have trouble. When I say, “Let go and let God,” what does that mean? Should you work strictly on inspiration, or just sit back and let things happen? Not exactly: We must have the feeling of “letting things happen.” To accomplish this, we have to let the ego-sense go. The ego is the feeling “I am an individual, and I have a body and I do things.” That is the illusion. You have to get my ego out of the way and let God or Self operate. When this is achieved, you’ll sort of float through things, and there will be no effort. If there is effort, there is ego. Of course, you are going to have to use some effort, because you are not starting off as the realized Self. You see, only when this friend of mine goes to the extreme, does she let go of the sense of doership and things happen effortlessly. That’s letting go and letting God! DO ONTO OTHERS AS YOU WILL ACCEPT THEM IN RETURN. DO YOUR BEST AND LIVE THEREST TAKING CARE FOR ITSELF >________________________________ > From: Edie Sidibeh <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Sent: Wednesday, 25 September 2013, 17:02 >Subject: [G_L] Lester Levenson's (knowledge of Freedom) Part 1 > > > >I find this interesting and love to share it with anyone who love to thing beyond tradition myths. > > > >STAGES OF GROWTH >When we begin to move a step above this apathetic state, as we begin to acquire more capability of action in the world, then our problems begin to manifest outwardly in the world. As I have said, at first this makes it seem as though the world is falling in on us. But it’s actually a sign of growth, a sign that we are moving up from the apathetic state into the beginnings of the doingness state. I call this the State of Apathetic-Doingness because when we come into this apathetic-doingness, we begin to do with apathetic, agitated tendencies. Of course when we are in this state, we become outwardly or expressively destructive to the world and to ourselves. But it is important to remember that apatheticdoingness is higher than apathetic non-doingness.Now, the step above apathetic-doingness is one of doingness in which we are equally constructive and destructive. Move up another step, and we move into the doingness-beingness state where we are big doers and only constructive. When we step up from there, we go into the beingness state — we do not have to do, we just “be.”The foregoing stages of growth are set out in the following chart. > > >STAGES OF GROWTH >Stage 1. Apathy: Inaction, due to apathy, with resentments and hostilities, and fear to express for fear of retaliation. A subjectively destructive state. > > >INACTION >Stage 2. Apathetic-doingness: Beginnings of action, having enough will to express outwardly. A beginning of an outwardly active but destructive state. >Stage 3. Doingness: Action that moves us out of Stage 1 toward the equilibrium of Stage 5. Here one is equally constructive and destructive to oneself and to the world. > > >ACTION >Stage 4. Doingness-beingness: Energetic doingness with calmness; much outward action, all constructive to oneself, the world and the universe. >Stage 5. Beingness: Inaction, due to serenity; the ability to just be; witnessing, watching, allowing and accepting the world and universe as it is. > > >INACTION >The world today is in a low state of Apathetic Doingness (Stage 2). It’s a materialistic age. About1700 A.D., we came out of the lowest state, a period predominantly marked by physical, animalsensuality. This was a state wherein we lived principally to satisfy our appetites. We are now in the second period where we can enjoy the finer, more cultural things. But we are still having the growing pains of getting out of the first into the second. The second is, however still not a highly spiritual state. It is the period where, in the world, we advance scientifically. > > >The third period begins The Era of Knowing. This is a mental world and in it, we are all related. We will be more loving to one another and we will stop fighting each other. The fourth period is the state which will be one in which we will know fully our beingness in God— and everyone’s beingness is God. We will know ourselves as free, unlimited beings. These four periods are the Iron, Bronze, Silver and Golden Ages the ancient Greeks spoke of. The fifth stage is really beyond this world although accomplished in this world.However, at any time, whenever anyone chooses, he may move into the highest state. We do not have to stay at the level that the world is in, and those of us who are on the path are moving up out of this general level. This makes us very fortunate. We know the way out. No matter how much the world hurts us, we know there’s a way out. We have hope and a direction. > >DO ONTO OTHERS AS YOU WILL ACCEPT THEM IN RETURN. DO YOUR BEST AND LIVE THEREST TAKING CARE FOR ITSELF > > > > >>________________________________ >> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html >To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ > > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤