Choices and Illusions (28 page)

therefore shame, today he teaches the unlimited power within. All

of this begins by taking responsibility for everything in our own life.

Earlier I suggested an acronym for fear. let me suggest a couple

more:
F
alse
E
vidence
A
ppearing
R
eal and
F
orget
E
verything
A
nd
R
un. You were not created imperfectly to fear the world, or anything else for that matter. You are, as dyer puts it, “A God experience walking.”

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Grace

When I suggested the forgiveness messages for our prison-

inmate population, there was some concern. After all, forgiveness

sounds very much like grace. Accepting responsibility is fine, but

forgiveness? Forgiving and forgetting, or letting go—what does

that mean?

I was in my hotel room one evening when my host informed

me that a gentleman had just flown in from Singapore to hear my

lecture. I was told that I had been an inspiration to his work, and he wanted to meet me. The arrangement was made, and I met dr.

Mel Gill, a wonderful man with a terrific sense of humor. dr. Gill

had lost an arm and loved to joke about it. He used for empower-

ment what many would consider a handicap. He gave me a copy of

his book
Uncommon Sense,
which I read that evening. In it, I found a chapter entitled “Forgiving or Forgetting.” Mel used a marvelous

metaphor that adds to our understanding of forgiveness power.

When you forgive, “Who are you giving to but yourself. . . . For-

getting when split into two words (equals) ‘for getting.’ What are

you getting in response to forgiving other people? Well, you are

getting freedom.”

The great I AM presence has already forgiven you, for as
A

Course in Miracles
1 points out, the real you, the Christ consciousness that is your quintessential self, is and has always been perfect, just as it was created. All you must do is accept that truth, and everything changes. Or, as in the parable of the prodigal son, return

(recognize) to the Father and His house, and all is forgiven.

life is a schooling process. Mistakes are teaching lessons.

Remembering that and who you really are is awakening. There is

a story about the Buddha that illustrates this point. It seems the

Buddha was walking one day when he met a fellow traveler on the

path. The traveler fell down at the feet of Buddha and proclaimed,

“You must be God.”

The Buddha answered, “no, I’m not God.”

The traveler insisted, “Then you must be a demigod!”

Again the Buddha responded, “no, please get up. I’m not God

or a demigod.”

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the Kingdom Within

The traveler, confused, then asked, “Okay, tell me, what are

you?”

The Buddha replied, “Only awake.”

This story always reminds me of the glorious book
Letters to

Strongheart.
Strongheart was among the first animal movie stars.

A German shepherd, Strongheart, played the first real dog hero.

When he passed over, his handler, J. Allen Boone, wrote a book that expressed imaginary letters to Strongheart with their replies from

the other side. In one of these letters Strongheart states, as I recall,

“What a hideous sight to behold faces as incomplete as minds.”

Trying Is Not Doing

Mel Gill has identified 12 ways that people use to escape

accountability in his book
Uncommon Sense.
In statements they are expressed this way:

1. I’ll try.

2. If then !

3. I forgot!

4. It’s not my fault.

5. I had no choice.

6. I can’t.

7. I had no control.

8. I’ll wait and see.

9. I don’t know!

10. It’s not my job.

11. That’s just the way I am.

12. nobody told me.

Those statements are all excuses. Trying is not doing.

Conditional acts are waiting, not acting. Forgetting simply says

it wasn’t important enough for me to write down or remember.

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“not my fault” is another way of blaming and escaping personal

responsibility. no choice? What does that mean? Can’t? Only if you

believe you can’t. The bottom line is this: You do have the power

and the ability.

You Do Deserve!

Within you is an absolutely awesome potential. You deserve,

and you are worthy. Your life begins anew each moment. It is never

too late, and it is always right to pursue your highest potential.

It is all a matter of changing some old views. Perhaps, as with

me, some tool like InnerTalk aids you in getting rid of those old,

negative self-beliefs. Whatever your path and your tool, you are a

miracle, and you do deserve happiness. You are here to learn—not

to suffer. You are a gift from the divine, and you were not created deficiently. There is nothing for you to feel shame over. Shame is

a tool of guilt. It can be used to control you and force you to deny your real higher self. What you’ve done in the past is a lesson,

and when you understand that, accept and forgive yourself and

all others, commit to your very best—all else is taken care of for

you. The gifts have been given; they are there for you to accept.

Again, you absolutely do have the power and ability to manifest

peace, balance, and harmony in your life. You absolutely do have

the power and the ability if you but believe.

Each of us is but one drop

in the proverbial sea of being.

Panentheists (process theology, also known as panentheism)

use a metaphor or analogy when they speak of humankind and

Creator. Just as each of the cells in your body is conscious in some way, your love and consciousness of them heal and protect all of

you. You and I and all of us are analogously cells in the body of the Creator. Each of us is but one drop in the proverbial sea of being.

Our Creator is conscious and loving of all of us; we need only to be conscious and loving to share in the co-creative powers endowed

upon us by the act of creation. Eliminate the doubt, fear, shame,

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the Kingdom Within

guilt, and blame and accept our true birthright. Rescript the old

AnTs (Automatic negative Thoughts), replacing them with posi-

tive, loving thoughts full of acceptance and gratitude. Reach down

inside now and see if this doesn’t seem so familiar and so true as to be noetic—knowledge you have always known but perhaps forgot.

In the next chapter we’ll take a look at what we might expect

in our journey of self-empowerment—both the rewards and the

disappointments—but first let me share a story with you about

struggle. Personal growth or improvement involves change, and

that can mean struggle. I recall a cute little book from a few years ago that stated in its title,
“Life Was Never Meant to Be a Struggle.”
2

Perhaps that is so from a certain perspective, but for most of us,

struggles are how we grow. like the proverbial steel in the mill that grows stronger during the tempering process (heating, cooling,

reheating, and so on), we grow stronger from our own struggles. So, struggle does not mean bad; rather, it should equate with growth,

and it does so when our lens of perception sees life’s challenges in this way. Here is the story:

the emperor Moth

There once was a scientist who beheld the glory of an

emperor moth and was so totally taken by the creature

that he decided to study it. For more than a year he moni-

tored the activities of the giant moth.

One day he came upon a caterpillar ready to spin its

cocoon. He gently captured the caterpillar and took it

back to his lab. He watched the caterpillar build its cocoon

within a glass container and enter that state of deep sleep.

While in the chrysalis it changed its form, from crawling

on the ground to floating in the sky.

The day came when the moth was ready to leave the

cocoon. The scientist watched anxiously as the tiny head

chewed its way into the light of the laboratory. The moth

struggled and struggled, seemingly getting nowhere. Its

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body was simply too large to fit through the tiny hole in

the cocoon. The moth tired and laid its head to rest on

the shell of the cocoon. The scientist took it upon himself

to help the tiny creature. “How could I stand here for so

many hours watching this beautiful moth go through such

agony and pain?” he questioned. “Where is my mercy?”

he continued as he took his tweezers and scissors to cut

away the cocoon. The moth fell from the cocoon badly

deformed, and soon died.

later the scientist discovered that it was precisely the

cocoon-escaping struggle that pressured the fluids down

into the body of the emperor moth and gave it its aero-

dynamic ability. The cocoon forced the fluids into the

body, perfectly proportioning the moth as it pushed its

way out. Cutting away the cocoon in an effort to help had

only killed the moth.

Struggle does not mean bad.

There are a couple of morals to this story. Sometimes what

seems like a struggle is indeed creating improvement, and some-

times what might appear as helping is only making matters worse.

In the end, it’s up to each of us as individuals to make the

best of our lives. For me that means happiness, which begins

with self-responsibility. Remember, you may not be in charge of

everything in your world, but you are definitely in charge of your

inner environment.

now, as I promised, let’s look again at change—the process

of change.

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Change

“All that is necessary for the triumph of

evil is that good men do nothing.”

— e d m u n d b u r k e

Change is perhaps the most sought-after goal in life. If we but

had more money, more education, and less compulsion; if we could

lose weight, stop smoking, be more popular, have more friends,

and so forth, life would be perfect. Change is also perhaps the

most frightening experience we can undertake. It means giving up

something—some belief, some habit, some pattern, some
something.

Change from the inside out can also mean great risk.

Genuine change often means letting go of acquaintances who

hold different beliefs—like our bad-luck fortune-cookie carriers.

Remember, as we discussed earlier, these are the folks who build

their social economy by choosing to share the worst in life, almost competing with each other for who is less fortunate. It isn’t so much that we let go of them as they abandon us, for we no longer provide a sanctuary safe for “cookie” sharing. There are also plenty of naysayers. like the smart chickens in the chicken house, they will

tell you that all this is nonsense. Some may even attack you with

such words as
hoax
and
fraud.
like most attacks, they are designed to produce feelings of insecurity, doubt, even stupidity. One book

out there suggests that self-help efforts generally rob people of their money and their esteem. The book is entitled
Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless
by Steve Salerno. I heard him tell of a sales event he attended with salesmen all from the same

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company. He criticized the motivational speaker on the grounds

that in the beginning of the presentation the speaker told everyone in the audience that each could be the number one salesperson in

the coming year. Such was a logical absurdity, he asserted, for how could they all be number one in the same company? Stop and think

about it for a minute. do you really think either the salespeople or the motivator took this statement to mean anything other than

each of the individuals in the room had the ability to be number

one? I don’t. Indeed, I have been guilty of far worse, at least on the surface, by stating that we can win at everything!

We Can Win at Everything

now you might say, “How is it possible to win at everything?”

The answer is simple, but it is also involved in the definitions

attached to winning and losing. let me get this point straight, right from the beginning. We only lose when we let ourselves down! We

can only win, in the real sense of winning, when we do our very

best! Our very best requires commitment, courage, dedication,

singleness of purpose or focus, and more. These attributes are fun-

damentally known as character.

My late friend Coach Phil Porter said, “The basis of winning

is character.” Phil was a ninth dan black belt in martial arts, a

retired Air Force major, and the coach of many Olympic athletes.