A Word of Encouragement to People Experiencing a Mental Breakdown, Depression, Mid-life Crisis or Burnout

p. 44 - You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.

"Going to a junkyard is a sobering experience. There you can see the ultimate destination of almost everything we desired." ¹

- Roger Von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head

I don't read books, meditate or travel to become awake, I am awake. I am just as awake as you are. The only difference is that I recognize it and you may not have remembered it yet. Choosing to remember your true state, that of being awake, may be the only decision that separates you from those who already see themselves as awake. Once we choose to awaken, we find that peace and joy become the motivation for more and more of our activities.

The world's material gifts, regardless of their size and outward beauty, are valueless. They are all illusions. Please understand that I'm in no way saying that the material world is bad. What I am saying is that it holds no true value. As mentioned before, the only value that an illusion has is for us to recognize that it is but an illusion. Do you truly believe that filling your life and time with nothing will bring you peace and joy? Has it brought you true peace and joy yet?

Everything that the ego's world offers us as a belief system is, in the end, really just junk. We have placed different values on illusions, and thus, some junk, material things and ideas seem more valuable to us than other junk. Being just illusions, junk's value is ever changing and never lasting. But everlasting peace and joy cannot be found in the never lasting.

Those who choose to fill their lives and time with junk, those who kneel down and worship at the altar of junk will never find lasting peace of mind and joy. This is not because God loves them any less, or because they don't deserve it, but simply because they are looking outside for that which lives within.

There comes a time in the lives of all worshippers of junk when they must ask themselves why, after following all the rules the ego's world asks for, they are still not happy, and why they are not at peace with themselves and their world. In this society, such a time is usually referred to by the ego as a mental breakdown, depression, a mid-life crisis or burnout. These phrases are used by the ego to put down and sedate those individuals who dare to question this world's reality. For in this world, the ego knows when it is losing control of its slaves, and it will not stand idly by. The world is ruled by the ego. The ego has invested a lot of time in these people, and it does not want them to go free. But the worshippers of junk, the slaves of the ego, can only live in an unnatural state for so long before they begin to question how they feel. Soon they begin to wonder if this is what it's all about. When they finally realize that they are measuring their worth by how much junk they have acquired, sadness, lack of peace, a mental breakdown, a mid-life crisis, burnout or depression may set in.

My friend, do not buy into the world's fantasies and negative connotations. If this is what you are experiencing, this moment should become a time of great joy and celebration, for you have, in some manner, finally realized that junk has truly nothing to offer. You now have the opportunity to realize what the worship of junk and illusions has truly offered you, and how its worship has made you feel. For a moment, thank yourself for the worshiping of junk, for it has brought you to the recognition of what it has to offer. It has offered you a sense of separation from your trueself. It has offered you sadness. It has offered you pain. It has offered you stress, confusion, depression, doubt, emptiness, fear and regret. It has offered you nothing you ever truly desired.

Be thankful for your experience at the altar of junk and illusion, for it has allowed you the opportunity to discover that it has nothing to offer. All the money and time you have spent at its feet, the hours awake at night with a thousand heavy thoughts crossing your mind, and the arguments with your family and friends, has taught you one important lesson - that junk is not what you want. Be grateful for this lesson, for it is the beginning of the realization of what you really desire.

My friend, rejoice for you can choose once again. You know which road you have taken, and you know where it has gotten you. It was the road you needed to take to get to where you are now. Be thankful, but understand that it is all in the past. It is now but a memory, and nothing else. It is now time to let go. You have tried it your ego-self's way, now it's time to try it your Godself's way.

Rejoice my friend, for a new day is at hand. You do not need to accomplish anything. You need only remember your trueself by allowing the recognition of peace to come into your awareness. You no longer need to jump through rings of fire or over barrels to earn your peace of mind. Peace of mind is your inheritance. You simply need to remember that peace is your natural state.

The path to enlightenment can be as elaborate or as effortless as you wish it to be. This path ends with the recognition that you are awake. It is a state of mind that recognizes what already is. You do not need to change who you are. You do not need to better who you think you are. You simply need to remember who you have always been. You simply need to extend what exists within.

So rejoice when you hear that someone - maybe even you - is going through a mental breakdown, depression, a mid-life crisis or burnout, for these people are our guides out of the tunnel of darkness that the ego sold to us as being our home. My friend, I am here to remind you, as well as myself, that there is a light at the end of this tunnel.  

These people, who will no longer be slaves, are our heroes. They will no longer be slaves to the ego's lies and the world's deceptions. These are the people who will not settle for the status quo any longer. They now realize that it is an illusion they are standing on, and that there is no bridge they have to build or cross to find happiness or peace. They have now realized that the bridge they had been building all alone, a bridge that the world told them they must build to find happiness and peace, is not real. As a result, they fall. Yes, our guides and heroes are falling, but they are falling not from grace but to grace. Fear not for them, for there are other heroes and guides to soften their fall. And from the world's point of view, although it might seem like a long and difficult fall, it is simply a wink of eternity's eye.

Eternity smiles and embraces her heroes and guides as they return home. The journey has been long, but without distance. It has simply been a journey from forgetfulness to remembrance, from fear to love, from pain to peace, and from perception to knowledge. These heroes have traveled, experiencing all the illusions the world had to offer, and all the lies the ego said were true. And so they will look back at the fear, pain, illusions and lies, and smile in remembrance; for now through forgiveness they hold all such memories in light, and by holding their memories in light they receive understanding. The understanding is this: Every moment in their adventures, every moment in their lives, was chosen by them in order to remember who they and their brothers and sisters truly are - the perfect expression of the mind of God physically manifested here on Earth.
 

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of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.