Topic:   Creating a Positive World Releasing Grievances Freeing Yourself

Ask the Author: Question and Response

It seems that the world is in a precarious place, and that the amount of fear, anger, hate, lies and negativity has been increasing. At times, I find the chaos and upside down nature of our society overwhelming. Do you have any suggestions for transcending the negativity, challenges and illusions of our society, factoring in this seemingly very chaotic time? What is the optimal course of action that a person can take?

- Jennifer, USA

The times will feel and be experienced as turbulent as your decision to focus on the turbulence. The more you focus your time and energy on the turbulence, the greater part of your world the turbulence will become. The less time and energy you put into focusing on the turbulence, the less turbulent your world will appear to be. For example, on a plane, turbulence is 99.99% irrelevant to you making it to your destination, and yet if your energy and focus are on it, then you can spend 99.99% of your flight worried about it. Once at your destination, you can ask 10 random people on the plane to numerically describe the level of turbulence on the flight and you would probably get 10 different answers. And so you see, it’s not the turbulence that colored the experience, it’s how people reacted within their minds to the turbulence. The experience did not so much as happen to them, as in them.

The level of the fear, anger, hate, lies and negativity that you ask about is equally a reflection of the level of time and energy you put into focusing on, participating in, and buying into such energies. For example, you get into a disagreement with a brother, two roads will immediately appear. One road leads to peace, the other one doesn’t. The ego can try to complicate things as much as it wants, but in the end, in reality, these are the only two roads available to you when dealing with any and every illusion. On one road, forgiveness brings you immediately home, and on the other road, judgment and resentment offer a never-ending highway that will leave you lost, frustrated and confused. It is you, through free will, who decides how you will spend your time and energy. It is you, through free will, who will decide how you will define and participate in your life. For once the moment has passed, your disagreement is only activated by your choice to focus your time and energy on it. And so, whatever you perceive to still be "out there" is not really out there, but in you.

There are also many beautiful awakenings occurring every day, and there is a phenomenal amount of love and forgiveness being expressed in the world. Yet we have been taught by the ego to focus on the turbulence, to focus on the chaos, to make these our headlines, to fill our awareness with the news reports of such energies. There may be just a few chaotic stories, yet it will be these stories that the media will choose to focus on. It will be these chaotic stories that different media groups will even fight each other over to find and report on every possible non-positive angle imaginable. We have been conditioned to look at these outlets as some sort of wise, intelligent truth tellers. We think - this is what these informed people are reporting, thus this is what must be important and real.

My friend, I see such incredible beauty being manifested and expressed every day that if you but turned to this channel, you would swear you lived in Heaven. In this channel forgiveness is immediate, love is unconditional, strangers are called friends, and kindness, generosity and compassion flow through every vein. My friend, the choice to focus on Heaven or Hell is yours. What some might see as turbulent, stress-filled times, I see as a speck of dirt on a perfectly clean windshield. If you choose to focus on the speck of dirt, you can lose track of the road. My friend, there are no obstacles on this road, yet if you focus on this speck of dirt you can still crash.

What do I think is the optimal course of action that a person can take? Well, each individual must look within and answer that for him or herself. There are no wrong answers. But I will offer that every time you choose to judge your brother, every time you choose not to forgive your brother, every time you see yourself as separate from any brother, you are focusing on this speck of dirt. If you are holding onto grievances, you are focusing on this speck of dirt. When you hold onto grievances, you are holding a part of yourself hostage behind walls of your own creation. Grievances deviate you from your chosen path, for the journey cannot be fully appreciated and lived when part of you remains asleep. While that sleeping part of you continues to weave illusions into bumps and barriers on the road, into fog and turbulence, you will continue to experience the journey as chaotic and overwhelming. For it is assured that those who choose to hold onto grievances will suffer guilt, as it is that those who choose to forgive will find peace. Those who choose to hold onto guilt will be inviting turbulence into their lives, diverting them from their true path, thus making them feel lost and unfulfilled. Those who choose to forgive and release grievances will begin to remember their truth and find peace and fulfillment.

Grievances, fear, anger, hate, lies and negativity - focus your time and energy on that which you are not. The more time you spend in such an environment, the more such an environment will begin to feel natural to you. The more natural such an environment appears, the more "comfortable" you will feel in it. Yet regardless of how "comfortable" you perceive yourself to be, you will not find true peace, for it is not possible to split from who you truly are and be in a natural and peaceful state. It is not possible to try to split from your Source and feel whole and complete.

The part of you that holds grievances, that focuses on or chooses to participate in fear, anger, hate, lies and negativity is the part of you that is asleep and dreaming. You have dreamt of yet another illusion, made it real, and a "natural" part of your life by your focus on it, and are still wondering why you’re having to, in one way or another, defend yourself from it. Can someone in this state truly find peace of mind and joy? Can someone operating from this state of mind truly feel complete and whole? And so what we will aspire to do - is awaken that part of us that is asleep.

The part of you that believes in grievances, which we call the ego, does so because it unconsciously feels comfortable in darkness, in the shadow. The one lesson you can learn from grievances is that they were created by your interpretation of illusionary situations. Thus, those interpretations came from you. You are responsible for how you view and react to the world. If you created the feelings you are experiencing, then the solution must also be within you. This means that nothing outside of you can save you or gift you peace, but this also means that nothing outside of you can hurt, upset or disturb you. This then places you in charge of your environment, becoming responsible for the world you are every moment creating and participating in. You are the creator of the world you live in. Nothing but your own thoughts can hamper your progress toward remembering, experiencing and expressing the truth in you.

The ego always requires you to look outside of yourself for solutions. It keeps insisting that if people acted differently, or said different things, or if the external environment were changed - then you would find peace of mind and joy. Thus in the ego’s view, the solution to most of your issues is outside of you. And so, often, everything and everyone except yourself becomes responsible for how you feel. How tiring and frustrating would supporting such a belief system be? Is it any wonder then why supporting such a lifestyle may leave you feeling tired and frustrated? Your ability to support such a belief system is high, but it is not without limit. This support system is self-destructive, for the more you participate and defend it, the more tired and frustrated you become. Until there comes a day when you finally look deep in to the mirror and say to yourself “there must be a better way.” It is after this question is asked that the ego’s walls and defense systems finally begin to crack, and through the cracks, the light of hope and truth appears.

When you are dealing with grievances, you are not dealing with who your brothers and sisters are. You are more concerned with what you perceive they did to you in a moment in time. Not only do you imprison them to these moments, but you are also actively holding their prison doors closed. The more time you spend holding these doors closed, the more time you spend within and behind the same prison walls. Every grievance you hold increases the turbulence in your life, further chaining you to the illusion that your brothers and sisters are what you perceived they did. Your brothers and sisters are who they were created to be, not what you think their bodies did to you. Again God’s gift appears in your brothers and sisters' presence, for the same people who you held captive, secretly imprisoning yourself with them, are the same people who can set you free by your choice to release them.

Mercy and peace cannot enter as long as you choose to see your brothers and sisters as physical bodies and not as God created them. By beholding them as bodies, you lose sight of who they and you truly are. For your prisoners, through God’s grace, can also become your liberators, and not only from one specific instance or interaction but from every instance and interaction. For once you have taken the ego’s sunglasses off, you will behold all of your brothers and sisters in the same light.

The picture of the world you see - only mirrors what is within you. Grievances darken the mind and thus you see a darker world. Forgiveness lifts this darkness - showing you a world of light and understanding. The light of truth is within us all, it is the body that is outside of us. To be without a body is actually to be in our natural state. The light you see reflecting from this world is simply a representation of the true part of you that you are allowing to shine and reflect. The more light you are aware of in yourself, the brighter this world will appear to be. It is in the end, you and only you who decides how bright and enlightened this world appears to be. The greater your acceptance of the light within you, the more loving, kind and forgiving this world will appear. The less accepting of your own light you are, the less light will be available to shine out to this world, and the more destructive, unkind and unforgiving it will appear to be.

Grievances keep love’s light obscured. They keep you in darkness, concealing your truth. And so to truly see, you must lay aside all grievances. No longer search outside for what has always been kept safely within. What you are searching for can not be found outside of you and then brought in. What you are searching for has always been within you, simply asking to be expressed and shared. Once expressed and shared, everything you will see, all you will touch, will reflect that same light in you. Once this realization takes place you will once again look into the mirror and acknowledge that “Yes! Love did create me in His image.” The veil of your grievances will be lifted, and the full beauty of the moment will manifest itself.

Forgiveness washes the past clean of every judgment and grievance the ego has insisted you haul. For what burden do you need to bear once you have forgiven the world for what you thought it did to you? Forgiveness will bring the calming breath of peace back into your life. When peace becomes your companion, you bring it wherever you go, and peace will shine on whomever you meet and interact with. Devote a few minutes of your day to truly look upon and focus on the light of a forgiven world. Then decide, do I want the peace forgiveness offers me, or do I want to continue to carry those heavy grievances the ego insists I lug?

The truth in you is love, and love holds no grievances. Now, anytime the illusions of fear, anger, hate, lies and negativity are expressed by those who sleep, you will use such instances as an opportunity to fulfill your function here. You will begin to recall that lighting the world is your function here. Love’s light will shine from within you, embracing you in its light. You will once again recognize that you are light. Rejoicing in your truth, you will become its extension. You will hold it up high and set an example for all those who are currently searching and calling for the truth in them to awaken. Through forgiveness, you will extinguish all illusions by simply seeing them for what they are. You will recognize illusions as illusions and nothing else. In your presence, the shadows of judgment and conflict will disperse and disappear. Your calm and peace will become a reminder to others of the possibility and the capacity in them.

Through forgiveness, you will be healed, and as you are healed, the whole world is healed with you. In this light, you will now simply do what comes natural to you. You will do what brings you peace, and you will wake up to a more peaceful world. You will do what offers hope, and you will encounter a more hopeful world. You will do what brings you joy, and the same world that you once cried in, you will now smile and dance in.

 

   

View larger images of front & back cover 
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.