CONVERSATIONS WITH RAJ
OCTOBER
1985
Vol. 2, No. 10
QUESTION: What is the most important fact I need to
be aware of?
RAJ: The most essential thing for you to understand
is that you are not some form of mortal or sinner working your way up to a
divine status. That may be what you have been educated to think, but it is not
the fact.
You are, right now, exactly what God created you to
be, even though, at the moment, you are not totally aware of what It is. You
have never fallen from your high estate! You could say that you are slumbering
fitfully, and dreaming a dream that is not entirely true, but the You that is
dreaming the dream is the Totality of what God created you to be. Therefore,
please stop attempting to pull yourself up by your bootstraps even through the
grace of God, so that you may be transformed out of your present lowly status
into your divine status.
Daily acknowledge consciously that you are the
beloved expression of God, in whom He is well pleased. That is not a grandiose
assumption. It is the simple, natural statement of the Fact about You. It is
the Fact about everyone.
You see, in the belief that you are a sinner or a
mortal something, which has fallen from grace, you exist in a constant state of
self-depreciation. You exist in an absence of Self-appreciation, and indeed,
the suggestion is that if you dare to appreciate yourself on the basis of what
you divinely Are, that you are being arrogant.
Self-appreciation is nothing more than the
acknowledgment of the simple Fact—which is divine, but is something totally
natural to You and there is no arrogance, whatsoever, to such an attitude. It
doesn't make you special, because it is true of every other Individuality who
exists, and therefore it is quite common. It is something each of you have in
common, and this is why you are members of the Brotherhood of Man, the whole of
which constitutes the Christ—the infinite manifestation or expression of God.
You need to appreciate yourself without any feeling
of guilt for doing so. You are not stepping on anyone's toes by doing so. You
are not making yourself better than anyone else. And, you are not claiming to
be something you are not.
Simply put, Enlightenment is the process of waking
up to what you have never stopped Being. It is not a process, by which your
puny little selfhood is improved and brought to a level, which It has never
been at before. To the degree that you are honoring your conscious
Individuality as the direct expression of God, you are not conflicting with
Reality, and harmony, healing, Wholeness is the result. When, on the other
hand, you see yourself as a puny little mortal on his way to becoming divine,
and in the process overcoming the displeasure of God at your low estate, you
are not in harmony with Reality.
Your very belief in your fallen state constitutes
the fly in the ointment, and inharmony, suffering, and the absence of peace
will indefinitely abide with you. It will, indeed, seem to prove to you that
you are a mortal, a lost soul, even if temporarily. But that stance will never
help you get out of the experience of inharmony. It is in acknowledging that
now are you the expression of God, now are you the totality of what He created
you to be, that will begin to lift you into the clearer experience of Who and
What You Really Are.
Again, do not be embarrassed to claim your
birthright. Do not feel that it is presumptuous or arrogant. As the direct
expression of God, you are not unworthy to eat the crumbs that fall from His
table. Your rightful place is at the table, and His abundance constitutes
Yours, because He withholds nothing from His direct expression. God is
incapable of expressing His totality in little bits and pieces.
When you joy in God, understand that you are joying
in all that God is. That must necessarily include you! Joying in God
constitutes Self-appreciation—not because you, in your tiny present sense of
yourself are God, but because God is all there is to What You Truly Are, and
therefore your honoring God constitutes an honoring of all that constitutes
You, as well. This is the one essential key point for you to be aware of at
this time and at the bottom line, it is the direct means of shifting from a
finite, limited, three-dimensional frame of reference to the Fourth Dimensional
Conscious Experience of Being. I am glad that you know how to be joyful. It
makes it so much easier for you to make this shift.
QUESTION: Does that mean that I have to stay in this
joyful state all the time? It’s going to be hard enough for me to think and
believe in these terms, and to look at my brothers and sisters as being the
same, but I will. What other steps do I need to get into?
RAJ: Your desire and your efforts to be in touch
with your Guide, and the success you will experience in that endeavor, will
also constitute a means of functioning beyond the three-dimensional-only frame
of reference. Every time communication occurs with your Guide, you are, to that
degree functioning Fourth-dimensionally, and this is why the communication will
always be transformational for you—or, shall we say, enlightening.
I also do not want you to overlook your heart's
desire. It does not mean "nothing." It is not irrelevant. Your love
for God, your love for that which is true constitutes a love for that which Is
true about you! It constitutes a desire, even if it is not verbalized, to
experience the truth about you—not just think about it.
What I am trying to communicate here is that your
already-existing heart's desire, your already-existing desire to be in touch
with your Guide, your capacity for joy, all constitute very effective and
powerful means for moving you beyond any limited thinking which may be binding
you. I am saying that you already are well on your way. I am not suggesting
that you need to burden yourself with "working harder at it."
Be aware that many of the things you are already
doing are powerfully moving you, powerfully causing the shift that you desire.
Do not think that you must find ten other big things to do to speed you on your
way. Value what you are already doing. It is a truism that what you appreciate
appreciates, or grows. You are already appreciating a lot, and that which you
are appreciating is growing, is appreciating, is enlarging your awareness of
the full Meaning of Your Being.
For your information, it is helpful for you to love
your fellow man for What He Truly Is, with the under- standing that right in
the face of any ego actions he may be indulging in, his divinity is present to
be honored. But your most significant means of appreciating your fellow man for
Who and What He Really Is will arise out of your increased awareness and
experience of Who and What You Really Are as the expression of God.
The more you allow yourself into that experience of
your Being, the less it will be theoretical. Experience is experience! And,
what you experience of Your Self will cause you to Know what is true of your
fellow man, because you know that he is no different from you. As your
experience of your divinity unfolds more and more clearly, your ability to
appreciate the divinity of your fellow man will increase correspondingly.
You cannot think yourself into greater appreciation
of another. If you could, your appreciation would be theoretical. Appreciation
arises out of Knowing, out of experience. So, let your primary desire be to
know your Self more and more significantly. It is to know what God is being,
because God is being You. Nothing else is responsible for your existence, and
in actuality you cannot possibly be anything other than what God is revealing
of Himself right there where [Caller's name] is seen by everyone else.
You could call this a divine selfishness. But the
wonderful thing about divine selfishness is that it blesses everyone, because
it does not block the essential Presence of God right where You Are. It does
not obscure It.
QUESTION: I know I'm not supposed to work at being
divine, because I already am...
RAJ: You see, the value in acknowledging that you
are already the perfect daughter or expression of God means that you do not
have to work for anything! However, since you are not experiencing your divine
Actuality consciously, and you seem to be experiencing something other than
that, then there is something needing to be done, because it is not your
birthright to be ignorant, to be minus the experience of your divinity.
Knowing that you already are the ultimate, even
though that ultimate is apparently hidden, relieves you of the ethic of
"spiritual progress," of striving. Further, knowing that What You
divinely Are is functioning fully and completely at this instant, means that
you need only to let go, relax, allow yourself into the full conscious
awareness of What You Totally Are. Very simply, the mortal sinner syndrome and
all of the striving that it involves is so much static, so much tinkling of
brass in your conscious awareness that you cannot perceive the undistorted
Reality.
Therefore, as you are willing to release the
striving, because it is not necessary as you are able to release the
theoretical basis of your being a sinner needing forgiveness, and you become
quiet within yourself and you move within, go into your closet, it is the
equivalent of opening up your eyes so that you may simply see what is Real and
what has never stopped being Real, so that you may see and experience your Self
and your world and universe as God is being It, without distortion, without
pain, without suffering, without death, and much, much more.
You must allow yourself into the Kingdom of
Heaven—the Christ-Consciousness of Being. When you find yourself feeling that
you must work harder, be alert and do not invite that idea or ethic into your
consciousness. Do not entertain it. You do not have to answer the door.
It is ultimately simple.
QUESTION: I would like to listen to Raj and hear
what I need to hear for right now, to be aware of.
RAJ: Bless yourself! This is another way of saying
appreciate yourself, except that the use of the word "bless"
indicates a more active dynamic to the appreciation. Self-appreciation is an
honoring of What You divinely Are, and because of What You divinely Are,
Self-appreciation is even more significant than what it means from a typical
psychological standpoint. In other words, Self-appreciation is healing—not
because it is simply positive in nature, but because the appreciation is coming
from one who is absolutely divine.
It Is necessary for your thinking about yourself to
become more consistently aligned with Who and What You Really Are, else you
will see it as a process a tiny mortal goes through in order to bolster himself
up to face the world.
Self-appreciation literally provides the means for
lifting you out of the tiny mortal sense of yourself into not only a greater
appreciation of yourself, but a clearer experience of Who You Really Are. It is
the precursor of enlightenment. It is the groundwork for accessing your greater
capacity to be aware. It is far more than just a nice or even practical
positive thing to do.
You are concerned at times about how you appear to
others, and when you are functioning at this level, you are seeing yourself as
an object, as an appearance, which exists in some way independent from
everything else, and therefore as an easy target for judgment.
When you are functioning from this standpoint, when
you are seeing your others as ready to stand in judgment of you, you are
already judging yourself from that very same level. This literally causes you
to become a puppet, not only of the expectations of others, but your ignorant
expectations of yourself. And all the time that this little illusory, imaginative
drama is going on, You, in your Totality—You as You divinely Are in Your
Wholeness—are functioning fully, undisturbed by the imaginative, illusory drama
that seems to be going on.
When you identify yourself as what you appear to be,
you are lost in an illusory state of mind. It is the act of Self-appreciation,
which has the power to lift you out of that drama, out of that level of
perception, into the inherent confidence of your immovable Being—immovable in
the sense of being incapable of being affected by anything other than Its
omnipotent process of fulfilling Itself.
Even though you might not find yourself totally
transformed by the process of blessing yourself with your Self-appreciation,
you will find yourself being moved out of the dynamic that causes you to seem
to have to react like a puppet to others' as well as your own limited
self-perception. It allows you to be, and let the chips fall where they may. It
allows you to be at Peace, no matter who else is distressed. And in that Peace,
you will find that you have the perspective needed to appropriately act or not
act in a way that will relieve or have the potential for relieving the distress
that those around you might be experiencing.
Blessing yourself is very Centering, because it
constitutes an acknowledgment of your Reality, the Reality of Your
Individuality. It institutes or brings into play the conscious experience of
your Integrity, wherein you are in no way giving your power away. Who and What
You Really Are needs no justification, no explanation. It simply is, and it is
all that is. It is the very Presence of the Life-Principle, which has expressed
Itself, and the expression is called [caller's name]. By whatever name, the
Individuality labeled (caller's name] is eternal and Whole, and the Wholeness
is unchanging.
It is important for that Wholeness to be shared, to
be lived right where you are, without hooking into the feeling that it must be
justified or explained or proven. When you decide no longer to yield to the
demand for explaining yourself, for living up to others' expectations, and when
you see that the judgment that apparently will descend upon you if you do not
justify yourself is a bluff, which cannot be carried out, and you are willing
to simply be, and let the chips fall where they may, you will experience the
Peace that is natural to your Being, the Peace that is eternal.
You are quite used to the concept of appreciating
yourself. But it is important for you to have the awareness of this added
dimension of Meaning to Self-appreciation; that it indeed constitutes a
blessing that is fraught with Power because the blessing is coming from One Who
is Absolutely Divine. It is, indeed, time to grow up into your spiritual
stature and status, and own it, and act out from it, and be it right here.
It will not be an earth-shaking event, nor need it
be complicated. Self-appreciation is Self-appreciation. It isn't complicated.
To understand that that appreciation comes from a divine source is also not an
added complexity. It is simple. But that added facet of understanding will have
remarkable effects.
QUESTION: What are valuable tools for my growth at
this time?
RAJ: The most valuable tool is the realization that
contrary to appearances, you are not some piss-ant mortal working its way up to
an unnatural but achievable spiritual status. You are not a small ego moving
toward an Ego status. You are, at this very instant, the Totality, the
Wholeness, the Christ-consciousness; the enlightened One who literally, simply
has her eyes closed and cannot seem to experience what she is.
If all that You Are is present, then you cannot be
moving toward It, nor can you be growing into It. Therefore, there can be no
process to it, in actuality, other than, you might say, opening your eyes,
allowing yourself to experience the Reality of your Being, which is going on in
Its Totality at this instant.
Your divine status does not lie off in the future
somewhere. When this becomes absolutely clear to you, you will stop struggling
and striving to achieve. The struggle to achieve denies what you are! It says,
"I am not that yet, but I will become it." And the process, itself,
constitutes a constant blocking of your awareness of its presence.
The ego not only suggests that your goal is in the
future to be arrived at, at a later time, it then suggests that there are
particularly good techniques, particularly "right" approaches upon
which you may effectively move toward that distant goal. They have achieved the
status of religious practices. But there is only one practice, which will get
you into the Kingdom of Heaven, the Conscious experience of Reality, and that
is to stop trying to achieve it! Stop trying to become something, and allow
yourself to be quiet enough in the Now, in the instant of consciousness that
you are constantly experiencing, to allow the full open conscious experience of
What You never stopped being for an instant.
The whole process of becoming is an illusion, a
total waste of time. You must let yourself into the awareness of the Reality of
your Being through the middle of the instant of conscious experience that you
are at this instant. Striving to become better is a distraction from the
experience of your Wholeness, which only exists to be experienced in the
instant you are in.
Again, the only "religious practice" that
means anything at all is that of allowing, of letting yourself experience Who
You Are Really right now. Anything, which helps you let go of the preoccupation
with the past or the future is a valuable aid to this "religious practice"
which I have described. Anything which helps you set aside future goals,
anything which helps you stop bracing yourself against the future or some
negative thing you imagine to be in the future, anything which helps you to
stop running from the past and helps you to significantly be in the Now, is an
effective tool in your apparent process of Waking Up. Nothing else is.
QUESTION: I would like to know how much of my life’s
movement is predestined and how much is free will? How can I recognize the difference?
How can I find balance between the two? It's like my personal mantra is,
"I'm willing." It's just that I'm trying to find a balance between
what the Universe is to do, and what I'm to do.
RAJ: The only appropriate use of free will is to
choose not to use it! This means, then, that from a Universal standpoint, or
from an Absolute standpoint, or from the standpoint of the Reality of your
Being, none of it is free will.
Your Individuality, your essential Self, is the
direct expression of the Universal Life-Principle, whether you call it God or
not. Your Individuality is the Movement of Fulfillment which, because It is the
expression of a Universal Oneness, is in absolute harmony with every other
Individuality, every other expression of the Life-Principle. It does not
involve independent self-direction. I mean by that, direction provided by a
mentality, which considers only itself in setting its directions.
This does not mean that from an Absolute standpoint
everything is preordained or predestined. The Life-Principle, Itself, is the
Process of Creation, the being of that which has never been before. You could
say that the Life-Principle, and therefore You, are living Art, constantly
evolving out of Its divine Nature the "Tapestry of Life," which never
stops to repeat Itself.
On this basis, then, your creativity
"automatically" harmonizes with every other action or movement of
creativity in the Universe. There is nothing dull or monotonous about it, and
there is no loss of anything that constitutes meaningful Conscious
Individuality.
The whole process of sensing deeply into, your
essential Being, so that you may know where your energy is moving, involves
your setting aside free will. Obviously, in sensing deeply, you are deciding in
favor of cooperating with your Being rather than ignoring it and "figuring
everything out" for yourself at an intellectual level, which, really,
simply means functioning as a little ego living on the face of the planet and
only harmonizing with everything and everyone else through an accepted
"code of conduct."
To the degree that you do set aside, or decide not
to use free will, and to sense deeply and flow with what you find, you will
experience an increase of harmony, joy, and fulfillment without losing anything
except anxiety, fear, stress, and pain.
QUESTION: I was really struck with the idea, in one
of the Newsletters, that every idea includes within itself the necessary
ingredients for its fulfillment. I am wanting some information for myself about
what I must do, if this is true, to encourage the flow of my own unfolding. I
have ideas about projects, about going with things, and they just seem to sit
there.
RAJ: The key always is listening, and when I say
listening, I mean listening deeply, from your Center. Understand that there are
not just ideas floating around. There is no waste motion in the universe. There
is no waste motion to Being. And, when you are deeply listening, you put
yourself in the position of being aware of what your Being is unfolding.
It emerges first as simple awareness, or what I have
called Knowing. You can verbalize or express that awareness in ideas. But the
necessity is for you to stay with the awareness or Knowing, because it has
Meaning—or what you would be inclined to call feeling. That feeling is always a
Self-feeling, because, mind you, what is emerging here and taking the form of
ideas is Your Being in the process of fulfilling Itself/You.
In your willingness to remain at the Source of the
idea, in your willingness to continue to listen, you will find yourself always
at whatever point of unfoldment that Meaning is at in Its process of fulfilling
Itself. You see, the ego always tries to take over, and, by virtue of its own
energy, bring that idea to fruition, so that it may take credit for it and feel
substantial and worthwhile. Your Being does not go through any of those
gyrations. Its movement is always a movement of fulfillment.
Again, the answer to your question is, listen
deeply, and continue to stay in that listening Place even when you are led to
take certain actions in your world. You can take action from the level of your
Being. It is not necessary for you to take action from the level of your ego.
That really is the key difference.
Again, I want to reemphasize that the only ideas
that you will find unfolding in your experience will be those which arise out
of what your Being is unfolding for the identification of Its Wholeness. Now,
because this is the case, there will always be the feeling of Integrity to You
when you are experiencing your Self-Meanings, the energy of your Being, as It
gives rise to ideas.
When you are not being able to recognize a oneness
with the ideas, when they, in effect, are flitting through your mind like
butterflies—some of an interesting design, and some not—you can rest assured
that these ideas are not being sensed from the deeper levels of your Being, and
are imaginative concoctions of the ego. It is not necessary for you to respond
to ideas in which you cannot find your love, your motivation, your interest. So
always listen deeply, because the Meaning of the ideas will always be, at the
bottom line, Your Self in its process of fulfilling itself by manifesting Its
Wholeness. This is why, at a very simple level, you are encouraged to do what
you love.
QUESTION: If I am to understand and apply the
information I have just gotten, and it's right for me to go forward with the
doctoral program, is this to say that I simply need to dismiss concerns about
providing for the program; that I can, in effect, make the investment now with
what resources I have now, and by concentrating on a sense of abundance and
moving in the right direction, that the additional means – specifically money –
are going to be made available?
RAJ: It is not a matter of concentrating on
abundance as much as it is gaining clear focus as to the path in which your
Being is unfolding Itself. When you are "on target" with what your
Being is unfolding, and since your Being is always unfolding Itself Wholly, or
Completely, then you will always be in that Place where that Completeness can
be experienced, whether it is dollars and cents, or transportation, or
dwelling, or whatever.
What I have shared with you is a clear expression of
the direction in which your Being is unfolding your opportunity to access your
greater capacity to be aware. Now, you may contemplate abundance. It will be
helpful for you in overcoming, or at least assuaging, the ego's doubts. But
understand that the contemplation or affirmation of abundance is not what will
make abundance a fact.
Abundance is a Primary Fact of your Being, and when
you are "on target" with your Being, your abundance is what you will
experience. It is essential to understand the Source of your abundance. It will
never be the result of your thoughts! It will always be your Being, Itself—what
You fundamentally, divinely Are. The key is to learn to flow with your Being,
rather than think wonderful, abundant, affirmative, positive thoughts.
The one benefit there is from positive, affirmative,
abundant thinking is that from an intellectual level, it helps you arrive at a
point where you can dare to let go and trust into your Being, which is the
Actual Source of your abundance, because It is Whole and has never been
anything less.
QUESTION: I have a stronger and stronger sense of
that quality, and I still don’t understand about the specifics of having the
"means”—like, to pay the bills.
RAJ: Again, it is the ego, which wants everything
pegged ahead of time. But, understand that having everything pegged ahead of
time does not involve any element of trust.
It is very simple. There is no way to connect with
the divinity of your Being and Its Wholeness and Completeness without implicit
trust! To whatever degree trust is withheld, you are functioning at the level
of the ego and its doubts, and its conflict-generating dynamics. You do not
need to know exactly where every dollar and cent is going to come from. You do
need to know that your Being is constantly unfolding Itself Totally. I mean
that right now! And, the only thing that causes you to seem not to be aware of
that Total Universal Completeness is the element of doubt, which is inherent in
the ego's sense of things.
Now, I encourage you to take the things that we have
talked about today deeply within yourself, well out of the reach of your ego
sense and measure them against your deepest levels of Knowing, measuring them
against the recognition of and feeling of your own Integrity, your own Peace.
If what we have talked about adds up to or measures up to your calm, deep
Knowing, then I encourage you to dare to act out from that Knowing, no matter
what "jig" your ego may subsequently intrude into your sense of
Peace.
QUESTION: Is nothing impossible?
RAJ: Literally, infinity is the possibility.
However, when one is not cooperating with or flowing with what his Being is
unfolding, and is, instead, attempting to manifest the infinite possibilities
from the tiny, biased level of his ego sense of himself, the infinite
possibilities become a stressful experience.
When willfulness, which does not take into
consideration anything other than the possibility it seeks, is being employed,
it puts one out of sync with Reality, and there is always discomfort. The
infinite creativity of your Being, which employs infinite possibilities, is
present to be experienced with absolute harmony when one is willing to set
aside what he thinks he wants and senses deeply into what his Being is
unfolding, and flows with it.
There are no limits, whatsoever, on your Being, on
your essential Self. But, from the level of your finite ego-sense of self,
there will always be the limit of discomfort, pain, and anxiety, a total
absence of Peace.
QUESTION: Concerning my apparent higher state of
conscious awareness, when I smoke marijuana, and the consciousness I seem to
have when high – more harmonious, more answers available, almost as if I’m
guided – I’ve been told to either let go of the drug or let go of the guilt.
I’ve been trying to let go of the drug for some time, and maybe it’s my ego saying
that I need them, but I am seemingly happier when I’m around them. I can
communicate better with people, it seems. At this time, that’s where I am, and
I read an answer about what pot was all about in an earlier Newsletter, and I
understand it. I just wonder how I could let go of it or get to that space
without the drugs.
RAJ: Fundamentally, the skill and facility you find
yourself having in social settings and in communicating your feelings, is
brought about because you are more relaxed and less self-conscious. But, it is
not a relaxation, an unself-consciousness, which you have really achieved.
Therefore you do not have real security.
The security—the sense or experience of your
immovable integrity that does not feel vulnerable—must be available to you in
your natural state in order for it to be experienced as real security, real
stability. The other is an illusion of stability, and it is dependent upon
something other than your Self. Thus, you will only have it when you have this
"something else" (the drugs) available. This puts you in the position
of becoming the puppet of the need for the drugs. That is not independence.
That is not security.
Now, I do want you to understand that the real
experience of enlightened Consciousness is available to you without the use of
drugs. The easiest means of accessing that inner Self-experience can be
achieved through meditation or some form of becoming quiet within yourself,
realizing that the quietness that you are experiencing is not just a phenomena
of peace, but that it is a direct experience of the Nature of your Being, your
Self. What you are experiencing in your quietness is the peaceful, non-anxious
Nature of your Being.
In the process of becoming still through meditation,
you are moving, you might say, through the corridors of your Being. It is the
actual experience of the Peace that constitutes your eternal birthright. Thus,
the quietness, itself, is a Self-experience. The quietness, itself, serves to
teach you about You. As you begin to realize that it is not just a mental
phenomena that is different from one called anxiety, but that it is, indeed,
the result of a movement out of the ego level of conscious experience, you will
gain great satisfaction from it, a joy from it, because it really constitutes
experiencing the integrity, the unfragmented Actuality of your Being.
From that centered Peace, you can then begin to
access your greater capacity to be aware in a totally nonreactionary way, in a
way where you experience your Wisdom and Knowledge without going through any
intellectual thought processes to experience it. In some ways it will be
similar to the experiences you had with drugs. But the fact that it will be
happening without the drugs will have a profound effect on you—one that will
constitute the recognition that you are not dependent on anything other than
your willingness to go within and become still to experience enlightenment, to
experience Guidance, to experience your process of Awakening.
Again, the greatness detriment from the use of drugs
is that it implies that spiritual progress or enlightenment is occurring when
it is not, and thus it distracts one from the actual experience of
enlightenment.