CONVERSATIONS WITH RAJ
DECEMBER
1985
VOL. 2, No. 12
QUESTION: First of all, do I have psychic abilities
that would be useful to me in my life? When I think about getting in touch with
these things, there is a deep sadness that comes over me, almost to the point
of wanting to cry. Whenever I get close to the desire, there's this sadness
that comes in my heart, and I don't know what that is.
RAJ: In regard to the first part of your question,
you most certainly do have capacities that you are not currently availing
yourself of. I would encourage you to think of them more in terms of divine
capacities or spiritual capacities, rather than psychic. The word
"psychic" tends to relate to a capacity of the human mind, which
actually relates to the ego, the brain function of an organism on the face of
the planet, rather than that conscious awareness, which constitutes your Being
and has its source in the Life-Principle, Itself.
It is important not to get stuck at what is
appropriately called the psychic level, which is simply an expression of divine
capacities, which are bound by human limits. Your capacities go far beyond any
brain-oriented limits, and so I would encourage you to see these capacities as
capacities, which are inherent in your Being—which is absolutely divine—rather
than capacities, which you, as an apparently human being might have.
In regard to the second part of your question, the
feeling of sadness that you experience is actually a deep experience of Joy. It
is felt at the level of your Soul because it constitutes coming very close to
Home. It comes as great feeling of Meaning, which triggers your memory, but
just beyond the conscious level of awareness. Nevertheless, it is close enough
that there is an indelible awareness of the Love in you for that which
constitutes your Home, and which actually constitutes the remembering of Who
and What You divinely Are, minus the human sense of limitations, which you are
currently bound by.
Do not shy away from or resist the feeling that
surfaces as sadness. It is very much like a child who has been away on a summer
vacation, who comes home and is so happy that he can only uncontrollably cry.
There is nothing sad about it whatsoever, but it wells up from the depths of
one's Being as a great surge of feeling and emotion. It is only at the surface,
or at its initial stage, that it seems to be sadness. So, do not resist it, and
understand that it is actually the leading edge of great joy being felt within
your Being. It is not an uncommon experience.
If you will pay attention to the other times in your
life when you have been confronted with a circumstance or an event, which
brought tears to your eyes and made you cry, in which you could not account for
the crying, it has always been something, which has reminded you of, or brought
very close to your conscious level of awareness, the remembrance of Home.
Now, I want it to be very clear that Home is not so
much a place as the clear experience of Who you Are, because Who you Are is the
direct expression of the Life-Principle, and in remembering Who you Are, you
remember What You Are. In the presence of What You Are as the direct expression
of the Life-Principle, it constitutes the conscious experience of the Absolute
union between you and the Father, God, the Life-Principle, the divine Universal
Intelligence, or whatever words mean something regarding the Universal Cause.
So, the remembrance of Home is the remembrance of your Self, and the falling
away of the illusions, which temporarily bind you. This is why it is emotional.
It is important to know, however, that the emotion is not sadness at the bottom
line, but Joy, and Love, and Peace welling up from the very depths of
Itself—meaning, from the very depths of your Being.
QUESTION: How do I move closer towards this
spirituality and use it in my work, or whatever I do?
RAJ: Again, it is a matter of your desire.
Literally, what you appreciate appreciates, or grows. It is a truism. When you
are expressing a desire, you are expressing an appreciation for what you are desiring.
It is not necessary for you to make that desire come to pass. It is not your
job to figure out how to manipulate it into existence.
Desire, itself, is the movement that constitutes the
manifestation of fulfillment. Therefore, if you will abide with the desire, you
cannot help but be with it at its moment of fulfillment. Therefore, it is
important to feel the desire, and then stay out of the way so that you may be
present as it unfolds its completion of itself.
Understand, also, that your desire for that which is
spiritual, does not arise out of your ego, out of your limited, human thinking.
It does arise out of the very depths of your Being, and that is why it has
power to fulfill itself, and that is why it is not necessary for you to take
charge and bring it about. So, when you are paying attention to and feeling
your desire, it is a matter of allowing yourself to feel what is already
present. You do not have to manufacture a desire. In fact, pursuing a
manufactured desire has nothing to do with what I have been speaking of when I
have used the word "desire."
Desire is a movement within your Being which always
leads to clarification and enlightenment, because your Being is constantly
insisting upon emerging at the conscious level of your awareness so that you
are not ignorant of it and do not continue to be blinded by your conditioned
thinking. So, the key is your desire. Stay with it, and you will find it
evolving the form, which will identify it in your experience tangibly. Remember
that it is not necessary for you to manufacture the form. That is part of the
process of the fulfillment of the desire, itself.
If you have not manufactured the desire, you do not
have to manufacture the fulfillment, and that is a key point to understand.
QUESTION: How do I know if I've manufactured the
desire or not?
RAJ: A manufactured desire will be a result of
reasoning and thinking processes. When it comes right down to it, you cannot
explain why you have a desire for that which is spiritual. You may be able to think
up a pretty good explanation, but that thought process happens after the fact,
after having already experienced the desire, and that is the difference. You
know that you are moved. You don't know why. You can, perhaps, figure out an
explanation. But, the movement you feel is happening before you have gone
through any thought process. It is the reverse with a manufactured desire or
want, because you go through the thought process first and come to a conclusion
of what you think you want, and then work for it. So, the want comes after the
thought process, after a conclusion has been arrived at. That is the
fundamental difference.
QUESTION: I'm not going forward in any direction
with my work. I spent a year becoming a trainer in the work that I do, and now
I'm backing off because some of the people in the organization are not
compatible. I'm not certain what direction to take. My health has been poor for
the past few months. I have had lots of negative things come into my life, and
yet I have not had that kind of thing for a long time prior to this.
RAJ: There has been an unnecessary assumption, that
if you are unlinking yourself from an organization or from certain people, that
the Value of the program that was involved has to also be released. This is not
correct. As a result of that idea, however, you released a focus, or a sense of
direction, and you have moved into a state of limbo, or floating.
Now, Value is Value. It is something that cannot be
possessed. Your recognition of that which is of Value is yours to express. In
fact, it is your responsibility to express it, because that is the nature of
Being. You have not allowed yourself the freedom to incorporate all of the
best, all of the Value that you have gained from many sources, in your work. You
have not felt the right to express intelligence because of the belief that
somebody owned it, and therefore you were not free to express it yourself, in
your own original, unique way.
Thus, you have floundered in a sense of
directionlessness that was not necessary. You are absolutely free to express
intelligent ideas, which you recognize of value, and which you can relate to
those you are working with in a way that is helpful for them. Again, Value and
Intelligence cannot be copyrighted or owned. It is there to be expressed by
whoever has the perspicacity or clarity to see it. You have squelched yourself
unnecessarily, and as a result have not allowed your energy to flow into
creative healing channels.
Whenever you sit on your energy, whenever you
squelch it, whenever you devalue it in any way, you will inevitably become
uncomfortable, because it is a state of Self-denial. Now, you are not only
intelligent, you are the presence of Intelligence. You are Intelligence,
Itself, in expression. You are going to have to be willing to dare to commit it
to expression, to let it find avenues of manifestation. You are going to have
to stop withholding it. And, you are going to have to see that you are not
misappropriating it, because it was never owned by anybody from whom you could
appropriate it in an illegitimate way. You cannot take Value or Intelligence
away from anyone. Each of you are free to express it without interference, and
without depleting the other.
So, the solution to the whole picture, which you
were describing, revolves around your willingness to let the Intelligence You
Are have expression. The physical conditions you have experienced have simply
been indicators to you that you have not been valuing and appreciating yourself
enough to let it flow into expression. You have unnecessarily been calling
yourself into doubt, questioning and negating your Value, as though you did not
have a right to express it. This must stop if you wish to experience the
Movement of your Being, which will feel like and will manifest fulfillment,
both in terms of your health and in terms of your wealth. You must let it flow,
and you must understand that it flows from the Intelligence that you Are. It
isn't something that came from another person or from a certain theory. It comes
from the recognition in you that you have of what is of value and your caring
enough to let that, which is of value flow from you into expression.
QUESTION: For this last twelve years, when I
consciously went on the spiritual path—studying books and attending seminars,
etc.—I always got the same message that there is karma, meaning "cause and
effect," meaning "as a man soweth, so shall he reap." This is
what I have built my life on.
I do not feel that God is punishing me or singling
me out. I feel that there is a universal law that has been set into motion that
whatever you do positive or negative it comes back to you. If I don't believe
that, I might as well jump in the lake, because everything has got to make
sense. If I'm suffering, at least I like to know that there is a reason for it.
If there is no reason for it, then I don't know what I'm going to do.
I feel that there is a reason for my husband and I
being married at this point. Since there is such great similarity between my
husband and my father, I feel that they are trying to teach me something: that
no matter how much they put me down, that I am worth something. By constant
criticism, by constantly pointing out the inadequacy in me, I think I have to
learn that no matter what they say or what they believe, that I am okay.
Needless to say, I haven't learned it yet.
RAJ: Let it be understood, first of all, that cause
and effect are always simultaneous. There is no lag between them. One does not
go off scot-free at the moment and pay the penalty at a later date, or even in
a future lifetime.
The only fault there ever is, is ignorance, and one
always suffers from his ignorance while he is ignorant. As soon as the
ignorance is replaced with understanding, with truth, the suffering from the
ignorance ceases. Thus, all suffering is from current ignorance. This is very
important to understand, else you will become a martyr, and you will endure
suffering, and you will even elevate it to the status of a "purifying,
divinely motivating device," thus substantiating it as a valid part of
your experience. This, itself, is ignorant. And, of course, the ongoing
suffering is the evidence of the current ignorance.
Now, if you are not paying for something out of your
past...
QUESTION: And that's what I don't know.
RAJ: Exactly.
QUESTION: Well, my father was right, again. He
always said I had looks, but boy, was I stupid. I just thought, "Well, I'm
paying for something." So, it's ignorance, okay. I can buy that.
RAJ: Now, if the suffering is stemming from a current
ignorance, then it means that you can do something about it. If, in fact, it
were arising out of the past, and were a deserved penalty, then you would be
bound to "serve your time" and pay that penalty in full, and you
could do nothing about it. That would be worth being depressed about.
The fact that it is always current ignorance means
that the focal point can shift to a conscious desire to experience the
clarification in the present, which will lift you out of the ignorance and its
accompanying suffering. And that is worthy of hope, and confidence, and joy.
QUESTION: What about people born crippled or blind?
Aren't they paying also? There are so many people who cannot be helped in this
lifetime.
RAJ: There is no one who cannot be helped physically
in this lifetime, if they will make a decision for their health in this
lifetime. And, no, they are not paying a penalty. For the most part, those who
are experiencing congenital defects or birth defects are experiencing them by
conscious choice. In other words, the body condition has been selected for a
particular learning, but it is not a victimization.
Your birthright—and I am not speaking of your human
birth—because of what you divinely Are, is to be free of suffering and pain.
QUESTION: As soon as I get smart.
RAJ: In very practical terms, that is correct, yes.
However, as long as you think you must be paying for something out of the past,
you will also assume that that smartness, that clarification, is not available
to you until you have paid in full, and you will not even look for it. What I
want you to know is that at any moment when you begin to look for the
clarification on the basis that it is your birthright not to suffer, then you
will truly listen with an expectation of an answer, and you will get the
answer. You are not bound to suffering by any divine law of your Being.
Now, this is going to require you to re-think your
position, and to be open to a new one. I also want you to understand that all
who are not totally awakened are suffering from ignorance, and this includes
your father. It includes everyone. Everyone is suffering from their ignorance
of their divine Birthright, and the process of Awakening is the process of
remembering It.
It always involves reaching beyond whatever the present
sense of limitation is, whatever concepts bind one to his pain or his suffering
or his depression or his negative sense about himself. Therefore, you are in no
way singled out. Understand also, that it is in the realization that each one
is responsible for his suffering, that he has in his hands the means to change
the situation. As long as one's problem can be blamed on someone else, or even
one's self in a past lifetime, there is no opportunity for change. There is no
way to do anything about it. But, in the realization that one is creating for
himself, even out of his ignorance, his problems, it becomes clear that the
authority for one's experience is one's self in the present. If that is true,
then what one is creating can be changed, because one's self is the creator. In
this case I am not referring to Self, but the limited, finite, depressed, hurt,
punished self that the imagination has been able to create in a manner that is
reasonable.
Therefore, at this instant you are capable of
adopting a new point of view, one, which allows you to look forward to today or
tomorrow because you know that you are not legitimately bound by anything other
than current ignorances.
Now, you can do something about current ignorances.
You can get new information. You can start thinking in a new way if you release
the false sense of karma, and you will find that as you change your position,
as you change your theory, your life will begin to reflect that change as the
decrease of pain, suffering, and depression. This is an extremely important
point to understand. Everyone is bound unnecessarily. Even those who have
chosen a form of bondage through a birth defect, have as their goal the
remembering of the fact that it is an illegitimate bondage so that they may
move out of it and never again be bound by it.
Therefore, you stand at this very instant at the
threshold of fulfillment. You do not stand at the threshold of ongoing
suffering for something that happened in your past during this lifetime or any
other lifetime. You stand at the threshold of fulfillment. On that basis, you
need to begin to ask yourself what constitutes fulfillment for you—what
constitutes fulfillment for you in this marriage, what constitutes fulfillment
for you in activities that have to do with your own spiritual growth.
If you are not able, through your desire and your
attentiveness to what is fulfilling for you, to provide the environment in
which that fulfillment can occur—if you are not able to do that in your present
setting—then know that you have the authority to change the setting. You are
not bound to conform to conditions, which prohibit you from experiencing your
peace, your joy, and your fulfillment.
This means that you will have to get up on your
haunches. You will have to stand up for yourself, rather than simply sitting
back and letting the suffering be heaped upon you without objection because you
"deserve it"—for God knows what, but obviously for something. That is
the worst form of bondage. It is not a bondage to your husband. It is a bondage
to your belief about karma, and it is time for you to be free of it. It is time
for you to set it down, because it is absolutely invalid. Yet, in believing it,
you are conducting yourself in such a way that is causing you to be severely
limited, severely bound physically, emotionally, and mentally.
QUESTION: Well, It's because I feel guilty.
RAJ: Of course you do. That is always the way the
ego will cause you to feel. Now, what is the ego? It is a false sense of self,
which has been developed on the basis of what you can see, hear, taste, smell,
and feel. The five physical senses cause you to experience yourself as an
object in the middle of a huge universe, and a planet and an environment, which
are different from you, separate from you, and therefore not necessarily in
harmony with you. This causes you to become defensive, and your defensiveness
evolves situations for enemies, and the whole thing is a false perception about
what you truly Are.
Now, the ego thrives on your feeling guilty...
QUESTION: So does my husband.
RAJ: ... because your guilt will keep you from
sensing into the divine reality of your Being. It will preoccupy you and keep
you from accessing your Peace, your experience of your Wholeness, and in
depriving you of that, it secures its continued existence. But, the moment you
assume that the "sentence" laid upon you to suffer is totally
imaginary or totally ignorant, and you claim your freedom from that bondage,
and you look for and sense into the Peace of your Being, which has never gone
anywhere, and you insist on the environment where that Peace can be
experienced, you will find the bondage falling away from you. But, first of
all, you have to feel the right to claim your freedom. And the only way you can
do that is in acknowledging a birthright...
QUESTION: Can you do that within a marriage when it
is so different? I mean, my husband is a good man. He does not drink, he does
not smoke, he brings home his paycheck, he does not chase around, but I feel
like I have been wrapped in a wet blanket for thirty years. But, he's a good
man.
RAJ: It is not my Purpose to judge him or to judge
you. Even when I have made the statement that you are suffering from ignorance,
it involved no judgment, but a simple clarification of the mechanics of the way
things work, and the fact that when ignorance is indulged in, there is always
accompanying suffering. That is just the way it works and does not constitute a
judgment on you.
Therefore, you must first of all assume that you
have a right to the experience of fulfillment, to the experience of joy, that
it is your purpose to be experiencing it now, in this lifetime, and not
somewhere off in the future. Then, on that basis, start right where you are,
right within the marriage you presently have, right within the home that you
have, right within the various activities you presently have, and pursue your
fulfillment, pursue your joy.
If at every turn you find it is not allowed, then
you must make a choice and provide yourself with the environment in which it
can be found, and in which it will not be squelched. But, do not assume right
off the bat that it is impossible for you to find it right where you are. You
have not tried, because you felt that you were paying a debt you owed, for who
knows what.
The point is that it is unreasonable for you to
subject yourself to this belief system of karma any further, and your physical
symptoms that you are experiencing are a direct result of something in you,
which is objecting to that belief system. The symptoms are manifesting your
frustration with that belief system, and the frustration is arising out of some
level of awareness in you that it is illegitimate. That part of you which
recognizes that it is illegitimate is already getting up on its hind feet in
order to assert itself on behalf of its joy and on behalf of its health, and on
behalf of its fulfillment, because it knows that that is its birthright. You
know, at the deepest levels of your Being, that you were not created for the
purpose of suffering, no matter how righteous that suffering might be.
Now, I have spoken brass tacks with you tonight. I
have not provided you with additional means to put yourself down. I have said
to you that it is time to wake up and enjoy the day. It is time to recognize
that you are standing at the threshold of your fulfillment. That is what Being
means! Being means standing at the threshold of fulfillment.
QUESTION: Thank you. I think I know what you are
talking about. In fact, I have been sensing something like this lately. I just
haven't had enough guts to do it.
I would appreciate hearing anything that you feel is
important for me to know.
RAJ: The subject is "Pots and Pans:
Paraphernalia." We always think that we have sorted through and cast out
what is useless until we get to the point where it appears there is nothing
else to unburden ourselves from and there is a tendency to relax and also feel
secure in that what is essential has been done.
You are not burdened by too many "things,"
objects, forms. You are not controlled by them particularly. You are aware that
there are mental equivalents of "equipment," paraphernalia, which are
as binding as "material things," and you have worked diligently to
sort through those as well.
I want you to consider that anything, any thought
processes, any thinking, any belief structures that distract you from being in
touch with your Self, constitute unnecessary equipment—pots and pans, if you
will. At this point, rather than have you weed them out diligently, I would
encourage you to utilize serendipity. That word, as I am using it, means
"the discovery of that for which you are not looking."
In other words, I encourage you to anticipate that
your Being will uncover and reveal to you what is no longer useful to you,
thereby relieving you of the responsibility of personally having to ferret it
out. Serendipity is a delightful process, rather than a laborious one. And in
your willingness to lean into your Being, lean into Its movement of
Self-fulfillment, with the knowledge that it will uncover whatever is not
necessary to Its fulfillment so that it can be released, you will be practicing
serendipity.
In approaching it this way, you set yourself up for
experiencing the dependability of your Being—the fact that you can entrust yourself
to it totally, and that you, personally, do not have to "think" your
way into a state of enlightenment.
It is time for you to release effort from your
spiritual growth. That is one of your big "pots". We both know that
you do not "effort" as much as you used to, but effort is an exercise
of control. Control always arises out of the ego. So, effort blocks Knowing.
I want to emphasize the words, delight and
delightful—that serendipity is delightful, not effortful. You do not get into
the Kingdom of Heaven by the sweat of your brow, by your hard work, by your
self-discipline. You get in by allowing yourself in. The Kingdom of Heaven is
You! You are already present; therefore, you are already "in" the
Kingdom of Heaven.
By emphasizing the idea of serendipity, you
facilitate the process of allowing what You Are to replace what you think you
are and the thinking processes of that self, which actually block your
undistorted Self-experience. As long as the ethic of work can be kept in the
picture, you cannot make the shift, and it is time to turn the words
"work" and "effort" into dirty words—something you do not
want to indulge in.
QUESTION: Can you speak about Individuality? I am
having difficulty understanding what you mean by that word.
RAJ: The difficulty, of course, is in attempting to
express a Fourth-Dimensional Actuality in three-dimensional terms, when the
Fourth-Dimensional Actuality is completely experiential. Individuality is the
direct expression of the Life-Principle. Experientially they are not
distinguishable, but I must make a distinction between the Life-Principle, or
God, and Individuality when addressing those who are coming from an ego
orientation. It provides the bridge over which one can grasp or begin to
remember the fact that what God is, is what constitutes the experience of
conscious Individuality without allowing any prior ego sense of self to slip
into the new Self-definition. In other words, the ego cannot come across the
bridge that is being built to facilitate the shift in Self-identification,
which is called Awakening.
QUESTION: Is it correct that A Course In Miracles
was dictated by Jesus?
RAJ: That is correct.
QUESTION: If the personality known as Jesus long
ago...
RAJ: Individuality.
QUESTION: If the Individuality...aha!
RAJ: Personality is the ego sense of Self, the
distorted sense of individuality.
QUESTION: That answers the question. The question
was, if the personality known as Jesus had transcended the personal sense of
being in the full realization of Conscious Being, what persists in calling
itself "Jesus" to dictate a book?
RAJ: Individuality is ever present, even when
personality is the only thing, which is owned or, you might say, practiced. The
Individuality—which is forever Itself—which was identified as Jesus, humanly
speaking, remains the same Individuality that was present, which everyone else
called and recognized as Jesus.
His state of enlightenment allowed him to be Totally
Awakened Fourth-Dimensional Conscious Being at the very instant that everyone else
saw him as a mortal like themselves—a three-dimensional creature. His task
continues to this day.
Once it becomes clear to you, once you are not
suffering from any distorted ego sense, you are free to discern the divine
Individualities present right where little egos are parading themselves around.
Since every Individuality constitutes some facet of the infinitude of one's
Being, it becomes obvious that some facets of one's Being are asleep. This is
not Normal or Natural, and so, it becomes one's activity to bring all aspects
of his Being into conformity with Reality so that every last little bit of
ignorance is eliminated, every last little bit of separatism, fear, hate is
dissolved—washed clean, you could say.
Those who have ascended constitute the first stages
of the Ascension of the Brotherhood of Man. Because every other Individuality
who is still asleep constitutes some aspect of the infinitude of the awakened
one's Being, his awakening is not complete until everyone else has awakened
also. So, it becomes the work of the enlightened Ones to help the apparently
bound and unenlightened ones through that shift so that every facet can
simultaneously experience every other facet—or you could say the absolute
undistorted integrity of the Whole. This is why the fundamental of Jesus'
teaching was love.
Love is initially the recognition of the divine
Individuality that has to be present in order for an ego to seem to be
functioning, and then the providing of the environment in which that ego sense
of individuality can assume Its full Self-conscious Awareness. That which sees
the Reality substantiates the Reality.
Jesus' work did not end at the time of his
ascension. And, indeed, every other Individuality who has become totally
enlightened is engaged in one way or another in providing the environment in
which the "sleeping ones" can most easily release their dreams and
join the Whole in Its conscious experience of Its Integrity, Its Clarity, Its
Absolute divinity.