CONVERSATIONS WITH RAJ
SEPTEMBER 1985
Vol. 2, No. 9

QUESTION: Would you define the term "personal power"?

ANSWER: One must be careful, because the use of the word "personal" in front of "power" is quite capable of implying a personal form of power unique to one individual as opposed to another form of power unique to another individual, and the potential for conflict is still present. There is also a sense of there being a greater amount of power available than one already has. All of that falls in the category of the ego sense, and the simple fact is that the ego has no power except what you could call the "power of suggestion." The ego cannot make anything happen.

As one more significantly connects with and acts out from his Center, from what he is aware of from his Center, the more he is apparently empowered, for all practical purposes. His life, his contribution, and the apparent effect of his presence, become greater, more meaningful, because it becomes more transformational. Yet, to the individual, himself, he is aware of a profound powerlessness, in the old ego sense, because all he is doing is flowing with his Self, cooperating with his Self - not resisting It, not fighting It, not disagreeing with It, not conflicting with It. It is quite obvious to him that the harmony and the contributive effect doesn't come from his reasoning or thinking capacities.

In other words, the Power is inherent in one's Being, and there is no way for the ego sense of one's self to connect with It or feel that it is responsible. Yet, the results will be unavoidable, inescapable. It will become obvious that if he wants that Power to remain active, it is his responsibility not to engage with It or become preoccupied with It, but to insist on remaining in that Place where he willingly flows with his Being. One forfeits the ego sense of power for the Power of one's Being.

For clarification, that will not always be the way one experiences the Power of his Being. The time will come when one decides to forfeit his residual private sense of selfhood that is "flowing with" his Being. In effect, he will get up enough nerve, enough confidence, to identify himself with and as his Being, and he will no longer "listen" to It. He will own It and be It. Then he will be truly empowered, but there will be no ego sense around it. He will experience himself in his universal aspect, where there is no willfulness to the Power, whatsoever, and to his ability to create, because he will simply be the process of Creation, which everyone has always assigned to a God "out-there."

There will be no loss of the experience of Individuality, and yet at the same time he will be totally conscious of the universal Nature of his Being. He will not experience himself as being different from and separate from other individualities, and each, in flowing with his Being, will apparently function in absolute creative Harmony with every other Individuality. There will be total freedom in a context of total Harmony, without competition and without conflict.

As long as any ego sense remains, the full empowering of your experience of your Self will not come into view. It is impossible for the ego to access that Power, and it is impossible to experience that Power while the ego is present. As one consciously sets the ego sense aside in favor of accessing the deeper levels of his Being, the empowering will begin to be evidenced in his life. But, as I said, it will be impossible for him to in any way take credit for what is happening, so completely separated is the ego sense from the Actuality of one's Being. This is why the element of trust is so essential to the whole process.

QUESTION: Can you speak to me about "individuality"?

ANSWER: The first thing about Individuality to consider and give your attention to is your very own, because it is your experiential comprehension of your Individuality, which will tell you something of every other Individuality who exists, no matter what his shape, background, or apparent point of origin in the universe.

As it has been said so often, you cannot understand someone else until you understand yourself. This is very literally true. Therefore, the primary focus of investigation needs to be one's own Individuality, one's Self. In other words, you must be the guinea pig because in your process of Self-discovery, others will begin to find themselves able to relate to you with less facade, without their masks, from the deeper levels of their Self-awareness, which they would otherwise hide.

You ask about "thinking." Yet, in your process of Self-discovery, you will not utilize your thinking processes, and this, in itself, will place the process of thinking into its proper perspective. It is not a means to an end. It is the means of expressing or sharing experientially perceived ends. In other words, thinking does not move you to a point of Knowing. Knowing occurs prior to thinking, and the thinking process only helps you to translate the Knowing into communicable terms.

You will, of course, have to deal with people who are not perceiving their Individuality clearly, and who are acting out from conceptual structures, which we have called the ego. Ordinarily one attempts to grasp the ego structures, which another is employing, so as to be most effective in dealing with that ego, even though it is not generally thought through in those terms and happens rather automatically.

As one begins more and more to experience himself from the level of his Individuality, from the level of his Being or Knowing, he no longer attempts to deal with these apparent egos in a calculated way, but simply observes the dynamic of that ego from the level of his Knowing. Thus, he is able, without preplanning, to spontaneously deal with the essential dynamics and sidestep the nonessential ego structures. The effect of doing this promotes the ability of the Individuality underlying the ego, which is presenting itself to the one coming from the level of his Being, to shift his allegiance from his ego self-perceptions to his more natural, more comfortable Being level. As a result, the process of communication is transformational.

Again, everything you learn about your Self - and I am not referring to the ego, here - serves as the fundamentally enlightening dynamic that allows you to approach and deal with people, others, in a more creative way - in a way that more easily arrives at the fulfillment of need.

QUESTION: Can you speak to me about creativity, motivation, and action? I'd like to concentrate on motivation and action, because we get information, but we're either reluctant, afraid, or lack the motivation to take it into action.

ANSWER: The inhibitor of motivation is fear, which stems from ego self-perceptions: fear of failure, fear of losing something - one's job, for example - fear of looking like a fool, fear of losing the respect of those around one.

The problem stems from the means of self-identification. When one sees oneself as an organism that has, through evolution, developed the capacity to think, then insight - the experience of creativity - is not seen to be an essential element of one's Being, but rather as a fluke of evolution. That does not inspire confidence in the process of creativity. And it is really only those hardy souls who have a thick enough skin and a serious enough devotion to what they feel deeply, who will involve themselves actively in the creative process because of that finite ego self-sense or definition.

Once it begins to be grasped that Being is, Itself, Creation, that it is the movement of Fulfillment, which never repeats Itself and never bases what It is Being on what It "has been," and that indeed, this is the definition of Individuality, of Conscious Being, then the level of trust around the essential function of one's Self will increase. The fear will decrease because it will be reasonable to assume that because Creation is, Itself, the movement or process of the fulfillment of Being, that the inevitable result will be affirmative success, rather than a haphazard resolution of a fundamental fluke of nature. This will spur the intent to carry out, to act out or express what is unfolding.

There should be the greatest support for this kind of shift of self-identification. This is the bottom line, which needs to be emphasized, because it is the key to what you call "progress". It is the key to Enlightenment, Awakening - literally moving through and out of the human, organismic sense inherent in Darwin's theory of evolution and into what can be described in no other way than the divine status of Man as Conscious Being, Fourth-dimensional Conscious Being.

QUESTION: I am told that I have an assortment of things wrong with my body, including candida, a problem with my colon, etc. Am I to buy into all of this?

ANSWER: The simple fact is that you do not have candida. There is nothing wrong with your colon. You are, indeed, approaching a threshold, which there is an underlying fear to cross over. But, let me assure you that the only thing that can bring you up to a threshold, or an artificial boundary of any kind, is your Being! The ego certainly will not bring you up against it, because the boundary constitutes the ego's definition, and it will not sacrifice itself.

It is the intent of your Being to fulfill Itself perfectly. It is the intent of your Body to identify you/your Being perfectly. To the degree that you are willing to trust into those Facts, and to the degree that you lower the level of distrust around your body, you will find things coming back into their natural, "physical" order. I put the word "physical" in quotes because in actuality there is nothing physical - in the sense of being material - about your body. It is the visibility and tangibility of your Individuality, and your Individuality is absolutely mental.

Now, that which is mental, or shall we even say spiritual, cannot be translated into visibility and tangibility by means of something totally unlike itself called matter" - that which somehow is supposed to exist on its own, independently, in a self-originated way in time and space.

Please dare to relax and trust the fundamental Purpose or Intent, which your Body has, and your Being has, and stop taking a defensive stance against it. That is the fundamental source of the distress you are experiencing physically. You are not treating your body as your natural ally, but as something which you have to whip into shape, beat into submission, coerce into orderliness, as though it were a fundamentally disorderly opponent, which did not have your best interests at heart.

It is the antagonistic stance, which grows out of fear (which grows out of a misunderstanding of your body's fundamental Purpose) that causes the physical dysfunctions that you or anyone else encounters when it comes to their body. This is a very simple, uncomplicated point to grasp, but a very impactful thing to learn.

QUESTION: One of the problems that many very beautiful people have is that they have an incredible power and/or beauty or strength, and they're afraid of that power. They will do almost anything but own that power. Is that strictly an ego thing?

ANSWER: Always. In fact, everyone is experiencing that very dynamic, although not necessarily to the same degree. The only reason you are not experiencing being totally Awakened is the fear of owning the totality of What You Are. That fear does not originate in You, but in the ego sense that has evolved in this lifetime, even though that belief system may be supported by similar processes in prior lifetimes.

At the bottom line, everyone is afraid of experiencing too much good, too much happiness, too much success, too much fulfillment, too much of their Wholeness! That is the only reason there is any partial, limited experience of the Wholeness of Who and What One Is.

QUESTION: Why could we possibly be afraid of something so beautiful? Why would we opt to shut ourselves off from this?

ANSWER: It is really the tiny, fragmented ego sense which is afraid, because it knows it will lose its sense of existence as You regain your conscious experience of Your Wholeness. The ego sense, at its deepest level, knows that its existence is fallacious, false, imaginary, suppositional. Because of this, its existence depends on its ability to suggest - as in the power of suggestion - that its existence is valid, and its ability to defend itself by projecting a sense of fear around any attempts you might make at regaining your conscious experience of your Wholeness.

Now, you must understand that in one way this is a very mechanical process. Because, the moment one forsakes the Fourth-dimensional or Whole view of himself, and limits himself to the first three dimensions as the frame of reference through which he is going to experience Existence, it immediately causes him to feel as though he, as a part of the Whole, is located somewhere inside the Whole, and that, indeed, all the parts of the Whole are something entirely separate from what he essentially is. Yet, this Wholeness that is experienced in this separated or divided way is really the Wholeness of his Being, which would be totally apparent from the Fourth-dimensional frame of reference.

The three-dimensional-only frame of reference, itself, is limiting in exactly the same way that the general belief structure of men regarding the shape of the earth at the time of Columbus actively inhibited the discovery of the fact that one could not fall off the "edge" of the earth, because there was no edge. It is round. The ignorant fear, itself, projects the images, which create fear at the very point where the fact is available to be discerned. All around the four "sides" of the earth, the "edges," as it were, the fear of men projected sea serpents - things that would destroy you before you even had a chance to destroy yourself by failing off the edge.

Likewise, the three-dimensional-only frame of reference, which is called the ego frame of reference, projects fearsome images around the very points at which one can access his greater capacity to be aware. It, in fact, projects the idea that you will fall into oblivion, that your desire to move beyond those points is caused by evil spirits, the devil.

Again, in Christian terms, the ego projects demons, gargoyles, around the Door to the Kingdom of Heaven so that the moment you begin to get close to Home, you are afraid. You are afraid of going crazy, that you are stepping off the deep end, that you are being irrational, irresponsible, and stupid. The boundaries, this time, are mental, not physical, and therefore the projected forms that block your way are equally mental, as the list indicates. The principle is the same.

You, at the very deepest levels of your Being, at this very instant, are unavoidably unseparated from your remembrance of Who and What You Are. You cannot ignore it completely. The Totality of You is functioning in Its Wholeness, and as part of that function, insinuates Itself into your present limited conscious awareness, moving you up against your limits - up against the ego's limits - and lovingly moving you through them as you will allow.

One may initially, consciously choose to view things through the exciting and scary lens of the three-dimensional frame of reference, but at the potential cost of losing his bearings, losing his infinite Groundedness, at the risk of not being able to regain it because the three-dimensional view is so captivating.

So, you see, part of the problem is inherent in having shifted to a three-dimensional-only standpoint. Inherent in that standpoint is a separated sense of self - meaning separated from what one Wholly Is, and separated from the conscious experience of the Oneness of himself and every aspect of his conscious experience. It is this tiny ego sense that resists.

QUESTION: I'm reading a book, which expresses the idea that earth is a school. Is everyone here to learn the same lesson?

ANSWER: Although the Kingdom of Heaven is not a "classroom," it is the only Place there is to experience. Thus, when one subjects himself to ignorance, the very Place of his Wholeness becomes a "learning tool" - a school, if you will - simply because what follows the embracing of ignorance is the process of Enlightenment.

Now, from the Absolute standpoint, Enlightenment is ridiculous. One does not "progress." One infinitely be's. It could be called "unfoldment" simply because Mind never stops to repeat Itself. Being never stops to repeat Itself. It is always being Itself new, but not in the sense of moving toward something. It is an infinite unfolding of the Now of Being, with no place to move toward and no place that it is coming from.

So, the earth, being an aspect of the Kingdom of Heaven, the infinite Reality of Being, is experienced as a school. It and every other conscious experience become learning tools by means of which those who have embraced ignorance may apparently be reawakened.

Although it is difficult to grasp, the simple fact is that the partial view is illusory. It is experienced by only a part of Your conscious awareness. The other 98% of your conscious awareness is fully aware of Itself in its infinite perspective. So, when you apparently awaken and the two percent that thinks it is really something releases its structures, it will become apparent to you that You never were asleep, and You never went through a process of Enlightenment, of learning, of going through lifetime after lifetime after lifetime.

It will be apparent to you that the illusion was, itself, an illusion. As I said, it is difficult to grasp, but you will realize that it never happened, and it never happened to you. Everything that seems so important and so imperative to you at this moment will not be seen as such. Nothing that is real will disappear, but you will be amazed to find how much of what you see is distorted by this tiny, private sense of self, with all of its traumas and problems, and its struggle to grow and become enlightened.

This is why I say that one must allow himself into the Kingdom of Heaven - you might say, into his right Mind - and that the key element to that allowing is one's desire, without any effort being made to implement it - just abiding with the desire. There is no way to have the desire from an intellectual, ego place. The ego couldn't even consider it. So, any level of desire you find yourself experiencing for Awakening is the evidence of your being Awake. It is the Presence of the Reality of your Being piercing through the ego's shell and, as I said, insinuating Itself into your present sense of things.

QUESTION: I have a lot of trouble with my leg. I have a lot of pain all the time. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to alleviate it, and will I someday not have this pain?

ANSWER: First of all, I want it to be very clear to you that it is your birthright to be free of pain, and your birthright can never be taken away from you. So, do not ever settle into an attitude of acceptance of the condition or the pain and believe that you must just put up with it for the rest of your life. If you indulge in such a belief, all it will mean is that you are not hooking into your Power for your health. You will have voluntarily set it aside because, to the human sense of things, "you have no other choice."

It is not necessary for you to ignore your birthright. Now, when I say "birthright," I am not referring to your human birth. I am referring to what is inherently yours as a result of your existing, because your existence is the manifestation of the Movement of the Life-Principle, or God, and you, your entire Being, are the evidence of that Movement of the Life-Principle. Therefore, you are the evidence of the Life-Principle in Action, and you are not the puny little human being that your puny little ego-thinking defines your self as!

It is the intent of your body to identify the presence of your Individuality perfectly. It has no ability to do otherwise. The distortions in its perfect functioning seem to manifest because you believe only what you see, hear, taste, smell and feel. You assume that you are what you appear to be, and what centuries of misguided thoughts have evolved about who and what men are, and which you were taught as you grew up.

You did not arise out of the ooze and slime of prehistoric swamps. You are not a part of an evolutionary chain of physical being. You are the Presence of the infinite Mind as It is unfolding Itself, and your body and your world are literally the visibility and tangibility of that infinite Intelligence - that infinite Intelligence that constitutes your Individuality.

Now, if you buy into Darwin's theory, you will be stuck with the legs you are experiencing at this moment. But, his theory is just that - a theory, an idea conceived in the mind of man within the context of explaining existence on the basis of what appears. You do not have to buy into it.

Your mind is not the end result of the evolution of a physical organism. Your mind is the very Presence of the Life-Principle, the infinite, divine Mind. It only seems to lack in its infinity because you presently utilize only the data provided by the five physical senses. However, when you do become Centered, when you do lean into your intuitive Knowing, you are effectively moving beyond the range of the physical senses and tapping into your capacities and your Nature as Consciousness - Conscious Being - and you are lining yourself up for the greater experience of the divine Actuality of your Self.

Your legs have a reason for existing. They have a function to fulfill. They are not something to be risen above or someday gotten rid of by virtue of dying out of your body. Sooner or later, you will recognize the eternal Actuality of your Body. It might as well be sooner! You might as well begin now to acknowledge that your body has an intent, as I said, and that that intent is absolutely divine in nature, because it is rendering visible your Individuality, and your Individuality is the direct expression of God. Therefore, your body's function is to render visible the Presence of God. Therefore, it must in every way be your ally, and worthy of your trust, rather than distrust.

Bring your trust to this fundamental intent of your body, regardless of what appears to be going on, regardless of what it feels like. Admire and honor its divine intent. The development of the current attitude you have toward your body is, itself, what has contributed to the distorted experience of it, and it has brought about a level of distrust, a level of frustration. It is the "thinking" that you should distrust and be frustrated by. Being frustrated by the body distracts you from where the problem lies. It misses the point that you are exercising distrust and then defensiveness against your body. As a result, you live in a state of war, which is totally groundless.

I encourage you to love your legs - not the ones that are there hurting - but the Meaning, the Intent that is there and experienced as legs. Stop fighting your body. Stop fighting your legs. Stop defending yourself against your legs. All there is to them is Intent, and the Intent is divine, and they are on your side. Treat them that way, and you will have set aside your conditioned thinking, your education about your body, and as you release that conditioning and replace it with appreciation, you will find every aspect of the negative condition dissolving.

You literally are not bound! And you need not expect to experience discomfort any longer than you choose to indulge in a conflicted attitude about your body. It (the body) is not unspiritual. It is not mortal and material. Do not demean it! Acknowledge and appreciate its divine purpose for existing, and you will see it reflecting back to you what you are looking at it with.

QUESTION: Can you tell us about karma - is it real, or is it an illusion?

ANSWER: To be totally honest with you, karma is a concoction of the ego, which allows guilt to be laid upon you, not only from this life time, but from extended lifetimes in the past. It serves no purpose other than to keep you in a state of conflict. You see, the process of Waking Up is a process which arises out of trust, and it is impossible to trust your Being, your Self, if you are suffering from guilt.

If you are going to use the word "karma" at all, it must be understood that it is a pay-as-you-go affair. You can not accrue a debt, karmic or otherwise, which you will pay for at some future time. There is no axe somewhere ahead of you, waiting to fall when you get there. The only thing you suffer from is ignorance, and you suffer only from the ignorance you are currently under. In other words, you currently suffer for whatever ignorance you are experiencing in the moment. You are not suffering from an ignorance you experienced three lifetimes ago.

The simple fact is that the moment clarification occurs, the moment enlightenment occurs, the ignorance is gone, and, along with it, the suffering that accompanied it.

If you do not know how to appropriately make change for a dollar bill, you will constantly be subject to suffering being short-changed or short-changing the one you are making change for. And so, the suffering is current with the ignorance. Once you understand how to make change correctly, you are no longer subject to suffering being short-changed or short- changing another.

It is extremely important for you to be present in the Now. You stand at the threshold of discovery, at the threshold of clarification, enlightenment, transformation. That is what the Moment of Consciousness that you are always in is constituted of - pure opportunity. If you are preoccupied with a past, whether it is good or bad, you are not totally present in the Moment, and you are therefore not totally open to the opportunity dynamic of your Being.

Literally, the release of the past and the release of a preoccupation with the future allows you to be present on what you might call the "razor's edge" of the Instant of Conscious Experience that you are in. And it is in that Instant that your opportunity for transcending your present sense of yourself and your present sense of your world can occur. The Wholeness of your Conscious Experience of Being is only present to be experienced in the Instant of consciousness, which you are experiencing. This is why it is so important to allow yourself to relax into the Moment you are in.

The majority of the energy which you expend is spent being concerned about what is going to happen - the bill that is going to come in the mail tomorrow, the meeting you have to attend the day after tomorrow, etcetera. The fact is, that if you were to allow yourself to simply be fully present, giving your attention to the Now that you are in when it is time for you to simply fix a bowl of cereal, you would find no difficulty in responding appropriately to the need in the moment.

Because of your capacity to imagine, you can imagine your future, and then you can even react to your imagination of that future as though it were the real future, and yet it is all imaginary. What isn't imaginary is what is going on in your conscious experience at the moment that you are conscious. If every single one of you will allow yourself to be present in the moment at every moment through this weekend, letting Monday take care of itself when it gets here, you will have begun to learn a skill that will allow you to deal with Monday better, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, etcetera.

The world will not collapse if you are not prepared today, for something that is going to happen next Thursday. It is very important to be willing to drop any form of the concept of karma, any means one has for justifying guiltiness. It is an ego ploy, as I said, aimed at keeping you out of Peace, and apparently proving to you that you do not have a right to Peace

QUESTION: My impression of karma is that it doesn't include guilt. I'm surprised that you refer to it as an implement of guilt.

ANSWER: The concept of karma is a three-dimensional concept of action and reaction. It involves a duality, which needs to be released.

Mind moves, and the Movement is experienced as conscious awareness, and Mind experiences that Movement as an infinitude of form. The Movement is the action. There is nothing outside of the infinite Oneness of Being, which can react to the Movement of Being, other than the acknowledgement, which Mind makes of Its Movement. In Biblical terms - after the apparent creation of the world - it says, "and God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." In other words, "and behold, it was verily God." It constituted Self-recognition. Yet, that is not a reaction, but the conclusion of that conscious Movement of Mind - infinite Intelligence.

The moment you have action and reaction, you have division, and this division can only seem to occur in an imaginative way, an artificial way, because in the Oneness of Being there cannot be reaction. This division is the fundamental basis upon which the ego develops.

As I said, karma is a pay-as-you-go affair. You do not act at one point and thereby accrue to your debt an obligation to pay for that action. Likewise, a positive act does not include a delayed experience of Joy. The ignorance you currently experience is, itself, the simultaneous source of suffering. The clear act arising out of a connectedness with Who and What You Really Are, is itself, the constituting Presence of Harmony, Joy, and there is no delay to It. Action and reaction require time, and you do not exist in time, even though you imagine that you do. You exist in the instant of Conscious Awareness, which is infinite "in all directions".