The Sure Cure for Whatever Disturbs You

by Guy Finley -

Power, who has it and who doesn't, seems to determine in this world who pushes and who gets shoved. And given our preference, if we must choose one, we would rather be doing the pushing.

The only problem is that on the level of this field of choices, whether to push or be pushed, everyone loses because push always comes to shove.

The really incredible part of all of this is that there is no real worldly or personal power to be found here at all.

Even more amazingly, we discover to our great relief that, when it comes to true security and contentment, none is needed. That's right. This is because there is a third choice. This third and higher choice is the choice to be left alone. 

The following will help you to understand this new and truly powerful idea:

There is no power on earth that can make you feel safe and secure, because it isn't this world that threatens or disturbs you. You seek worldly and personal power because you are dominated by your own thoughts and feelings.

It is your own undeveloped nature that punishes you because it doesn't as yet understand that the disturbance it perceives as being outside of itself is itself. And so this unconscious nature keeps you ever seeking power and authority in the hopes that with enough of it, you will eventually have the force to be able to control your life.

This is like throwing a rock into a pond to quiet the ripples. The more you toss in, the more waves you get. That is why what you really want is to leave yourself alone.

We seek self-power because we are dominated by our own feelings. We are taken over by our own reactions.

This is painful for us because our original nature, our True Self, longs to be free and unencumbered by self-limiting, self-defeating, compulsive thoughts and feelings. 

The problem is at our present undeveloped level, we believe that another person or event is causing our unhappy feelings.

We want power over them in the hope that it will give us power over our punishing feelings. Can you see that this approach to self-command is doomed from its ill-conceived beginning?

Look for this power to be happy not in a person, place, possession, idea or belief, but through the new understanding that your higher, permanent nature needs no power outside of itself in order to be in charge of an inner or outer attacker.

Its strength is what the author calls the Silent Force. 

It alone can do for you what you have been unable to do for yourself.

The Silent Force is the understanding that you need not answer any disturbance within you. 

Any form of response to a negative state, other than to silently observe it, is always a form of resistance to it. And what we resist, persists. 

You have been taught by wrong example and false traditions that negative thoughts and feelings such as fear, anger and hatred are something you are responsible for; that they belong to you.

Which brings us to a very important idea: you are indeed responsible for them, but not to them. Inner aches and dark feelings are not yours. 

They never have been and they never will be no matter how much these inner-impostors try to convince you otherwise.

It is unnatural for any human being to be dominated by anything.

Your only true responsibility is to understand this higher fact. And your corrected understanding places you in the right relationship with all gloomy thoughts and defeated feelings; which is that you simply have nothing to do with them. 

We are not saying to act or pretend as though dark feelings don't exist. This is very important to understand because pretending as though a rampaging elephant isn't there or that it's a cute bunny may feel good temporarily but it leaves you in danger.

Seeing the elephant and recognizing it for what it is allows Intelligence to take you where you need to be-which is out of the jungle.

No grief or disturbance of any kind is yours. These huge inner-shadows with all their howling may be present, but where is it written that they belong to you?

When we walk through a zoo, we don't identify with the shrieks and whines of the animals, so why do we fall into the self-confining cage of trying to make what is dark into what is light? 

Ever tried yelling at a bunch of chattering chimps or squawking birds to quiet them down? Insisting that they settle down just disturbs them all the more. 

Inwardly, the same law holds true. 

Whenever we seek some power to make a fear go away, all we have done is empower the fear. There is no power that can make light out of darkness.

Remember this lesson the next time you feel compelled to help yourself out of a dark inner-thought or feeling. 

Remember the Silent Force. Go silent! This silence and inner-light will do for you what you have not been able to do for yourself.

It will turn the dark inner-skies into pleasant blue ones. Go silent and watch the dark clouds of thoughts and feelings pass through you. Behind them is the sun. 

excerpt from 'The Secret of Letting Go'

guyfinley.org