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exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity


 

How To Sit Quietly
In A Room Alone

August Goforth: The nature of the Authentic Self is to enjoy, rather than endure, an experience. It is always at rest – resting in joy.

 


 

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Editor’s note: Though we’ve talked only a few times over the years, I consider August Goforth a friend, a like-minded investigator of what’s real.

Recently, he sent to me his article on the “Simulate Self.” It’s so well-articulated that I needed to include it here.

Here’s what August says about himself:

August Goforth, along with his transitioned companion, Timothy Gray, is one of the many authors of The Risen: Dialogues of Love, Grief & Survival Beyond Death – 21st Century Reports from the Afterlife Through Contemplative, Intuitive, & Physical Mediumship.

A licensed psychotherapist in private practice in New York City, August is also an intuitive medium with physical mediumship tendencies. He works with several groups of non-embodied entities who are developing approaches of therapeutic support for psychospiritual challenges arising within the mediumistic experience. He aspires to start a circle for physical mediumship in New York. Contact: AugustGoforth@therisenbooks.com

You can read his blog here: augustgoforth.blogspot.com

 

 

August offered this preface: "You might find this writing to be useful, which has been distilled from the several books, and which I share with some of my psychotherapy patients who are in the process of awakening to a Greater Reality."

Editor's note: I've taken the liberty to inject dark brown bold-type paragraph dividers plus highlightings in red and yellow.

 

 

Ego-Mind & Simulate Selves

This information is to help us learn to discern the difference between our own mental voices and our Authentic Voice. It might be rather challenging and dense with possibly new and strange information. It will be repeated several times in different ways to assist with gradual understanding. The difficulty in understanding it as you read may arise from ego-mind trying to get you to not understand it. This isn’t a race or contest, so read at your own pace. Be kind to yourself, and take what fits and leave the rest. This is a good place to keep the following in mind:

The words may not make conscious sense at this time,

But my inner senses comprehend and retain

The knowledge for Authentic Self.

All thoughts we experience arise through ego-mind. Note the emphasis on “experience.” Thoughts don’t originate from ego-mind, but arise through our mind. Mostly, they’re allowed to pass through by undisciplined ego-mind—and we then experience them and their effects. “Discipline” means to learn.

Because we haven’t taught ego-mind to let us make the final decision about our thoughts, it has taught us to do what it decides instead. Thus for the vast majority of us, our ego-mind is undisciplined. As we move forward with this discussion, unless otherwise clarified let it be assumed that when mentioned it is with the understanding that it is about an undisciplined ego-mind.

Thoughts may come unbidden to the doorway of our mind, and then we often invite them in. For most, the undisciplined ego-mind has gained control of the door, deciding which thoughts to let in. Perhaps you can see thoughts as creatures flying about, looking for a place to perch. You can also understand why it’s important to be aware of what kind of creatures they are, and if you should accept them by letting them into your mind.

Picture it like this—if unhealthy, negative thoughts get into the house of your mind wherein you mentally reside, they will trash the place, eat all the food, crap on the rugs and play all kinds of annoying music nonstop, without permission or caring about you, their host. So why would you let them in to begin with? How do you get them out? Is your door even closed, or just open to any and all strangers? Some information will be offered to consider and which might be helpful in stimulating you to find your own creative answers.

If you and I were talking together, we would be primarily aware of our conversation, and less so of other sources of incoming data all around us, such as a ticking clock, a siren outside, even bodily hunger or thirst.

Or you are so focused on reading a book that you fail to hear someone knocking at the door. This is egomind functioning properly. It is meant to be a kind of psychological mesh or screen to filter out unnecessary incoming information, so we don’t get overwhelmed by too much of the googolplex of bits of data circling around us, and then short circuit or even shut down. It’s a mental component evolved to help us stay alert and focused. But at some point—far, far back in earthly time, ego-mind managed to gain practically complete control of our minds because we increasingly allowed it to be the primary decider of what gets in and stays in.

So instead of an advocate it’s become more of a weapon, aimed at others and taking us as its hostage to protect its own interest in survival.

Ego-mind knows that it will cease functioning when the material body dissipates. Authentic Self knows that It will survive for always. The arrogant ego-mind greatly resents this fact. It has discovered that fear is a quick source of energy, which it believes it can use to grow stronger and survive, while keeping Authentic Self from interfering with its little kingdom of paranoia. Obviously, using more fear to protect oneself from fear doesn’t make sense; it’s not sane. But this is exactly what ego-mind does in its non-sanity. Authentic Self can choose to address fear with love, of which there is an infinite source.

Editor's note: These are the two general rules. However, if one crosses over as an immature ego, the trouble continues. See the article on "the 500 testimonies from the other side."

Our bioform is sometimes referred to as a vehicle, which can be a helpful metaphor to begin grasping some of its intricate complexities. For the majority of us, ego-mind is the unauthorized driver of our vehicle, while we sleep in the back seat, unaware of Authentic Self. Ego-mind’s driving tends to be bizarre while insisting it’s always right. It will do anything to survive and stay in control. Even if we should somehow manage to get it in the back seat, it will continue to annoy us with know-it-all back-seat driving or incessantly whining, “Are we there yet?” while pestering us to let it drive until we finally give in.

Ego-mind will often defend itself by manifesting what will be referred to here as simulate selves, giving rise to the deceptive experience that there are many selves with different voices within us. These selves are all mostly at odds with one another, resulting in chaos and fear, and making—or manufacturing—the appearance that our mind is fractured and torn apart. This appearance is an illusion we believe to be real and so we let it frighten us. The resulting fear is more energy for ego-mind’s plan to rule the world.

A simulate self is an obsessively opinionated, decision-making psychological component manufactured by ego-mind for the purpose of maintaining control of our vehicle. Ego-mind creates a simulate self as a kind of mask, which we then wear as our personality. Most of us have many masks, and so therefore have numerous personalities with their own voices, depending on the survival drama we are acting out and with whom.

The ancient, fear-based control system of ego-mind is tribal and so is defensive, aggressively competitive, and judgmental. Its simulate selves act out and voice judgments, using phrases such as better than/less than, best/worst, superior/inferior, evolved/degenerate, elite/common, chosen/damned, exclusive/low class, special/ordinary; new and improved, fashionable, restricted, and classified.

Gossip, complaint, and criticism are food and drink to ego-mind. The personality of a simulate self is motivated by ego-mind’s need for the power of fame and recognition, and fueled by envy and opposition.

Insatiably seeking entertainment, glee and gloating best describe ego-mind’s sense of humor, which is delivered by certain simulate selves with jealousy and resentment. Ego-mind loves competitive contests. It enjoys disasters, attracts them and even manufactures them through its simulate selves.

Ego-mind was originally designed to keep an eye out for us, to detect any incoming stimuli that might be detrimental to our well-being, and then make a decision about the information. Decisions are based in the present only, yet ego-mind does not have the ability to wait, which is something only a truly conscious mind can do. Ego-mind has not only learned how to worry, but to worry about worry, and so is primarily future-oriented.

Its unhealthy language, which is couched in negative suggestions, generates anxiety and panic attacks. It will seize upon the body’s minor aches and pains and escalate them into mental terrors and fantasies about disease and bodily death.

Ego-mind’s development began very soon after the dawning of human consciousness, and so it is the original and most ancient source of human-generated deities that demand unquestioned authority. This means that from very early on, we learned to believe that we have no real authority over ourselves—that to be an Authentic Self who makes all the decisions is blasphemy.

The words may not make conscious sense at this time,

But my spiritual senses comprehend and retain

The knowledge for Authentic Self.

 

the Authentic Self is already awake, but we are not awakened to it

Authentic Self has been called the Hidden Observer, Higher Self, Higher Power, the Oversoul—there are as many ways to label it as there are individuals to say it. Stilling the incessant criticism of ego-mind will eventually result in an awakening to Authentic Self—yet not an awakening of it, for it is already awake and just seems hidden because it is much quieter than ego-mind. Sometimes this hiddenness is interpreted as being asleep, but Authentic Self can’t really be said to be asleep or awake in the way we on Earth can be, because that state which we want to call “awake” as contrasted with “not awake” does not exist on a pendulum of is or is-not—there are no pendulums in the full awareness of Self.

Few Earth-embodied people are fully awake and consciously aware of Authentic Self or of ego-mind, although it appears that increasingly more people are awakening. Still, the vast majority of people are moving about in the world with ego-mind in the driving seat while they sleep in the back, occasionally and briefly waking to look at the scenery passing them by, wondering how they got there, but then quickly falling back into a coma. Ego-mind’s driving is compulsive, habitual, irrational, and its ever-increasing neuroticism is generally uncontrollable because of our ignorant sleep-walking. It has taken refuge by hiding in our underconscious, from where it secretly dictates most if not all of our mental direction. In other words, it completely controls the illusion we are told to call our world.

Because of the unlimited energy we unknowingly give it through self-unawareness and fear, ego-mind is able to present and maintain the appearance of a self-aware consciousness. In effect, this simulacrum or imitation manifests its own kind of form—the personality of a simulate self—and simultaneously projects an emotional environment for this form. It’s important to remember that fear projects illusions, while love extends reality. The projected environment arises from the multitude of anxious thoughts we allow ego-mind to generate and amplify, drawing from the vast expanses of energy generated by our fear and trembling, which trap us behind illusory mental walls. An extended reality—which is not a projection—has no boundaries, and allows us to move freely about in the universe.

Fear projects illusions, while love extends reality.

The label false self has been popularly utilized by many modern psychological models. The word “false” usually brings up the idea of something bad or unhealthy. This idea suggests that this “other self” is not only sick but that the assumed personality is essentially sinful, and so the personality as well as the real person beneath it needs to be controlled, changed, rescued, healed, or eliminated. However, the real person, or Authentic Self, is already perfect as created. But because of the inferred illness or sinfulness there is usually an attack on one’s own bioform or on another’s in some way. The ensuing violence is then directed—or selfdirected—toward the simulate self while actually impacting the physical body. Authentic Self can neither be attacked nor hurt or killed, but it can fade from our self-awareness as we fall into a kind of sleep or dream because of fear—which pinches off the flow of Creative Source through us. Ego-mind can assault and cause suffering to the simulate selves of other ego-minds, and even its own simulate selves.

To avoid strengthening established negative connotations, the false self has been reintroduced here as the simulate self. The terms simulate self, ego-mind, personality, character, and even identity can all be exchanged for one another because they are essentially the same in their illusory concepts, actions, affects, and effects.

 

one's personality is not the Authentic Self

Ego-mind can fabricate, present, and maintain a personality or identity to appear real and to use to appeal to others. This personality is a simulated or simulate self. It is programed by ego-mind to assign the greatest importance to itself as our personality regarding the affairs of the outer and inner worlds. It is extremely valuable to keep in mind that our personality is not who we authentically are at the core of our immortal existence. Personality is not Authentic Self. Our simulate selves and the simulate selves of others will support one another’s personalities in order to keep the illusion of personality sustained. “Flattery will get you anywhere” is one example of ego-mind’s manipulative agenda. Ego-mind convinces us to make it our primary identity, and so whenever our ego is threatened we are influenced to believe that Authentic Self is threatened. However, being immortal, Authentic Self has nothing to fear.

It is a relentless suggestion of an undisciplined ego-mind that we let it take the reins of our mental processes. Once we agree to this, it can then fulfill its agenda that everything would be easier and better if we just forget that it exists and let it continue on in its delusions while concealed in our under-consciousness. We are then “permitted” to continue on in our lives in complete unawareness of it. Most of us end up agreeing to this conspiracy with little or no questioning, much less with any conscious awareness of the situation or of having made any such agreement.

Ego-mind makes its temporary home in our material body’s mental areas of the underconscious. The core True Self or Authentic Self dwells within the higher-vibrating, non-mental areas of our interpenetrating material, etheric, and astral bodies. This is why some refer to it as Higher Self; “Higher Nature” can also be utilized.

Although undisciplined ego-mind seeks to condition us, Authentic Self can never be conditioned. Authentic Self does not think or have thoughts, although it can observe them as they arise through the mind. As unaware beings whose lives are dictated by ego-generated beliefs, we allow ego-mind’s channeling of energy to sustain the reigning belief that the simulate self is the Authentic Self. We then give ego-mind the power to rule our body, our environment, and our life by its appropriation of thoughts and in any way it chooses. Or we can consciously stand guard at our mind’s threshold, opening its door only to those thoughts we deem whole (or holy) and therefore safe.

The manifested outer world—the Tao’s “ten thousand things”—is projected by ego-mind. The egomind’s perceived projection is a presumption of reality, giving rise to illusions it suggests we should experience as “the world.” Ego-mind will unfailingly and skillfully use the illusion of any form of presumed, perceived loss—grief, fear, sadness, regret, doubt, anxiety and so on—to keep us from connecting with and awakening to true, present reality. Awareness of one’s immortal existence—one’s true presence—within an infinite universe of experience reveals that “loss” is only a thought, an idea with no basis in reality whatsoever. We forget to laugh at such an amusing idea.

A smile can change the course of our direction for the better.

The presumption of loss arises from insufficient experiential awareness, which is misinterpreted as actual lack or less-than and sometimes even misconstrued as a kind of “more-than.” Insufficient experiential awareness arises from fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety are generated by undisciplined ego-mind to keep the illusion of the presumed perceptions projected. This becomes a circular and repetitive cycle. This circumscription of the life experience manifests an “edge,” beyond which is a presumed unknown which serves as the threatening guard to keep us from exploring beyond out prison’s perimeters, where we would otherwise expand and continuously experience awareness of our immortality. (See below for discussion about the edge.)

Undisciplined ego-mind detests change of any kind, for change signals transition—or at the very least suggests the idea of death—and so it works continuously to use fear to keep the status quo. Yet change is how transitional mutation—or transmutation—comes about, and transmutation is how a manifested universe allows us to relocate from one state of being to another, while simultaneously being that experience, i.e., Authentic Self-awareness.

The dissolution of ego-mind and its simulate selves at the time of our transition is inevitable, which egomind correctly understands but resists as its own ending. It comprehends that it will eventually become severed from all its relationships with the material world when an individualized Authentic Self transitions to a state where a different kind of embodiment is experienced from the current terrestrial one. The refusal to accept the instinctual knowledge of its own ending and any related references to death is part of the complex ego-system known as denial. When the eco-system of a healthy, aware mind is replaced by an ego-system, the result is fear, mindlessness, destruction, and war. When the ego-system is healed and reintegrated as a healthy tool instead of a weapon, all mental eco-systems will become healed to wholeness as well.

For ego-mind, self-change means an ending, or death. As far as Authentic Self is concerned, any ending contains the experience of the next beginning and the next, and so on, never-ending—which is Its immortality. Ego-mind has learned how to convince us that its sense of ending is our own. This feeling is not authored by Authentic Self and so is inauthentic to us, which we feel as a discomfort. This discomfort is little more than psychic vapor, but because of our agreement to live by the rules of an inauthentic personality, we accept its idea that this feeling is something called “fear” and that we should act in prescribed ways when sensing it—or Faking Evidence to Appear Real.

Since our personality loves to own things in order to appear real, fear can be difficult to release, especially if it’s not real. Using this fear like a gun at our heads, our ego-mind takes us hostage. It demands and is given so much carte blanche energy that it could be said to have a mind of its own, the mind which used to be fully ours. This entity-like energy will do anything to survive.

Although this entity-like energy is not us, it is similar to us, for it emulates our body’s built-in biological drive for survival. Because grief embodies so many forms of assumed loss or less-than it is often seized upon by ego-mind. The deepest aspects of grief can underscore a human life for its entire Earthly existence. With grief as its weapon ego-mind may weaken us even to the point where the body will no longer sustain our spirit. Thus there are people who have been said to have died of a broken heart. Like an enraged, spoiled child ego-mind can conduct a tantrum of such proportions that it will find a way to cause life energy for the body to be withheld, because somebody (some body) must be punished for the injustices inflicted upon it and upon the other body it believes it owns. The undisciplined ego-mind is inherently suicidal, as it will cannibalize its own material body to fuel the fear that sustains it. Physical disease then often appears as a protest to such abuse.

Even when consciously aware as Authentic Self, we cannot help but miss our loved ones terribly and painfully in our grief. For most of us this pain cannot be avoided and is part of living in this particular realm of manifestation. We have the capacity to accept that everyone “dies,” or perhaps more compassionately, “moves on.” But ego-mind cannot deal with any reminder that its own particular existence will eventually cease. The fear-mongering non-sanity of the undisciplined ego-mind becomes clearly obvious by its plan to survive even if it means destroying its host, our body, by proving that it is right in its beliefs—hence the delusion of its own superiority. The question has sometimes been posed, would we rather be right or happy?

The usual answer is “happy.” However, undisciplined ego-mind is often actually in charge of our life and our answers. It knows that it cannot be anything, and so in the final analysis undisciplined ego-mind can be seen as insisting on having both.

When our spiritual self finally withdraws forever from the terrestrial material body, never to return, that body is absorbed back into its source, the Earth, as well as by cosmic rays from the stars passing through our planet. Deprived of a material body, ego-mind has no further earthly function. Up to that point ego-mind believes that only the material world can fulfill its needs and desires. But since the terrestrial, material world is constantly changing—or re-manifesting—it can never fulfill ego-mind’s insistence on non-mutation.

Undisciplined ego-mind refuses to accept any change over which it has no control and continues to search, to temporarily find and then to lose what it found in a never-ending cycle of games. Out of this cycle rises the human addiction to material things, an automatic resistance to change and, ultimately, fear of change. This addiction is not meant in the way one is attached to drugs or other forms of physical or emotional sensation.

It is about the denial to understand that all materiality is a brief reflection of one’s inner Authentic Self, simultaneously moving outward and expanding—or relocating—and is temporary and impermanent. This denial must be explicitly maintained in order to achieve the illusory seamlessness needed to support the undisciplined ego-mind’s theory of self.

The words may not make conscious sense at this time,

But my spiritual senses comprehend and retain

The knowledge for Authentic Self.

Source is Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence (or … Ooo! …). Therefore the answer is always available to us, from us. Often—if not currently always—we are asking questions to which we think we don’t know the answer. It is ego-mind that suggests that we don’t know. Yet know, and know that you know, that in the moment you have asked you have also received the answer from Authentic Self—and seemingly, most illogically—you have received it before you hear yourself asking, and before you have finished the question.

The undisciplined ego-mind knows all about this and so seizes your answer after you have received it from Source, but before you can consciously acknowledge it. Ego-mind steals the period at the end of the answer and substitutes a question mark in its place, and then allows it to come up through our conscious awareness. It can do this because you have been giving your undisciplined ego-mind permission to give you your answers from a very early age.

So when you find yourself feeling very deeply that you have a question that must be answered, first try replacing the “?” with a “.” and see how it feels. If it feels better, you have undone what ego-mind tried to do.

This is how one accepts and focuses Authentic Self-Authority. Here is yet another idea that is possibly causing discomfort, which is a sign of beginning growth.

If you closely examine the previous two paragraphs you may come to the realization that ultimately, questions are unnecessary. All that is necessary is experience. Even more succinctly, experience is all. Say this a few times, emphasizing each word differently—first with a formal seriousness and then with a casual flippancy, while experiencing the feelings arising.

EXPERIENCE is all. Experience IS all.

Experience is ALL.

The Edge

The edge is the perimeter of a reduced personal life experience within an unlimited personal eternal universe. Lacking its own imagination and using ours instead, an undisciplined ego-mind restricts our experience, utilizing the limiting five physical senses when they are activated by anxiety and fear. The imposed restriction is a “sphere of experience” that surrounds an individualized mind-body, which in turn seems disconnected from the conscious awareness of Authentic Self. The world appears to surround one on all sides and seems to be all there is. But it is no more than a mental goldfish bowl, its transparent but impervious barrier reflecting back only that which ego-mind projects. This sphere of forced experience is the kingdom of the simulate selves as ruled by ego-mind. The undisciplined ego-mind enforces the belief that its limited kingdom is unlimited and supreme. The result of this base inconsistency is a constant feeling of being out of alignment with Authentic Self—angst, dread, worry, and anguish.

Ego-mind may allow for a permeability of the edge if this fits its agenda. Individualized mind-bodies can then join and develop a group sphere of experience, attracted by like vibration and held together by like beliefs as dictated by the stronger ego-mind collective. A collective can be small like a couple or a family, or a larger sphere of several groups such as tribes, organizations, corporations, and nations. The separate egominds are never fully aligned in agreement and so strife and dissention are inherent in these systems. The spheres of many ego-minds often interpenetrate one another. Intergenerational transmission of beliefs is also highly likely, as parents, usually in total unawareness, pass on belief systems to their children, sometimes down through many centuries. Formalized institutions of collective ego-mind such as governments and churches also transmit and strengthen barriers to authentic and unlimited experience. The Internet has been almost entirely confiscated by the collective undisciplined ego-mind.

The edge of the sphere of experience is seldom visited by its inhabitant—there is usually no conscious awareness of its existence. The idea of this edge can be seen in the antiquated belief of The Flat Earth, which successfully kept people from exploring their physical environment for fear of falling off into an abyss of unknown territory. Even though it has since been realized that the Earth is not flat, the same fear-generated scheme, which was developed by ego-mind, still actively exists in the global ego-mind collective. Although we can now venture around the material globe most of us are still encased in our invisible, protective sphere of ego-mentality, the flatland of the simulate self.

Ego-mind maintains the structure of its kingdom through beliefs that are engendered by deception. The edge or border of its kingdom is held in place by a force field of anxiety, like an electric fence. Should one move too close to this edge, chemical alarms trigger the feeling of anxiety. One of ego-mind’s lies is that the anxiety is unlimited beyond the perimeter, and that once the edge is transgressed the anxiety will go on forever. What makes this lie believable is that Authentic Self is still aware of the actual limitlessness beyond the edge. Ego-mind lies that this limitlessness is identical to unrelieved anxiety and so we unquestioningly avoid the edge. Unlimited authentic living is effectively pinched off into a limited, simulated experience.

This experiential avoidance results in a feeling of having “split” or “fractured,” manifesting a “less-than” experience for us, and the loss is then sensed as inexplicable sadness, grief, and depression. Although the feeling of being fractured is ultimately a misperception, an incorrect translation of vibrations, we feel compelled to correct it and bring the “pieces” back together—typically by looking for other people, or careers—anything, really—to “join with and complete” us. We are already complete and cannot, at the most basic point of reality, be or become anything otherwise.

Change is the nature of the manifested material universe, enabling individualized manifestations of Authentic Self to move about from one geography of experience to another. Transformation of vibration cannot take place without this movement. Inherent in the design of humankind is ever-arising stimuli, causing individual forms to shift and change form in some way—that is, to transform. This stimulus, which is Original Creative Source’s aspiration for novelty—or newness—is equally inherent in and activated and detected by our senses. That is, if we didn’t have senses we wouldn’t be stimulated to transform. All physical and non-physical senses are affected by Creative Source’s expansion of novelty.

What lies beyond this edge? Nothing until we get there. As a natural course, we are brought up against our edge as a result of our awareness of Authentic Self’s directive to transform. We feels suffocated in a relationship or stifled by a career, or bored by the current lifestyle. A barrier to movement, the edge is a result of ego-mind’s need to control. It uses anxiety to keep an individuated Authentic Self from moving beyond the edge and hence from transforming. Ego-mind drives our mind-body vehicle around and around the perimeter of our experiential sphere. This habitual circumnavigation, which often becomes obsessive and compulsive behavior, causes unrelenting emotional, mental, and physical stress. Our awareness of Authentic Self is blocked from realizing our inheritance of our Divine Realm as infinitely bestowed by Creative Source, and instead we endure a frozen hell of restrictive movement, masterminded and ruled by the unrestricted egomind.

This restricted movement, as directed by ego-mind, is also its limited attempt to simulate Creative Source.

WAITING

Being future-oriented, ego-mind cannot wait. Instant gratification is its motivation. Addiction of some kind—mild to wild—is the eventual consequence. The undisciplined and unrestricted ego-mind can simulate waiting in the form of a simulate self, which uses patience as a form of control to endure hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience against one’s true, authentic desire. It neutralizes our ability for self-control and the ability to accept delay.

Patience involves the attempt to hold an idea and its opposite at the same time, rather like holding the breath to try to keep the body from moving. It is trying to simultaneously hold the two thoughts, “I’m worried” and “This won’t happen.” It is thinking “maybe it will and maybe it won’t” which is a resistance that creates the tension that restricts the flow of life. Waiting is not worrying about what won’t happen and instead is focused upon allowing joy or enjoyment into the present moment, as well as on the quality of the moment and not on the quantity of what is or is not there.

 

the Authentic Self is always at rest

Waiting, which is inherent in the nature of Authentic Self, is not meant here as patience. Because it is oriented in the present, Authentic Self has no need for patience and instead resides in resting in the feeling experience of Selfness. For Authentic Self, waiting is rest—and It is always at rest. For the undisciplined egomind, which uses thoughts to generate a simulation of experience, waiting is unthinkable and unimaginable.

Imagination and rest belongs to Authentic Self; worry and unrest belong to the fearful ego-mind. Authentic Self has neither knowledge nor fear of death; ego-mind strives to destroy this serenity.

Authentic Self can utilize our imagination as experiences that appear to call for endurance if It so desires. But Its nature is to enjoy rather than endure an experience. “Enjoy” is not meant here as ego-mind’s concept of getting joy out of something. Rather, putting joy into something is what Authentic Self brings to the table of experience, at which It serves as the Good Steward. For the Good Steward, to enjoy is to give. To give does not necessarily mean bringing forth some material thing but also to rest in the allowing of the moment to be as it is. It means acceptance and allowing the joy of satisfaction to flow freely into whatever experience is manifesting. It means the acceptance of the unlimited abundance of the infinite universe, which is always filling the table and the cup that runneth over.

To reside and rest in the feeling of authentic enjoyment is Authentic Self’s motivation. Joy is another word for That Which Gives Life—or Creative Source—which is never-ending and unceasingly pours into one’s universe through the channel of Authentic Self. When joy is withheld from outflowing the feeling of life shuts down. Depression, illness, and the eventual cessation of earthly material existence are the resulting effects.

Authentic Self becomes consciously aware of anxiety when It finds the edge of a simulate self’s sphere of existence. If Authentic Self is in the driver’s seat It can choose to pull over and stop to make observations and choices about what It sees as opportunities for change, rather than as barriers against danger. We all know what it’s like to come up against our life’s edges. For those who have been endeavoring to raise and sustain spiritual consciousness there may be the additional experience of not being able to turn around and go back, once up against the edge. This has been described as being on the edge of a cliff, within the dark night of the soul, or under a cloud of unknowing.

This is where waiting—or resting in the feeling of Authentic Self—comes in. When unknowing arises, one has simultaneously reached the feeling of Authentic Source. A simulate self will avoid the cliff’s edge.

Authentic Self, consciously aware of the feeling of the truth of Its immortal existence and simultaneously unaware of the untruth of death, will be able to accept and contain any vibrations of anxiety while resting in mental stillness at the edge, and even bring joy to the experience. It may choose to rest as long as It wants while examining the belief system generating the barrier. It makes this examination by focusing Its full, attentive awareness upon the belief system. Under Its quiet gaze—“quiet” meaning without ego-mind’s critical chatter—any misperception of the belief system will be revealed, which will then cause it to fade back into the nothingness from whence it came. The barrier dissolves and Authentic Self, as an individuated bioform, can then move in the direction It chooses.

When unknowing arises, one has simultaneously reached the feeling of Authentic Source. Authentic Self may also decide not to move, or perhaps to jump off the cliff. Having reached an awareness of Its wings of immortality, fear no longer prevents or accompanies Its choices. Whatever happens, there will be unlimited opportunity to bring joy along as a companion. It knows Its life will always unfold perfectly, no matter what—and It knows that It knows.

My life is always unfolding perfectly, no matter what.