Why can’t I do what I really want to do with my life and still make a living?
What? You mean you actually want to have fun in your
life, and still earn your keep? Brother, are you dreaming!
What?— Only kidding—just doing a little mind reading, that’s
all. You see, that’s been your thought about it.
It’s been my experience.
Yes. Well, we’ve been all through this now a number of times. The people who make a living doing what they love are the people who insist on doing so. They don’t give up. They never give in. They dare life not to let them do what they love.
But there’s another element that must be brought up, because this is the missing element in most people’s understanding when it comes to life work.
What’s that?
There’s a difference between being and doing, and
most people have placed their emphasis on the latter.
Shouldn’t they?
There’s no “should” or “should not” involved. There’s only what you choose, and how you can have it.
If you choose peace and joy and love, you won’t get much of it through what you’re doing. If you choose happiness and contentment, you’ll find little of that on the path of doingness. If you choose reunion with God, supreme knowing, deep under-standing, endless compassion, total awareness, abso-lute fulfillment, you won’t achieve much of that out of what you’re doing.
In other words, if you choose evolution—the evolu-tion of your soul—you won’t produce that by the worldly activities of your body.
Doing is a function of the body. Being is a function of the soul. The body is always doing something. Every minute of every day it’s up to something. It never stops, it never rests, it’s constantly doing something.
It’s either doing what it’s doing at the behest of the soul—or in spite of the soul. The quality of your life hangs in the balance.
The soul is forever being. It is being what it is being, regardless of what the body is doing, not because of what it’s doing.
If you think your life is about doingness, you do not understand what you are about.
Your soul doesn’t care what you do for a living—and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you’re being while you’re doing what-ever you’re doing.
It is a state of beingness the soul is after, not a state of doingness.
What is the soul seeking to be?
Me.
You.
Yes, Me. Your soul is Me, and it knows it. What it is doing, is trying to experience that. And what it is remem-bering is that the best way to have this experience is by not doing anything. There is nothing to do but to be.
Be what?
Whatever you want to be. Happy. Sad. Weak. Strong. joyful. Vengeful. Insightful. Blind. Good. Bad. Male. Female. You name it.
I mean that literally. You name it.
This is all very profound, but what does it have to do with my career? I’m trying to find a way to stay alive, to survive, to support myself and my family, doing what I like to do.
Try being what you like to be.
What do you mean?
Some people make lots of money doing what they do, others can’t make a go of it—and they’re doing the same thing. What makes the difference?
Some people have more skill than others.
That’s the first cut. But now we get to the second cut. Now we’re down to two people with relatively equal skills. Both graduated from college, both were at the top of their class, both understand the nature of what they’re doing, both know how to use their tools with great facility—yet one still does better than the other; one flourishes while the other struggles. What’s that about?
Location.
Location?
Somebody once told me there are only three things to consider when starting a new business—location, location, and location.
In other words, not “What are you going to do?” but
“Where are you going to be?”
Exactly.
That sounds like the answer to my question as well.
The soul is concerned only with where you are going to be.
Are you going to be in a place called fear, or in a place called love? Where are you—and where are you coming from—as you encounter life?
Now, in the example of the two equally qualified workers, one is successful and the other is not, not because of anything either is doing, but because of what both are being.
One person is being open, friendly, caring, helpful, considerate, cheerful, confident, even joyful in her work, while the other is being closed, distant, uncaring, inconsiderate, grumpy, even resentful of what she is doing.
Now suppose you were to select even loftier states of beingness? Suppose you were to select goodness, mercy, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, love? What if you were to select Godliness? What then would be your experience?
I tell you this:
Beingness attracts beingness, and produces experi-ence.
You are not on this planet to produce anything with your body. You are on this planet to produce something with your soul. Your body is simply and merely the tool of your soul. Your mind is the power that makes the body go. So what you have here is a power tool, used in the creation of the soul’s desire.
What is the soul’s desire?
Indeed, what is it?
I don’t know. I’m asking You.
I don’t know. I’m asking you.
This could go on forever.
It has.
Wait a minute! A moment ago You said the soul is seeking to be You.
So it is.
Then that is the soul’s desire.
In the broadest sense, yes. But this Me it is seeking to be is very complex, very multi-dimensional, multi-sensual, multi-faceted. There are a million aspects to Me. A billion. A trillion. You see? There is the profane and the profound, the lesser and the larger, the hollow and the holy, the ghastly and the Godly. You see?
Yes, yes, I see.. .the up and the down, the left and the right, the here and the there, the before and the after, the good and the bad...
Precisely. I am the Alpha and the Omega. That was not just a pretty saying, or a nifty concept. That was Truth expressed.
So, in seeking to be Me, the soul has a grand job ahead of it; an enormous menu of beingness from which to choose. And that is what it is doing in this moment now.
Choosing states of being.
Yes—and then producing the right and perfect con-ditions within which to create the experience of that. It is therefore true that nothing happens to you or through you that is not for your own highest good.
You mean my soul is creating all of my experience, including not only the things I am doing, but the things that are happening to me?
Let us say that the soul leads you to the right and perfect opportunities for you to experience exactly what you had planned to experience. What you actually experience is up to you. It could be what you planned to experience, or it could be something else, depending upon what you choose.
Why would I choose something I don’t wish to experience?
I don’t know. Why would you?
Do You mean that sometimes the soul wishes one thing, and the body or the mind wishes another?
What do you think?
But how can the body, or the mind, overrule the soul?
Doesn’t the soul always get what it wants?
The spirit of you seeks, in the largest sense, that grand moment when you have conscious awareness of its wishes, and join in joyful oneness with them. But the spirit will never, ever, force its desire on the present, conscious, physical part of you.
The Father will not force His will upon the Son. It is a violation of His very nature to do so, and thus, quite literally, impossible.
The Son will not force His will upon the Holy Spirit.
It is against His very nature to do so, and thus, quite
literally, impossible.
The Holy Spirit will not force His will upon your soul.
It is outside of the nature of the spirit to do so, and thus, quite literally, impossible.
Here is where the impossibilities end. The mind very often does seek to exert its will on the body—and does so. Similarly, the body seeks often to control the mind—and frequently succeeds.
Yet the body and the mind together do not have to do anything to control the soul—for the soul is com-pletely without need (unlike the body and the mind, which are shackled with it), and so allows the body and the mind to have their way all the time.
Indeed, the soul would have it no other way—for if the entity which is you is to create, and thus know, who it really is, it must be through an act of con-scious volition, not an act of unconscious obedience.
Obedience is not creation, and thus can never pro-duce salvation.
Obedience is a response, while creation is pure choice, undictated, unrequired.
Pure choice produces salvation through the pure creation of highest idea in this moment now. -
The function of the soul is to indicate its desire, not impose it.
The function of the mind is to choose from its alternatives.
The function of the body is to act out that choice.
When body, mind, and soul create together, in harmony and in unity, God is made flesh.
Then does the soul know itself in its own experience.
Then do the heavens rejoice.
Right now, in this moment, your soul has again created opportunity for you to be, do, and have what it takes to know Who You Really Are.
Your soul has brought you to the words you are reading right now—as it has brought you to words of wisdom and truth before.
What will you do now? What will you choose to be?
Your soul waits, and watches with interest, as it has many times before.
Do I understand You to say that it is out of the state of beingness I select that my worldly success (I am still trying to talk about my career here) will be determined?
lam not concerned about your worldly success, only you are.
It is true that when you achieve certain states of being over a long period of time, success in what you are doing in the world is very difficult to avoid. Yet you are not to worry about “making a living.” True Masters are those who have chosen to make a life, rather than a living.
From certain states of being will spring a life so rich, so full, so magnificent, and so rewarding that worldly goods and worldly success will be of no concern to you.
Life’s irony is that as soon as worldly goods and worldly success are of no concern to you, the way is open for them to flow to you.
Remember, you cannot have what you want, but you may experience whatever you have.
I cannot have what I want?
No.
You said this before, very early in our dialogue. Still, I don’t understand. I thought you’ve been telling me I could have whatever I want. “As you think, as you believe, so shall it be done unto you,” and all that.
The two statements are not inconsistent with each other.
They aren’t? They sure feel inconsistent to me.
That is because you lack understanding.
Well, I admit that. That’s why I’m talking with You.
I will then explain. You cannot have anything you want. The very act of wanting something pushes it away from you, as I said earlier, in Chapter One.
Well, You may have said it earlier, but You’re losing me—fast.
Fight to keep up. I’ll go over it again in greater detail. Try to stay with it. Let’s go back to a point you do understand: thought is creative. Okay?
Okay.
Word is creative. Got it?
Got it.
Action is creative. Thought, word, and deed are the three levels of creation. Still with Me?
Right there.
Good. Now let’s take “worldly success” as our sub-ject for the moment, since that’s what you’ve been talking about, asking about.
Terrific.
Now, do you have a thought, “I want worldly success”?
Sometimes, yes.
And do you also sometimes have the thought, “1 want more money”?
Yes.
You can therefore neither have worldly success nor more money.
Why not?
Because the universe has no choice but to bring you the direct manifestation of your thought about it.
Your thought is, “I want worldly success.” You un-derstand, the creative power is like a genie in a bottle. Your words are its command. You understand?
Then why don’t I have more success?
I said, your words are its command. Now your words were, “1 want success.” And the universe says, “Okay, you do.”
I’m still not sure I follow.
Think of it this way. The word “I” is the key that starts the engine of creation. The words “1 am” are extremely powerful. They are statements to the universe. Com-mands.
Now, whatever follows the word “I” (which calls forth the Great I Am) tends to manifest in physical reality.
Therefore “I” + “want success” produces you wanting success. “I” + “want money” must produce you wanting money. It can produce no other thing, because thoughts, words are creative. Actions are, too. And if you act in a way which says that you want success and money, then your thoughts, words, and actions are in accord, and you are sure to have the experience of this wantingness.
You see?
Yes! My God—does it really work that way?
Of course! You are a very powerful creator. Now granted, if you had a thought, or made a statement, just once—as in anger, for instance, or frustration, it’s not very likely that you’ll convert those thoughts or words into reality. So you don’t have to worry about “Drop dead!” or “Go to hell,” or all the other less-than-nice things you sometimes think or say.
Thank God.
You’re welcome. But, if you repeat a thought, or say a word, over and over again—not once, not twice, but dozens, hundreds, thousands of times—do you have any idea of the creative power of that?
A thought or a word expressed and expressed and expressed becomes just that—expressed. That is, pushed out It becomes outwardly realized. It becomes your physical reality.
Good grief.
That’s exactly what it produces very often—good grief. You love the grief, you love the drama. That is, until you don’t anymore. There comes a certain point in your evolution when you cease to love the drama, cease to love the “story” as you’ve been living it. That’s when you decide—actively choose—to change it. Only most don’t know how. You now do. To change your reality, simply stop thinking like that.
In this case, instead of thinking “I want success,” think “I have success.”
That feels like a lie to me. I’d be kidding myself if I said that. My mind would shout, “The hell you say!”
Then think a thought you can accept. “My success is coming to me now,” or “all things lead to my success.”
So this is the trick behind the New Age practice of affirmations.
Affirmations do not work if they are merely state-ments of what you want to be true. Affirmations work only when they are statements of something you already know to be true.
The best so-called affirmation is a statement of gratitude and appreciation. “Thank you, God, for bring-ing me success in my life.” Now, that idea, thought, spoken, and acted upon, produces wonderful re-sults—when it comes from true knowing; not from an attempt to produce results, but from an awareness that results have already been produced.
Jesus had such clarity. Before every miracle, He thanked Me in advance for its deliverance. It never occurred to Him not to be grateful, because it never occurred to Him that what He declared would not happen. The thought never entered His mind.
So sure was He of Who He Was and of His relation-ship to Me that His every thought, word, and deed reflected his awareness—just as your thoughts, words, and deeds reflect yours.
If, now, there is something you choose to experience in your life, do not “want” it—choose it.
Do you choose success in worldly terms? Do you choose more money? Good. Then choose it. Really. Fully. Not half-heartedly.
Yet at your stage of development do not be surprised if “worldly success” no longer concerns you.
What is that supposed to mean?
There comes a time in the evolution of every soul when the chief concern is no longer the survival of the physical body, but the growth of the spirit; no longer the attainment of worldly success, but the realization of Self.
In a sense, this is a very dangerous time, particu-larly at the outset, because the entity housed in the body now knows it is just that: a being in a body—not a body-being.
At this stage, before the growing entity matures in this point of view, there is often a sense of no longer caring about affairs of the body in any way. The soul is so excited about being “discovered” at last!
The mind abandons the body, and all matters of the body. Everything is ignored. Relationships are set aside. Families are disappeared. Jobs are made secondary. Bills go unpaid. The body itself is not even fed for long periods. The entire focus and attention of the entity are now on the soul, and matters of the soul.
This can lead to a major personal crisis in the day-to-day life of the being, although the mind per-ceives no trauma. It is hanging out in bliss. Other people say you have lost your mind—and in a sense you may have.
Discovery of the truth that life has nothing to do with the body can create an imbalance the other way. Whereas at first the entity acted as if the body were all there is, now it acts as if the body matters not at all. This, of course, is not true—as the entity soon (and some-times painfully) remembers.
You are a tri-part being, made of body, mind, and spirit. You will always be a tri-part being, not just while you are living on the Earth.
There are those who hypothesize that upon death the body and the mind are dropped. The body and the mind are not dropped. The body changes form, leaving its most dense part behind, but retaining always its outer shell. The mind (not to be confused with the brain) goes with you, too, joining with the spirit and the body as the one energy mass of three dimensions, or facets.
Should you choose to return to this experiencing opportunity that you call life on Earth, your divine self will once again separate its true dimensions into what you call body, mind, and spirit. In truth you are all one energy, yet with three distinct characteristics.
As you undertake to inhabit a new physical body here on Earth, your ethereal body (as some of you have termed it) lowers its vibrations—slows itself from a vibration so rapid that it cannot even be seen, to a speed that produces mass and matter. This actual matter is the creation of pure thought—the work of your mind, the higher mind aspect of your three-part being.
This matter is a coagulation of a million billion trillion different energy units into one enormous mass—control-lable by the mind.. .you really are a master mind!
As these tiny energy units have expended their energy, they are discarded by the body, while the mind creates new ones. This the mind creates out of its continuing thought about Who You Are! The ethereal body “catches” the thought, so to speak, and lowers the vibration of more energy units (in a sense “crystallizes” them), and they become matter—the new matter of you. In this way, every cell of your body changes every several years. You are—quite literally—not the same person you were a few years ago.
If you think thoughts of illness or disease (or continu-ing anger, hatred, and negativity), your body will trans-late these thoughts into physical form. People will see this negative, sick form and they will say, “What’s the matter?” They will not know how accurate their ques-tion is.
The soul watches this whole drama play out, year after year, month after month, day after day, moment after moment, and always holds the Truth about you. It never forgets the blueprint; the original plan; the first idea; the creative thought. Its job is to remind you—that is, to literally re-mind you—so that you may remember once again Who You Are—and then choose Who You now Wish to Be.
In this way the cycle of creation and experience, imaging and fulfilling, knowing and growing into the unknown, continues, both now and even forever more.
Whew!
Yes, exactly. Oh, and there’s much more to explain. So much more. But never, ever in one book—nor probably even in one lifetime. Yet you have begun, and that is good. Just remember this. It is as your grand teacher William Shakespeare said: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
May I ask you some questions about this? Like, when you say the mind goes with me after death, does that mean my “personality” goes with me? Will I know in the afterlife who I was?
Yes. . .and who you have ever been. It will all be opened onto you—because then it will profit you to know. Now, in this moment, it will not.
And, with regard to this life, will there be an “accounting”—a review—a tally taking?
There is no judgment in what you call the afterlife. You will not even be allowed to judge yourself (for you would surely give yourself a low score, given how judgmental and unforgiving you are with yourself in this life).
No, there is no accounting, no one giving “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down.” Only humans are judgmental, and because you are, you assume that I must be. Yet! am not—and that is a great truth you cannot accept.
Nonetheless, while there will be no judgment in the afterlife, there will be opportunity to look again at all you have thought, said, and done here, and to decide if that is what you would choose again, based on Who You say You Are, and Who You Want to Be.
There is an Eastern mystical teaching surrounding a doctrine called Kama Loca—according to this teaching, at the time of our death each person is given the opportunity to relive every thought ever entertained, every word ever spoken, every action ever taken, not from our standpoint, but from the standpoint of every other person affected. In other words, we’ve already experienced what we felt thinking, saying, and doing what we did—now we’re given the experience of feeling what the other person felt in each of these moments—and it is by this measure that we’ll decide whether we’ll think, say, or do those things again. Any comment?
What occurs in your life after this is far too extraor-dinary to describe here in terms you could compre-hend—because the experience is other-dimensional and literally defies description using tools as severely limited as words. It is enough to say that you will have the opportunity to review again this, your present life, without pain or fear or judgment, for the purpose of deciding how you feel about your experience here, and where you want to go from there.
Many of you will decide to come back here; to return to this world of density and relativity for another chance to experience out the decisions and choices you make about your Self at this level.
Others of you—a select few—will return with a different mission. You will return to density and matter for the soul purpose of bringing others out of density and matter. Always there are on the Earth those among you who have made such a choice. You can tell them apart at once. Their work is finished. They have re-turned to Earth simply and merely to help others. This is their joy. This is their exaltation. They seek naught but to be of service.
You cannot miss these people. They are every-where. There are more of them than you think. Chances are you know one, or know of one.
Am I one?
No. If you have to ask, you know you are not one. One such as this asks questions of no one. There is nothing to ask.
You, My son, in this lifetime are a messenger. A harbinger. A bringer of news; a seeker and frequently a speaker of Truth. That is enough for one lifetime. Be happy.
Oh, I am. But I can always hope for more!
Yes! And you will! Always you will hope for more. It is in your nature. It is divine nature to seek always to be more.
So seek, yes, by all means seek.
Now I want to answer definitively the question with which you started this segment of our ongoing conver-sation.
Go ahead and do what you really love to do! Do nothing else! You have so little time. How can you think of wasting a moment doing something for a living you don’t like to do? What kind of a living is that? That is not a living, that is a dying!
If you say, “But, but... I have others who depend on me. . .little mouths to feed.. .a spouse who is looking to me. . .“ I will answer: If you insist that your life is about what your body is doing, you do not understand why you came here. At least do something that pleases you—that speaks of Who You Are.
Then at least you can stay out of resentment and anger toward those you imagine are keeping you from your joy.
What your body is doing is not to be discounted. It is important. But not in the way that you think. The actions of the body were meant to be reflections of a state of being, not attempts to attain a state of being.
In the true order of things one does not do some-thing in order to be happy—one is happy and, hence, does something. One does not do some things in order to be compassionate, one is compassionate and, hence, acts in a certain way. The soul’s decision precedes the body’s action in a highly conscious person. Only an unconscious person attempts to produce a state of the soul through something the body is doing.
This is what is meant by the statement, “Your life is not about what your body is doing.” Yet it is true that what your body is doing is a reflection of what your life is about.
It is another divine dichotomy.
Yet, know this if you understand nothing else:
You have a right to your joy; children or no children; spouse or no spouse. Seek it! Find it! And you will have a joyful family, no matter how much money you make or don’t make. And if they aren’t joyful, and they get up and leave you, then release them with love to seek their joy.
If, on the other hand, you have evolved to the point where things of the body are not of concern to you, then you are even more free to seek your joy—on Earth as it is in heaven. God says it’s okay to be happy—yes, even happy in your work.
Your life work is a statement of Who You Are. If it is not, then why are you doing it?
Do you imagine that you have to?
You don’t have to do anything.
If “man who supports his family, at all costs, even his own happiness” is Who You Are, then love your work, because it is facilitating your creation of a living statement of Self.
If “woman who works at job she hates in order to meet responsibilities as she sees them” is Who You Are, then love, love, love your job, for it totally supports your Self image, your Self concept.
Everyone can love everything the moment they understand what they are doing, and why.
No one does anything he doesn’t want to do.