Q: What is the interplay between playing out strong attachments, habits, compulsions, addictions, in order to let them go with gentleness and understanding, or using discipline and self control to end these attachments?

A: Discipline is not a rigidity or resistance against. Genuine discipline is merely a product, if you will, of the mind. Genuine discipline requires only that you bring your attention to precisely what is true in any given moment of your experience, without judgment. Discipline is the vigilance of awareness and the decision to be the presence of Love.

The answer seems simple and short and to the point, but if you will contemplate it, even if you will sit in your meditation and write the answer out slowly, so that you watch the letters of the words appear on your plain white paper, and as you give yourself permission to be patient, not in a hurry, more will be revealed to you. And yet, the essence has, indeed, been given. Enjoy the discipline of contemplating the answer.

Q: This question is from New Jersey. During a period of higher consciousness, I was aware of a presence that encompassed individuals. It was plain to me that it performed a function of guiding the person into appropriate experiences. I'm not clear if this is what you call The Holy Spirit. It seemed to be like an Oversoul of the person. Would you please clarify this presence and the Holy Spirit?

A: First, I'm curious what you've done with the old Jersey. Hmm ... hmm. Strange world in which you live! Hmm.

Beloved friend, the answer to be given fully would require some complexity and a great expanse of your time. For there are many qualities or nuances of experience within consciousness, what you would call “higher consciousness,” though personally, I know of no such higher or lower.

There is merely awareness of, which is what consciousness is.

What I have called as the Holy Spirit is not an entity. It is a form of energy. I've called it before right- mindedness, which merely means mind that is operating in alignment with unlimitedness, aligned with the Mind of God. Therefore, what is required, by way of guidance or knowledge, simply flows in an unimpeded way. The Holy Spirit is that aspect of one's own mind that is, indeed, and has always remained aligned with the Mind of God. Therefore, it would be very appropriate to say that the Holy Spirit is as your oversoul, if you will. It is an aspect of your own beingness given and shared equally by all. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is right-mindedness, correct seeing, right alignment.

In the experience that you had, it was a very valid experience. You weren't coloring what you were experiencing at all. You were just witnessing it. It would be very appropriate to say that you were, indeed, seeing, perceiving, feeling, what you can call the oversoul, an aspect of one's soul. And yet, at the same time, it was and is, remains the presence of the Holy Spirit, that part of the Spirit of that being that has remained whole always.

Often what is called guidance, those little intuitive nudges, the clear pictures and visions, the feelings throughout the body, emanate from that part of your own right-mindedness. It seems to be speaking to you from another place only because you have not yet cultivated the quality of understanding that that is more you than the you that you thought was you.

Higher consciousness - there is no such thing. There is only the remembrance and the recognition of what is true always. Yes, you can constrict yourself into what you call lower consciousness, but what's present? Consciousness, the freewill choice and the use of unlimited power to generate experience for yourself. That doesn't sound very low to me at all. It is infinite. It's just that perhaps tomorrow, you might not make that same choice again. But it does not make it lower. Lower and higher are a judgment.

There is Love and fear, but I've never said that fear is lower than Love. It is merely a choice. And from choice comes experience. And you are free to gather to yourself whatever form of experience you wish - that which expresses Love or fear. But underneath each of them, the power to choose remains one and the same - infinite forever, unstoppable forever - given to you freely by a Creator Who loves you, Who loves you so much that you are given perfect freedom.


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