Master: Your sleep is disturbed because of this one thing:  You are in judgment of your own creation.  You are always finding your actions and outcomes “good” or 

“bad.”  This is what is disturbing your sleep at night as well as your peace.

 

It is possible to do the opposite though. To do this, you must let yourself learn to look on all your creations in life with a simple innocence.  This is well worth the practice.  

 

 

Perceive your every action with wonder – with childlike curiosity and innocent attention.  Look upon it all as you would upon a cloud that passes across the sky.  Marvel at it, knowing that even if it is dark, it is passing.  

 

Even if it is large and black with rain it does not affect the purity of the sky that it floats through.  Whether that cloud creates rain or shadow or snow, whether it filters rays of light in great beauty or develops a silver lining, that cloud is passing just the same.  

 

Let it come closer and go farther away.  It is a changing thing, that is its real nature, let it change.  And it is a passing thing, this cloud.  That too is its real nature, let it pass.  And each of your creations is exactly like this: both changing and passing. 

 

It comes into your field of experience, into your time and space, and then it fades away.  Do you remember yesterday’s clouds?  

 

 

Master: Every hurt you have known is like a cloud that became impressed on your field of awareness because you were perceiving it a certain way.  And if your pain or wrong-doing is still lodged in you, it is because you have latched on to it, to a perception of it.

 

The ego tends to do this, for your own good, it would say.  As a punishment so you don’t forget your lesson.  As a prevention, to keep you from making the same mistake again.  

 

To latch onto something, to clutch it, that is the Ego.  It causes you to believe that you are that feeling of pain, that you are a bad person because you have repeated the same bad things.  The Ego wants to identify with it.  The Ego is in the business of identity building.

 

You become identified with it.  And because it is now you, what will happen if you let it go?  You will suffer loss of self, you might even disappear!  That is the way the Ego thinks when allowed use of your fine mind.

 

Within your consciousness, dear student, you have learned to deeply identify with perceptions and experiences and feelings you’ve had – guilts and fears, the stories of your childhood, the history of your marriage, your pain or problems with others.  Why?  To keep you safe.  Which of course it does not, cannot, do.

 

Observing your energy, what I see is that you are gripping your precious story.  You are gripping your self-loathing or pain.  It is causing the energy around it to condense.  And your knuckles are white from trying to hold on to the limitation and guilt, to the unworthiness and doubt.

 

Release that hold.  Blessed relief!  And each time the story or the feeling or the memory returns, release it again with a smile.  See it with the innocence and peace with which it is meant to be seen.  

 

This planet is a place where you come and try things.  It is a place where you fail, make mistakes, fall down and get up again.  And again and again.  That is what you do here, it is what happens.  And it is allowed.  It is allowed.  Do you see the innocence then, that I speak of?

 

The Kingdom of Truth does not require perfection.  The idea is absurd, dear one.  What does it require? Openness, trust, expansiveness, spaciousness.  Growth.  It requires witnessing yourself, letting things come and go, learning to develop an appreciation of whatever arises.

 

 

 

 

I have a good idea.  Let’s each think of an experience, a feeling, that we’ve identified with in that latching-on way and let’s relax our grip and let it go.  

 

In fact, it would be fun to spend the day together lying on our backs in the grass, just describing the shape of the clouds and watching them pass from our view. 

 

Wouldn’t that be a great thing to do?

With playfulness and joy,

I had a dream this morning: In the dream I was newly arrived at an ashram and waiting, seated quietly, for my first meditation assignment. 

The Guru beside me said: Contemplate a tree.  As he turned to leave I stopped him with an upraised hand, “Wait,” I said.

A short pause followed after which I spoke: “The tree is itself.”  He raised his eyebrows, then turned to leave again.

 

“Wait…” I said once more.  “Never.”

 

More raised eyebrows and turning away.

 

“Wait…” my hand raised, still…. “Always.”

 

My hand remained up, he stayed. 

 

 Another pause. “What joy!” I said and fell quiet.

 

He repeated my brief contemplation of the tree: The tree is itself.  Never.  Always.  What joy!

 

And then we both burst into laughter as he – recognizing me – extended his hand to help me stand and we embraced in happiness at seeing one another after so long.

 

 

Playfully,