Just Stop

Remember that old joke: guy goes to the doctor, says, “It hurts when I do this,” and the doctor says, “Don’t do that”? The spiritual truth is, it is that easy, if we did what the doctor advised, the pain would go away. But we don’t. I’m all the time doing things that don’t work for me and actually hurt me, like eating potato chips, visiting porn sites, and mousing even after I feel pain in my hands. Do you do that, too, do things that don’t work for you and actually hurt you? I think we all do.

Why is an interesting question. If we could figure out why perhaps we wouldn’t do those things so often. Stopping seems almost out of the question tho, too much seeming pain not enough seeming gain to go for the cold turkey approach. But the fact is, we don’t have to know why in order to stop, we can just stop. Needing to know ‘why’ is a game the analytical left brained part of our ego minds play with us. We could just stop, feel better and let the improvement, the good, pain-free experience sustain us.

The Truth about us is, the Course says, as does SOM and indeed the deepest mystical traditions of all faiths, Gnostic Christianity, Sufi Islam, Zen Buddhism and Kabalistic Judaism, that we are perfect, healthy, pain free, spiritual beings right now, one with all that is, dreaming we are having an earthly experience. This truth can not be perceived, but only known, the Course says. That means we can not use everyday, ego consciousness to know who we are, we can only know who we are, actually experience it. The more I do this, know this, the more I know it and actually experience it. In other words, when I follow the doctor’s advice, and stop doing what hurts and instead open myself to the truth, the pain stops and my perfect, God-given reality emerges. The more I stop doing what hurts, the more blessed and pain free I am. Just stop. Each time the opportunity to do something hurtful to myself or another arises, I can know that right there, in that place, in that moment, I can shift from pain to bliss, just stop, and experience the truth about myself and the other.

This is not only true for me, but true for everyone that does it. There is a parallel process for us to follow: faith and practice. Know the Truth of your own and everyone’s reality as spirit; court the divine and practice eliminating anything unlike it in your consciousness. It’s difficult at first but gets easier the more you do it; or at least, that’s how it’s working for me. Knowing the Truth, courting spirit and eliminating the illusion of my little, pain-ridden, earth bound self, is even becoming almost as good as eating potato chips and visiting porn sites!