Imagination and Reality By William Samuel

Wood Song Notes

Imagination, Reality And Judglessness By William Samuel

When an oppressive situation is at hand and tranquillity appears to be threatened, there are many things we can do that will "heal' the situation-and quickly. For instance, we can open the doors of imagination to the real and beautiful.

This requires an act of strength because our every intellectual tendency is to NOT leave the scene of misery but to hang in there and do battle with it. Anything less is called intellectual cowardice and labeled "escapism" by the world. But we let go the apparent scene long enough to let imagination carry us back to the Principle wherein no inharmony exists. Soon we touch an area of gentle relief within ourself and we can be certain we will shortly be lifted up, out of gloom, into the atmosphere of the Absolute.

This journey of Awareness is helped considerably if we write it into words as we go along. The act of writing carries us more deeply into the Within where tranquillity is.

Here is an example of such a journey:

THE LIVE OAKS AND THE MOUNTAIN COVE

Once I lived beneath the massive oaks of the Mississippi coast. Those oaks are there yet. Even this instant when an oppressive situation is attempting to make me yield to it, I know those giant trees are there, mighty monarchs, massive and green, festooned with flowing moss. Yellow flickers, waxwings and cardinals dart among them. Gray squirrels scamper along their high branches jumping with measured grace from limb to limb. This very instant that scene is one of peace and tranquillity. The air is moist and sweet there. A gentle peace holds the scene in silence.

Now I see a winding road that skirts a mountain cove. Hickory, sycamore and pine line the field below. Crisp mountain air bathes the scene and bees hum past in swift arcs carrying the day's pollen to the hive and home. A deer peers cautiously from the woodland and drinks from a cool stream at his feet. The scene is just a scene being a scene-tangibly "there" in that mountain glade; intangibly "here" as a sparkling, pristine vision in the Mind's Eye that Awareness is. "Here," I see, is merely the "place" the outside becomes the inside, the inside, outside.

Awareness is the Mind's eye, the Mind's ear. It is the whole (holy) gamut of perception. Awareness is Mind's function functioning-for which Mind is responsible.

Ah, but here is the point I have been so slow to perceive, so reluctant to admit. MIND is responsible, not the ego-me. For how many years have I played at being God, custodian of Awareness, manipulator of the sights and sounds that comprise this Identity-I-am? What wonders are mine each time I make the sacrifice and come out from the custodian's role to let Mind be this functioning I am.

What does this have to do with the mountain cove or the trees along the Southern shore? It has to do with the consciousness of the trees and fields, the oceans, the Pleiades and the stars in far places. It has to do with this Identity-I-am, God's Self-cognizance.

OUR TENDENCY TOWARD DUALISM

We are wont to have a vague spiritual universe to dream and talk about-a universe wherein no imperfection exists and one to which we may appeal to rectify the malappearances in our tangible world. We are eager to have a visionary heaven, yet the place where we expect to see Harmony's evidence is ever in the here and now of tangibility. All this while we are looking at Harmony's very trees, stones and desert places, calling them dreams, calling them unreal, trying to heal them. We would have a dualism despite ourselves-a real and an unreal, a heaven and an earth, a truth and an error, an above and below.

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear," said Jesus. "When you make the two one. When you make the above as the below, the first as the last, the inside as the outside…."

We do not discard the scene at hand in some grand metaphysical sweep, calling it all unreal. We turn from it-but we turn only long enough to see it is not the scene that lies, but the judge of it, the liar we play when we separate ourselves from Awareness (the Identity we are) to play at being God, the director of Awareness. Images within the scene have neither the value nor the authority the liar gives them. I look out and see that Heaven is this very Scene at hand!

The agony that began the exercise of imagination turns out to be something else. Tranquillity lets me see what-and act accordingly.

Dear John,

As you very well know, only Truth comprehends Truth, and this very Awareness I Am (you are) is the comprehending in unceasing action! Awareness has no responsibility (no guilt) for what is "seen' (or not seen) nor the "condition" of it! Awareness is simply aware. It does not judge the "thing" included "within" Itself. Awareness beholds the blossom or the little girl, the mountain brook or the evening star, without judgment, concern, criticism or comparison. Awareness Itself is simply being aware; busy being the Infinite Intelligence that knows Itself to be beholding Itself.

"Judge not," says the Christ. "I judge no man…Cease Ye from judgement…think not….in that moment when ye think (judge) not…" These admonitions are fulfilled only by ceasing to make value judgements. We stop acting as if duality were an actual fact of Being.

God, Isness, does not really relinquish this activity (Awareness) to another identity who judges all that is perceived.

Mine has been a wonderful "experience" since I stopped playing the part of a judge! This is not as hard to do as the world says it is. The effort comes from thinking, planning, calculating, comparing and attaching values to everything. "I will give thee rest," says the Christ. "My yoke is easy….Cease ye from judgement…take no thought…consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin…behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand…here….now!" This is so! This is a fact!

Truth has to do with our very Identity. Should something seem to be untrue (in a book, lecture or anywhere else) it has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with Truth. When it is so regarded, it ceases "seeming." All "seeming" has to do with something that does not fulfill a judge's expectations.

Within the totality and onlyness of God is All, where is there room for another who judges everything? Though we may play the role of a judge, and in the eyes of that role suffer the consequences; our actual identity is not that one! We are not really the one who says this is good and that is bad, I want this and don't want that.

"Who made me a judge?" asks the Christ.

Most often it seems we must discover the agony we bring upon ourselves through misidentification before we are willing to forsake the ways of the misidentification.

The "Last Judgement" the Bible speaks of is not the stuff and nonsense theology has made of it, but it is something. Within yourself you will know the "last judgement" when you cease to make judgments. It is literally your own last condemnation of the things you see and hear-of the "feelings" you feel!

Do you think it is impossible to end your personal value judgments? I assure you it is not. We begin by refusing to dislike a thing-refusing to feel that an object of perception has more or less value than any other. Soon we find ourselves laughing at life-long irritations and viewing the world in a new light.

"Who made me a judge?" asked Jesus. "I judge no man," he said. He admonished us to "go and judge no more, lest you be judged by the same judgement!"

So you see, Now is the time to move from the arena of philosophic speculation (talk) and have our "doing" correspond with our knowing. It is more effortless than you might imagine. It isn't long until we realize that the effort behind life's continuing struggle comes from excessive thinking, planning, calculating-judgment making!

The healing purview of the Absolute is not limited to the "healers" of the world, to "practitioners" or metaphysicians. This is your heritage as well. You are yourSELF the perfect functioning of everyone you see-even as the one in the center of the house of mirrors is the substance and form of his countless images appearing as delineations of a single selfhood. To perceive the self-perfection of the single one at the center is to joy in the harmony, the beauty and the love of Perfection's "out there" as well as "here." Be the faithful witness! Take up your sceptre and reign!

The view of the image is ever here as I. "….and as I be lifted up…." Said the enlightened prophet from Galilee.

The "Last Judgement" the Bible speaks of is not the stuff and nonsense theology has made of it, but it is something. Within yourself you will know the "last judgement" when you cease to make judgments. It is literally your own last condemnation of the things you see and hear-of the "feelings" you feel!

Do you think it is impossible to end your personal value judgments? I assure you it is not. We begin by refusing to dislike a thing-refusing to feel that an object of perception has more or less value than any other. Soon we find ourselves laughing at life-long irritations and viewing the world in a new light.

"Who made me a judge?" asked Jesus. "I judge no man," he said. He admonished us to "go and judge no more, lest you be judged by the same judgement!"

So you see, Now is the time to move from the arena of philosophic speculation (talk) and have our "doing" correspond with our knowing. It is more effortless than you might imagine. It isn't long until we realize that the effort behind life's continuing struggle comes from excessive thinking, planning, calculating-judgment making!

The healing purview of the Absolute is not limited to the "healers" of the world, to "practitioners" or metaphysicians. This is your heritage as well. You are yourSELF the perfect functioning of everyone you see-even as the one in the center of the house of mirrors is the substance and form of his countless images appearing as delineations of a single selfhood. To perceive the self-perfection of the single one at the center is to joy in the harmony, the beauty and the love of Perfection's "out there" as well as "here." Be the faithful witness! Take up your sceptre and reign!

The view of the image is ever here as I. "….and as I be lifted up…." Said the enlightened prophet from Galilee. '

The healing purview of the Absolute is not limited to the "healers" of the world, to "practitioners" or metaphysicians. This is your heritage as well. You are yourSELF the perfect functioning of everyone you see-even as the one in the center of the house of mirrors is the substance and form of his countless images appearing as delineations of a single selfhood. To perceive the self-perfection of the single one at the center is to joy in the harmony, the beauty and the love of Perfection's "out there" as well as "here." Be the faithful witness! Take up your sceptre and reign!

The view of the image is ever here as I. "….and as I be lifted up…." Said the enlightened prophet from Galilee.

Since the publication of A GUIDE TO AWARENESS AND TRANQUILLITY, I have had countless communications telling me of the new freedom that has consciously presented itself as the consequence of this simple act of being less judgmental and critical of everything. Our past study of metaphysics, having had little to say about the silly and wasting tactic of value-judgment, led many of us into the hypercritical arena of dichotomy and polarization; "This is real and that is only a dream going on; this is Truth and that is error; this is absolute and that is dualistic, etc." The tangible "consequence" of such a course of action leaves us with no alternative but to look about the see the polarization developing as our mirrored world of tangibles.

Whether we were conscious of it or not, the continuing judgment of everything has constituted an awful effort. The end of the habit comes as a grand relief.

There is a great difference between value-judgments and distinctions-a difference not easily understood until we actually get underway and begin ending our judgements. Then the great difference becomes apparent and, as it does, our actions follow suit, often to the wonder (and criticism) of the world.

From the book THE AWARENESS OF SELF-DISCOVERY

by WILLIAM SAMUEL

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