Excerpt From A Guide To Awareness And Tranquillity

By William Samuel

ABOUT OUR FORMER OPINIONS

QUESTI0N: Are we to get rid of our former judgments and evaluations one by one?

ANSWER: Utterly impossible Even if all our "former judgments" were finally rooted out on a one-by-one basis, such an accomplishment would yet leave the judge untouched An inactive judge he would be, perhaps, and a very righteous one, undoubtedly; but the judge himself would still be present, claiming to be the self-purified, self-righteous identity doing the beholding.

No, we do not undertake the endless task of ferreting out judgments and eliminating opinions. There is none of that hopeless and bewildering bunk of having to determine specific causes for specific sights, sounds or feelings, as education and metaphysics would have us do-no blaming tapeworm on bitterness or liver trouble on bad living or feebleness on age or anger on a husband or euphoria on a pill. It is easier than that. There is no labor at all! There is simply to be unjudgingly aware; to be Awareness which is not a judge, which is not concerned with judgments or with making them; and we do this beginning right NOW. It is this simple! This is the "new birth"! This is to "become as a single one, as a solitary"; as Awareness unpossessed; as Awareness alone!

*******************

LISTEN!

Awareness does not judge. Awareness is just aware. Awareness does not say this is good and that is bad. Awareness is just aware. Awareness doesn't say I like this and I don't like that. Awareness is simply aware. Awareness doesn't desire this or attempt to rid itself of that. Awareness is simply being aware. All the while, Awareness itself goes right on with the business of being effortlessly aware. Isn't this true?

Ask yourself: Isn't the Awareness-I-am being aware, even this instant? Yes! Is it making judgments? Is it calling something good or something else bad? Is it desiring, hungering, lusting after certain things, eschewing, abhorring, changing others? No! Awareness is beholding, only! Right NOW it reads these words.

Simple, unjudging, effortless Awareness is being this Identity you are and I am. Awareness only is the Identity we consciously bring ourselves back to and consciously identify ourselves as-as! Awareness is Life!

Anything more than this simple, beholding Consciousness itself is the false ego a-building.

Anything that would look upon the objects of perception and call them good or bad is the old personality whose part we have been playing like a role on the stage but who is not, and never has been, our real Identity.

*******************

Let me share this revealing letter with you:

Dear Mr. Samuel:

I have just had the shock of my life: I have put one of your precepts to the test and have been dumbfounded. Really!

My drive to and from work takes me through a congested area at the peak of traffic. I can't tell you how many times things have happened along the way that have upset me terribly, especially in the afternoons when I'm in a hurry to get home.

Recently on one of these trips, a lady driver behind me began to blow her horn. At every intersection, just as the light changed, she blew again. I couldn't go any faster than the car in front of me; I couldn't pull over and let her pass, and she couldn't have passed me anyway. In short, there wasn't anything I could do about it, but at every light change she sat down on her horn as if that would help matters.

I noticed that the driver in front of me had become furious. He was turning around, glowering, waving his arms, apparently beside himself in rage. It appeared that the driver two cars up was angry also. To put it mildly, I found myself thinking thoughts that were thoroughly unpleasant, and I nearly wanted to punch the lady in the nose.

Then, something you said the other evening at your talk came to mind, and it dawned on me I ought to try it out. "A sound is just a sound," you said. I thought that this must mean the sound the lady is making doesn't have the power to do anything, much less spoil my drive home. The sound is merely proving that I have very good ears, and this is nothing to be angry about. Mr. Samuel, this is all I remember thinking; in fact, this is all I thought when instantly, and I do mean instantly, all my anger left me! Every bit of it! More than that, I became amused by the lady's antics. The more she blew, the more calm and collected I became about it all, and the more I was able to see how others were letting a harmless sound have a power it really didn't have. I saw how all my life I had been giving power to things that had no power. I saw, too, how insidious the habit of reacting to things had become with me and how rewarding the practice of not reacting promised to be.

I must write and tell you that this very simple thing has opened a new world to me. Thank you for saying it all in such a way that I finally climbed down off my theoretical stool in the clouds, made the decision to practice being judgeless awareness, and then did it. In the instant I did it, just as you said it would, the Light came quickly.

Now, I have expanded this practice to include sights as well as sounds-in my family affairs, business and everywhere I go. I am practicing being Awareness only, and am slowly, but surely, letting go the old habit of acting like a reactionary judge of Awareness. All you said about the wonder of it is true. I have never known such peace of mind.

I will be forever grateful.

Sincerely yours,

P. S. I didn't realize how hard I had been working to like or dislike everything.

*******************

The "old man" is the one who plays at judgment making, making his own hell thereby; but that is not the real identity of you or me. That is the one to cease identifying ourselves as. How do we do this? In the easiest way imaginable: by being this already-Identity as unjudging Beholding; by making no more judgments.

QUESTI0N: What is our personal responsibility in this matter?

ANSWER: God is the one who is being all that is. God's Awareness of all is this Consciousness-I-am, therefore, God has the "responsibility" to be This that I am and to sustain me. There is no demand upon me to do a thing. (This doesn't mean that I don't appear to do things!) There is no need on my part to worry, fret, fume, fuss or fear. There is only to go about the Father's business of being the Father's business Awareness, witness of Infinity. This is my very own Identity.

*******************

EGO

The ego is an elaboration of Consciousness, a dream extension of Awareness, a phantom addition to the Single One. That is the one who would say, "God-Isness-and me too; God and something besides God; All and a little bit more; Isness and a little bit of ain't." That one is the liar from the beginning, the father of lies. That one is the devil who suffers from his own judgments, wandering to and fro among the objects of perception, calling them good and evil and attempting to devour them all.

*******************

Return To Archives

 

 

 

William Samuel & Friends
Literary Executor Sandy Jones
email us at sandy@williamsamuel.com