You Grab The Rung That Is There

Weekly Message, October 22, 2005
You Grab The Rung That Is There
Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

This is a continuation of a message I have transcribed and edited from a talk Ishvara gave on October 2, 2005. - TG.

Ishvara:

In an authentic awakening, an individual sees something, knows something, and speaks of that, and it changes everything around that person. It takes courage to go out on a limb and say what-is. There are probably many in history who have gone out on a limb to say what-is, and somebody cut off the limb. Those who go out on a limb don't write the history books. It requires a unique happening to stabilize transformation. It takes support, allowing, believing, and accepting. And so it is understandable that Life in the past has presented a new transparency that has been ignored. Not enough people saw it. The status quo continued to have its way. Individuals hung on to what-was, afraid to change, to make the necessary adjustments in their life-flow to reap a greater awareness.

It takes courage. It is a force of will. You can't expect the world to support you in change. The world remains as it was. The consensus reality is an agreement of the many, and mostly has its way with things: mind to mind, body to body, person to person. Now, when an exception begins to happen, the more who recognize that exception, the greater the exception becomes. When you can recognize within yourself that something is different, something is unique, something is changing, something is activated, you begin to access feeling-knowing. At that point, you can enliven, encourage and empower it, or you can attempt to fit it into some system or structure.

An awakening experience is often interpreted as a religious experience: one has an experience of feeling-knowing, and the intellect says, "It must be some divine force speaking, having its way with me; therefore I must become a part of this system, this structure." It happens all the time. That is the danger of systems and structures. They are ready-made boxes that are prepared to receive a believer, creating a match: "This must be what's happening to you, so come this way." It is all about control. With awakening you begin to recognize that there are very few components out there, very few pieces out there that want awakening. Most pieces want to be safe and secure in the past; they want to be taken care of.

It is a bit strange to me that there are so many "feel-good" systems and structures, yet so much suffering in the world. These feel-good systems and structures are not working. As long as people are suffering, there is something off, something missing in the system.

Life is not about feeling good. It is about being real. It is about finding that Self that you are, and trusting that, without outside support. You can't go around expecting that someone is going to recognize you as the Self: "Oh, I see you woke up; wonderful! You have that light in you. You're connected. You're one of those shakers. You are activated. You are going to change the world. Can I come along with you?" Don't hold your breath for such a response. You usually get the other: "What's wrong with you? You look weird. I don't trust you. You must be up to something; you must be, because everybody is." It becomes tiring to be thrown into that box, the classification that you have an agenda, that you are just another control mechanism seeking wealth, prosperity, recognition, or control.

I find that much of the time I am a reluctant master. I did not ask for this awareness. There is no place in my life where I signed on the dotted line and said, "OK, I'll do it." I was just sort of being, experiencing life like everybody else, and some disturbing thing happened, and I woke up. It is not easy to see, to live in this feeling-knowing, to know what is happening, and to know what needs to happen, yet also to know that a lot of it won't happen because of resistance, attachment and projections. I see every moment where humans hold back, resist, set aside, missing that moment of possibility. Of course, other moments come up, but every moment missed is an avenue for more suffering.

I may be criticized, and you may be criticized, for my attitude about other teachers, systems and structures, but if you have to live with the consequences of those things, seeing what is happening to individuals because they hold onto belief, if you could truly see that, you would see that your awareness is not judgment, but discernment.

It is interesting to me that the most difficult thing I run into is to get people to understand what is happening; to not be afraid, but to embrace what is happening, and not misinterpret. When I say "I am It, I am the One," that is the truth. I am It, I am the One, and if you don't see that it is because you have your eyes closed, because this [referring to himself] is a reflection of you, so you are seeing yourself. There are not two. There cannot be two. There is only Life. There is only one Life; it is all inclusive. It expresses uniquely, on purpose, not destined, but on purpose. Trying to get people to see this mirroring that is taking place is difficult. If you can see yourself in me, I guarantee that you will become very powerful. You will become and be very knowing, and you will not have any discrepancies, you will not be confused, you will no longer worry about the words, the concepts, the conditioning, or the beliefs. You will live in feeling-knowing. You will be supported in living from the core of your being, beyond expectations or programs.

Ultimately, it is a matter of realizing that the highest good is always taking place, and of being OK with not liking the highest good. That's just the way it is. It may seem that a lot of times the highest good is awful. Yet, if you can back away from that individual perspective, get out of the "What's in it for me?", and observe the bigger picture, you can realize that all the systems and structures of the past are like rungs of a ladder. You cannot ascend by clinging to a rung. You have to keep letting go. You have it within you to do so. You keep letting go. You may create new systems and structures as you move along, but they are always only temporary.

It is sort of scary when you realize that there is nothing. Everyone wants there to be something; they want something there. It is as if they say, "OK, you make the rung for me to grab, and then I'll grab it. But I'm not going to reach out if I don't see something is there." I am there. You can grab me. I am a rung of the ladder. I don't look like a rung, yet that is the kind of ascending we are doing. Somebody has to create a rung, something to grab onto. It is not within human nature just to reach out and grab nothing; there has to be something there. If you feel you are apart from me, then I seem to be better than you, but if you know I am not outside, that there are not "two," but just this, Life, then there is nothing to grabbing the rung. You just grab the rung; it is there. You make use of it. You don't really care how it got there. The next rung may reveal how rungs are made, but right now you just grab the rung that is there.


This message is part 2 of 4 parts. It will continue with "The Great Deception," part 3 of 4; and conclude with "Embrace The New Transparency," part 4 of 4. It began with "Within You Is This Marvelous Possibility," part 1 of 4.


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