Imagine someone who, while having his morning coffee and toast, suddenly realizes that the next day he must remember to do something he had forgotten all about: something quite important for himself and his overall well-being. But even as he relishes this vital idea streaming through his mind - and that he has managed to remember it in a timely fashion - he is beset by other flashes of inspiration: Should he use the marmalade or apple butter on his last slice of toast? Would it be better to take his afternoon walk before or after his 4 p.m. meeting with his son's schoolteacher? In other words, his brief mindfulness is overrun by other influences, each with its own intent and compelling powers of persuasion.

If this man doesn't take deliberate steps in the midst of this moment to set his thoughts down on paper and somehow fix his important remembrance, it is most likely that this visiting recollection will vanish again, swallowed up in the momentum of his unconscious mind as it tumbles along tickling itself! And so, being a wise person, he forsakes the press of his pleasures for a moment and picks up a pen to make a short note for himself. In this act that feels like a sacrifice, he actually transforms his one important passing thought into that which will be there for him tomorrow in his time of need.

Within this short illustration of the events unfolding in just one person - with all the possibilities and potential choices arising out of them - we may glimpse a Great Truth about the real nature of self-transformation. And further, we may discover some of the secrets we must understand to enter into the Eternally Conscious Life.

The state of mind of the man in our story - wherein one significant idea that surfaces within the multitude would be lost in the moment without his action of giving it the attention it calls for - is similar to our own. Try to see this idea in scale: Inwardly we are not one, but many selves. And worse, we know not which one we are at any time. We are not yet conscious of self, so that at any given moment, asleep to ourselves in this stream of selves, we are not only misled into choosing against ourselves, but we don't even recognize these choices as being self-wrecking! However, all is not lost.

Just as the man saw it was better to remember his task than give his life over to buttering his toast, we too receive impressions that brim up in us in the midst of our present consciousness - flashes that prompt us to reach for a Higher order of self beyond our comprehension. We have all had these moments, even if not recognized as such. It works like this: Into the midst of our sleeping self arises an occasional realization. An idea comes to us that we must awaken; that we must pull ourselves out from under the sway of that unconscious crowd within us. And with this idea, with each breaching of some Light into the dark waters of self, there momentarily appears a new self within us that also sees this idea as vital to its life.

And so the stage is set. All depends upon what we do next. Do we remember ourselves, our true purpose on earth, so that we give our attention to this impulse of Consciousness? Or, do we allow it and its invitation to be submerged in surges of desires that serve nothing but the darkness from which they spring? The choice is ours to make. The effect of not choosing always manifests itself - the chief difficulty with this outcome being, for one, that the subsequent heartache is never recognized as being self-created.

Our lives are living opportunities to explore the Celestial Stuff of Consciousness from which we are created. We can either choose to substantiate this relationship with Reality through the "process" of paying attention to its invitation, or we can refuse it. The first (and highly recommended) action places us upon the Guest List of God's Life. The latter choice, our failure to be awake and attend to the moment at hand, leads to nothing but more involvement with nothing. So the Right Choice is always to choose in favor of Real Life! We must learn to discern Truth when it knocks at our door.

Whenever a Higher thought or pure emotional Impulse passes through you and calls your attention to its presence, give it your undivided attention. It may not seem so at the moment, but you cannot do anything more important with your time and energy. These rarefied thoughts or feelings - flashes of Higher states of well-being - are to your potential for Real Life as is the grain of sand that somehow manages to find its way past the oyster's shell and into its flesh. The Pearl of Great Price is a gift, yet it must be paid for.

So then, what is in one's reach and what is not? How do we transform these possibilities into the Powers they represent to help change our level of Being? Remember the following idea and make it your friend: There is no "how to" apart from one's wish to. And wishes without actions are like hoping to scale a mountainside while sitting on your sofa.

We must forsake our involvement with the ever-dissolving self that sleeps in time. That which can see in a man or woman must be separated out from what is seen. The self that is must be brought to the forefront of all that was. The level of Being that sees comes more and more awake in us in each present instant that it asks for our attention and we comply.

That's the way it is: One for the other; no other Way exists. Truth is fixed in us by the glue made from lies realized as lies - by the present action of letting go of the past - through remembering ourselves remembering our God in deliberate acts of attention.

Use your life rightly. It is a precious gift that becomes more so as one agrees to accept the responsibility that comes with all of its promising possibilities.

© Guy Finley
Life Channels Contributing Author
All Rights Reserved

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