TRUE AND LASTING PEACE does not come into the world through trying to change the world; only through the unconditional acceptance of what can never be changed does peace arise. The desire for change is a reaction of the dualistic thinking processes of the mind. It is the mind taking a preference in duality, which is an illusion.
When one is unhappy with what is judged as harmful and bad and so desires to change it, to make it better, to improve it and to fix the error, then the dualistic mind is engaged. The dualistic mind sees evil and wishes for good, its sees wrong and wishes for right, it sees injustice and wishes for fairness, it feels fear and speaks of love.
But this battle can never be won, and no true Change can arise from such a conflict, because the error cannot be uprooted in what one would change, the error is inherent in the very fact that one would attempt to change it, rather than see it for what it really is.
Trying to change the world or the self into something better is a form of escape and a delusion of the grasping mind. Rather than just seeing honestly what there is to see, and looking towards the immovable, unchanging, divine Reality in acceptance and surrender, the habit-worn ignorant mind tries to make its own life on Earth more comfortable by trying to change what can never be fundamentally transformed.
It is clearly evident that if a man wishes to change an illusion, if he desires to change one side of duality, then he must engage with that illusion. And if he wishes to change one side of a dualistic equation, then the other side must also be indulged, for one side is meaningless without the contrast of its opposite. To engage with and try to change the illusions of duality leads eventually to the kind of insanity that we see in society today: wars, disease, starvation, murder, rape and all the other horrors that are symptomatic of our planetary asylum today.
But who said that you had to change anything?
Who said you had to make anything better?
Who told you that you need to pray for peace on Earth?
Who was it that said unconditional love meant that you had to love an illusion and so try in vain to improve it?
Who told you that you and this world had to be perfect when Perfection is already alive and well, if you know where and how to look for it?
Who said that you would find perfection through trying to make this world a better place?
And who was it that tricked you into believing you had to be the one to make that change?
You can decorate the walls of a prison cell but it still remains the same prison. Knowing that, does the change make you happy? Have you found greater peace or freedom within its walls? Or did you just fool yourself for a while by covering the walls with a new colour, the colour of change?
Love, Peace and Happiness are not to be had through trying to change an illusion; only through the unconditional acceptance of the nature of an illusion does Freedom from it arise naturally. If you wish to bring the light of change to this world, then you must also make darkness in it, for change only exists and is made possible through opposites. If there is no opposite, how can you change anything? How could you make a positive change if there was no negative to change, to engage in? Why engage in opposites, when they must always re-balance themselves?
Why would you spend your time winding up a clock, only to watch it unwind again?
Why try to change what cannot ultimately change?
Man lives with goodness and happiness well enough, yet does not tolerate his evils or his sorrow, but he must love through them both if he would find freedom from them.
Man lives with pleasure and satisfaction, but he must be accepting of pain and disappointment also if he is to be free of struggle.
In order to change the world or the self into something good a man must become engaged in its opposite: evil, for there cannot be one without the other. And yet a man can no more take the evil out of good than he can take the clouds from the sky. He cannot take one part of duality and throw it away, it is impossible.
Some proclaim: “I let my light shine”.
But how can a man let the light shine if he is afraid of the dark?
He may say: “I let my light illuminate the dark”.
But why? Only fear wishes to change the nature of duality, only fear wishes to overcome its own darkness. You cannot win such a battle with yourself, or with duality, you can only be done with it and so prepare yourself to receive Grace.
The seeker of Truth must therefore come to understand the nature of duality, and allow both poles of it to be exactly what they are, and have nothing to do with either. He must want no part of either side of duality, including wanting to change them, for they are locked in an age-old battle with themselves, born of the same delusion. And if a man becomes involved in this battle, then he will become lost in delusion also.
Who told you that you had to pick which side of duality you liked best?
Who told you that by being on one of these sides would preclude you from becoming tied to the other?
And who convinced you that it was wise to try to change one or the other?
Where there is joy in this world there is also pain, where there is light there is also darkness. But where there is Truth, duality is not known.
Who told you to fight evil with good? Who tricked you into thinking and believing that you could ever separate them and bring peace to the world, that you could ever use one to overcome the other?
The path through this world is both light and dark, for such is the nature of duality. If you walk only on the light side, on the side you like the most, then how will you continue along the path when it moves into the shade?
Who told you that you needed to own, change, avoid, or do anything with life other than let it be exactly what it is?
By leaving it be, by having no interest in it you would transcend duality’s illusion. But who told you that by engaging with the pairs of opposites you or anyone else would become free from them?
This world is already perfect, all of mankind is already perfect, that is, perfectly dualistic, living perfectly within the opposites of good and evil, light and dark. Do you want there to be more light than dark? Do you want to get rid of one part of the world’s nature, or your own? Would you like to destroy one part of duality, even though it is impossible to do so? The world is perfectly dualistic, what do you want to change it for?
The self is already perfect, all its ideas are already perfect: perfectly dualistic, living perfectly between the opposites of good and evil, light and dark. Do you want to be more light-filled than dark-filled? Do you want to get rid of a part of yourself? Or a part of yourself you see and do not like in another? The self on Earth is perfectly dualistic, that is its nature, what do you want to change it for?
Who told you that all in this world was not already being perfectly what it is, perfectly true to its dualistic, undivine nature?
Who told you that you had to do the impossible, to try to make duality one-sided?
Who made you believe you could change the perfect balance of duality’s nature in this illusion?
And who said to you that you can change the perfect dualistic balance in the world with notions of peace and goodness?
All your life you have tried to change something that was only ever being what it perfectly is. All of your life you have been running around in circles trying to change what can never be changed, how can you remove the night from the day, the inbreath from the outbreath? Is it not insane to try?
Why have you been trying to bring light into darkness when the two will just intermingle to produce a dull, lifeless shade of grey?
You have spent your whole life swinging between black and white, clinging to the one you liked best while trying to avoid the one you did not like, and all the while trying to convince the world and everyone else you were right. Why?
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There are two realities: in one the nature is polarity, and that is where the Earth vibrates for now. The other Reality, however, has no opposites, it is Divine and perfect, just as the reality of polarities is perfectly undivine. Why try to change either? And how can you?
Can you bring Heaven to Earth? Can you bring the Divine into the undivine? And can you change the nature of either?
The answer is no, you can only play by the rules, by duality’s rules, or by divine rules. Anything else is your mind pretending, playing tricks on you.
If you do not like duality, then leave it alone and seek the Divine.
How can you go home to Perfection when you are still trying to change imperfection?
Surrender is the only way, you can’t change the law of duality, no more than you can change the colour of the sky. If you are busy with desire and aversion, creating and destroying, how can you be free of the realm of polarity? If you want to bring peace to the world you have not understood the law, or the nature of duality.
All life in duality suffers the restlessness of the pairs of opposites, until it is done with them, until it is ready to put them down, end the game, stop fighting, stop wanting, until it is finished with the dream and ready to give up all delusions.
If you are busy trying to bring light and peace into this world you will never be able to understand the Truth, or leave beguilement’s shores. And if you are protecting your own views, you will always hide who you really are behind them.
Trying to change duality’s nature is a deluded and futile plight; the more light you bring into the world, the more darkness will rise up in response, until you learn, until you see. The more you battle for peace on Earth, the more war must inevitably ensue, until you learn and see that duality must balance itself, balance its darkness with its light. Such is its perfectly dualistic nature.
When you try to bring light into this world in order to change what you deem or judge as wrong, know that under the law of duality and in response to your actions, darkness has been accentuated and brought to the world in order to maintain the balance. So at whose expense are your good deeds executed? Who suffers the evil of your ignorant good?
The only true light of change comes in giving up delusion and surrendering to Truth. Not for the want of any change does Truth arrive on Earth, and not to make an evil into something good, but it comes to the world to call souls Home from the illusion. There is no purpose for divine Love and Truth to be in the world of polarity other than to redeem souls from the endlessly swinging pairs of opposites, from the imperfect state of life and death, pleasure and pain, light and darkness. Divinity does not come to improve duality, so why do you seek to?
Have you yet understood the nature of the world?
Who said you had to change anything?
You cannot change the law, or the nature of things. This level of consciousness on Earth is one of discipleship, it is a platform from which to reach up towards liberation. You did not come here to remodel or repaint the platform, you came here to learn what it takes to be done with this illusion and return Home; not to try to make it perfect, but instead to see its nature and so wisely give it up.
Do you think you came here to transform the world into an Eden, when Eden already exists, and where reside many luminous souls waiting for you to return?
Change does not happen in the world, it happens within; realisation does not happen in the world it happens within. The world is only an outer reflection of the human mind, and you must be done with the reflection before you can begin to see Reality. And when you do begin to see, then the old world outside will start to vanish and you will recognise that it never had any real existence.
You must be done with trying to change the nature of things, with trying to manipulate universal laws, with trying to change an illusion, before you can begin to see the Truth that waits beyond the mind’s glamour.
All things are as they are, and perfectly as they are. It is not for you to change anything, but rather to realise the nature of this world and so be finished with it. And when you are done with this level of nature, another Nature will appear and restore your vision, and show you who you are.
Perfection is already a reality, it has always been a reality, and when you are finished with the illusion, and so no longer wish to change it, correct it or improve it, but instead start to let it be, you become a seeker of Truth, rather than a participant in duality’s endless illusions.
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When you went to school as a child, did you try to change the school into a perfect school in order to begin learning its lessons? No, you just learned your lessons and then left. It is the same for the school of this world: learn your lessons and then leave. Interfere with the curriculum before learning the lessons and the school would be rendered into disarray, just as this world is in disarray.
Perfect students make a perfect school, nothing more than that, and you become a perfect student not by trying to change anything, but by just sitting down and listening to the teacher in the classroom.
And if you skip certain lessons because you do not like them, then you will only learn part of the curriculum and so you will have to return again to learn the rest.
When the lessons of the law of cause and effect in duality are understood you will no longer seek to meddle with it. You will choose to let it be what it is, and you will stop trying to skip lessons, or change the curriculum into something you would prefer. You will again begin to trust life, and to trust duality to show you the middle way between its illusions. You will cease to grasp at good because you are afraid of evil, you will cease to cling to hope because you are afraid of doubt, you will cease to speak so much about love because you dislike your own fear, and in coming into balance you will learn all your lessons before leaving the Earthly school forever.
Soon now your school teacher is going to return, and he is going to want to see your coursework. What will you show him? Will you show him a book only half filled with the things you liked best? How will you pass the final test, with half your work and understanding missing?
He will send you back to school, until you fully understand your desire and aversion, until you realise why you are really at school, until you come to understand the nature of your ignorance, and until you cease to decorate the world to your personal liking.
There is no escape for you, no matter how good you think you have been; if you have avoided seeing all that you must in order to leave the illusion of duality, you will find yourself back there next term.
Who taught you to hide from life in dreams and hopes of peace and love?
Who made you so afraid that you thought you dare not look at the whole picture, both good and bad?
And who told you that by skipping life’s lessons, trying to change the world into a better place, and attempting the impossible task of adjusting the laws of duality into something more pleasing for yourself, would ever lead you to the Truth?