3-38. Utter Joy and complete Peace are available to you right now. You will find them in the present moment. Release your beliefs that it cannot be so. You can be Free, forever.
The present moment is an utterly unique intersection of the past and future. Yet the past is set, an inalterable structure that contains all of the information on all events. The future is a diametrically opposed reflection of the past - the future presents to you a great panoply of all possibilities, even those that you would likely describe as impossible or at least highly improbable. The past is known in a manner that is inarguable, although much of the detail of what has occurred may remain unknown. The future is not this at all - the future is not known, for there remains within the ambit of the future the ability to surprise that the past cannot offer. Yet the present moment is not as either of these opposing polarities of time must be, for the present moment cleaves the past from the future in a never ending sequence of infinitesimally brief instants. Each instant contains an eternity of time, fully captured within its own limits, yet each is distinct as well and cannot be directly connected to the next. Although within normal perception, time appears to be linear and contiguous, it is not in Truth. That is the power and the grace of the present moment - by dividing all that was from all that can be, each and every moment available to you can be utterly unlike the last. However the power to alter that which is to be from all that has transpired before rests solely with you - you have the ability to elect in any moment that you will no longer approach this world, or draw conclusions from that which you perceive, in an manner that is out of alignment with the Truth of Love. This may appear to be a daunting or difficult task, yet it is not at all. The power of the present moment enables you to choose again, at any time, and to remake the world that you perceive in the image of Love, instead of allowing it to remain as a brief reflection of the ego’s coy madness. It is tempting to continue to be as you were. It is easier, in many ways, to not relinquish all that was and to instead hold desperately onto it, carrying it forward as a cross of the greatest burden, weighing you down endlessly as you trudge ever onwards, believing that you are beset by God and that suffering is a requirement of Creation. It is not. Nothing that was Created by God was designed or intended to suffer. Suffering is wholly optional, yet the ego will have none of that and the ego will insist that suffering is noble and necessary. Nothing could possibly be a greater perversion of the Truth of Love than the vast array of implications that are carried along with an assumption of the necessity for pain in any form. That which is Love is not that which is pain. They are not opposites, for Love is All and nothing can oppose the infinity that is the totality of Creation. While pain is unnecessary, there is a requirement of bravery and courage that is important to recognize if you are to cast off the mantle of oppression that the ego has for so long used as an unbreakable yoke upon your heart. To distinguish between that which is Real and all that is the illusions of the ego in any form, you need only inquire with your heart and all will be revealed. However this revelation does not carry with it an automatic presumption of acceptance, for it remains your choice to believe what your heart will reveal to you, or to continue to deny it and to live in infamy from our own abilities. This is the crux of Creation that cleaves the past, so filled with longing, regret and the absence of a Peace vaguely remembered but barely experienced, from a future that can present to you such a beautiful reflection of the Truth of God that you will no longer be able to uphold the ego’s edicts for even one instant more. Yet you choose, whether consciously or not, and all that unfold for you in the future expands from these choices. Fortunately you are granted a long series of present moments within which you can choose again, if through reflection on your past you have found that what you elected to believe did not serve you as you hoped it might. Awakening to Love is rarely accomplished in a single leap, for much must be shed and so very little, at least at first, appears able to be taken up in its place. However the infinitesimally brief present moments that are falling all around you are all possessed of more than sufficient space to allow you to distinguish between all that was, which was not at all of any value, and all that can be, which can absolutely become so thoroughly suffused with the Truth of God that you will no longer be willing to take up the ego again when another choice of such perfect rationality is available. Beliefs, being structures of thoughts so frequently revisited that they become infused into the very substrate of your waking consciousness, are oftentimes not recognized for what they are, at least at first. They can be restrictive but masquerade as liberation. They can be destructive but pledge to you that they are helping to build the world you wish to see. They can be dishonest, but scream in vain about their trustworthiness and value. They can be obstructive but feel as though they are liberating indeed. This perversity of belief is commonplace and not to be condoned in and of itself, for thoughts are as neutral as this world of form and they enjoy no life outside of your own willingness to generate them and to then hold them up as having a value they have never possessed. Conceptualizations of Truth will not carry you forward to God. To become manifest within the sphere of influence that is your greatest and most perfect expression of your highest potential, you must release all concepts of limitations. This appears to run counter to all that this world will speak to you of, at least in terms of what cannot be. This world and almost all of its current occupants believe most fervently that there are some situations, events, alignments and possibilities that simply will never occur. Yet they express these beliefs while lacking genuinely justifiable reasons to support their positions. Unless you are able to truthfully claim that you know all that there is to know about All That Is, how is it that you can, either logically, empirically or even metaphorically, present a position of authority from which you can make blanket proclamations about what is impossible? Can you as of yet see the insanity of such a charge? It is devoid of justification in any form that is permanent, yet it is espoused continuously and accepted by almost all of the incarnate Children of God without any consideration at all. That which can be is unlimited. Your ability to release all beliefs in impossibilities is a critical step towards accepting each present moment just as it is, rather than trying in vain to cast a pall over the future, deterministically lording over the future as if you are a deity of unlimited determination and influence. All of these announcements are void, for they do not find a foundation in absolute and unchallengeable Truth. Allow the present moment to show you a world transformed by Love, a gilt garden of infinite splendor and Light where before there was but the drudgery and mundanity of another era of life within this world of form. Peace and Joy accompany the light heart that does not want, but rather accepts that no matter what is to occur, your place within the pantheon of Creation is assured and the Love that is Given unto you is Complete and inalterable. From this place of certainty, all that occurs is simply that - occurrences that unfold but that have no power to alter the Truth of Love. Being integral with Love, you are already safe. Nothing that has occurred is dispositive regarding all that can be. This proposition is nearly completely opposed to one of the most foundational tenants of the ego - specifically, that what was is at all directly related to that which can be. It is not. Accept that undoing this illusion may take time, as it is often deeply rooted and its influence runs through much of the constructs of the ego that are so easily accepted that they appear to become axiomatic definitions of the world of form. While you are indeed in this world for learning and growth, your origin was not here and your departure from this world will not coincide with a destruction of your awareness. First accepting that this is possible - that you will not perish when your body fails, and then truly knowing it with the certainty that your heart has never forgotten - will transform the past from a graveyard of all that was not into the birthing ground for all that can be, allowing all that has transpired to be the inspiration for you to create whatever it is that you would like to see become manifest, including infinite Peace and a subtlety of Joy that is so very rare indeed that to experience it is to Know it, and then to live within it forevermore.