One of Nanci’s readers wrote to her: “I’m aware that this world is an illusion…however, the fact that you can’t literally kill people doesn’t change the fact that you can inflict enormous suffering. Dying might be an illusion but the suffering is not.”

Nanci’s response is: “Accepting that the manifested world is illusory means you have achieved a spiritual perspective on life. The next step is to understand how that truth affects how we experience this world.

The entire human existence is manifested and “illusory,” not just the physical appearances of it. I learned in the afterlife that the suffering isn’t “real” either. The emotional experience IS real at the human level, but it is vicarious at our spiritual level. Let me explain. When you watch a particularly important football game, do you get angry with bad calls by the refs, excited by touchdowns, and annoyed by commercial breaks? Are you really angry, excited or annoyed with respect to your own life? No. You are reacting to the game and the emotions fade when the game is over. Similarly, when a woman cries through the ending of a “chick flick,” is she actually suffering in her own life? No. She empathized with the fictional characters and forgets all about the crying after the movie ends. In much the same way, we parts of Source inside humans empathize with the lives of our human hosts. We suffer what they suffer-but only while we are in their bodies (and during the short time of the life review). My own experience in the afterlife was that all the pain and suffering I endured in Nanci’s body was gone. In fact, Nanci’s entire lifetime was revealed to be a vicarious experience, such as we might analogize to having a dream or being in a virtual reality game.

As for suffering with death-that is optional. We Light Being souls can choose to endure it or to get out of the body while it dies. Many near-death experience reports come from people who got out of their bodies to avoid the pain of dying or resuscitation.

The most important point here is that much human suffering could end tomorrow–if we would choose to do it. We Light Being souls have the power to stop our host bodies’ hurtful behaviors. Why don’t we? Because most people are not aware they even have this option. Most people truly believe they are human and cannot escape human emotions and motivations. That is why it is so important that we awaken each other to our true nature as parts of Source. Once you know that you are a powerful spiritual being, and not a human animal, you can believe you have the power to control your host body’s behavior. Expressing more of our spiritual nature through our behavior would increase the amount of unconditional love in our human lives and decrease the violence and abuse.” — Nanci Danison, Afterlife Experiencer and Author of BACKWARDS: Returning to Our Source for Answers, BACKWARDS Guidebook, and the Light Answers to Tough Questions series of CDs and DVDs. www.BackwardsBooks.com.

As Nanci writes so eloquently, the suffering here on Earth looks and feels real, even though in the biggest picture, it’s illusory. That’s why it is so important to be compassionate with ourselves and others when we feel lost, hurt, fearful or confused. All of us are awakening together. How fast we do it, however, is up to us individually.

Once I heard a voice in my head. It said, “Ana, you are not obliged to suffer.” That truth stopped my mind and I got a journey directly to Heaven. Release your suffering to the Holy Spirit, to the One Source that gives you breath. You’ll find joy waiting for you every time.

full text is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-simmons/the-sacred-ground-of-deep_b_691001.html

“Even though the American White supremacy movement was founded in Christian fundamentalism, and even though George W. Bush claimed to have “visions” from his Christian God to go to Iraq and kill over 100,000 innocent Iraqis, even though Timothy McVeigh was born into the Christian faith, we would never think for a millisecond that Jesus Christ or any verses of the bible were the cause of these horrendous, stupid acts of men. Therefore it is un-American and against everything that we believe in as a country to associate the 1.6 billion Muslims or 23% of the world’s population with the acts of a few, very evil men. I pray that all of the Muslims who might hate Christians because of George Bush’s actions, or the blacks or Jews or non-Whites who might hate Christians because of the historical genocide of their people, or the Christians who might hate Muslims for the acts of Osama bin Laden and his culprits, I hope they know that the overriding theme of Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Abraham and Lord Buddha was to love all people of all races and all religions.

I conclude with this story. Recently the organization of which I am the Chairman of, The Foundation For Ethnic Understanding, held a twinning program where we had European Imams and Rabbis visit the United States and hold meetings at the White House, New York City Hall and the United Nations. At the UN in my speech, I mentioned a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna tells Arjuna whether he knows him by the name Krishna or not, it is unimportant, as all he needs to do is follow certain principles and he will come to him. When I got off the stage the Imam from Geneva gave me his prayer beads, told me that he loved the verse from the yogic scripture and reminded me that the same sentiment about God loving all people, from all faiths, exists in the Quran.

Now that we have politicized Park51 and the world is watching, there can be no wavering of our support of the First Amendment and, in turn, the proposed community center. Build it.”

I got into a subway car with my son and sister. The doors were still open and the place was fairly crowded with sweaty New Yorkers of all colors and shapes. All of a sudden, a black man arrived at the doorway and began yelling at a white man who was sitting in the subway car. “What you did was wrong! I’m gonna make you pay, white man! I’ll see you tomorra! You can’t beat me! You can’t beat me!” he bellowed.  The white guy, who had a fresh black eye, began yelling back, matching the energy and contributing his own equally violent threats to the mix. Finally, the doors closed and the black guy slammed his fist onto our car BOOM! as it sped away into the bowels of Manhattan.

After a split second of stunned silence, a couple of people laughed, either because they thought it was funny, or because they were actually nervous and needed to break the tension. Everyone looked around and realized that we were fine, no big deal. A young black man looked over toward my white, 13 year old son and rolled his eyes with a smile.  Aron smiled back; so did I.

A few years ago, this incident could have sparked a race riot. In the heat, anything can happen. But this time, what I noticed was all the people (black-eyed white guy excepted) telling each other in subtle ways, “No thanks. We’re not going on that ride to racism, anger and violence. We’re done, and we’re not interested. We aren’t taking the bait and we won’t get hooked. There’s a lot more to life than macho posturing and slugging it out, no matter who’s involved or what their racial background. Let’s all get along and have some fun, instead!”

I got off that subway car inspired by how far we’ve come, and how great New Yorkers are. Some might say that New Yorkers are cynical, they’ve seen it all, and that’s why they let the incident slide into oblivion. But I don’t agree. People reached out to each other to make a better, richer fabric of community together.  Now that’s something to celebrate!

“Heaven is the decision I must make.” — ACIM

This is one of my favorite quotes. There’s no room for dithering or hesitation. Moment by moment, we decide.

Heaven is here in this moment. Not outside. Inside. Here – in your heart of hearts.

Namaste.

Allowing the possibility of a happy outcome to all things takes a lot of trust. How can there be a happy outcome when there is so much pain and suffering in the world…and in our hearts?

The only way to achieve any kind of real happiness is to offer all of our loneliness, fear and sadness to the Holy Spirit. Giving it to another person or idea doesn’t work. We’ve already tried to pawn it off on desires for possessions, prestige, sex, and drugs. We’ve attempted happiness through work, or sought relief through our spouses, children and therapists. None of that was successful, except for a minute or two, was it?

We are left with only one course of action that leads to healing. Pain and suffering can only be finally cleansed in one way. We must look in only one direction for support and guidance. Why? Because there is only one source of Love that is real. How can we find healing in anything that isn’t real? We can’t – it’s impossible.

If we want peace, we’ll need to offer up our pride and surrender on bended knee. We must acknowledge with a grateful heart this source that gives us life, minute by minute, moment by moment, breath by breath. Let’s finally understand that this source is pure love…so we can find the soft strength that’s necessary to lay down our burdens. Breathing out our sadness and confusion, we’ll make room for clarity, joy, and new direction. We’ve got to make some space, to clear out. Only the Holy Spirit, God’s grace in action, can help us here.

We will walk off the battlefield as many times as we need to. Over and over…or just once and for all. It doesn’t matter. What matters is directly experiencing relief from the illusions of bitterness, revenge and hatred. They are not real…we just made them up. We can let them go and find sanity…peace…heaven on earth.

This is the way that a happy outcome to all things is sure. Aaaahhhhhh, so good to know. 

A peaceful day to you.

A few days ago, I lost the coin. I couldn’t find it anywhere, though I did all the sensible things -checked my pants pockets, retraced my steps, etc. I began to feel sad that it had disappeared, and angry with myself for losing it. Damn!  I liked that coin!  I saw my attachment, my assumption about what it meant to me, my annoyance with my irresponsibility. And the little thing is worth about $200, on top of it all.

Anyway, the next day I taught my first Uncovering Your Inner Rumi devotional poetry workshop. A wonderful group gathered in Mount Shasta, CA, to explore writing devotional poetry together. Since I was thinking about the gold coin, I wrote about a poem about it during the workshop.  Here it is:

O Beloved

give me back my gold!

I lost it…yet could I ever lose it?

Jesus, your golden grace

coalesced in my hand

Lakshmi, I prayed for your help

Gone now

poof! it flew into the Mystery

Here is the teaching

if I dare:

never lost,never taken

this golden glow of mine.

Well, I really prayed that the coin would reappear, since I’d now gotten the lesson. A friend helped me search once more, and lo and behold – I found it!  Where, you might ask?  On my altar, where I’d placed it for safe-keeping, beside an image of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi, goddess of grace, beauty and abundance.I had to laugh. Lakshmi had me covered – the whole time!  Another life lesson:  Divine Love holds my golden grace, even when I’ve forgotten it, and forgotten where I’ve put it.  So good to know.

The River of Love is the healing experience of Divine contact. It’s sometimes called the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mother, Father God, or the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It was the only thing that kept me sane and whole enough to raise my children well, despite my mother’s illness and its effect on me. It helped me learn that I am a lot stronger than anything that shows up in my life, even the shock and pain of my mother’s suicide.

It took years to receive all of the lessons this experience gave to me. I needed to learn that the Grace of God offers a more powerful love than what my human mother could give me. It’s a love that never leaves, never gives up, and always heals when we allow it into our hearts.

Through this life journey, I feel humbled and in awe of the great mystery. I wonder where my mother is now, and how she is doing with the lessons that she learned. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I feel the movement of my soul in holding them. I am open-hearted and open-minded, calling for more wisdom.

Life gave me this experience to show me that NO MATTER WHAT, the River of Love will float me home to a deep inner sense of security and serenity. This river taught me to release my sadness, and find gratitude for the lessons I’d learned. It gave me the joy and freedom of knowing I am never isolated or without a friend. The River of Love showed me that the edges to all things are friendly…if I relax into the safety I share with the Divine.

In the past, I rarely spoke or wrote about what happened with my mother. Even now, I feel reticent to discuss it. But I also feel that we need to share our life experiences – not to wallow in the pain of them, but to transform difficulties that seemed impossible to overcome.When really tough things happen, using our minds to figure out what to do doesn’t help very much.  We need more space, more breath, deep intuition and a lot of prayer and true forgiveness to feel whole again.

I give swimming lessons in the River of Love. It’s OK to get your feet wet – or plunge right in with a full, naked leap! See you on the river…..

NEXT YEAR IN A JERUSALEM REDEEMED THROUGH JUSTICE AND THOSE RETURNING TO HER THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Four Children at the Seder Table:  Which Child Am I?

As we celebrate this Holiday of Freedom, the ending of slavery, we ask, “Who am I, when I hear of human rights abuses? Who will I choose to be when I know that others are suffering?”

Will I be one who does not ask? Will I close the newspaper or turn off the television so that I do not hear? Will I turn my head and heart away?

Will I ask only simple questions? “What is this?”  Will I ask what, but never why?

Will I let the evil impulse, my yetzer hara ask: “What has this to do with me?” Will I let the problem belong only to the victims and the do-gooders? Will I distance myself from those in need?

Or will I strive to act in wisdom, to ask: “What are the underlying causes of the problem and what needs to be done to stop the abuse and free the oppressed? What are the laws and what does Gd expect of me?”

May Gd open the eyes of those who do not see, the mouths of those who do not ask, and the hearts of those who do not care, and grant us the wisdom to open our hands to our fellow humans when they are in need  – the hand of generosity, the hand of support, the hand of peace and friendship.
— From Passover: Ridding ourselves of the khametz of arrogance, by Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights, Israel

The deeper I go into forgiveness…in the ecstatic, radical sense of the word…the more I see that its invitation is surrender. Forgiveness is the golden door, the way past all fear and grief, and an entry into life beyond dictatorship of the ego.

What is radical about radical forgiveness? What is ecstatic about it? Using a spiritual philosophy grounded in the teachings of A Course in Miracles and other holy books, we go beyond the traditional usage of the word “forgiveness”.  Rather than “letting bygones be bygones” (somehow), we agree to let our spiritual intelligence teach us. We humbly learn about the gifts that were hidden or obscured – in even the most terrible events in our lives. We surrender to the wisdom that lives beyond what our intellects can decipher. Allowing the healing blessings in, we also let pain and sorrow out of our hearts.

When we choose to let go of blame and grievances, and the corresponding thoughts and emotions buried deep within, we can refill ourselves on a cellular level with healing grace. We then find out that there is no spiritual need for forgiveness, after all, because we are not helpless, solitary victims of our circumstances. The world is not out to get us — in fact, God wants our perfect happiness.

Divine Love beckons us, welcoming us to release the pain of this material world, while supporting us to remain present in the world in order to guide others to the door. Divine Grace, sometimes known as the Holy Spirit, is the healer, and our part is to surrender to the healing…constantly flowing…the River of Love.

Recently, I found two plays on words that gave me a chuckle.  I share them here for your enjoyment and inspiration.

One of the hardest parts about being human is the tendency toward feeling abandoned. Abandoned by loved ones, by the death of loved ones, by the “betrayal” of others, and by God as well.  Especially by God. Hence all of the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that muck up our innate happiness.  Well, I found that there is a great use for abandonment.  Turning around, there is the possibility to abandon ourselves to God. That’s the juicy sort of abandonment that brings sublime joy, health, and happiness. This is the abandonment that Sufi poets describe so well. So next time you are feeling sadness or pain over thinking you’ve been abandoned by someone, abandon yourself to God instead. Freedom will be yours, every time.

Meditating upon “turning around”, I remembered the analogy that Colin Tipping likes to use in his explanation of Radical Forgiveness.  He describes our lives as being tapestries. They are beautiful, but usually we look at the backside of them. (“Ass backward,” as we used to say in New Jersey.) From that viewpoint, there are knots and hanging strings, and the image is messy and blurred. Turn it over, he suggests, and we see the divine perfection of our life plan, including everything that has ever happened for us. Not to us, but for us. It’s a turn-over!  Delectable!  I can remember that….apple turn-over, yum…let’s go get one right now.

When life seems unmanageable, try abandoning yourself to God. This surrender will put you on the path of forgiveness. And when circumstances are distasteful, turn it around…give yourself a tasty turn-over. Witnessing the perfection of each moment will make your life delicious again.

We can share a smile, a wink, a sunset, a poem, a rainbow….

Envisioning a world in which we all live this way comes from our own desire. We do it simply because it’s natural. There is no neediness, and no feeling of being drained or exhausted. Instead, there’s a playfulness to it, so that when we travel away from home across the street or across the world, we’re recognizing equality in all beings. We feel safe to stop and chat, to look people in the eye, to share love and art and beauty with them.

Lay forgiveness on your mind

and let all fear be gently laid aside

that love may find its rightful place in you.

— A Course in Miracles (T198)