Saturday, April 5, 2008 (Group/Castaic, California)
Participants: Mary (Michael), Anet (Alexi), Bobbi (Jale), Brad (Quinian), Cat (Munya), Christina, Christine (Kara), David (Othello), Debi (Oona), Drew (Matthew), Eric (Orlando), Gail (William), George D (Lanya), George G (Gregor), Jo (Tyl), Jody (Katie), Joyce, Letty (Castille), Mike (Alandra), Pam (Pviette), Pat (Fryolla), Paul H (Caroll), Paul T (Xutrah), Prince (Jonndue), Robert, Ron (Olivia), Sabrina (Stencett), Sangshin (Fylo), Sheri (Milde), Stella (Cindel), Steve (Yuki), Wendy (Myiisha)
Elias arrives at 11:39 AM.
ELIAS: Good afternoon!
GROUP: Good afternoon.
ELIAS: As you have all been anticipating, the announcement finally arrives: your previous wave is ending and your new wave beginning. (Applause, and Elias laughs) That may be premature! (Laughter)
This wave in consciousness is associated with the Vold family. Those individuals belonging to or aligning with this family of the Vold will be experiencing this wave more intensely than other individuals, but it may also be beneficial for those individuals in being helpful to other individuals in understanding what they are experiencing.
This wave that you have chosen to begin is the wave addressing to emotion. I will express to you that within what would be identified as this previous month, many of you will have been noticing a building intensity of energy and most likely have been experiencing unusualness. In this, you have been building energy to begin this wave.
This wave will include some intensities. For those of you that are thought or political-focused individuals, you will likely be experiencing unusualness, for you are not accustomed to expressing emotion as often or as intensely as religious or emotional-focused individuals. Therefore, it may be confusing at times. Those of you that are emotionally focused or religious-focused individuals will be experiencing more of an intensity in your emotional communications. By that, what I am expressing is not necessarily MORE emotional communications, but louder. Therefore, they will be less easy to ignore.
DEBI: Well, that’s good.
ELIAS: It is, in your terms. For many of you, as individuals with your respective focus types, do at times find it difficult to be paying attention to emotional communications and what they are expressing, what the messages are. You are all accustomed to the signals, but not as accustomed to what those signals are expressing in their messages. This will offer you an opportunity to become more clear in identifying your own communications with yourselves. But there will be an intensity, and this wave also appears that there is a potential that it will be more on-going than that of the perception wave.
I would also acknowledge all of you in your movement in relation to the perception wave, for you have accomplished quite well in paying attention and noticing differences and recognizing the importance and the significance of perception and the strength of perception, how it actually does create all of your reality and colors all of your reality. But you have fared well and you have accomplished, and this has facilitated your movement into your new wave, which I incorporate no doubt that you will fare well with this wave, also.
But be aware there are many, many, many individuals within your communities, within your societies, within your world that are not objectively aware of what is occurring. They are experiencing the same but may not incorporate the information that you do to offer themselves explanations. This is the reason that the Vold individuals will be instrumental, those belonging to or aligning with, for you as individuals incorporate strong capacities for sensitivities to other individuals in relation to emotional communications and can be supportive in dramatic manners.
Therefore, I encourage all of you to be aware that there will be confusion in this wave. This is not to say that it is bad, but there will be confusion. Those of you that understand can be encouraging to other individuals. This is your opportunity to incorporate what you know into action.
Many, many, many of you have engaged with myself for extended time frameworks and incorporate desires to offer information to other individuals and to include other individuals in the expansion of this information. Many of you become confused in how to do that without being instructing. This is your golden opportunity to be helpful, to be supportive, to be accepting without instructing and to be sharing in a manner that will be encouraging to other individuals, to allow them an expanded awareness and more of an understanding and more of an encouragement, for other individuals to become more intimately and clearly aware of themselves.
Now that you are informed (chuckles), I have chosen to open this interaction to you and allow you to pose your questions in relation to your experiences, and perhaps share your experiences in what you accomplished or what you offered to yourselves in information in relation to the previous wave.
Sharing is an excellent form of connection and communication, for as you do that, you each allow yourselves to attract different perspectives that allow each of you to expand your own perceptions. Therefore, I also express that it is excellent to be acknowledging of accomplishments, and I am aware that all of you have accomplishments in relation to our previous wave. Who shall begin?
PAUL T: Hey bro, how’s it going? (Elias chuckles) Yes, the perceptual wave. I have been sharing with many people what I have chosen to call “perceptual orientation,” your orientations. The terms to the uninitiated to your nomenclature, the terms of common, intermediate and soft, sometimes raise directions of questioning which is not really pursuant to me being able to effectively share information about perceptual orientation. I have been using the viewpoints of “externally focused” for common, “internally focused” for intermediate, and “blended or combination” for that of soft, using these terms not to imply extrovert or introvert, but rather just for where a person’s focus of attention is. The purpose behind this is to not confuse people with terminology which takes a whole lot of explanation and that sort of thing.
Would you comment on that sort of terminology that I’ve been using, or is there perhaps another direction you might suggest? Because the information about perceptual orientation has been extraordinarily helpful to me in understanding people around me and my interactions with them and their interactions with other people. It’s been very interesting sharing this with other people, watching their reaction to it and having them be able to use it effectively as well.
ELIAS: How you interpret or translate the information is entirely acceptable. I choose terminology intentionally, but also am aware that once it is presented, each of you will interpret that in your own manner, and you will discover manners in which you can individually effectively share. This is not recruiting; it is SHARING. In this, what method you choose or what terms you choose that facilitate your sharing and generate more ease in doing so is entirely acceptable.
And what have you recognized in accomplishments in association with differences?
PAUL T: That’s probably the most significant aspect. By understanding the differences in the perception of others, it allows me to make a deeper connection with them, because it allows me to stand in their shoes, so to speak, and take their perception at least temporarily.
The most striking example is a neighbor of mine who is intermediate. The extreme focus upon her relationship to everything else is interpreted by some others around me as being extremely self-absorbed. Whereas, this information and understanding how she actually perhaps — I have to imagine, because I’m not intermediate — how she views these things allows me to relax my automatic judgments of that way of viewing things. It allows me to relax more, and that’s the most important thing.
ELIAS: Very well, which is quite important, for comfort is a very important subject in what you all seek to attain. It can be an elusive state of being if you are not paying attention to when you are comfortable and when you are not comfortable. Most individuals focus upon when they are not comfortable but do not necessarily acknowledge when they are. Therefore, when they are not, it becomes confusing in how they can return to being comfortable. But I would be acknowledging of you in your accomplishment.
But I would also pose an inquiry: what if you do not understand?
PAUL T: Well, then I’m just fucked! (Elias laughs loudly with the group)
ELIAS: That would be the next accomplishment! Ha ha ha! Yes?
JO: Who me? (Elias laughs) A year ago today, I began an energy exchange with an essence who calls herself Rose. It was just a few very scary, precipitous words on a ouija board, after sitting and looking at it for about two or three weeks as it didn’t move. It was lifeless.
It’s been a very emotional and overwhelming and beautiful experience. In the context of it emotionally, it gives me pause — I hadn’t thought about that before — because I am emotionally focused, it has been part of the process, somehow, of being open to that. A lot of the material that is coming out seems to be moving into the action area. It will be encouraging me (inaudible) to be taking more action, and others as well, in line with our intent and doing things that bring us joy and bliss and that are in line with what we came here to do and that please us. So it’s like a cusp that we’re on today, that’s going to be very interesting to see how it evolves. That’s my accomplishment.
ELIAS: Very well, and how do you associate that with perception? How has it affected your perception?
JO: It’s as if I see now why I’ve always perceived things perhaps a little differently. I’ve been more accepting of my orientation, and it has helped explain a lot of things I’ve perceived about myself in the past. So it has helped me relax into my life in ways that I’ve never considered before. It helped explain things.
ELIAS: Congratulations.
JO: Thank you very much, and I mean that most deeply. If it hadn’t been for you and Mary, I wouldn’t be doing this now. I’m deeply grateful to both of you. (Elias nods in acknowledgment)
ELIAS: And the next individual?
DEBI: I’d be happy to go, but I’m not quite sure where to start.
ELIAS: What has the wave addressing to perception allowed you to accomplish in relation to perception?
DEBI: Definitely, the last couple of years I’ve spent a lot of time purposely meeting people from other places with other beliefs, from other countries, extreme other beliefs. This is typically on-line, because I don’t travel. I started out that way, with a goal of getting to understand more people. Forget about the news, the newspaper. I don’t want to go there. I want to go to people and I want to find out what’s really going on. The result is, for me, I’m still judgmental — I’m not gonna say I’m not judgmental; I don’t know that that’ll ever be gone — but much, much less judgmental. I still do auto-respond to things that are not my guidelines, the difference being that now I’m aware of it much sooner than I used to be. I think one of the best things that came out of this perception wave is I’m much faster at getting things than I used to be, partially because it’s so goddamn painful — sorry, excuse my French — but it is. You know I was suicidal for the better part of last year. I’ve put more good days together in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life, I think.
The perception wave, for me, culminated in this experience I had one day where I was standing in a parking lot smoking a cigarette trying to figure out why everything was so screwed up. My perception was it was going in one direction, and I didn’t make it go that way. I heard myself go, “Why does God hate me?” and then I go, “You don’t even believe in God, dumb ass! Don’t call yourself dumb!” I realized, while this was going on, where was I in this huge parking lot? I’m standing next to the dumpsters! I am with the trash. I put myself there. I go, “No, why do YOU hate you so much? Why do YOU hate you?” So I spent about 24 hours trying to come up with a really good reason to hate myself and keep screwing myself over and creating bad stuff, and I couldn’t satisfactorily come up with enough... I could add up everything I’ve ever done that was horrible in my whole life and none of it was worth hating me. If someone else came along and said, “I did this, this and this, da-da-da,” I wouldn’t hate them. And within 24 hours, my entire world shifted. That’s all I did!
ELIAS: Congratulations.
DEBI: Thank you. Talk about a perception shift! I would have stood by that dumpster two years before if I had known that was going to happen! (Elias laughs with group) So I did move away from the trash — I don’t smoke next to trashcans anymore!
For me, it was a very rough road. I have to be honest and tell you — and you can laugh at me, I know you do a lot and you’re going to — when I say I’m thrilled to hear it’s the emotion wave and it’s Vold time, because I’ve been living my life that way forever. So bring it on! (Laughter) I’m happy to help.
I already had a feeling about this. There has got to be a reason why I’m learning all this stuff — with a lot of help from my friend Milde, who held my hand through all this, while I was talking about shivving myself in the neck with scissors, stuff like that. To me, it feels like a breath of fresh air, I’ll be honest with you. Later on I might recant that, but it sure doesn’t feel like it now. I don’t feel afraid of this next wave. I feel excited. The perception wave, if that one didn’t kill me — and it didn’t, because I surprise the crap out of myself still, so I know I’m not dead! — I feel like man, I made it to the top of the mountain. Chutes and ladders, now I get to chute back down and start back up the next mountain.
ELIAS: Very well! (Chuckles) Yes?
STEVE: Elias, I have a proclivity, an urge to express and argue my point of view with other people a lot. I’ve posted over 6000 posts at BlueFlash, which is devoted to you, and I even attend a Bible class and I speak with them. I speak with people in the park. Wherever I go, I do that. I notice during this perception wave — and I argue with ghosts, too, by the way, as you well know (laughter) — and what I’ve noticed is that essences of your type and of our type have convictions that no matter what you say, no matter what argument you dream up to convince them of your belief, you cannot budge any of them, not one human being one inch, and the same with essences of your type. So I’m not sure why I even bother! (Laughter) But that seems to be the human condition. That’s what I’ve noted during this wave.
ELIAS: Congratulations, that is significant. (Chuckles) Yes?
ANET: This is Anet/Alexi. Elias, it has been one heck of a year! I can identify very much with what you meant and talked about a couple of minutes ago. For me, the perception wave, I feel like I started it six or seven months before you announced it. I started comprehending on an experiential level that we really do, each of us, live in our own individual, self-created world. I’ve been reading this for many years, thought I knew it — I didn’t know it!
When I started to get it, it was, just in and of itself, very upsetting to me because I felt like I was alone, where nobody else really understands what I’m experiencing and I don’t really understand what they’re experiencing. It was a very isolated kind of feeling. That was enough in and of itself, and then I went on to create significant trauma in many areas! But I learned in this process to appreciate other people’s version of their world, other people’s truths. They work for them.
I had the experience with a friend of mine, someone I’ve shared many other focuses with and who is totally not into the Elias material — in fact, he thinks it’s of the Devil — he saved my life. He physically saved my life. I could see his beliefs, fundamental Christian beliefs, and they work perfectly for him. I would not try to take that away from him. We get along fine. We realize on a fundamental level we believe the same things, but I come here and listen to channeled material and he reads the Bible. That was profound.
From there, with every person I meet, I’ll catch myself going into judgment: they don’t know the truth! But wait a minute, their truths work really well for them and mine work similarly well for me, and that’s okay. If I think back to where I was two years ago, because that’s when I started experiencing the perception wave, that was a tremendous shift for me because I still thought I knew the right way, the best way, and everybody else was going to be better off if they believed as I did. I now see that that is not the case, and that is just fine.
ELIAS: That is a significant accomplishment. Congratulations. Yes?
GEORGE D: Hi, Elias. For me, it gave me a great sense of freedom. I felt okay seeing the world the way I want to see it. I realized that everything is up to me, pretty much, in my own life. It also gave me a chance to understand other people much better. My relationships kind of grew, and to not take things personally.
ELIAS: Ah, that is significant.
GEORGE D: It allowed me to allow people to be who they are, and in exchange, I can be who I feel like that day, pretty much. It allowed me a great sense of fun. Life is more enjoyable, more colorful, and I actually like a lot more people nowadays than I used to. (Elias laughs with group) I don’t peg everyone as bastards, because I was one of them, too. Overall, it hasn’t really been that easy because everything takes experience and practice. Sometimes you see this belief sitting there like a wall and you’re heading straight at it a hundred miles an hour, and you think oh shit. Part of you doesn’t want to deal with it and part of you just wants to see what’s going to happen. Sometimes you to have relax and let it go and know it’s going to come back to you and you’ll have what you’re looking for. It kind of allowed me a certain trust I never had before in everything.
ELIAS: Congratulations.
GEORGE D: I can summarize it that way.
ELIAS: Very well.
GEORGE D: Thank you for the material!
ELIAS: You are very welcome. Yes?
STELLA: Hi, Elias. I’m scared right now, but I’ve got to tell you that one of my greatest accomplishments so far, up to this point right now, it’s the fact that I appreciate I chose to experience victimhood in all areas and experience the life I led and I had, because I always felt regret and like I was missing something, why did these things happen to me, why was God not there, why did God not love me, why couldn’t I love myself, what had I done so bad that I could not love me. So behind all of that and appreciating today, that aspect of me that chose my parents and chose the life, the whole scene has such a great impact on me today because I can appreciate so much more of everything. I think that’s pretty big for me, and I thank you so much, Elias, so, so much. Even to allow you to be consistent and to continue to have you in my life, it’s amazing. Thank you very much.
ELIAS: Congratulations. Yes?
DREW: I had a profound perception shift. It was actually kind of uncomfortable, but I think it’s closer to the truth of things, and I would like you to comment if you would.
ELIAS: Very well.
DREW: It used to be my perception that energy and consciousness and life sprang from a place of joy, love. I had an experience a few months ago with the aid of some natural substances. I had the sense that I was defocusing and becoming more one with consciousness, and I had the profound sense that it’s not a place of joy or love; it’s ambivalent. If space is a metaphor or imagery for consciousness — and I don’t know that it is, but I sense that it is — if you’re in space dying, space doesn’t care. Space is ambivalent, and you can create whatever you want. If you’re drowning in the middle of the ocean, the ocean doesn’t care. Whether you’re sailing and having a wonderful time or drowning, the ocean is ambivalent. That’s been a profound shift in my perception and kind of a disturbing one for me, and I wonder if you would comment.
ELIAS: Very well. In actuality, you could incorporate space as a metaphor for consciousness, loosely speaking, and I would agree with your experience, for what you are describing are feelings: joy, despair, sadness, happiness. These are feelings. They are connected with emotional communications, but they are signals; they are feelings. They are associated with objective awareness. They are a part of objective awareness, and they are very strongly associated with this reality. This is not to say that other realities do not incorporate feelings. Many do, but in different capacities. What you are describing are feelings that are very much and very strongly associated with this reality.
As to consciousness, you are correct. I would not necessarily express “ambivalence” but neutrality. There is very much so an entire neutrality, for it is an entire allowance of choice, an entire recognition that every experience is a choice and every experience is purposeful. Therefore, there is no distinction of good or bad, of joyful or sorrowful, for every experience offers expansion and offers information. Therefore, they are all purposeful, and they are all beneficial.
This is the reason that I have expressed many, many times the importance of paying attention to your energy and what type of energy you express and you project outwardly, for you are continuously, in every moment projecting energy outwardly, which stems from what you are doing inwardly.
The reason it is important to pay attention to what energy you are expressing or projecting is that — you are correct — consciousness does not concern itself with good or bad or comfort or discomfort. It matches what you project. It precisely matches what you project. You precisely attract or draw to yourself whatever you project. Therefore, there is no distinction of what is good or what is comfortable or what is joyful, or what is bad or uncomfortable or distressing. It is a matter of energy and what energy matches what energy.
Many times you may be projecting an energy in a process that you want to be accomplishing, and you may actually attract or draw to yourself uncomfortable and distressing situations and experiences. That is not necessarily bad, for in whatever you want to accomplish, those experiences may be valuable in offering yourself information that you may not offer yourself in other manners. They may be more profound if they are uncomfortable.
But consciousness is not a THING. This is the point that becomes confusing to many individuals, for you think of consciousness as a thing, some type of endless entity, and it is not. Consciousness is an action. It creates things from no-thing. The action creates things, and you as consciousness create things also. You create yourselves, which is a thing.
In this, if you remove yourself, even momentarily, from what is known, and remove yourself from the experience of what is known in your reality — which is quite attached to emotion, for that is one of the base elements of the blueprint of your reality — when you remove that, yes, you do experience consciousness in a form that is very foreign to what you experience in this reality. It is not necessarily more true, but it is more essential. It is not more real, for that would discount or devalue the reality of what you experience in this reality, and it would also devalue the TRUENESS of the reality that you are creating now. It is different and it is more consistent, for that element of that void, so to speak, is present in every reality, for it is essentially what you are.
In that, this is the reason that I have offered information in relation to your reality and how it functions, how it operates, how you move and create in it, the significance of energy, how all that you do is interconnected and interrelated, and the significance of recognizing that emotions are communications. Feelings are associated with the objective awareness.
Within consciousness outside of physical reality, there is no objective awareness. It is not necessary. It is only necessary in relation to physical manifestations, for it is the element of consciousness that allows you to create physical realities, for it is the seat of perception, and perception creates reality, physical reality. Therefore, without the objective awareness, there is no necessity for emotion, for emotion is a communication to the objective awareness. Therefore, without the objective awareness, you are already aware of whatever the communication may be, and it is not necessary to incorporate that form of communication of emotion.
I expressed one group interaction in our early interactions in which I incorporated a different aspect of this essence, one that did not express any element of emotion. None of the individuals participating in that group interaction incorporate any recall of what the interaction was and could not connect, for you very strongly associate with emotion. This is the reason that I incorporated that action merely once and have not generated that again, for none of you respond to that lack of emotional expression.
Now; what you experienced is not actually bad, for it can be perceived as an empowering gift that you offered to yourself. For in recognizing the vast neutrality of consciousness, it also is acknowledging that quite definitely everything is your choice, that whatever you experience is your choice and is in your power to manipulate, for there is no outside power manipulating or influencing, for it has no cause to influence.
DREW: So this concept that the underlying stuff of existence, for lack of a better word, is love, is a distortion and inaccurate. God, if you’ll excuse the expression, is love is inaccurate. It’s a distortion.
ELIAS: It is dependent upon how you define love.
DREW: We’re limited in our terms, unfortunately. I don’t mean...
ELIAS: Individuals generally define love in association with a feeling. They define love in what is actually affection. That would be the more accurate term for what you generally define as love. Affection is an emotional expression with a feeling. Love is not. Love does not actually incorporate a feeling. The actual definition of love is knowing and appreciating.
Now; in that definition, it would be accurate to express that the base of all or consciousness, or even God if you will, is love, for that is not an emotion. It is knowing and appreciating, and that would be a base element of consciousness. But if you genuinely experience genuine love, you can couple that with affection, which generates a powerful expression and experience and feeling. But if you experience it without affection, you will notice that it is not expressed in a feeling. It is a sense, for it is a deep and genuine knowing and the appreciation of that knowing.
Appreciation does not necessarily incorporate an emotion, either. But generally, you do express an association, for you do incorporate such a strong attachment to emotion that you do attach feelings to these experiences; but in themselves, they do not necessarily generate a feeling. It is more of a sensing, it is more of an empowering, a genuine knowing and a state of being as the appreciation.
Therefore, if you define love in that term, it is not a distortion. If you define love in association with a feeling, yes, it is a distortion. Does that answer your question?
DREW: Yes, and that was my recent shift in perception.
ELIAS: Congratulations. That is a significant shift and can be a very empowering shift. I am acknowledging of you.
PAUL H: Elias, that definition of love you gave as accepting, appreciating and knowing, that would also fall into your definition previously of truth as an absolute with a capital A, along with color and tone and other abstract...
ELIAS: Not necessarily as an absolute, but yes, as a truth, for a truth can be expressed in any area of consciousness. Not as an absolute, for in different expressions of consciousness it can be manifest in very different manners, just as can be tone or color. But in its essence, yes, it is a truth, for it can be expressed in any area of consciousness, in any manifestation of consciousness.
PAUL H: So it’s not an absolute?
ELIAS: No, for it can change. If it can change, it cannot be an absolute.
PAUL H: That’s right, an absolute is ever present, not ever changing.
ELIAS: Correct. Yes?
GAIL: In the perception wave, I actually realized that I have perception. (Laughter)
ELIAS: Congratulations! That is significant also, for there are many individuals that do not actually understand what perception is and do not recognize that they incorporate a perception. They rather express that actions are what they are, situations are what they are, you do what you do, you interact the way that you interact, but it is not perception. It merely is what it is, all of which is outside of you. I would be acknowledging. That is a significant accomplishment.
GAIL: I’ve given myself a lot of really hard examples to get to know that. (Elias laughs)
ELIAS: Yes?
JOYCE: I’m new to you, so I greet you, Elias. I must have been in your perception wave, even though I’m new to the group. I have come to certain perceptions. First of all, I look at them now as lenses. I see us going to war because one wears a red lens and another a green lens, and how sad that we will fight for whose perception is so right instead of learn to have a multi-color world. Secondly, I’ve learned that whenever I need to change someone, there is a need, it’s usually that someone is me. And that person, that projection out there, that behavior is calling me to really come back to me, look at myself. When I do that — and it takes time, and I do change — I can be more loving to the other person exactly as they are, thank them for bringing the lesson to me, and I can grow. That’s where I am.
ELIAS: Congratulations.
Now; also in response to this, that is an accomplishment but I would also add an encouragement to all of you. Yes, you do draw to yourselves other individuals to emphasize differences and to emphasize your own guidelines. But remember, you each do incorporate your own guidelines, and that is not wrong and it is not bad. You are not eliminating beliefs. Therefore, you are also not eliminating duplicity, the capacity to evaluate right or wrong or good or bad. You are relaxing your associations with the right and wrong and good and bad in relation to other individuals, but it is also important to not discount your own guidelines in that process, to not discount yourselves and the validity of what you perceive to be right or wrong or good or bad for you, and that it is acceptable to disagree and to dislike expressions or behaviors or choices that other individuals generate. But you can also be accepting.
You can accept that their choices, their behaviors, their expressions are valid and that you disagree, and you can acknowledge yourselves also in your disagreement, which acknowledges you and acknowledges the other individual, and that allows you to be accepting of you and accepting of the other individual also.
When you are accepting of you, it is a natural by-product to be accepting of other individuals. It is not an action you must work at. In this, a difficulty that many individuals express is they generate the association that if they are accepting, they must like and agree with every other expression in their world. No. In that, it creates difficulties, for then the individual begins to discount themself: I should not be angry, I should not be disliking, I should not be disagreeing, I should attempt to discover an avenue in which I can change myself and be in agreement and be liking this expression. That sets you in a direction of considerable discounting of yourself and difficulty and struggle, and creates significant opposing energy within yourself, which can create significantly uncomfortable cycles or circles. For then you begin to project that opposing energy, and what will you draw, what will you attract? Opposing energy in some form, and that can become a circle which is quite destructive.
Therefore, I am greatly acknowledging of your discovery and accomplishment in relation to perception, and merely reminding all of you that it is important also to acknowledge your own opinions, your own preferences, your own likes and dislikes, your own associations with what is right and wrong, for that is not disappearing. (Chuckles)
We will incorporate one more, and break.
GEORGE G: A measure of one’s own self-acceptance is your capacity to accept another person’s point of view and understand that they have their particular view of the world, which you may disagree with, but you’re willing to accept the fact that it is theirs so you’re not placing any judgments or associations of judgment on them. That’s a measure of your own sense of self-acceptance.
ELIAS: Yes, and also...
GEORGE G: If you want to know how self-accepting you are, all you have to do is look to the outside and use that as a measure.
ELIAS: Yes, you can.
GEORGE G: I wanted to say something about the last year. I was thinking about what Cindel said before, and it made me realize that there has been a tremendous change in my perception in the last year and especially the last few months. Most of my life, I have been what you might say addicted to victimization and extremely preoccupied with it. In the last few months, I have been able to notice that much more and associate it and look to beliefs that I have. I find that it’s been extraordinarily empowering and liberating. Now I’m beginning to experience and consider other aspects of myself, my creativity in many different areas as a direct result. In other words, my perception has changed, and that change in perception has allowed my awareness to expand considerably, thanks to you. As I said yesterday, I have so much affection and appreciation for you, Elias. Again, thank you.
ELIAS: You are welcome. Congratulations.
And we shall break and subsequently continue.
BREAK 12:42 PM RETURN 1:39 PM
ELIAS: Continuing! And the next individual — no? (Laughter) Yes?
STEVE: You speak of the three perceptions as if it was the whole ball game. I asked about eight people outside during the break what are the ABCs of offering our perception. Elias, give me something simple that everybody can understand real easy. Say I hate Iraqis. I want to change my perception to one of not hating Iraqis, maybe even liking them. I think I understood you to say during the first hour that you can’t just go okay, I’m gonna look at it this way: I’m going to like them! That would not be effective. In the transcripts, you usually speak of offering perception as something that’s done through noticing. You notice (inaudible). Let’s see, do I hate Iraqis? Yes, I do. Then you would ask why do I hate them. Well, because they’re killing our soldiers. Is that the entirety of how we offer our perception and then I’m supposed to sit there and hope that I stop hating them, or is there another step involved?
Would you give us advice exactly on how to alter our perception that would apply to that situation and maybe to all other circumstances?
ELIAS: Very well. In this example, first of all it is important that you recognize that this is your perception, but...
STEVE: Let me interrupt for just a second. Eight different people gave me eight different answers. All right, go ahead. (Laughter)
ELIAS: And that would not be unusual! For all of those eight individuals incorporate eight different perceptions.
Now; your question is associated with how you change your perception. In this, you incorporate the perception that you strongly dislike a group of individuals — a culture, so to speak.
Now; first of all, you offer yourself the reason that you dislike this culture, which you have. You express that you dislike this culture for they are killing your fellow countrymen. Very well.
Now; you expand that picture, and you evaluate. Yes, they are killing your countrymen but you are also killing their countrymen. It is not a matter of who began the slaughter; it is a matter of differences. It is a matter of recognizing that you incorporate ideals and preferences and opinions, and they are valid; but they also incorporate ideals and opinions and preferences, and they are also valid. They are different from your perception, but their perception is no less real and no less valid than is yours. It is a matter of recognizing that it is acceptable for you to disagree with their perception, their ideals, their opinions, their preferences. It is not necessary for you to agree with that. It is also not necessary for you to like it. You can continue to dislike it and disagree, but what can change your perception to allow you more of an acceptance is to recognize that regardless of whether you agree or not, that does not absolutely designate you as right. You are right for you and in association with your guidelines, but they are also. They are right in their guidelines
In this, what is important is to understand the acceptance of the differences. You all incorporate differences to a degree, and in some situations and in relation to cultures, there are at times significant differences. It is natural for you to dislike or disagree with differences, for when you present differences to yourself, it presents a threat.
Now; what is the threat of the differences? When you present differences to yourself, the threat is your identity, for your rightness in whatever your associations are is entangled with your own identity. It is a part of your identity. Therefore, if you encounter differences, that threatens your identity, for it is very important for most individuals to be right. And in your own guidelines, you are.
This is the reason that you incorporate your guidelines. They are right for you. They govern your behavior; they govern how you will express yourself. How you express yourself may not be right for another individual. In that, that difference will create a threat, and the other individual, in like manner to yourself, will respond in opposition. It is a matter of becoming aware that your perception is not absolute. There is not one absolute right reality. There is your reality, which is very associated with your guidelines, and that may be right for you, but it may not be right for another individual. It is not absolute.
Just as you expressed previously in this forum that you interact with other individuals and you choose to interact in a manner that is somewhat antagonistic. In this, you recognize that you are not necessarily changing the perception or the opinion of another individual, but it is your choice to express yourself in this manner.
Now; to another individual that incorporates different guidelines from you, that may be perceived as threatening, for it is different, and they will respond in an opposing manner and project an opposing energy.
It is not necessary to understand what another individual’s guidelines are or what their perception is. What is important is to recognize that there are differences, that you are all different, that as many individuals as you can gather that will support your guidelines, your opinions, your preferences, there are equally as many individuals that another individual in another culture can gather to support their opinion and their preferences and their guidelines. Does that generate the basis for rightness for either of you, how much support you can gather that is similar to yourself? No. It merely is a reinforcement that there are other individuals that may incorporate a similar perception to yourself, but that does not express that it is right or that it is wrong. It is right for you, and that will influence you in how you express yourself.
Changing perception is not necessarily changing your opinion or changing your preferences. It is not necessarily changing that now you agree with another individual or now you like this culture. Perhaps you will not. Perhaps you will not throughout the entirety of your focus. But you can accept that their perception, their choices, their preferences are equally valid as your own.
If you can acknowledge that another individual’s perception is equally as valid as your own and you are not experiencing the threat of the difference, there is no necessity for war. There is no necessity for conflict, for it is not necessary to convince the other individual that you are right and they are wrong. It is not necessary for you to defend yourself, for you can incorporate that confidence in your own perception that it is right for you. Therefore, it is not necessary to defend it; it is not necessary to boast it; it is not necessary to impose it. You can allow the other individual to express their perception without the attempt to change it, and they can create their reality in the manner that they choose. Which, if neither is threatening each other, you can coexist in your differences, for there is no longer a threat that one is right and one is wrong, and therefore the one that is wrong must be changed.
In your scenario, as I expressed, you express, “I dislike this culture for they kill my countrymen.” They dislike your culture for you kill their countrymen. It is the same, and the essence of it is neither culture will accept the validity of the other in their perception of what is right and what is sacred to each.
STEVE: That was a very long answer, and I wasn’t expecting it to be that involved. I’m trying to grasp what the essentials are of what you just said so I can apply it to something else. I first gleaned the fact that it is not just a matter of noticing. That’s not enough.
ELIAS: At times it may be.
STEVE: You went through a whole intellectual process there! You mentioned a lot of different things. How would you summarize what it is that you do? In other words, let’s say you want to apply it to some internal thing, like you’re worried about your anger getting you in trouble, or you’re worried about self-destructive tendencies and you want to alter your perception of worry. Let’s make it worry, about anything you want. You want to alter your perception of worrying, so first you notice the worry — that’s what I got from your last conversation. But then I’m not sure, in fact, what would apply. What rules have you just stated about how it would apply to anything, including worry?
ELIAS: You notice that you are experiencing the worry, and you evaluate what the threat is. For, the threat is what prompts the other expressions: the worry, the defense, the aggression, the conflict. What is threatening, and is it valid? Is it directly affecting you now? If it is not, it is real, but it is not valid. Therefore...
STEVE: So the two answers you’ve given so far have that in common. Identify the threat...
ELIAS: Yes.
STEVE: Notice and identify the threat. Step 3...?
ELIAS: Is it valid?
STEVE: You’re doing well. (Laughter, and Elias chuckles)
ELIAS: If it is not valid, your perception will to a degree automatically alter.
STEVE: Is there ever room for saying, is this completely out of the question, “I’m just not going to worry any more; I’m not going to be angry any more; I’m not gonna hate the Iraqis any more; I’m going to perceive this way instead?” Is that not going to work?
ELIAS: It can. It is unlikely, but it can. It is not impossible. It is quite less likely that you would accomplish in that manner, but yes, it is possible.
STEVE: You’ve got to see all the implications of anything you want to change, all the intricacies of what’s going on there.
ELIAS: Not necessarily. It is not necessary to be that complicated. But identifying the threat is very helpful to intentionally be changing your perception.
STEVE: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are welcome. Yes?
GEORGE D: Elias, this past week I had a very vivid dream that had to do with changing perception, but I didn’t change it myself; someone changed it for me. (Elias chuckles) In the dream, I was backstage in a theater, and I had an exchange with this lady, a very chubby lady with very thick glasses. She says, “Come here,” she taps my cheeks, and everything changes. My perception changes. My focus, everything is different. I say, “I’m dreaming, I enjoy this, and I’ve got to figure out how to do it myself without it being done to me.” The dream ended.
There’s got to be something in this dream for me, a clue. Maybe you could give me a hint. It was so easy in the dream, it was so easy, and the change was instantaneous. It felt how it is supposed to be. It’s been on my mind for three or four days now, since last week, and I can’t figure it out. I think it’s so simple that I don’t see it. It just shifted, like that. Would you have a hint, please?
ELIAS: First of all, the image of the other individual is not another individual. It is you. Another individual does not change your perception. It is not done to you or for you. YOU change your perception, and I can express to you that you can change your perception quite instantaneously and easily. Generally, you do not, for you are fascinated with complicating all that you do. Therefore, you incorporate methods and steps, and you generate all of these actions to attempt to change your perception, when in actuality it is quite simple. It is merely a matter of recognizing what threatens you, for generally speaking, that is what creates your own rigidities.
The manner in which you complicate is by looking outside of yourselves and attempting to identify all that is outside of yourself that is occurring in your environment or around you that robs you of your comfort, when in actuality, those elements outside of you are not what rob you of your comfort. It is you that robs you of your comfort when you are expressing an identification of threat, and that creates defense.
It is a matter of being confident in your own perception, that regardless of what any other perception is of you, it does not invalidate your own perception of you. But what occurs is other individuals all incorporate different perceptions of you than you incorporate of yourself, and when any element of their perception is expressed to you, there is an automatic response to question yourself: is my perception of myself valid? Perhaps it is not; perhaps the other individual is right; perhaps I am wrong. And you begin to complicate.
When you are comfortable with you and trust and are confident in your own perception of yourself, another individual can express their perception of you, and even if they are expressing it in the intention of being negative or derogatory, you will configure that in an entirely different manner. An individual may approach you, notice your behaviors, your energy, and may express to you in a judgmental manner, “You are a selfish individual.” And they may intend it to be a negative statement in association with their guidelines. But in your own confidence and comfort with your own perception, not questioning it, not being threatened, you may receive that statement and be complimented, and may even express “thank you,” for your perception will be expressing, “This is a validation. I am paying attention to myself; I am expressing my own empowerment.” Therefore, this is a compliment, even if it was not meant to be one.
It is not a matter of gaining your acceptance or changing your perception through the offering or the gift of any expression outside of yourself. It is the recognition of your own validity and that your perception is valid, regardless of what any other individual’s perception is. Each of your perceptions are valid, and each one of you is unique and different. Therefore, you all incorporate differences in perception in degrees, but none of them are invalid. All of them are real, and all of them are valid. Yes?
PRINCE: Elias, in a past transcript you briefly mentioned that our visual sense is very strongly influencing of perception and altering perception. Did you mean that what we look at physically can influence the way we perceive things and can influence changing our perception?
ELIAS: Yes. You generally rely upon your visual sense the most strongly, more so than your other senses, your other outer senses. This is a natural action that you incorporate. Your visual sense can be very influencing of your perception.
For, let us incorporate an example, one that may be disturbing. Let us say that you encounter another individual that is engaging in a behavior of being neglectful to a creature.
Now; you visually see the individual being neglectful. Perhaps the individual is withholding nutrition from the creature. You view this scenario visually, and you process information. In that, you process the information in association with your guidelines, which governs your behavior and what YOU would do. You immediately generate an association that what the other individual is doing is wrong: you disagree, you dislike what the other individual is doing, and you react in some manner, for what they are doing is wrong.
Now; you may encounter another individual that is actually doing the same action. You visually see them doing the same action, but you visually see the other individual in a different scenario, such as perhaps you encounter an individual that you term to be homeless upon your street. This individual also may be doing the same action of withholding nutrition from the creature, but you process that visual information differently, for although they are doing the same action, you may notice that the individual that is homeless interacts with the creature with compassion.
Regardless that they are doing the same action, you process that information visually differently, and your response or your reaction will be different. For although you may continue to express that you disagree and that the individual is withholding food from the creature, you now incorporate a different perception. For in some situations, you will be more accepting of that in accordance with the conditions and whether the individual in your perception incorporates adequate means to provide for the creature. If, in your perception, they do not, you will be more inclined to excuse the same behavior that you would not excuse in the other individual.
Therefore, your vision has offered you information and a communication that you process in different manners dependent upon what you see. In both scenarios, you may not actually interact with the other individual. You may merely see what is occurring, and you will generate evaluations in relation to what you see.
Your vision also can influence you in perception, for you may not necessarily see entireties of scenarios. Therefore, if you see pieces of scenarios, you will process that information and generate an evaluation which may be quite different from what is actually occurring in a particular scenario — but you will generate an association in relation to what you see. In many situations, what you see, you may generate an evaluation that it is unacceptable or it is wrong what the other individual is doing. But you may not be seeing all that the other individual is doing, and therefore not incorporate complete information. Therefore, your evaluation may not be accurate, and you may present yourself with additional information subsequently and recognize that you were generating an inaccurate evaluation of what actually occurred. Your vision can be very influencing, more so than any of your other senses.
PRINCE: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are quite welcome.
STEVE: Elias, since nobody has their hand up, can I sneak one follow-up in? (Elias nods) I’ve got a little unsettled feeling still. If I would have asked you how do we alter our perception, and I didn’t give you an example to work with and I told you I didn’t want you to work with an example, I want you to state the principal, in principal how do we alter our perception, how would you have answered that?
ELIAS: In the same manner that I did.
STEVE: You mean this is going to apply across the board?
ELIAS: If you want to alter your perception, it is a matter of noticing what you want to alter and evaluating what in that perception presents a threat.
STEVE: Is it always a threat?
ELIAS: Generally, you do not want to alter your perception if you view it to be pleasant. If you like your perception, generally speaking you do not want to change it. You want to change your perception when you do NOT like what you are perceiving. Therefore, if it is that you want to change your perception for you dislike what your perception is or you are uncomfortable with your perception or incorporating the perception that you have generates some discomfort, there is an element of threat.
STEVE: What if you identify the threat and then ask “is it valid” — you’re assuming that it isn’t — a lot of threats are valid...
ELIAS: At times they are.
STEVE: If I get angry and cause a lot of hell, that hell is valid.
ELIAS: It is real; it is not necessarily valid.
STEVE: What’s “valid” mean?
ELIAS: What is DIRECTLY affecting you now. You can become very angry that there are violent expressions in the world, and you can express that anger quite intensely. It is very real. Is it valid? Is it occurring to you? Is it affecting directly of you in the moment? Likely not.
STEVE: Well, if somebody shoots me because I got angry with them, it could pretty well affect me.
ELIAS: But if you are generating anger in relation to a subject or a concept or even another individual’s behavior, generally speaking many times what other individuals are doing is not directly affecting of you.
STEVE: Because...?
ELIAS: For they are not personally doing to YOU.
STEVE: What if it’s internal? What if you want to stop something that you’re doing to yourself? We create our own reality, so that rules out the example I gave of another person being involved. But it’s very valid if you have a self-destructive tendency, say, and you get destroyed.
ELIAS: It remains the same: what is the threat?
STEVE: The threat is, like I’ve got this problem that if I think about a certain thing in my consciousness, it barks, it snaps back and causes me symptoms of disease, actually, so that’s a very valid threat. I can’t just say that’s invalid. It is not invalid. It hurts.
ELIAS: It is real, but what is the threat?
STEVE: That if I think about it, it will do it again.
ELIAS: And you incorporate the choice to engage it or not.
STEVE: This seems to have its own independent mind on this matter.
ELIAS: That, it does not. That is the threat, that there is some manifestation that is not you that incorporates the power to control, and that is incorrect. Therefore, the threat is that you do not create all of your reality, that there are elements that create some of your reality for you.
STEVE: So I’ve got to link up with this thing and think of it as part of me. (Elias nods)
ELIAS: Yes?
DREW: I’ve got another question. It’s a little change-up; is that okay?
ELIAS: very well.
DREW: If it’s true that our desires are in alignment with our intent, and if it’s true that we can tell what we desire by what we manifest, if we are manifesting a lifetime of difficulty and struggle and hardship and discomfort, does that mean that difficulty and hardship and struggle and discomfort are most in alignment with our intent?
ELIAS: Yes, but that may not be what the intent is.
DREW: And those who would say you’re having difficulty and struggle and hardship because you have beliefs that are blocking what your natural intent is, that would actually be an incorrect suggestion to give to someone.
ELIAS: Yes, you are correct.
DREW: There are those who manifest for the purpose of an experience that’s difficult and...
ELIAS: Yes, you are correct. As I expressed previously, it is a matter of energy, and energy does not distinguish between comfortable or uncomfortable. It will move in the direction of your intent, of your desire, but it will not distinguish between comfortable or uncomfortable. It will match the energy that you project.
DREW: If the purpose of a particular focus is to have the experience of an impoverished life, let’s say... The intent doesn’t change over a focus, does it?
ELIAS: Generally speaking, no.
DREW: So in that case, it’s not a matter of trying to change your experience, it’s a matter of accepting your experience. Would that be a more efficient approach to...?
ELIAS: Intents are general themes of exploration, and within those general themes, there are many, many, many specific avenues that you can incorporate to express that intent. There are countless, in actuality.
An intent would not be expressed as an individual has the intent of being impoverished within a focus. It may be that the individual chooses the intent to be exploring challenges or challenges with difficulties. The individual may create more specific avenues of that and may create being impoverished, but that is not to say that that cannot change. The choices can change, and the manner in which the exploration is expressed can change.
There are individuals that do express intents in which their exploration may be difficulty or may be intensity or may be themes that you would assess to be negative. An individual may even incorporate an intent to explore all of the avenues that they can incorporate that are associated with being a victim.
Now; even with an intent such as that, that is not to say that the individual will create avenues that are only being a victim. Their exploration may incorporate many avenues that would be expressed as being the victim, but some may also be exploring how other individuals express being a victim, or how to explore altering that and not be a victim.
The subject is broad, the subject is general, and there are many, many, many avenues in which individual can explore the subject. But this also moves in conjunction with what we have been discussing in relation to differences.
You all incorporate this ideal that, as you expressed, you should be happy, or you should strive to be happy, or this is the wellspring of your existence, to be joyful, to be happy. In actuality, that is merely an ideal. In actuality, what you genuinely all incorporate in common is that you all incorporate a desire to be comfortable, but comfort is expressed in many, many, many different manners. Some individuals are comfortable in what you would view as uncomfortable. Some individuals are comfortable in misery. Therefore, comfort also is a diverse expression.
In this, any individual would be expressing in conjunction with their intent, regardless of whether they are generating experiences of discomfort, of misery, of distress, of depression, for value is not always expressed in what you view to be positive. Value is not always expressed in comfort.
DREW: So here’s the dilemma: if I look at what I’m creating or have created all my life — and it could be anything, disease, poverty; I say poverty, because that’s where I am most of my life — the dilemma is do I accept that in the belief that if that’s what I’m manifesting, that’s what I desire, and therefore is most in alignment with what I chose to experience while I’m here? Or do I look for ways to address belief systems or change my perception or to alter that? Don’t you run the risk, if you do that, of actually being duplicitous about why you’re here in the first place?
ELIAS: No.
DREW: Isn’t there the possibility of creating conflict with what’s most in alignment with your intent by doing that?
ELIAS: You will know when you are moving contrary to your intent. For if you are moving contrary to your intent, you will also not be generating your value fulfillment. In not generating your value fulfillment, you will incorporate no interest in this reality, and you will disengage. For when you are not generating your value fulfillment, there is no motivation to continue in that particular reality, and you will simply disengage in some manner. You will not generate lengthy time frameworks in which you are not generating your value fulfillment. When you stop generating value fulfillment, you will also stop participating in what you are doing. You will remove yourself.
Therefore, in relation to your desire and your intent, as I have expressed, this also is associated with energy, and no, it is not always necessary to evaluate your beliefs and your associations, although associations can be very telling and can be very helpful in aiding you to evaluating how you can change your energy. But it is not necessary to complicate. What is somewhat required is to pay attention to what you are doing.
Paying attention to what you are doing allows you to be clearer in relation to what type of energy you are projecting — not merely what you are physically doing, although that is a factor, but also what you are doing inwardly, what associations are you generating, what are you DOING to yourself that continuously creates this manifestation of poverty, and remembering that all that you do is interconnected. It is not merely one avenue.
Therefore, when you speak of being impoverished, it is not merely a matter of money. It is how you perceive you are impoverished in ANY manner, in all of the small, so to speak, expressions within your mundane daily actions. Which I have expressed previously, you can be impoverished with time, you can be impoverished with friendship, you can be impoverished with relationships, you can be impoverished with your home, you can view your manifestations within your home as being impoverished, as not enough. All of the associations that you generate as not enough contribute to that expression of energy, that projection of energy of being impoverished, and that is what you will attract to you.
DREW: My confusion comes with this idea of wanting more is saying that the lack you have is wrong.
ELIAS: Not necessarily. It may be a preference.
DREW: At what point do you recognize that I’ve chosen this for the experience of this focus?
ELIAS: Yes, precisely. It is not a matter of expressing to yourself that you want more and therefore what you have been creating is wrong. It is a matter of acknowledging yes, I have created this, and it is not necessarily wrong. I have created that for the experience, and it has been beneficial. It has offered me experiences, it has offered me information, and perhaps now I choose to explore a different avenue.
It is a matter of what you place importance on. When you place importance upon what you do not like and what you do not want, you reinforce it and you continue to create it, for you pay attention to what is important. When you shift what is important, that does not invalidate your desire.
Your desire is not necessarily to be impoverished; your desire is to be exploring certain experiences. That may be one expression of that desire. There are countless expressions and experiences of any desire. Therefore, it is a matter of evaluating, acknowledging this is what I have created and perhaps this is no longer my preference, or I do not like this experience and I want to change this experience, acknowledging that what you have experienced was not wrong, was not bad in itself and it did have benefit, and also acknowledging that you choose to be engaging a different avenue of exploration, and that is acceptable also.
DREW: Identifying the desire and then finding other ways to express it...
ELIAS: Yes.
DREW: ...instead of being locked into one particular expression of that desire.
ELIAS: Yes. For there are countless avenues of expression with any desire.
DREW: And there is no possibility of conflict...? I have this perception, and I’ll be quick about this, but I have this perception that when we choose to manifest, we choose with a particular life experience that we want to have. This where I’m confused. If we make that choice before manifesting that we want to experience a lifetime of poverty, then would this go against that? This is where I’m confused. At what point...
ELIAS: What you are expressing is an association with destiny. There is no destiny; there is no fate; there is no preset direction. You do incorporate a pool of probabilities when you choose to enter into this physical focus, but those are very general also, and they are not absolute. They are potentials, and in that, you may or may not express those potentials.
In this, as I have expressed, an intent is very general. It is very simple and very general, which allows you an incredible berth for exploration. You have a very wide berth for exploration in any intent, and moving in one direction and entirely changing that direction to which you would associate as an opposite is not necessarily in opposition to the intent. It is not preordained. Your path, so to speak, is not set. It is what you create it to be in the moment.
That pool of probabilities is merely a pool of potentials. Probabilities do not lie before you; they are created in each moment. There is not an enormous pond of probabilities that lies before you, and you gaze into the pond and choose one. They do not exist until you create them. They are created in every breath, in every moment that you exist, for every moment incorporates a choice, even when you are not aware that you are generating a choice. Every moment you move a foot, it is a choice. You bend a finger; it is a choice. You blink your eyes; it is a choice. You are generating choices in every moment. Every breath is a choice. In that, none are predestined. Every one is created in the moment. In this moment, you could create the probability to stop the breath and not exist in this reality. That is a choice. But you choose to draw another breath. In this, there is no destiny. There IS choice.
Yes?
ROBERT: Hi, Elias. I wanted to talk more about your definition of being (inaudible) because I found it really helpful when you distinguished it from not necessarily being happy. The word that came to my mind was “authentic,” when my experience seems authentic and when it doesn’t. The question I wanted to ask was as I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that sometimes I’ve perceived things, thinking they would make me happy and then they didn’t, and then found that other things that I thought would not make me happy actually being much more lasting. But I still feel like I’m at a stage where I’m watching myself engage in behaviors which I know are not going to make me happy and yet I continue to engage in the behavior. It’s as if I’m outside of myself watching myself make a choice I don’t want to make. If there’s behaviors we’re engaging in that we feel are not authentic, how can we accelerate the process of moving away from those behaviors or changing those behaviors?
ELIAS: By examining your motivation, paying attention to what you are doing, and examining what motivates you to do what you are doing, and once again, in similar manner to my response (gestures to Steve), evaluating what is the threat. What is the apprehension? If you do not engage what you are engaging, what will occur? You already know what will occur if you do engage.
This is an interesting point in relation to worry. You know what you create when you worry. You know you do not accomplish avoiding what you are worrying about. You know that worrying does not solve or fix what is distressing you, but you do it anyway. If you can inquire of yourself what do you associate will occur if you do not worry — you already know that the worry does not accomplish — what will occur if you do not worry? What is your association with what will occur if you do not worry? Is that to say that you are bad, for you are not worrying, or is this to say that you are not concerned for you are not worrying? Are you insensitive, for you are not worrying? Are you any of those expressions? Perhaps not. Once again, the evaluation of not what is real, but what is valid and what is not. Those are real associations, but are they valid? Are you insensitive? Are you bad? Likely not.
ROBERT: What if the behaviors give you momentary pleasure, like you’re eating food that gives you immediate pleasure but you know it will later make you feel unhealthy or...? You know this consciously, and you keep over and over getting the immediate pleasure instead of the longer term satisfaction of...
ELIAS: And what is the source of the immediate pleasure? What motivates that immediate pleasure, which is the same question as previously. What is the motivation for the behavior, what is the motivation for the choice? In that, is it genuine pleasure or is it another expression that you are labeling as immediate pleasure? What motivates that? If you know, if you are aware that this is an action that you generate that genuinely is not comfortable, the pleasure is a camouflage. Therefore, it is not to say that it is not real in the moment, but it is a camouflage, therefore it is not valid. Therefore, it is important or significant to view what the motivation is.
ROBERT: And the fact that it’s not valid is born out by the fact that the pleasure stops and is replaced with something...
ELIAS: That you know that this consistently occurs, that you know you are engaging in a behavior that you consistently recognize you are uncomfortable with. Therefore, there is an element in that that the motivation is questionable. It is not genuine; it is being camouflaged.
DREW: Maybe the pleasure is real and the guilt later is what’s invalid.
ELIAS: The pleasure is real.
DREW: Maybe the pleasure is valid and the guilt or the discomfort later is what’s invalid.
ELIAS: That can be possible also.
DREW: “I shouldn’t have...”
ELIAS: That can be possible also. It is a matter of evaluating what the motivation is, what you are doing and what associations you are generating. You are quite correct. An individual can be engaging an action that is genuinely pleasurable and valid, and discounting themselves subsequently, which would also be associated with what is the threat.
You can be consuming a food that is quite pleasurable and can be engaging a valid action that is valid to your preference, and subsequently experience guilt or discomfort. In that, it may be that there is the threat that you should not engage that action for it may be destructive to your body consciousness, or it may create different expressions of your body consciousness that you may not like. Is that valid? Is it doing that? You may make an association that if I indulge in consuming this particular food, I will gain weight, I will not incorporate the appearance that I want. Is that valid? Is that what is occurring now?
Therefore, yes, you are correct. It can move in either direction. But what is the common denominator is “what is the threat?” What are you apprehensive of? What are you anticipating that is not occurring now?
ROBERT: What if you analyze that and the answer you come up with is the threat that I will be a better person than I think I’m supposed to be, or that self-satisfaction isn’t something I can calibrate back to my... I’m a six not a ten, and since I’ve done a bunch of eight things this week, I’d better do some three or four things to bring myself back...
ELIAS: That would be interesting to evaluate, would it not? For what would express to you that you cannot be a one hundred? What is it that suggests to you that you are not worthy of being all that you want to be, or that it is not your right to be all that you want to be and to expand to the fullest that you possibly can in your focus? It is your right, and it is your value, and there is no reason that any of you should devalue yourselves to any degree to limit yourselves from any direction that you want to accomplish. It is not bad or wrong to have it all.
ROBERT: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are very welcome, my friend. Yes?
GEORGE D: Elias, doesn’t all this happen because of one’s belief systems?
ELIAS: Your belief systems filter every action, every expression. In this, there is no action that you incorporate within this physical reality that is not filtered through your beliefs. But in this, what is the snare is that you generate an association that your beliefs are bad. Your beliefs are not bad. They can be limiting when you oppose them. But if you are not opposing them, they can be very liberating and very empowering, and allow you to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish. I encourage all of you to befriend your beliefs and to empower yourselves, that you ARE great and powerful beings.
We have expressed a sharing of what you have accomplished in association with the wave addressing to perception, and that is no small feat. That was an intense wave, not long expressed but intense, and you have all accomplished considerably in association with it. In your terms, although I would not interpret the term “growth” but you do, in that I would express that you have all grown tremendously in that wave and have become much more aware of yourselves, and perhaps are beginning to glimmer what you can accomplish, even if you have not yet.
Although, I will also express that perception can be tricky at times, for you do accomplish and you express to yourselves that you have not, for you do not credit yourselves with what you have accomplished. You express you have not generated enough money, but you have generated money. You express you have not generated enough in relationships, but you have accomplished in relationships.
Whatever the subject is, even if it is an expression that you would view as small as acknowledging in a time framework of distress or despair “I expressed one hour in which I was not despairing,” or in a time framework of illness, “I expressed some moments in which I did not feel ill,” but you generalize and you overview. You express, “I do not incorporate enough money,” or “I do not incorporate ANY money,” and that is the generalization that you express in every moment, in every day — whether in one moment you are generating money, that is invalidated. Or when you are expressing illness or depression, you are ALWAYS for a time framework ill or depressed — there are no moments in which are you not, but there are. But you do not acknowledge them. You do not notice. And even if you do notice, you do not acknowledge, and that is not to your credit. Perhaps it will be of great benefit to you in this wave to pay attention to what you are doing and what you ARE accomplishing, regardless of how small you assess it to be.
And with that, I shall bid you all adieu and anticipate with great wonder our next interactions and all of your tremendous accomplishments. I express to each and all of you tremendous sincere dear friendship that I genuinely treasure. Until our next meeting, au revoir.
GROUP: Au revoir.
Elias departs at 2:59 PM.
©2008 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2008 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.