Our present nature believes that everything worthwhile, i.e., pleasurable, has to do with what we can extract from our relationships, business, money, powers, etc. We look into this world that we see as being outside of us, hoping to find something in it to complete us. What we don’t see is that the nature that searches the world outside of itself — to make itself feel whole and real — has set itself apart from that which it hopes will heal it. It divides to conquer; but this level of self can never overcome the unhappiness that is born of its own divided state!

The “healing” we need, the sense of wholeness for which we search, has nothing to do with adding anything to ourselves. This needed healing comes from recognizing that the pain we have — along with the suffering inherent in being negative over this pain — is born out of participating in a series of illusions that have been handed down from generation to generation!

Who in their right mind would educate anyone — let alone their children –that the answer to their heartache is to further stress themselves by struggling to control conditions outside of themselves — especially when the only thing anyone “wins” for such effort is to become the inadvertent slave of what he hoped would free him? Or what about trying to distract ourselves from what “dogs” us in life — as if running toward a pleasure changes the fact that something is barking at our heels, making us run away from its unwanted presence?

We are divided within. We serve two masters: what we don’t want, and its opposite — the desire of the moment produced by resisting what life has brought to our door. Being split this way keeps us from knowing the peace of mind and fullness of heart that is the same as being whole in the here and now. So this is the first illusion, and in a sense, the first and last lesson in true self-liberation: the real world is not what our thoughts and feelings would have us believe it is.

We must begin the necessary work of welcoming the Light that leads to letting go; our soul task is to release ourselves from an unconscious relationship with a false self whose imagined conclusions — about how to find lasting peace and contentment — are the secret source of conflict on this planet. Then, liberated by the light of understanding, we will enter and know — as our own — a brand new world in which happiness and wholeness are one and the same.