Devilish Distraction

May 6, 2001

Samuel: So, how are you?

Good.

Wonderful.

S: Wonderful’s a lot better answer than good. What’s the “this” part? Good. Why are you? Hah! Got you there then.

Where?

S: Why are you? Why are you?

I signed on.

S: That’s a good answer. You signed on. And right now in your world you have so many things going on that you are hardly able to keep up. Going on around you, going on in you, going on with you, and one of the questions that I’m getting the most—well, actually it’s not coming in the form of a question, tends to come more in the form of yelling out loud—is, “Why?” And what I wanted to speak about this night had to do with what lures you to and from what you’re here to do. And it’s less about why you do what you’re here to do than it is why you don’t do what you’re here to do. Hoping that it will offer you a bit of insight about the nature of the progression into the side-roads in your life.

Have you ever had a situation in your experience in which the choice that you made turned out to be second best? And all of the very spiritual amongst are saying, “Samuel, I have learned that everything works out as it should, and that it’s all good, and so there is no such thing as second best.” And if you can just put that self aside for a moment and put on that one that lives right here on the earth, let’s try that again.

Have you ever had one of those situations in which you felt like the decision that you made was probably the second best one, not the first one?

Yes.

Absolutely.

S: Aye. A bunch of wimps you are. And ideally when you have those situations in your life, what you do is you take stock and you try to learn what it is that brought about the decision that turned out not to be the best thing for you. Right? Hopefully.

And when you do that, you are able to see your pattern of choice. You’re able to look at it in regard to other things that are going on in your life, and you’re able to say, Aha, you see, I have this pattern. And that’s what brings about changes such as this. Right? Hopefully. It’s getting harder and harder at this part now. And most of the time in your life, you determine what it is you’re going to do next based on avoiding what you don’t want in your life.

Let me say that again. And most of the time in your experience, you choose what you are going to do next based on what you don’t want to experience. Rather than it being “I want this,” it’s “I don’t want that, so what’s left?” And as a result of that, you end up with a lot of second best. And tonight we’re going to discuss that a bit.

Why? Why? What is it about this time that would go for that kind of conversation? Why is this a time in which knowing what you want and being able to choose it is important? Why is it any different now than last life? Stuart.

It seems to me that things have speeded up considerably, and so I need . . .

S: Anybody else notice that?

Yes.

S: All right.

So it’s important, I think, for me to pay attention to what I’m thinking about, what I’m focusing on, because I’m going to draw that to me.

S: Good.

And it’s going to show up much more quickly now than it did maybe five years from now or five years ago or even last year.

S: Good. Good. That’s good. Jeanean.

Because it’s all new. You know, it’s an unlimited possibility to create.

S: Good.

So if we’re creating from the past, we’re creating from limitation.

S: Great. Right. Suzanne.

This is also a time that you’ve said that we’re acting as a prototype for humanity.

S: Good.

And if we continue in the pattern of choosing second best, we really sentence the planet and the people on it to continue to do that. Whereas if we can get out of our old patterns and finally grab the gold ball, we can create a pathway for humanity to do that also.

S: Lovely. Good. Aye.

I tend not to pay attention and I think awareness is so important now.

S: Right.

That if you don’t pay attention, you get the karma, or you get the reaction from the Universe so immediately that you’re going to get the awareness, and so you might as well just cut out the middleman and pay attention.

S: Good. Good. Don’t you know it. Aye.

Those decisions that we made before those second choices were often made in fear, and who we are right now are different people.

S: Hopefully.

Hopefully. And we need to revisit the idea that what didn’t work for me before may be just exactly what I want right now.

S: Scary.

Yes.

S: Don’t actually raise your hand in answer to this question, all right. How many of you in here grew up knowing that you were absolutely average? Quite convinced that there was not any sort of extra help out in the world for you, that you weren’t here to do anything special. That you were just like everyone else and perfectly happy doing what everyone else seemed to do.

Very few of you in here would say that’s how you grew up. You did not grow up thinking that I’m just going to skip along the path and live like everyone else.

Those who are here at this time have come here to help make changes in the greater working of the world. On a spiritual level—and I hesitate to say spiritual level, because that’s only effective right here in this dimension—you know that, don’t you? It’s all there is in reality, and the divisions that you think of as your mental self and your physical self, which is different than your spiritual self, are all just a part of the illusion that keeps you anchored here. And the changes that you have learned by growing up feeling slightly different have been ways for your physical self and your mental self to be able to not only survive but thrive in this world, in order that the spiritual nature that you are would have the opportunity to blossom eventually.

And as a child you may not have had any of those words. It may have simply been a sense that when you grew up you wanted to help somehow. Perhaps it was simply a sense that there was more than what you were told, more than what’s on the outside. Perhaps you tended to look inside even then. But you did that because you cannot be satisfied in this world and still be able to make a difference in it.

If you don’t—forgive me for speaking in boring bumper stickers; sorry Bonnie—if you do not rage against the machine, it’s because you’re part of that machine. And the reality of it is that is not those that are drawn to this work, because this work is about, as Suzanne said, establishing a new beginning, being an example, opening the door, showing the way. Because at this time in your world. [Coughs] (Sometimes I’m very tempted to cut off the lungs though.) Because in this world at this time, that which has been is shifting to that which will be, and as is the case with every shift that has ever been a part of your world, it is led by a few, and followed by the masses.

If those who are here to help bring about that change are stuck in the ruts of their past or unable to move beyond the problems of the moment to be able to, at the very least, recognize their guardianship work here on this planet, if you cannot even recognize it because you’re so caught up in proving how incredibly human you are, then you’re not going to ever have a satisfying life. And it is to my advantage for you to be very happy with your life, isn’t it? Why?

Because it means we’re doing what we’ve come to do.

S: Right. Because the reality of it is you’re not happy when you’re not doing it. 

Very quickly, bottom line, very broad version of it: what is “it”? Everybody is here in order to live love or be an example of living love. And that’s the easy way to say it. And it is; it’s an easy way to say it. But the reality of it in everyone’s individual life is that you have a particular means of functioning in this world, a unique frequency amidst the larger spectrum in which you can touch lives no one else can. You see things in a way nobody else does. Your perspective allows you a means to give that nobody else can.

If you’re not there to do it because you are stuck, well, either somebody’s got to double up or something won’t get done. There are so few doing the job of so many, and this is not the time for that sort of slowdown. Let’s talk about getting unstuck.

The first thing that I want you to remember is that I just said you’re not going to be happy if you’re not doing what you’re here to do, so the first thing that you might wish to do is look at whether or not you are happy. All right, I have taught for lifetimes that you need to know what makes you happy and be doing it, and that’s not what I’m talking about here. That’s still very true, you do need to know.

When I’m first speaking with somebody, one of my questions right off is “Are you happy? What is it that makes you happy?” Unfortunately, most of the time you don’t know what makes you happy, because it’s been so long since you’ve done what made you happy. But when you are functioning at another level of awareness, when you are choosing to live love, when you are determining that you desire to be active and activated in this world—I’m talking about happiness there; I’m talking about to you, to you as somebody who is choosing to make a difference in this world—are you happy? Because if you’re not, you’re not doing something you need to be doing.

And the reason you’re not doing it settles itself into three categories. The things that stop you from doing what you are here to do tend to fall into these three broad areas, and in order to explain them, I’m going to do something that I actually do very rarely, I’m going to direct you to stories within your Bible about Jesus. Why? Why Jesus?

He’s an avatar.

S: Say it again.

He’s the avatar of this age.

S: He’s the avataric function of this age. What is the next step from there?

He lived a life of love; his actions were loving.

S: Excellent. Not only a marvelous example, but more specifically an example for you who are choosing to live love. If you did not—and I’m not saying don’t, I actually think you should—even if you do not take it as a part of a spiritual teaching, take the message through this. And for those of you who know that you are here to help bring about a transformation in this world, do not forget that Jesus, who was the Christed One, set forth that what he did you would do. Set forth that he would leave for you a changed covenant, which you then would take and make into more. And you can look at time since the life of that one, and you certainly can say that there are those who have taken that message and made all sorts of quite alarming deductions as a result of it. And you can spend your life resisting it and missing the point, or recognizing that what is left for you is an awakening into Christ Consciousness, because that door that was opened up by the function of that specific avataric energy in this world was that of creating that instead of individual connections into spirituality, the next step would be a consciousness amongst all, moving from simply believing to living.

So Jesus is wandering around, out in the world, and he comes to a place where he sees that there are a bunch of people being dumped under the water. Aye. And he says, “Next, I want to be next. Dunk me too!” All right, maybe he did not use those words, but you recognize where I’m at. Right? And directly after that experience, what did he do? Anybody know?

[. . .]

Very good. Yes Went into the desert. And forgive me for being absolutely literal here, but I’m going to direct you to your own version of that.

In your life you have a spiritual awakening. You come to Phoenix and you hear the most amazing speaker, and it touches your heart and wakes you up from what has seemed to be a long sleep. Or maybe you were reading a book that really got you excited and opened doors that you did not realize had even been shut. Or, or, or, and there’s many different ways that it could happen, but you had your own cleansing, your own awakening from the old into the new. And what happens next? You go into the desert.

And that really is what happens to a whole lot of individuals—and makes them angry, because there you are having had an incredible spiritual experience, and there you are ready to take over the world with it, and yet you find yourself alone, without a whole lot of life around you, wandering. And maybe in that wandering it’s an opportunity for you to start studying all sorts of different philosophies. Perhaps it’s an opportunity for you to study the plant life of the desert, or the rocks. But there is an immediate awareness that you’re alone.

Some people stay there. They don’t stay there because they like it; they stay there because alone is all they’ve ever known, because alone doesn’t rock the boat, because alone doesn’t create change in the life in such a way that it causes trouble. People wake up, recognize that things are very different, that they’re wandering, that they have no particular goals, but because the rest of their life has always been that way too, they’re fine right there. It’s a pity.

What Jesus did, however, is he went wandering in the desert as a spiritual experience, and fasted while he was doing it. Now, fasting is not an unusual thing. It’s actually fairly typical across the planet for fasting to be a means of stirring within the body after a certain amount of purification that’s a natural flow from it, a means of hallucinating. You know that, don’t you? You don’t eat long enough, you start seeing things.

And when what you are directing is that what you are seeing is a connection with that which you don’t usually see, then your focus allows that to happen. What Jesus experienced was a visitation. Right? A perfect . . .

Background.

S: . . . audio aid. He experienced what?

The Devil.

S: The Devil. All right. The tempter in this particular case. And the first thing that he said was, “Oh, Jesus, you’re hungry, aren’t you? You know, you could probably take these rocks and turn them into bread, because after all you are the Son of God. Right? Why don’t you do that, and then you won’t be hungry any more?” And what did Jesus say? He said, “You don’t live by bread alone.”

You know it’s very, very pitiful when I am having to tell you: and in your own life, one of the first things that happens within that awakening period of your spiritual experience, and it happens at every level from there, every new beginning. And for those of you who were at the retreat . . . last week?

Two weeks.

S: Two weeks ago, thank you. You know that a very major aspect of what we discussed was dying to the old and becoming new again. At every level, whether it be the awakening or the ascension, at every level you are going to be hit first off with what? The Devil coming up and saying, “Go ahead, turn the rocks to bread.” No, but you’re going to be hit with the opportunity to abuse power for your own personal needs. All right, that might be somewhat of a leap, but my point is, what’s going to come to you on the road more than the story, and so, as I said earlier, I’ll probably abuse the story just a bit.

You are going to have the opportunity come to you in which you abuse your power to fulfill your personal needs. What could be an example of that? For Jesus it was turn the rocks to bread, which was something he did do later. Turn the rocks to bread to prove that you are who it is said you are.

Let me ask you this: Do you ever feel the need to prove how spiritual you are? Do you have a belief that there are certain activities that are the spiritual ones, and then there is the rest of your life? And that if only you did more of these spiritual ones, and less of these that are the rest of your life, that things might be different and better for you? [Bronx cheer]

What’s an example in a hypothetical person’s life who might be having an experience like that in which what’s going on with them is they are abusing power to fulfill their own desires?

All right, how about sexual ones? That’s a really easy one. And we’ve talked on and off about that. The great guru who has this incredible spiritual teaching, and it’s about the right use of sex, and come down and let me show you how it works. It will raise your vibration. Come on, baby, let me raise your vibration.

How about you have a desire to earn a certain amount of money, and therefore you make it a “spiritual” activity so that it’s all right for you to do this because your desire is to have it spiritually. How many times do I hear from you, “Samuel, if I win the lottery, I will give to Phoenix.” You will do nothing different than you are doing now.

What about the way that you work with others? What about . . . and you fairly well can just fill in the blanks here.

What are your needs in this world? What do you need? Because what you need is going to be a constant first challenge to your new life. What you think you need is going to be the means by which you can be manipulated or for which you manipulate.

What is it you need? Well, you need food. You need water. You need money for shelter. You need . . . and in reality everybody’s list is somewhat different, but hear me, it is the means by which, the first means by which you will manipulate and in which you can be manipulated. Take a look at those times in your life in which you did not get what you wanted, in which something did not work out. Take a look at your life and think about an experience, perhaps going on right now, that is not making you happy, that you’re unhappy about. Can you look at it and see an abuse of power in there?

You do what works with you. You abuse in a way you have been abused. If pushing guilt works on you, that’s what you’re going to try on others. That’s all that’s saying.

What are the issues in your life that you consider primary to your security, because that’s your weak spot. What is it you must have in your life in order to be able to grow and move, because that is the place that you are going to direct the most of your energy and be able to be manipulated by it. If I know what it is you must have, then by letting you think I’m going to give it to you, I can manipulate you. By your thinking you’re going to get this important thing, you can be manipulated.

And that is the first downfall: abuse of power. Now, how is that abuse of power? Well, in the case of Jesus, the question was, If you really are the Son of God, you can do this. However, Jesus didn’t have a question about that and no need to prove to anyone.

Do you? Do you have that particular life that you live around Phoenix? Certain behaviors that you put on? Do you have certain activities that you use only when you get put into a corner? I will start doing those things that I know work when I’m in trouble. I’ll start meditating regularly. I’ll start coming to the Sunday evening meetings. I will . . .

I cannot tell you how many people show up out of the clear blue, because it’s come a time in their life that they think they want an individual session. And, of course, the rules are you’ve got to be active in the work, so they activate, and then back off again after they’ve gotten what they want. This is abuse of power.

Well, when the Devil found out that it wasn’t going to work to get Jesus to change the stones to bread, because he actually could feed off of his personal spiritual experience, a second thing was tried. He said, “Come with me for a moment. I want to show you something.” And in the twinkling of an eye, they were standing on top of the Temple in Jerusalem, and he said, “Look at all of these people that are so needy. They have been waiting for the Messiah for so long, and here you are. Claim yourself to be so and help them.”

That’s a good one, because that is ego with a spiritual twist. And it fools you. You get sucked in by it without realizing it, because you are falling for “they need me; this won’t happen without me. Samuel says that if I’m not doing my job, somebody else’ll have to do it double.”

“If you will claim your power, then they will all be saved. Do it now.” Well, that sounds amazingly like what I say to you on a very regular basis. Claim your power because the world needs you now. Well, I’ve been called worse, I suppose.

Now Jesus was going to claim his power, but did not. Why not? Why not?

Interfering with people claiming their own power.

S: All right, for one thing it would be interfering with people claiming their own power. That’s good. But for another thing, it was not time yet.

One of the ways that you give yourself blocks on your spiritual road is you rush things. You are impatient. You want it now. You don’t want the process that will bring you the wisdom; you want the wisdom. Puff! Why not? It will help people. And as a result, you resist the process. As a result, you start rearranging your life around your security needs because you do not have the strength to change them. Did you get that one?

Yes.

Say it again.

S: You arrange your life around your security issues. You are constantly dealing with your fears. You are constantly controlling and trying to establish yourself as safe and secure in a world that does not offer you safety and security. You are constantly dealing with your security, because you don’t have the strength and you don’t have the wisdom to change what’s going on with you. And you don’t have it because you are so busy trying to leap over getting experience. Trying to rush the process, trying to claim, “I am a goddess put into this world to help bring about changes at this time of need. I said, I am a goddess . . .” and not doing. You’re so afraid of falling you don’t walk any more. You’re so afraid of being wrong you don’t try.

Yes, there is a whole world of people there who need you so much, those whom only you can touch, and it is only by you claiming your power that there will be that difference made, but you cannot act on that power until you have learned how to use it. And that’s what living love is about.

And the final thing that the Devil did was he took him up beyond the planet, and said, “See that golden grid of light around that planet there? You could have something to do with changing that, you know.” All right, maybe he did not say that. He said, “Look. I could give you all of that and more, anything you want in that world, I will give you.” Sounds good already, doesn’t it? Oh, all right, because if I win the lottery, I will be able to serve better. If I have this nice house, and this relationship, and these children and this stuff, if I had this city bowing down and recognizing my power, if I had . . . I could do what I’m here to do. And you have said that. How about, If I did not have, I would be able to?

A good test there is to ask yourself, If I could have absolutely anything in the world, life exactly as I wanted it, money is no object, education is no object, anything, what would life be like? What would I want? And once you’ve established that answer, the next step is to say, All right, when you wake tomorrow morning, go for it. Those little things that start cropping up that say to you, “Wait, wait, wait! What about, what about, what about?” If you do not dance by holding the other—[takes a member of the audience’s hand] well, I won’t bite—if you’re not going to dance this way, which seems very awkward to me anyway, and you prefer one of the other versions, go ahead and do that—thank you, love.

You’re welcome.

S: But dance, dance yourself up the stairs. Well, Samuel, it’s sort of hard for me to do that, because my neighbors don’t like the music up loud enough for that. Who said anything about playing music? That’s part of what I’m asking to do.

All right, take advantage; if you’ve got that radio on anyway, or the television, and it’s making music, dance to it. But what I’m encouraging you to do is to make it up and dance to that. To remember it and dance to that. And if you’re dancing all by yourself, you can do that easily. If you’re doing it with another, take turns humming it through.

Why would I suggest dancing as an aspect of change? Why? Frank.

Doing silly things . . .

S: Silly?

I’d feel silly doing that. Allowing yourself to feel silly and doing something unusual opens you up to new ideas and different ways of acting. And so it opens up your perceptions of what you can do [. . .]

S: All right, that’s good. I like that.

It gets rid of some of your inhibitions about . . .

S: Excellent.

. . . oh, I don’t know how to dance, but I’m doing it anyway. Hey, maybe this could work out.

S: Lovely. Good. More.

I was going to say, it does move you out of yourself, and it does release a chemical reaction that does heighten, maybe [. . .].

S: Good. Good. Very good. Jim.

It’s a creative process.

S: Yes. Yes. Because in this particular way of doing it, it’s a creative process. And anybody who is stuck in “occupied and satisfied” is stuck there because they’re not feeding their creative self.

Now, as I say that, I look at Kathleen, who is a magnificent painter, and we could talk about dancing. Painting is her creative expression. If you have a typical, creative expression, don’t do it for three weeks. Do a different one. Something else.

And for Bonnie, who is a dancer and has been a dancer, she says, I should not dance. Make it up. Do it new, because that’s a different activity altogether.

I’ve moved to something else. I’ve said, no television for three weeks. For three weeks, dance. Third thing, establish a means of creative function. Feed your creativity. If your work is creative work and you need to do that to get your creative rent paid, continue doing it, but the stuff that you do for yourself for fun, try it a new way. Go get a wad of clay, because the idea is to stretch.

Love is a work of the creative mind. Love is an act of the creative heart. Those are two different forms of love I just spoke of there. You change you only when you don’t fear what might happen. There is the bottom line. By allowing yourself to better tune in to you, to allow yourself to become looser, a bit freer, to tune in to what you want to in a creative way and ask your body to respond, to purposefully seek stretching what has been, these things go far in helping take the fear away.

You fear failure because you’ve done it before. You forget success because the fear of the failure speaks louder. You sit where you are and you make your world progressively smaller and smaller and smaller, with a wall around your heart and your head, because it’s better to stay where you are than to risk not succeeding. And that is because you do not trust. You don’t trust you, because you are not the person that is free and playful and easy—and I mean that in a good way.

You are the one who is responsible and directed, and only sees this: the reflection of the past right in front of your face. Turn off the distractions. Remember how to dance by making your own music and moving to it. And begin looking for ways to feed your creativity. These are simple and more powerful for the simplicity.

You can stay occupied; you’ll never again be satisfied. That’s a promise, not a curse, because your awareness now has changed. You related when I said occupied and satisfied. You recognized yourself in some of those stuck places. You’ll never be satisfied with it again. So you may as well give it a try. There is no better time to make change than now, when the energy of change is all around you.

Three weeks. It takes about that long to break a habit. And, beloved ones, I would tell you slow death is a bad habit. Live. You will find that you remember how very quickly. Live. It’s worth the effort.

Glochanumora. Happy trails.