{"id":483,"date":"2008-12-30T04:21:13","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T04:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/12\/nothing-you-see-is-real.html"},"modified":"2008-12-30T04:21:13","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T04:21:13","slug":"nothing-you-see-is-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/12\/nothing-you-see-is-real.html","title":{"rendered":"Nothing you see is real"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many ways to deal with the extraordinary changes that are occurring in people’s lives these days. Here is one of them…
\nIt is called The Change Process<\/em>, and I began to talk about this in this space yesterday. (See yesterday’s blog for introductory comments.) I promised that today I would get into this more deeply. So, here goes.
\nThe Change Process<\/em> is a three-part approach to dealing with change from a spiritual point of view. It emerges from the messages in Conversations with God. <\/em> Here is Step I…
\nWhen facing any life experience there is a formula through which every person may move toward mastery. Simply make the following statements:
\n1.\tNothing in this world is real.
\n2.\tThe meaning of everything is the meaning I give it.
\n3.\tI am who I say I am, and my experience is what I say it is.
\nThis is how to work with the Illusions of Life.
\nThe first statement in the Triad Formula is, for many people, the most difficult to embrace. It proclaims that everything we look at, everything we experience, is unreal. Nothing is actually what we imagine it to be.
\nThis does not mean that it is not there. What it does mean is that it is not “real.” That is, it is not “really” what it “looks like.” It is not what we assume it to be.
\nFor greater insight into this phenomenon, I suggest reading The Holographic Universe<\/em>, by Michael Talbot. This extraordinary book brings us insight, from a scientific point of view, into the make-believe world in which we live.
\nThe statement “Nothing in this world is real” is based in quantum physics – yet it is more than a scientist observation. It is a psychological and spiritual truth as well (a deeply spiritual perspective on this idea will be found in A Course in Miracles<\/em>, which states: “Nothing I see is real.”). Awareness of this truth can be very healing–particularly in times of great trouble or great stress.
\nIf you think that what you are experiencing during times of difficulty is real, you will quite literally make it real in terms of the effect that it has in your life. If, on the other hand, you know that it is unreal and that its effect is simply something you are making up, having no sum or substance whatsoever, you can disappear that effect in a single moment.
\nConversations with God <\/em>says that what you resist persists, and what you look at disappears. That is, it ceases to have its illusory form.
\nNow if you are thinking that this is very much along the lines of the message of the science fiction movie The Matrix<\/em>, you are absolutely right. You will remember that, in that film, the characters were depicted as living in a make-believe world, created by their thoughts, and that the lead character, Neo, became a sort of “god” among men by simply training his mind to resist the appearance of things (such as bullets coming at him) and deny their reality.
\nBy literally denying the reality of anything that is now happening to you that you do not wish to have happening, you are, at the very least, going to reduce its negative effects. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a popular Christian minister in the 1940’s and 50’s, pointed this out in his extraordinary book of fifty years ago, The Power of Positive Thinking. So did author James Allen in his classic, As a Man Thinketh.
\nOf course, the master teacher Jesus said it directly and perfectly when he declared, “As you believe, so will it be done unto you.”
\nSo the first step in The Triad Formula is one of denying the reality of the internal effect on you of anything. This means the so-called “good” as well as the so-called “evil.” Now, what is the point of denying the so-called “good” effects?, you may ask.
\nThe answer is that, by looking straight into the face of your greatest joy and calling it what it is–an illusion–you fail to become deeply attached to it. You may continue to enjoy it, but you literally “enjoy the hell out of it.” That is, you remove the hell of becoming addicted to your enjoyment of life in one particular form.
\nIt is addiction–to people, to places, and to things–that creates agitation where once there was peace, misery where once there was joy, pain where once there was pleasure, sorrow where once there was happiness. This has never been more clearly described than in the deeply insightful book by Ken Keyes Jr., A Handbook to Higher Consciousness<\/em>. That book–written by a paraplegic who spent his days in a wheelchair–changed my life forever. It says that you can tell that you are addicted to a person, place, or experience if the absence of that person, place, or experience causes you to lose your happiness.
\nPublished some years ago, A Handbook to Higher Consciousness<\/em> is still available today. It teaches how to elevate “addictions” to “preferences,” and I consider it one of the most extraordinarily insightful books ever written on the subject of human happiness.
\nIt is important to note that by denying the ultimate reality of everything we think, say, and see, we are not necessarily sending it away from us. We are merely re-contextualizing our experience of it, causing ourselves to notice that what we are looking at is an illusion. Only then can we empower ourselves to either (a) allow the illusion to continue, or (b) create the illusion as coming to an end.
\nSo long as we think that what we are experiencing is real, we will imagine ourselves to have no such power to change its effect on us. We will see ourselves as powerless in Life itself, simply moving through the experience and constantly being at the Effect of it.
\nDenying the ultimate reality of all that we see is, therefore, an extremely powerful and important tool in the Process of Personal Creation.
\nNow we are ready for part 2. If nothing I see is real, then what does anything mean? That’s another very good and fair question, and the answer is: The meaning of everything is the meaning you give it.
\nAnd we’ll explore more of this tomorrow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many ways to deal with the extraordinary changes that are occurring in people’s lives these days. Here is one of them… It is called The Change Process, and I began to talk about this in this space yesterday. (See yesterday’s blog for introductory comments.) I promised that today I would get into this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-and-the-new-spirituality","category-looking-up-close-at-life"],"yoast_head":"\nNothing you see is real - Conversations with God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/12\/nothing-you-see-is-real.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nothing you see is real - Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are many ways to deal with the extraordinary changes that are occurring in people’s lives these days. 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