Question: One of our neighbours has done something to their property that is proving to be an immense problem for us and seems very unfair. I want to let go of the circumstance, and yet I feel as though I mustn’t just allow this individual to dominate the atmosphere of the very place I call home. I don’t really want to fight with his person, but don’t know what else to do.
Answer: Sometimes one has to fight for what is right. Sometimes there is no other way to meet any injustice the moment brings than with the intention of setting it right. The task though (and the trick!) is to take whatever actions are necessary without allowing negativity to seep into oneself. Hatred, resentment, judging the character of the opposition — all of these states and thoughts — are not only useless but spiritually destructive. We must do the best we can with what we understand is the right and true way to proceed. If we won’t allow ourselves to be inflamed — meaning stay watchful, instead of blindly wilful - we will exit any trial a truer person whether or not we “win” the desired outcome.
In the end there is only one real struggle, and that is between what is dark, unconscious, and downward trending, with what is light, aware, and ascending. Choose wisely and you cannot lose.
(Excerpted from student correspondence)
Question: How do I let go of my disappointments with other people, including my wish to punish them for any pain or sorrow I still feel due to my relationship with them?
Answer: We can never hope to be free as long as any part of us struggles with, or suffers over what others are doing, have done, or won’t do with their lives. Besides, if we could remain aware of the often-compromised state of our own character, that is, how we still do those things to others that we don’t want to do, this awakened conscience would stir in us a new need. Rather than worrying about whether so-and-so gets his comeuppance for being the kind of person he is, our attention would be elsewhere. It would be focused fully upon being in the Now of our own life wherein we would be actively attending to what we must do to let go of old resentments that won’t let go of us!
A great part of our inability to release this conflict-bred sense of feeling ourselves to be a hostage of how others behave is born of a mistaken perception. In our ignorance, we believe we must fix others who have done us wrong, otherwise justice won’t be served. But the truth is far from this popular view and the chain of victims it serves to create.
There are great powers at work around and within us all the time. And as we awaken to realize that these same perfect principles are already in place to empower us, this same understanding puts us in relationship with a whole new order of freedom. Freedom is not a creation of ours. It is not something attained by making life line up with our wishes; it is a system already in place, needing only our awareness of its abiding reality to realize its power as our own. These same invisible laws hold true when it comes to justice for all. We’ve all heard the phrase, “What goes around comes around.” This principle of karma, that what we give, we will receive in return, is a mathematical law whose root runs through the heart of reality. Our present problem is that we don’t understand this principle in operation because we can’t always see with our physical eyes its unfailing fruition. But be assured, what is evil in nature never goes without its reward, just as what is good is always rewarded in kind. These forces of instant righteousness, or perfect balance if you prefer, are always at work. Nothing escapes their imperceptible presence; everything yields to the weight of their judgment.
Excerpted from Let Go and Live in the Now
Question: I spend precious time and energy fuming over what others have done to me. My emotions make me feel like a prisoner of these people and the more I try to punish them, the less freedom I have to be at peace with myself!
Answer: Here is a beautiful lesson in invisible justice, one that will help you let go of any revenge-filled, self-tangling thought. We need never concern ourselves with whether or not some wrongdoer will get his just due. Here’s why: any person who does wrong to another is already punished. More correctly stated, anyone who acts unjustly in life instantaneously ensures that he or she will be corrected by the celestial laws that govern all such trespasses. It doesn’t matter one bit that you or I don’t see this law enacted to our satisfaction. The fact remains: an invisible system of justice for all already exists. This means we need never judge anyone, nor wish some sentence of suffering upon him or her. This understanding is a gift of great freedom known only by the true few. And we can count ourselves among these liberated ones if we are willing to learn what we must.
Excerpted from Let Go and Live in the Now
Question: One reason it’s hard to trust or find solace in any kind of celestial justice is my conditioning. I’m just not comfortable with the idea of any other kind of justice apart from exacting the proverbial pound of flesh. Is learning to “let go and let God” the key to aligning myself with a universal system of justice?
Answer: There is great wisdom in the timeless idea ofletting go and letting God. The love of God transforms all things bitter into something better. This truth proves the existence of a great and universal system of invisible justice. And if we look deeper still, we will find within it the promise of this welcome relief: we are forever relievedof the conflict and misery of wanting to penalize those who may have caused us pain. We can let go of all forms of lashing out at others because we see the truth of how things actually work. Getting wrongly caught up in the conflict of wanting to fix the bad behavior of someone else only opens the door and invites other problems and pain into our own life!
Now we can leave these people alone to their own trials and torment, for we have seen that their negative nature is one and the same as their punishment; and further we have seen that whatever weight we would try to add on to their backs only falls onto our own. To act from this higher self-awareness not only helps free us from the initial pain born of a negative reaction to what others have done to us, but it also keeps us from wrongly investing ourselves in trying to correct what is already in the throes of being corrected! And once we stop locking ourselves up with wasted judgments and their attendant, never-ending worries, we find that not only are we free, but that there’s no power in the universe capable of holding us captive again.
Excerpted from Let Go and Live in the Now
Question: I was told recently of a man with a terrible debilitating disease. It was a reminder of a great lack of understanding in me. My first impression is a terrible sense of injustice; the only conclusion to be reached that such a creator of this limited human being must be an evil god. I try my best to let go and understand I don’t know. I can see the mirror of myself (ideas about happiness, values, false conclusions) in this moment; however, the question still lingers: what kind of justice is there in a person be born with limitations?
Answer: Seeing the pain in others, the suffering of this dark and debilitated world of ours, can awaken one of two impressions in a human being: a sense of resentment-tinged confusion about what kind of God allows for such darkness, or a sense of compassion, of realizing the inherent suffering involved in the mortal experience. The awakening conscience — produced by that very encounter — is moved in a very real way to want to do two things at once: lessen the suffering of all involved, and to cease being a part of anything that might be the cause of the same. Seen aright, all things serve the greater Good… all forms of darkness exist as they do to glorify the Light. Hopefully you can see this as being true.
(Excerpted from student correspondence)
by Guy Finley