My point is

"No se glorĂ­e el estanque de la abundancia de agua: es de la fuente. Lo mismo tĂş de la paz. Esta paz procede siempre de algo ajeno a ti mismo."

Guigo, Pensamientos

My point is In India I met an old temple painter, who talked in a certain manner about his Christian faith. This is an imitation of his teaching/talking style, applied to various frequent questions.

In the center there is the Will of God, which for me at that time was alsmost completely abstract. Over the years that has changed, partly through reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I now see God's Will as much more essential to the daily reality of our lives in this universe.

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1.

— Should I pursue my interests and invest my energy in them?

— Why not? Whether you do it or not is not important. Try and see ! My point is that the important thing is only that God´s Will is always the case. Whatever happens to you and your pursuit of your interests, it is constantly God's Will. As long as you witness everything from that attitude you can do whatever you feel like doing.

— That seems so uninteresting ! It makes it irrelevant what we all do or not do.

— Exactly. That is my point. God's Will is the only reality and it does not care whether you find something interesting or not. That is always changing by the way. Have you not noticed that your predilections change? They always change. But God's Will is always continuing to happen.

— But where do all our goals and spiritual amibitons go?

— They can all be laid aside. My point is that God's Will is the only, I repeat, the only thing going on in the universe. The rest is irrelevant selfdelusion. As soon as you learn to love this Will of God, you will be at peace and feel happiness most of the time.

— But then the love of God is the goal and the ambition, is it not?

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— My point is that you witness first that everything taking place is God's Will. Then love will arise in you. You never have to form an amibition or intention about it. His Will is always enough.

Your own ambition will always bring toil and tears, you will be busy and bitter, just like the allegory of Adam and Eve will tell you.

— Is this really the teaching of the Bible?

— My point is that this is the most important feature of all the various teachings of the texts in the Bible. It is up to you to find something better and it is very good if you do. Jesus always points out the Fathers Will. That is what I concentrate upon. I never needed any other Scriptures and I am very comfortable with Jesus way of focusing on the Will and Presence of the Father.

— But what about salvation and experiencing the Holy Ghost and such doctrines of the Christian faith?

— Good question ! God's Will is always taking place and salvation is only this attitude. When you really live according to God's Will you don't need any further enlightenment or salvation.

The Will of God is perfect and then you are perfect with God, as Jesus say. My point is that this is the real faith. And that faith saves you, whatever happens to you in this life.

— But it sounds too easy. The people of Israel was supposed to follow the Law of Moses, and still is as far as I know.

— Yes but did they succeed? My point is that the Will of God was that they actually did not have the capacity. And they were not happy. Had they seen the true Will of God in all that is happening in the universe, they would perhaps have been very happy. This is

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also what Jesus teaches. He said at one point that they were actually following the devils will, not the Fathers.

— So what to do?

— Look at the Will of God in everything that happens. It will not do with a divine being among the clouds or somewhere else. See the Will of God taking place in the very circumstances you experience and everyone is experiencing. Actually some good jews, like Baal Shem Tov, did see this. Don't worry about the teachings. Just do it.

— But a theologian pursues his interests in theology, ok? So then it is the Will of God to do that?

— Exactly. If you like theology, go for it. What happens is the Will of God. My point is that if the theologian want to realize happiness he must divert his eyes to what actually happens as being God's Will. Then it is not about one particular theological point but the whole situation in his life, not only his reading and writing, but his wife, his children, his body and mind, everything.

But what you find if you go to a theological conference is that there are many unhappy intellectual persons there. Just look at them. God's Will is certainly taking place but do they see it?

— Probably they see only their amibiton to discuss theories.

— Exactly. If you think you are the doer of the actions, then you will harvest fear and irritation and unrest. There is no peace in the private doership.

— But they are not perhaps looking for happiness or peace

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— My point is that all human beings are wired for happiness and that this is the Will of God from the beginning. As an old blind monk in Grand Chartreuse said: "When you approach God you become happy. His infinite goodness makes you happy. In everything that happens you can approach God. Then you become happy."

— Maybe not all can have your faith!

— This is a problematic thing to say, actually. Kierkegaard treats this in one of his minor texts. To say that one person is able to have this faith and another not is to take awyay the most obvious fact: that we are one. In God's Will we are one and the same thing. A faith that one person has but another not, is a faith in something external only, something artificial. Real life is about what we all are one in, what we all have together. So my point is that seeing God's Will as it actually takes place, is something for all human beings. Jesus never spoke about some people being incapable of faith, only about sins that blocked their faith to come forth.

— So how do you come to the right faith — By being unhappy. That lack of peace is a pain for you. At a certain point you break and admit it. Then you can see. God's Will is taking place right now! He's got the whole world in His hands, including me. Just like the old song from the 60's. I learned to sing it on my confirmation camp, as I was 14 years old. It was just a first intuition then. Later on I realized the truth of it.

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2.

— My problem has often been that I believe in something for a day or two, then it changes. I find some new treatise or point of view and I start believing that until the next day something else turns up. I know that I should stop at one place and dig deeper there, but I can't do it.

— No, no. You don't have to stop at once place or decide what you believe in. Just consider that God's active Will always taking place, no matter what you do. You can be muslim in the morning and jew in the evening. What does it matter? The Will of God is one and perfect in every manifestation of you seeking life. See this and rest at peace, reading this or that, thinking this or that.

— But all opinions cannot all be true?

— My point is that truth belongs to God only and His Will is what is actually taking place. His Will does not bother one bit about what you are deciding to be true. Trust in His Will, because it is done all the same. Enjoy the peace and freedom in that this Will is taking care of everything.

— But when really bad things happen to us?

— Then this is God's will all the same. Look at the Book of Job in the Bible. Whatever miseries fall upon this good man, he realizes after some doubt that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.

That is the Will of God. Listen, I met a woman, dying cancer. She said: "Don't worry, it is not I who am dying, it is only God's Will performing this death of a body. I am comfortable and soon I will meet Him."

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— My moral choices must be of considerable importance, though.

And they certainly involves a private doership?

— Yes you think and believe that you do theses choices. But actually they are only the Will of God, just as all the bad choices that are made every day on this earth. Terrible choices of action are performed, as you can see in the news everyday. But as you relax this notion of personal private choice and action and only see God's Will in everything, just like the sun shines on good and bad, the saint and the sinner, you and me, then you see how little you need this belief. My point is that God only is what you should be at a disposal for. Then, if you happen to be a great sinner, like many of us, a sweet repentance can start for the rest of you years on earth. Start today !

— I think much evil takes place in the world. If the whole world is evil, is not Gods will evil too?

— My point is God's Will is perfect, both in what we experience as evil and what we experience as good. We always see a mixture and the Will of God is the only good. Jesus said: "Why do you call med good?" He pointed out clearly that only God is good, only God, nothing else. So therefore the Will of God is always good. God cannot lie to his own nature of infinite goodness. His Will, visible to some degree in what is happening, is perfectly good. That, of course, does not stop us from having reactions to the evil things we experience. But reactions fade away and what is constant is the loving Will of God. My point is that if you have this attitude, you will find peace of mind.

— So we should not involve us at all with reactions to evil?

— Why should you break the connection to the peace in His Will?

There is no good reason. Jesus said that we should not at all

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bother about worldly things, not bother about what tomorrow brings. Why? Beacuse any way only the Will of God will manifest, nothing else. Plan all you will, do your best, but do not worry for tomorrow Jesus said. You are as good as God's Will and good grace makes you be. His grace is sufficient for you.

— I wish it worked for me, but I seem to be dominated by my conditioned person and this limited body of mine...

— Your are right ! There is is domination of conditioned persons and bodies. But my point is that the Will of God is manifesting in exactly this way and you can have that attitude, that knowing or "pistis" as the greek term is for it. Do whatever you do and be aware of den Divine Will at actual work. Try that, take that and it will take you. That is Christ in you and as you. But do not think theology, just do it. As St Augustine says, your soul will not find peace until it rests in God, and in practical terms that means what is happening according to His Will.

— Does that include love? Our love or God's love?

— Good question. Yes, the Will of God not only is love, but also cannot be anything else. God cannot lie (Titus 1:2) and His nature is infinite love. But the only practical way for you and me to love Him, and so to speak reflect -- respond -- His love is of course in the daily happenings and events. He is the Only Doer and we love Him for that. We can spend hours and days doing this. We love the Act of Love which is the Will of God. And this is actually what we pray for when we say "Thy will be done on earth..."

— Actually that prayer is the Lords prayer, the one that Jesus taught.

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— Exactly. Jesus loved the Father in this concrete way. The Will of the Father was the life of Jesus, and the love from the Father was reflected in His love for the Father. How did He love the Father? My point is that it was through recognizing how everything that happened to Him was according to the Fathers Will. And the same goes for us if we want to find peace and happiness.

— Is this a form of Christian faith?

— My point is that it is true and that we human beings are meant to be happy through this truth, and as Jesus says: truth will set you free. The happy life is a life when we, as Saint Anthony once discovered, live only with God. To see His Will in everything that happens is that life in a very practical way.

— Saint Anthony went to a cave in the egyptian desert...

— Yes but God's Will is taking place everywhere and at all moments in time. In fact your whole life is now such an event i Gods Will. So the cave for contemplation is right in your heart and you can begin this practical path.

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— What about finding the good in life? I know it is not the pleasures of gratifying the senses. Is it fulfillment of some sort?

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— No, no, there is no such finding the good. Search all you can and you will only find your own ambition with toil and tears. The highest good is already manifesting Itself in the Will of God everywhere in this moment. If you witness this, knowing it is God's Will, all the good in the universe will naturally reveal itself.

You are alone with the Divine source, in fact uniting with the Father. So no searching and finding, no fullfilment, simply appreciate that "Thy Will be done on earth..." It is simple, Jesus taught it and manifested it in Himself.

— Everyone is looking for the good in their own way, right?

— Yes. We humans do everything to find the good, day after day.

In what is called sin, the good is also sought. That is, everything actually testifies to God's supreme goodness, including the sins themselves. But salvation is something else. My point is that salvation is simply knowing and witnessing the Will of God in everything that actually takes place. Then all seeking stops. The infinite beauty of the Fathers Will is all for us.

— While most men certainly seek fame or praise - how many do even care for the salvation of man?

— Actually in secret lonely moments I think every human being cries for salvation. They may not call it with that term. But they cry for it like a baby. They could learn some from père Jean FontFroide: "I am disturbed and upset on my road through life and my tastes are frustrated. The Divine Master makes me an earthly tour of which I would have a great desire to sulk: but abandonment to his holy will is even better". (January 8, 1885) — Indeed, many have all the reasons to sulk...

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— My point is that everything takes place according to His Will, and so you can use everything as a resting place for adoration and comfort in Him. You don't even judge it, not even involve yourself, since that means loosing your rest in His Will. Jesus actually has one simple admonishment, as N.P. Guigo says: "Fácil precepto el que te impone el Señor: la felicidad, la paz, la ausencia de vanos temores y turbaciones. Es decir, la perfección en el amor a Él." This is illumination, salvation.

— I have noticed that all the good I have found has been rather shadow-like. Indeed, after a day or two, it simply fades away.

Then I have to look for it somewhere else.

— That is right, shadow-like and superficial, even things we praise like family relations. My point is that the only thing sustainable is the happiness of the highest good, that is God's Will as it takes place in all things happening to us. When you are lived by this Will then there is the true good in the human life. This is the Good that you cannot lose.

— But can I love a will?

— This Will is of course the heart of a Person, actually the only person in the universe, reality itself, which is living love, manifesting in everything that is happening. But you can be in doubt about what or how this Person exists, while the thing that happens are real to you. So by witnessing this loving Will you actually adore the Person. My point is that the is-ness of the loving Will is the Person of reality itself.

— Can you give examples in practical life?

— Take for example you sitting in a café in a big shopping mall.

When you witness all the people going around, have the inner

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attitude of: "This is the Will of the Father that I am looking at !" and you will notice how you love all the others in a very disintered and peaceful way. You really love all these figures old and young. It is about your attitude. I even use to sing a song about every human body, having an eternal soul within that longs for the love of the Father. I sing it while I look at all the individuals coming and going.

— Love at the mall !

— And another is watching the sky — this universal manifestation of God's Will and therefore a divine harmoni of heaven and earth. Every single process in this enormous universe is a manifestation of the Will of the Father, a cosmic law of love and wisdom, in which everything that takes place is also meant to take place and nothing can stop it. Conversely everything that is not supposed to happen will never happen, nothing can produce it. This witnessing you can find in Boethius Consolation of Philosophy and later on in Leibniz Monadology. My point is that this attitude of watching God's Will actually taking place is salvation and happiness. Try and see ! Or like Jesus said in John 1:39: Come and see !

— Well my family was methodist so I did not hear such things at home.

— My point is that it does not matter what religion you have, it is all about seeing the Will of God. It is much like the preacher who woke Charles Spurgeon up one day in the Artilley Evangelical Church in Colchester one sunday morning. The preacher repeated the words: "Look, look, look..." and meant that the young boy should look at Jesus. This is also what Jesus did: He looked at the Will of the Father, actually operating in Himself all his life and in His death and resurrection. Whatever you believ or not believe,

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just look at what is actually happening, the manifestation of God and his Will.

— Is peace the main goal of your teaching?

— No, peace is the foundation for salvation and happiness. My point is that every action is already decided by God's Will. Once you live that attitude peace comes your way. Try and see. Then happiness will be a gift from God. Then you can be condescending and even loving to your adversary while on the road (Mt 5:25). You do everything to achieve peace when God's Will is the center for your witnessing. And my point is that there is no other path to that peace, than that of the truth of the Will of God. — I have enemies, I know that. But I avoid them as best I can.

Like Henry James, the novelist, wrote in a letter, I spend much time avoiding people.

— That is the suspicious nature of all human beings. Then they run into all sorts of trouble. Adversity, however, teaches you to desire peace. Where can you find it? Not in external things, not in your own actions. Only by seeing the Will of God operating in every event of the universe, and especially in your family members and friend.

— Why do I allow in myself what I dislike in others - anger?

— My point is that anger arises as a result of "I am the doer of my actions." This attitude brings anger and worry and it destroys peace of heart and mind. When you accept totally that only God is acting, only the Father is the agent, peace will follow.

— But can I choose another attitude?

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— If you get angry at one moment that is clearly the Will of God. Then you learn from your anger what peace is. Then you try to accept your own anger as the Will of God. Suddenly no anger arises, because this is a disinterested and true attitude, real faith in the Fathers activities.

— Anger control?

— Not at all. You simply connect to the fountain of living water, which is a metaphor for the Will of God. As Guigo says. "Do not boast the pool of abundance of water: it is from the fountain. The same you of peace. This peace always comes from something foreign to yourself." This "foreign" is the Will of God, always manifesting.

— That would be so secure, to have that totally accepting attitude.

— Every man craves security. And the further you will be from security, the more exposed you live to restlessness. Where do you find security? Only in the ongoing Will of God, operating as your reality. The you are ready for total acceptance.

— To me a word, a simple thought of others takes away my peace. How exposed I live to irritation, sadness and embarrassment!

— Yes you are right ! Thoughts of others or of yourself is the root of unrest. But as all temptations this temptation is the Will of God to teach us about peace and compassion. Therefore, my point is, as soon as you accept everything as actions of the One, peace arrives as a receit of this truth of reality. Truth shall set you free, says Jesus, and it is obvious.

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4.

— My point is that only total acceptance is faith. No reservation because you see God's Will actually takes place in all things that happen. If you reserve some actions as evil and outside of God's Will you do not have faith any more. The only doer is the One Father, and so nothing can fall outside of His love and action.

— But what about my sister who took her life as a young woman?

No one cared about her panic attacks and her deep sadness.

— Good example ! Will you put this event outside of God's love and care? Every day this happens, and much worse thing than suicide. Do you have peace of mind? That is the question. Are you happy in faith? Do you think God's loving Will stops because your sister did that to herself? Maybe He loves her even more now in the next dimension? Will you honour your sister by grieving for years?

— So there is no alternative to witness His Will taking place?

— That is my point. Nothing else matters. This is where are still, we are in peace and grace pours in. Thy Will be done ! We all must intermittantly act but rather than react we rest in the very action. That way we don't loose faith and happiness.

— But as soon as we get involved in something, we loose faith.

— Yes but experience tells us now that as soon as the biological reaction is over, for example in heavy traffic and difficult navigation, then we rest and reconnect to the Source. Then we only witness everything happening to us and rest in His Will for us.

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— But there is a problem here. If every event automatically is the Will of God, then there is no sense in saying that anything is the Will of God. There must be a difference. In the Bible we read that certain kings in old Israeli times "did not what was good in the eyes of God". So there is the difference. Right?

— No no, you talk about human beings making bad choices, for exampel follow the illusion of being a private doer, separate from God. God's Will remains exactly what it is in every event, but human beings ignore it. Ignoring it means that what happens is the Will of God although we ignore it — we are supposed to experience good and evil consequenses, the good coming from awareness of the Will of God and the bad generally coming from ignoring it. When we are aware of God's Will in what happens, we unite energy with Him and when we ignore that His Will is the causing factor, the only Single act there is, then we separate our energy from His. My point is that this separation inevitably brings alienation, fear, difficulties of all kinds and this is what we call sinning. Jesus said: "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more!"

It is a very clear admonition.

— It is not easy. It is not easy to live, not easy to die. Don't you agree? We cried when we got born, we cry as we lye dying...

— So my point is that you cannot die. And you did not get born by your own action either. God's Will is taking place in letting your body be born and later on get sick or get old and sick and finally die. Your body is weak and people sit around you. But it is not you doing anything. It takes care of itself as a manifestation of God's Will. Why, therefore, worry about it? Peace means you never worry about being born or dying. You do your best to carry the day, that's all. Thy Will be done !

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— That seems to mean that we are out of control, really.

— That is the point. We do never know what the next thought will be. We never know when we will die, perhaps in an accident. We are not in control. But the Will of the loving God is always in control, no event can take place without it. Seeing this you can rely totally on the Provider of all things, Him through whom everything has its being. When H. Spaffords four daughters all drowned in the Atlantic, he wrote the hymn "All is well with my soul", indicating that indeed Spafford saw the Will of God even in this enormous bereavement.

— So when we do something, it is actually God willing it?

— That is the point, again ! Not only has God's Will the whole world in His hands but also every single moment in your life.

When you accept and wonder and profoundly appreciate this, you will discover peace and true happiness. You are also free of all attempts to prove something. Instead of a private energy separate from God's, you have synergy with His Will. That is total acceptance.

— And how do I avoid breaking the connection, the synergy? For sometimes I am really enthusiastic about many things and think I am perfectly all right.

— You can detect the brokeness by the sadness within you, the unrest, agitation, the unease. The body shows you, because the psychophysical aspect is used by God to show you His Will.

When Saint Anthony had his struggle with demons, a physical pain was the most obvious sign at times. The same for you and me. Something is not right and we feel it clearly. When you see this just say: This is God's Will manifesting. Soon you witness and rely on His Will again.

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— What about when we were children? Did we share synery with God's Will then? Jesus said that we should be like children to enter the Kingdom?

— He was right there. A small child is purely objective and lives in a sort of synergy with the total reality. You can see how a child simply put his or her hands over the eyes when it does not like the world as it is. Then everything is ok ! Later on doubt comes into the child and separation, subjectivity enters the mind. You see that when the child realizes other children being better, more skillful, more popular. Competition sets in. The unity is broken. My point is that when we take faith in that all that is taking place is the Will of God manifesting, then this is again pure objectivity and we enter into it, which is synergy. It is union with God's Will and I think Jesus was hinting at that.

— The smallest distraction is felt I suspect. The slightest involvement in something other than His Will?

— That is the point. Why should you want to deviate for even a minute of you life? Distraction will occur, of course. Things tat must be attended to, problems to be solved, rather sooner than later. Unforeseeable complications. Temptations to be distracted is always there. But actually there is no good reason to fall for it.

Help out as best you can for the moment. But do not get involved and break the conncection to the Will of God, which actually is the essence of sin. Be free and sin no more, says the Saviour. I take him ad notam.

— I guess some jobs really need you to have a lot of biological reactions, like fire-fightning and dangerous rescuing work. And these vigilant reactios also disturb you emotionally. Right?

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— Biological reactions when we come in harms way are of course necessary for our living safely. But when time for rest comes, even in the middle of danger, intermittantly, then the Will of the Father is recognized. A lot of people in the history of war and periods of crimewaves, can testify to deep confidence to the presence of the Fathers Will. Actually these perils often strengthen their faith and deep joy press through, albeit the miserable circumstances. When practical troubles come my way I often think of all the preachers imprisoned and tortured in modern day Russia and China.

— Often I find that what others are feeling to be troublesome or problematic, directly disturbs me.

— My point is that you are one with others in pain. By connecting to the Source of the Father you help them, not only with words but in your state of peace and happiness. We are all together in this so your peace is important to others. Therefore, to help others, develop you love to peace. The highest object to love is whithout the shadow of doubt, the very loving Will of God. As you see it happen in every experience you have, you will grow to love it, prefer it to anything else in the world. Then you help others. You love God and help everyone you meet.

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— "Thy will be done..." is from a prayer that Jesus gave us. Is that the most important prayer, the Lord's prayer?

— Actually I have my favourite verse in another place: "Let not your heart be troubled." That is in my view the most central admonition of the Saviour. That is John 14:1. My point is that if

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you have this as a central focus, you will find that only when you are not the doer, the heart will at last rest from trouble. You see, as long as there is the least notion of a self as doer, unrest will follow. There is only one way, as I have found, to an untroubled heart: seeing that God's Will is the only doer of everything that takes place.

— The Lord's prayer is of course directed to the Father.

— Quite so. But among the many prayers, seven of them, that you find in The Lord's prayer, the one about the Fathers Will I find the most pertinent in my life. That is all. It is really the most practical way to peace and happiness, once you begin to apply it. It also connects to the prologue of Johns gospel: "In the beginning was the Word...." Now this "word" is actually a verb, like "action" or "Being done". The latin word "nomen" was earlier "Gnomen" which is a knowing and acting at the same time. The Word is in concrete reality the Will of God in action and operation, for us to see that.

— So is this the truth that Jesus said will liberate us? The truth about the active God? Is he not talking about the truth of himself as the Saviour? That he is the Messiah?

— My point is that you will not experience freedom and a restful heart unless you see everything that happens as the Will of the Father. So I think this is the spirit of truth, whom the world of separate doers cannot recieve, as Jesus says in John 14:17. When people of the world fail to recognize God's Will in continous action in everything you see, then they become impotent of recieving the peaceful, restful heart. They have the presumtion of controlling what will happen and acting as the doers of reality.

Jesus says of Himself that He is visible in the Will of the Fathers,

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and bccause He is eternally living, we shall also be. We shall overcome by resting in the Will of God. — And who is Jesus himself?

— The most lovely expression of who He is comes from Himself: "I am in my Father". And as we have a tranquil heart in the Will of the Father, we can trust Jesus when He says that we are in Jesus and He in us.(John 14:20) This union life is clearly the highest manifestation of the Fathers Will. Jesus Himself manifest Himself in us and to the Father.

— A wonderful faith !

— Yes, but a warning here ! It is not metaphysics or greek philosophy. My point is: this is very practical and day to day business. With love for Jesus, with humility and care you have to accept totally all that come your way as the Will of God. And when distraction and false involvement comes, just go back to the Father's Will in what actually takes place. The Spirit will help you if you have that intention. You don't have to do anything. Just have the intention to accept His Will, and the Spirit will help you with it.

— And Jesus said: "Peace I leave with you...."

— That is my point.

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6.

— As a boy I had a friend from whom I bought an airgun rifle and at the first shooting the bullet ricocheted to almost destroying my right eye. My friends mother saw this and exclaimed: "God helped you there ! You still have your eyes boy !" That even made me think of how God knows everything beforehand. For example in this moment you do not know what you will think of in five minutes. But God does, being the only actor he already know, the film is in the can so to speak, — But how can this speculation be a personal practise? I know how to do meditation, but this is not like that.

— Meditation is good for us, but it is an arrangement. You arrange how to sit, breathe, say in your mind and so on. My point is that reality as it reveals itself in your live is the center. You do not produce the thoughts and feelings coming along. They just come by the Will of God. So already as a boy I felt this when my friends mother reacted to my almost destroying my eye by careless shooting. I realized I had no control, ultimately, of what is coming my way.

— But what is the practical and personal practise out of this?

— My point is that the reality of God's Will taking place within us and whithout us is to be considered and even loved at all times.

That is a very practical thing to do. Only that way are we settled in the peace that Jesus Christ wanted to give us by union with Him. At the same time your are not doing anything because the Doer Himself is doing all of it. Only thing for you is witnessing in thankfulness and wonder.

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— Like the birds and the flowers that the Gospel talks about.

— That is the point. Our true attitude is that of wonderous gratefulness for the gift of being, of ocurring in the Will of the Father, the Supreme Person, willing us.

— But when life is difficult or dangerous even, it is hard to remember this.

— Yes of course. But I will tell you about a person. So I had this friends son who was an infantry soldier, stationed in Syria. As he was lying down, shooting, he realized he could lose his life any minute. He did not have much fear, it was not compatible with being alert. Instead there was a remarkable freedom. He said to God, because he was a believer, "Father you can have me killed any second now. You have it your way, I praise Thee Lord." And some days later he was shot in both shoulders, carried away to the field hospital, where he wrote a letter to me. In it he told me about this strange peace of having totally accepted a bullet in his head.

No judgement of anyone or anything. Just the Will of God. In a way we are all in his situation, although most of us would not be so efficient soldiers. We have no control, as best we can we take care, but no ultimate control.

— From another view it is always about not getting involved in thoughts, is it not? Do what you can but never get involved !

— Yes, in a way the peace of accepting God's Will is about not protesting or reacting, but rathe act according to circumstances, whichever they happen to be. My friends son, the infantry soldier, did not judge anyone or anything, just accepted what was happening and making the best of it. Of course, he can be convinced of pacifism later on. But that is purely intellectual and moral. The peace we are talking about is witnessing God's Will

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actually taking place. Then you do not get involved as if you were doing anything.

— What is a thought?

— It is either a memory, pointing past or pointing future, or it is a fresh thought of a need, an operational mode of thinking "this has to be done", for exampel "I am thirsty, I will go to the fridge and get some cool youghurt drink. Operationel thoughts are quickly resolved into an action. That's the end of it. No more involvement. But memory thought tend to stick and produce more of the same kind. For example resentments or missing something that were experienced yesterday or way back. These thought projects themselves into the future and get you involved in long dramas.

— They involve you and you loose your being in touch with the Source of the Father.

— That is my point. The operational thoughts are expedient and will not generally involve you after the action is taken care of.

But memory thinking hypnotizes you and put you in prison. The prison is the illusion "I am the only doer". So not getting involved is a very simple procedure when you witness the flow of events as actually coming from the Will of the Father. It is also a very intimate relationship with God because there is synergy. Lifetime contemplatives sometimes find this relationship and live anonymous lives in great happiness.

— But why do certain persons become contemplatives and not involved, and others suffer from so many worldly involvements?

— We don't know, but certainly it is the Will of God acting out and manifesting this ignorance of happiness and love. Of course

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by manifesting this ignorance we have clear demonstrations from God of how not to live, very clear instructions on what to change and find peace instead. But still, many people get wasted on all sorts of painful involvements in thoughts.

— It is their destiny?

— Maybe, but they clearly have a free will to stop involving themselves and just witness the flow of events and thank God like Job did many ages ago. "The Lord brings, the Lord takes away.

Blessed is His Name!" Alternatively, if you get involved in bitterness over the loss, you have to carry more and more burdens and you ignore totally that Jesus Christ died for the release of these burdens, and accepting peace.

— "Accepting peace" is interesting. Many would be surprised because is not peace a wonderful thing to have? But you emphazise the very accepting of it.

— Yes, that is my point. To accept it you have to give up the idea that someone is doing something in the world. Happenings are not done by anyone, it is all manifestations of the Will of God. Our system of justice presupposes acting conscious agents of criminal acts. That is also manifestations of the Will of God. Actually only God can act. So beautiful virtuos deeds as well as the worst war crimes are actually God's doing. This is very hard to realize when you cling to the idea of a private doership, a private agent.

Accepting peace is about this surrender to the loving Father, Who is nearer to us than the jugular vein, as the Coran says.

— This comes close to the problem of evil, I guess...

— Yes, obviously evil is meant to be evil. God's Will is a demonstration from which we can learn. How would we know

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good if not from evil? How would we learn to accept the central Agency of the Father whithout the sin of separate interests and egoic dramas? God is in Himself infinitely good and gives this good to our hearts at all times. We just need to accept.

— But as long as people in fact do involve themselves and create their world that way, this is also God's Will I understand?

— That is my point. The world and its happenings is like a movie with scenes in succession, all of which are created by involvements by people who do not accept God as the only Agent. They involve themselves by the hypnotic idea about "my doership" and so the film is produced. And it is already in the can, so to speak. So everything you see happen was meant to happen, there is nothing to do about it, neither is there any good reason to react to it. It is what it is.

— That sounds a bit pessimistic!

— No no, only to a deluded person who wants all events to perform to his satisfaction will find it pessimistic. When all the myriads of causes and effects manifest the Will of God, we realize how all things must pass the way they do. This means a great freedom for the soul, for we can really trust the Father's Will taking place in everything that occurs.

— And God becomes visible in this very world, somehow.

— Indeed, it becomes remarkable that the three first important words of Our Lords Prayer, Father - Name - Kingdom — becomes one with the fourth: Thy Will. The three first can easily become routine theological nouns and abstraction for many who pray this prayer daily. But in this perspective they all become actions, God's living actions. The Father is visible in what

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actually takes place, the Name is the movement and energy of this Will, the Kingdom is the realm of this Will. It is all about this living Will taking place here.

7. — My point is that if you witness the already produced film and thank the Lord for what comes your way without any trace of sinful involvement, then your faith is great and you will be in peace and live happily. Of course all sorts of miseries can appear in this film and only God knows, having the film already finished.

Jesus said that it is impossible for evil events not to turn up. As the pilgrim in the story of the Russian Pilgrim discovered when he was attacked by thiefs and beaten unconscious -- the life of continuous prayer will not stop bad things happen. On the other hand, the pilgrim learns, these events will teach you to fall into the embrace of the Divine Will. — And some of the miseries lead to blessings in some cases. — Everything that makes you realize God is the only doer will be a blessing. That way we serve the Will of the Father in all that takes place before us. We do not serve the hypnotic idea of a private doer. That is what Jesus talks about when he says that the true servant (Luke 17:7) never sits down to eat after work, but keeps on serving the real Lord. This is a response from Jesus to the apostles need for more faith. The real faith only witness the loving Father manifesting his Agency as our lives. There is no agenda apart from that. As Jesus says: We are useless servants, nothing more.

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— That is an interesting reading of Luke 17:7 which many find deprecating of us humans as worthless servants.

— My point is that this is the truth. As private agents we are a mistake, a useless student of the Divine Will. But as soon as we see how the Father is active in all events, indeed the only real Act, we give up the hypnosis and become celebrants and lovers. We are then not only loved by God, we have become lovers instead.

Then we behave like the one single healed from leprosy who came back to thank Jesus for the healing, while the other nine healed just went their way. Clearly our prasing God's Will in what is taking place before our eyes, is the real life of peace and happiness. In this inward praising of God's Will we find the kingdom, not in any external arrangement.

— This is wonderful wisdom, but in my own case I find that I always wake up in the old hypnotic mode of selfdoing.

— My point is that the hypnotic selfmanship is attached to our culture and has been for a long time. But there is teaching from God built into this. By suffering more and more from the burdens of selfmanship, your soul is forced to let go. Letting go means dying. The symbol of baptism is this dying. The old man really is already dead in the Cross of the Lord. So, realizing this, seeing that you are already dead, you discover that One single Actor is producing everything you experience. You then become the useless and happy servant of divine Reality.

— Not easy, to die like that.

— No, no, it is not a matter of your effort. Remember the wife of Loth? She could have walked straight, not looking back. Jesus takes this example. Her looking back is about trying to defend the hypnosis of selfmanship. Instead you die involuntary. Loth

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himself walked straight and lived, praising God's Will as everything that takes place. My point is, this is not an effort on your part. It is falling into the embraces of His Will, nothing else.

— Perhaps we could say that witnessing what is unfolding as the Will of God is like continous prayer?

— That is the point. Jesus teached that we always pray. And how do we do that? Not by selfeffort to acquire anything. Just witness what comes your way, say the Name of the Father or Jesus, but first of all, witness the Will of God taking place.

— And some seem to lack the capability to pray this way?

— My point is that is it very personal. If you think you have control and you have this false self confidence of who is running your flow of events, then it is impossible to be happy and have true peace. Only when this self confidence is crushed can your contemplation of God's Will take place. Think of Jesus and his teaching about the selfconfident pharisee. Indeed in this world there are an enormous amount of such persons. And they complain, of course, that they cannot see God in what is happening. The Will of God is totally abstract to them. You can find these people among bishops and priests of course.

— The Will of God has to be your own condition somehow, in order to give up phariseeic self-confidence?

— That is right. Your own true reality actually coincides with God's Will, since He continously creates everything in your life, inside, outside, all of it. When the hypnotic and satanic lie falls away and you see all happening according to God's Will, then it already is your own condition. But then you become simple and humble, the presence of God is overwhelming and you cannot

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claim anything for yourself. Out of this comes the oldest of simple prayers: Oh Lord be merciful to me a sinner!

— Isn't that an extreme submission? And perhaps self denigration?

— No no, this is our actual condition. Being fooled by a cultural hypnosis about self-confidence, this is awakening to the reality of only the Will of God. You can't do anything about it, this is the real deal. The Will of God is the only actuality, the only act in fact. My point is that you will never find peace and happiness another way.

— But if the worlds many events in my life is a movie, already produced, am I not complete just in being here, as one character in the play?

— It depends on whether you witness the movie or get involved with judgements relating to the content. That is the difference. All the senses and the biological reactions you normally have is the Father's activity, not yours. That is witnessing the divine movie.

As soon as you get involved as if you were doing it, unhappiness and unrest come into the picture sooner or later. Then you cry, like the publican Jesus talks about: Oh Lord be merciful to me a sinner ! And the prayer will wake you up to Whom belongs all actions in the universe. The you are the loving witness again. The adoration of the Source is not broken.

— What about penitence? The churches are full of actions of penitence, almost like penalties.

— My point is, just stop involve yourself in anything, surrender the doership. That is penitence enough, and a happy form of penitence. Involving through judgement is nothing else but pride

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and actually demonic activity. And pride needs the penitence of resting the case. Just witness the Will of God taking place. Then you are eating the divine bread and drinking the living water. And once you start having this attitude you soon will find the need for perpetual adoration of that loving Will.

— Is this the basis for religion?

— For the true religion yes. But most of religious practise is exactly like Jesus described it in Mark 7: "the washing of pots and of cups". He called it futile worship. My point is that all religions actually teach "Thy Will be done" and as long as they keep to that in practical terms, they will surrender the doership and find the perpetual adoration.

— I have a brother who is homosexual, or thinks he is. He often wonders about why he feels that way.

— My point is, he should simply say: "Thy Will Father, be done about these feelings." He should not bother or judge himself or another about these biological reactions. Maybe he is homosexual, maybe not. It is not his business. Let the private doership be released as dream and illusion. The Will of God is the only thing he should look for. Then the rest will fall away and he can be at peace.

— But what about a catholic priest and pedophile?

— If you see such a man in the reality movie, it is there because of God's Will. How else could that appear? All the factors making this man both priest and pedophile are unknown to you. They happen because it is the Will of God. Now, if you happen to know this priest, maybe as a friend or relative, and you could help him see the true worship of the Father, maybe his behaviour will

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change. Who knows? That may be the Will of God: that you should help him overcome his biological tendencies. Many pedophiles have been known to find true faith and become pure in their sexual life or live out their homosexual life in an orderly way. But whether that happens or not, for you it is the Will of God, like anything else.

— It is the same thing with all temptations?

— For sure, for sure. You may have the temptation to shout in anger, or lie to a person, or flirt with another man or woman, or even steal form another. Temptations are there to teach us to let go of the doership. If you instead have the attitude that all events are manifestations of God's Will only, these temptations grow uninteresting burdens to you. You can relax in peace and find happiness. Why put a burden on that is not even interesting?

— It is like all we do produce illusion.

— Yes, from the poin of view of a private doership, all that comes from the inside will defile us, as Jesus taught. But once you die to that and only keep your eyes on the manifestations of God's Will, all these burdens dissolve in the air. You can then watch the display of the Father's Will everywhere.

— It seems then like we should accept that we are incapable of doing anything at all.

— That is my point.

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8.

-- Is this practical consideration outside of religious worship?

— My point is that giving up private doership and have the attitude of adoration in seeing the Father's Will actually taking place in everything, will be the most rich religious path. And many persons from various religions have found it. If you read and meditate on the following prayer in french, you will see how the Will of the Father is the central heart of the Christian faith: Mon Père, Je m'abandonne à Toi Fais de moi ce qu'il Te plaira Quoi que Tu fasses de moi, Je Te remercie Je suis prêt à tout J'accepte tout.

Pourvu que Ta Volonté se fasse en moi En tout Tes créatures, Je ne désire rien d'autre, mon Dieu Je remets mon âme entre Te mains Je Te la donne, mon Dieu Avec tout l'amour de mon coeur, Parce que je T'aime Et que ce m'est un besoin d'amour De me donner, De me remettre entre Te mains sans mesure, Avec une infinie confiance, Car Tu es mon Père — Who wrote this prayer about the Will of the Father?

— Charles Foucauld, the french priest and missionary to the Sahara and the tuareg muslims. My point is that this is the most

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impressive way a french Christian can formulate the truth about our incapability to do anything and the Will of the Father is everything. Foucauld also liked Psalm 26 where it says: "Set me, O Lord, a law in thy way and guide me in the right path..." For we can also see the Father's Will as the living Law, not a dead law on paper, but a living Law, according to which everything happens just the way it happens. And the psalm also says: "I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living." Now on a practical level this means seeing everything that takes place as good, even the things that are meant to be evil. All of it it simply the Will of God, being manifested.

— So total acceptance of this means peace of mind?

— Yes, and you will also find a liberation in it, because truth liberates. It is not a guess work, not a wild hypothesis. Neither is it sentimentalism. The true objective reality is the Will of God, therefore you can trust basic law of His Will in operation.

Whatever your commentaries on stressful sequences of the film, basic law is the actual presence of His Will and grace for us all.

— And does this allow for heartfelt joy in meeting others for example? Or I am just witnessing from a distance?

— No no you are as alive as can be. For example you meet some friend you have not seen in a long time. There is a biological reaction of joy and festivity and a deeper stream of love for them.

Then the reaction slowly fades away and concrete Will of God is visible again, quite compatible with the flow of events, internal and external.

— So no holding back natural feelings.

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— It is not necessary, on the contrary your heartfelt emotions should be expressed on the basic perception of the Father's Will acting out in what happens. But you don't get involved in thoughts about it, no memories hanging on your back or ambitions for the future hypnotic life of the private doer.

— That is very good to hear. Many spiritual teachers think emotions should stay out of the picture completely.

— What they mean is that ego attached sentimentality often breaks the connection to the Father. That is often the problem with charismatic movements. It is all right as long as the biological reactions go, then they despair over the fading away of the desired emotions. God is so much greater than that. He is present, no matter what emotional state we are in. They should say the prayer from Charles Foucauld over and over.

— Maybe one should not despair over the periods of dryness and loneliness.

— Yes ! That is my point. All you experience is a manifestation of the One Doer, the one through whom all things come to be, as it is said of Christ. And knowing this is the saving faith, as the 26th Psalm says: "God is my enlightenment. What can worry me then?" And so, when people sense the peace you bring, actually this is more beneficient in the long run, that high emotionalism in meeting and spending time together. Also, this perception of what is actually happening, rests in a protected area, the Divine area, where we are totally accepting of all events as of Him, the living Agent.

— Strong emotions can really eat you out of all energy !

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— Indeed. If you get involved and lose the connection to the Source, protection is gone and your own heart can host a number of enemies as it were. They certainly eat you alive and you need time to rest and convert again to an attitude of peace and happiness. Hyperemotional religious people are often victims of this phenomenon, we find them in all historical ages. Knox wrote a whole volume about some of the dangers in this emotional private doership with the title "Enthusiasm".

— When I feel to emotional I use to visit an empty Catholic Church, to sit there in silence for a while. It cools you down.

— Actually this is a perfect image of what my point is. If you see the Church as the true home, where the Will of God is fully visible and tangible for you, then this abode is where you want to spend the rest of your days on earth. And so it is for me too. I accept that all events take place according to His Will and thereby, in my heart and mind, I sit quietly in His true temple, the absolute interiority of reality. I don't have to look for a denomination. I am in His place.

— Interaction with others also depends on this quiet quality.

Whenever I lack this quality relations become doubtful, sometimes directly embarrasing and painful.

— That is the truth. We are not capable of doing anything on our own, and when we presume to do it anyway, frustration is generally the outcome of it. When I was young I could easily do rash things and demonstrate stupidity. The effects was of course disturbing others and taking blame for actions. Later on, when the Will of God in everything became obvious and Jesus became my Saviour, these temptations faded away. They taught me how not to live it and this teaching was God's Will. Actually it was His love for me.

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— Many believers long to see God...

— Yes. When the Psalm says that "I want to see your face O Lord!" We can actually realize how we do that in daily life when the flow of happenings come our way as the Will of God. And we can't do anything about it ! We cannot control it. The Lord's Will is totally dominant minute for minute. And we can contemplate this as it happens. Then we don't have time to judge anyone, myself or another person.

— How does that work? If someone hurts me, I immediately judge him, don't I? — That is a biological reaction. But after the reaction fades, you realize that no one did anything. No one is capable of doing anything. So then there is no judgement. God's Will is the only thing happening.

— How difficult no to judge people ! Jesus said that He does not judge anyone.

— Indeed He said. And the only way for you to not judge is this: nobody does anything, nobody is capable of an action. The only acting is the Will of God. If you have this attitude you easily and naturally do not judge anyone, including yourself. It has been a fashion among Christians historically to judge themselves, to feel shame over yourself, as if that is pious. But that is a misunderstanding. You are God's child. The only way we can follow Jesus here is through realizing God's Will as supreme, as the Only thing happening.

— But what about personal responsibility?

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— You see a person act responsibly as best he or she can. That is God's Will in action. Then you see a terrorist act terribly, destroying other lives and his own. That is God's Will in action too. This is God's universe, where some act in good faith, and other only create misery. God's Will is that this reality works exactly this way. We can educate and foster all we will, which is also God's Will. But when bad things happen, it is the same Divine flow of events. Bad things can be acts or defects of all kind, for example being born with blindness or another great defect. But no one does anything or can be made responsible for anything done. As Jesus said: "...that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

— So God's Will is the reality in itself. And all sorts of good and bad things happen within it.

— That is my point. Therefore, you can devote yourself totally to accepting everything as it comes your way and love God. That is all you need to know to live in happy adoration of the One Acting Father. He is the Doer, the Doing and the Deed.

— But when greed or anger arises within me — is it not I who become angry?

— No that is impossible. It is a biological event, coming and fading away, but God is the only and supreme Actor. You can relax all your false concerns about it. It comes and goes and nothing else is happening. You did not do anything, because your are incapable of that. It takes the Fathers Will for anything to be real.

— Neither, then, can I say that anybody else is angry, greedy or hateful or criminal. I cannot blame anyone for not being responsible for their actions.

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— That is my point. Socially, politically and legally we construct responsibility to help society to be more peaceful, but in truth there is only God's Will manifesting in so many ways. Only when you see this as the truth, will peace establish itself in your life.

— So what I am doing instead of thinking that I am angry or hateful?

— You witness God's Will as it takes place. You see anger come and go, you see lust come and go, you see judgement of others come and go, you see all these processes and know that the loving Will of God is the true reality behind all these shadows. As Charles Foucauld wrote: you abandon your soul to God, so that He can do whatever He wants with it.

— And not only supress these reactions, but rather let them fade out and forget about them.

— Exactly. But also the opposite: when extradordinary feats are performed by persons, heroic deeds -- nobody was there doing it, you can't commend them or give them credit. It was the Will of God that happened. Nobody did it. But look at the world ! It is honoring and pushing individual persons every day for strong athletic performances, or great scientific ingenuity or great physical beaty or unusual craft of something in art or technology.

We think that somebody did something and make a great fuzz over it. Which is contrary to truth, it is like a hypnotic dream, where we invent agents where there are nobody. Only God can perform living actions, nobody else. Just like nobody is good except God, like Jesus teaches.

— So if I accept all the biological reactions that happen in this body, not as my actions but as God in action, then peace comes my way, and perhaps happiness.

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— Just try and see ! Be practical about it. You will be surprised how many quiet and happy moments the Lord will give you.The body and mind will always bring a series of pleasures or pains.

That is what a body does. It has nothing to do with you or I doing things. The complete flow is like a movie already in the can, already what the Will of God is manifesting. If you go into this perception you will be saved. Jesus is this perception, He witness the Father's Will continously. "Enter into me" Jesus says in John 10:9 and you will be saved. We enter into His witnessing the Father.

— Accepting whithout judging sounds like a message for our time, where so much judging are growing all over the political and cultural areas.

— Yes, but I am sure we find this along the whole history of mankind. It is a story of hypnotic delusion into the doership so that through misery and failure we slowly will come to see God's Will operating in everything we meet. Finally we will as a human kind be able to say. "Thy Will be done!" and really mean it. We then shall find the pastures of salvation, as Jesus put it.

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— As the mother of Sadhu Sundar Sing had realized that the noblest experience in life was spiritual peace, my point is that this peace can only be a concrete reality as we witness the Father's Will as this very flow of events. She taught the young Sundar this basic spiritual truth. Many people hunt for deep spiritual experiences and exstacies but forget the most important peace of mind and happiness.

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— And this peace is the peace Jesus talked about when he said that "My peace I give to you..."?

— That is the point. By letting the old mans doership die on the Cross, we come to open our eyes and see the Will of God exposed to us. This is the new life in Christ. The dead person will rest in peace and the new spiritual person is generated by Jesus in us. We now accept everything as coming from the Father in love and mercy. And our only passionate interest in life is this adoration of the divine Giver.

— Does the Old Testament fit with this?

— Of course ! The Will of the living God within the books of the Old Testament becomes known to man only in the here-and-now of human life in the world. It is divine realism. And there is an absence of any speculation about the beyond or eschatological future. There is not much involvements in human emotions, inner feelings or about the world of the soul. The events of God's Will is right in front of us. So God is encountered in the reality of this world, where all happenings come according to the Will of God, delightful ones as well as horrific ones. Jesus is always basing his own witnessing on this reality of the Father's Will taking place in His own life.

— But the legalism in the Old Testament?

— You can of course see the Will of God as the divine cosmic law. So there is no problem. All limited human laws may be temporarily necessary for a certain situation, no problem. The importance, according to my point of view, is the recognizing of the Will of God taking place in the reality of our lives. We are, so to speak, the partners of God, His servants, with the basic commandement to think of God's Will at all times, consider it as

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what really is going on. Then we also have peace and freedom.

We cannot do anything, the film is already in the can. God is supreme and wants to share this with us. By total acceptance we have love and peace in our hearts.

— I think R. Gregor Smith calls this "Diesseitige Transzendenz", that is transcendent Will in this world as we experience it.

— That is my point. It is real for us as long as we do not involve ourselves and loose the connection to the Father. We do the best we can according to conditions, but we realize and accept the Father's Will in all situations. The Old Testament actually protects the teaching of Jesus from becoming identified with countless other-wordly religious movements at the time and also in our time.

— So God is actually in the midst of the world?

— Everything in the universe acts according to God's Will and so the world is in His hands, as we have said many times. Also, I return moment by moment my soul and heart to Him, again in His hands. That does not mean that God's Will is political or ideological, that is just a continuation of the private doer in larger groups of egocentric dreamers.

— But in the Lord's Prayer there is the key word "heaven" in the starting phrase of the prayer. Is heaven also on earth?

— Heaven and kingdom is God's Will, nothing else. Remember Jesus said that you don't find the Kingdom "here" or "there", it is not of that kind. So whatever conciousness experiences after this temporary life form is over, is cannot be anything else than the Father's loving Will for us. All of it is God's Will and nothing else happens. In eternity that is so, that is my point.

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— I often think of a friend who is a priest. He serves in a Church which considers certain phases in life as especially "religious", like birth and death, confirmation into adulthood, marriage and times of crisis or despair. But clearly, the Will of God, is actuality itself at all situations in life?

— That is my point. Whatever happens is the actual manifestation of the Father's Will and we cannot be happy unless we totally accept every event as such. Birth and death are just beginning and end, no special events at all. Every breath is just as special, being God's Will in action. Therefore, the sacraments used in the Church are actually not special, just chosen for a common ritual and very practical to gather us together for mass. But every happening is just as much the present manifestation of the Father's Will. It is what happens in the middle of everything. The first words in Genesis could be rewritten like "In the middle of the beginning God creates heaven and earth..." and this concerns every hour of our life. It is not about past or future.

— But it says "In the beginning...", does it not?

— Yes but my point is that this should not be the greek concept "start" or "beginning" which is about horizontal time. But the real activity is rather eternal Will of God. The allegories about the Creation is not about satifying curiosity about beginnings and origins but about realizing how central the loving Will of God is to our happiness and peace. So in order to do that we must realize our incapacity to understand beginnings and ends. His Will takes place completely independent of our concepts, we can simply rest in this not knowing.

— So our need to understand and to control has to rest?

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— This need is totally irrelevant to what actually happens. No problem in seeking knowledge, we have to do that, of course. But happiness lies in dying to these needs. The divine law is an expression of the Father's love for us and we need to give up our life, like the seed in the ground, so that it will bear fruit. If you attach to your own life you will stay alone and die whithout fruit.

Only in giving away will you recieve bliss. That is how Jesus did it for our sake.

— Is the Will of God the answer to the question: What is actually happening? Or is it an answer to the thirst for peace and happiness?

— My point is that happiness is the primary urge in all human beings. The question about what is really happening is second to that first need for happiness and peace. When you are truly happy and in a state of peace, then you can easily recognize the answer to that second question and be sure that the Will of God is the only reality, the absolute interiority. But primary concern is peace, love and happiness. As it says in The Secret Sayings of Ye Su, the chinese manuscript from the Silk Road: "To you I leave the three gifts: ágape, simplicitity and peace." The Glory of God is a union of the two answers you mentioned, first the glory He gives to us, then the glory in the whole of cosmos as a manifestation of this divine Will. This is "mysterious and wonderful beyound our understanding" as the Chinese Emperor said in welcoming the Christian faith in 635, also called the Religion of Light.

Everything that happens is according to this Will and this is certainly wonderful and beyond our understanding.

— You say sometimes that we have to stay connected to the Source. What is the source?

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— The flow of every event in the universe comes from the Source, which is the Father's Will. When we say "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!" we actually refer to the eternal Light, infinite and endless, manifesting in everything. But it is not a metaphysical object which we can find through reason or deduction. The Source is the present active factor of all life and movement. As Acts 17:28 says we live and move and have our being in this Source. It is the experience of confidence and peace and love for us all.

— There are many teachers around the world, teaching wisdom.

How shall I see all of them? Do they converge in truth — The Will of the Father is constantly manifesting in the world and all these teachers do what they can, according to the Will of God. They can't do anything on their own. Then some of them have realized this fact about the Will of God, but some of them have not. No problem, who cares? Listen to those who percieve the Father's Will and ignore the rest. That is my point. The essential heart of every religion is the holy Will of God, manifesting in everything that takes place. Thy Will be done !

Seeing this you keep the connection and you will experience peace and happiness of the Kingdom. The problem with the many teachers and traditions is the corruption that grows within them.

They loose contact with the Source and the teaching becomes fragile. Keep the teaching of Jesus himself. The you don't get involved, just witnessing the Kingdom take place, judgementfree. That is the peace He gives.

— So peace is essentially no judgement?

— Yes that is my point. Appreciating the Will of God whithout any judgement of what happens. Some things are uncomfortable, others pleasant. No judgement. A thought comes, I react on it and

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do something. Then it is gone. No problem. There is a peaceful flow of events and you experience love from God. Ágape, simplicity and peace. Life becomes simple and free beyond understanding.

— And involvements means an emotional confusion?

— Yes, it means anger or frustration, guilt or pride. It is a disturbance of the flow of events. The peace from the Source is gone momentarily. Unfortunately, this is almost the general state of many persons lives. That is the world we live in and that is why Jesus often talked about the minority of those that hear the Shepherds voice. The majority are constantly judging others as well as themselves, judging the actions of other, as well as the actions of themselves. It is a darkness in the mind. And what is the result? A world of hatred, divisions, corruption and violence.

Maybe in a soft way for some, stronger for other, really strong in fanatics of all kinds. But it is there, the darkness, the negativity.

— Still Jesus did not come to judge the world, but to love it and save it....

— That is the truth and we can follow His example in not judging only by the principle of reality itself -- God's Will happening all the time, total acceptance of whatever comes our way. You can do nothing of yourself, the Father is the only one acting.

— I think Jesus taught about the peacemakers, in His Sermons on the Mount -- are these the ones in peace and non-judging state?

— That is my point. When you don't get involved, thinking that ther is "my doing" or "someone else's doing", the flow of events takes the course of God's Will in peace and happiness. This is the way to make peace in the world, not by aggressive manipulation

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of others, proselytizing, nor direct political or military dominion over others. My Kingdom is not of this world, Jesus said to Pilate.

That means non-judging no-involvement. No arrogant truth claims, as if you can own it. Only love and joy in the Will of the Father.

— I often find thoughts on other persons actions to be the most disturbing factors, breaking the connection to the Father.

— Yes and that is the thought of this or that person as a private "doer", which is unreality and darkness. There is only One single doer, the Father of all. And all His actions take place in the divine Light, the love of His Will.

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— Does happiness and truth coincide?

— That is my point. You cannot separate the two. A truth claim whithout peace in the consciousness of the Father's Will only means another power manipulation. A Church or school of philosophy arrogantly try to prove their own truth. The only truth is not claiming anything, not needing to claim anything. Peace and truth comes from the Source to us. It is impossible to claim it because we never had it. God's Will is always supremet truth and all our capacities to truth disappear in one happy and relaxed exhalation. Then truth has set us free.

— Religious truth, as it is normally conceived, is a barrier?

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— Yes, a barrier in fact to mutual compassion and peace. It should be a unifying force. Therefore, only in non-judging and intercessory attitude can we find peace together. When only God's Will is in our center can we promote peace and happiness in a world in which everyone seems to be craving for something, whether it be power or sex or amusement or the truth, but in which everyone eventually dies unhappy and must relin- quish all for which they craved.

— And Christ is the solution?

— My point is that Jesus Christ in us is the Religion of Light, which provides the armor to wear in this world of suffering private doers and will bring us all who follow it to the other shore of Peace and happiness.

— What about the original sin that some Churches proclaim, in need for redemption?

— Everything happens as manifestation of God's Will and thereby it is pure in nature. Humans are originally pure, actually the appointed guardians of all creation, born with pure natures, but lost them when Satan tempted them to owning their actions as separate from God. Thus the central problem of humans is the illusion of private doership. Then the Will of God becomes abstract, not quite real. Ye Su is born into the world from a virgin in order, through his teachings, to restore to human beings to their original purity and peace in witnessing the Father's Will in the flow of events.This is the purity that Jesus talks about to Peter in John13:10. One of the apostles, the traitor, still avows his private doership and does not trust the Father's Will. But Jesus knows, already beforehand, the Will of God even in this event.

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— Not to judge, rely and witness the Will of the Father at all times, seems to be ethical and spiritual rather than pauline theological?

— My point is that emphasis should be laid upon the four first prayers of the Our Father, the fourth being "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!" It is not really about theology, neither of Paul or any other contemporary or later writer. In Jesus there is little mention of church hierarchy, for all people are to be seen as equal, nor of the Eucharist, the central liturgical element in later Christian worship. Rather, every day is a worship in actually witness the Father in action, just as Jesus did, which is actually to be lived by Jesus. Heaven is already here so we need little interest in eschatology per se. The important point is letting doership go and with that also the judging of others, so that instead we can help them as best we can.

— So the pride in thinking yourself to be the controller of actions alone, destroys compassion?

— That is my point. Believing in your doeship is like being trapped. Like bugs living in the dust, trapped in a bowl, all day the private doer scrabbles round and round, but never escapes from the bowl that holds him. He can be religious and imitate the saints, but as an isolated agent his cravings have no end.

— This sounds like the original Christian faith.

— My point is you can find it in many religions if you look for it.

It is also found in the Chinese early Christianity, for example in the Jesus Sutras. The very first saying of The Secret Sayings of Ye Su also sets forth the same idea as the basic premise of the whole collection: "To the multitude I speak only in parables, for the world is drunk with its own importance, addicted to its own pride.

Drunken understanding is worse than drunken ignorance." The

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addiction to its own pride is exactly my point, this is the separated doership, not allowing perception of the Will of God. It is, like Jacob Boehme said, the will of the soul, that gets perverted by Lucifer if it show the smallest sign of pride and selfwill. It has to, says Boehme, die instead into complete humility and nothingness before the presence of God's Will. Boehme calls this "resignation" and we are like a well that has to keep close to the Spring, to suck and drink from God as a Fountain. This teutonic thinker was close to the Will of God. — For a north european like me, Boehme is close to home.

— Indeed. Although with the imaginative language of his time, he spells it out very clearly, what happens when God's Will is in focus for a human being. Here for example: "The will of the creature ought to sink wholly into itself with all its reason and desire, accounting itself an unworthy child that is no whit worthy of this so high a grace; nor should it arrogate any knowledge or understanding to itself, or desire of God to have any understanding in its creaturely self; but sincerely and simply sink down into the grace and love of God in Christ Jesus, and desire to be as it were dead to itself and its own reason, in the Divine Life, and wholly resign itself to the Spirit of God, in love, that He may do how and what He will with it, as with his own instrument."

— And this we can do in the middle of living in ordinary society, as did Boehme?

— Indeed. He was a shoemaker all his life. The point is, he knew that this was all the Will of God. Whatever happens, we do not have the capacity to make things happen, only God. But this is not accepted my many who call themselves Christian. They insist on having a small portion of the doership on their own. Even when as great a philosopher as Malebranche clearly showed that

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God is actually creating all and every event in the universe, some critics allowed for a certain power in God to create, but not all !

Man has an important part to play, they claimed. Impossible to accept the only Doership, the only Divine Agent. But Boehme was clear on this and lived accordingly.

— I have also heard about critics say that God can only initiate, he cannot control circumstances. Which is very odd, to sa the least.

— My point is that the birthright of peace and happiness, innate in us by the grace of God, is betrayed by such opinions, contradictory as they are. When you accept everything happening totally and witness the Will of the Father in everything, then happiness and peace are possible.

— Many spiritual people today meditate and go on retreats.

— Yes that is a hopeful sign. But often I see how they reinforce their own little will-power in meditation, rather than accepting God's Will in what happens. Then of courses it is contraproductive, there is a subtle return of the self-power that simply perverts the whole search for happiness and peace.

— As soon as you see a meditation and practise schedule, you know this is possibly a counteproductive actitivity.

-- That is my point. You should meditate because you accept totally God's activity in this moment. Nothing else than this should be your motivation. Let's say someone is given a mantra by a teacher and the task of saying that mantra 10 000 times during 24 hours. Of course this can result in realizing how vain the ego illusion is. But the whole thing is ridicolous. Why not say the mantra four times in love for God's presence in everything

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that takes place in this universe, and then be done with it? The spiritual pride is enormous among all the spiritual private doers of holy actions.

— They look for happiness but through the wrong motivation.

— That is right. They think happiness is found in actions they perform or in experiences in this life. But there is no happiness in what happens. That is just a series of unpleasant or pleasant events, nothing more. Happiness is only found in faith in the Father's Will, whatever happens.

— I think all of us who think happiness is found in what happens, always get a tough mix of disasters and pleasant surprises.

— That is so. In any case, we are not in control. So God is teaching us through this. As if He says: "See now? I control everything, you nothing. So how can you be happy? Only by looking at Me, letting my fire of love enter into you, quite independely of what is happening to you."

— So this is the true meditation, letting God's Spirit enter?

— That is my point. Totally accepting every second as given by the Father, thanking Him over and over again. Like Job: Lord you gave and took away ! Blessed be Thy Name ! That is the happiness totally free from the flow of events. It is like you are watching the great river of bad events and good events flowing past and you lift your eyes to the sky and bless the Father. Very simple.

— It is the attitude while the river of mixed events flow past you, that matters.

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— Right, absolutely right. And it is totally unconcerned with the individual events, bad, good or mixed. You are just a witness to what is coming your way, but not involved with anything of it. Of course you help a person asking for your help. You do as best you can to alleviate suffering. But you eyes are on the Father's Will in everything, that is the source for you.

— Therefore enlightenment or saving faith is being aware of our total incapability of creating anything? It is all God's Will. His Will is my freedom and happiness.

— That is my point. A very personal thing. You know it in yourself as yourself in truth. Noboy can show you this salvation from the outside, nobody can talk about enlightenment since it is totally personal for you. When you are a witness of God's Will in everything that takes place, this is the inner enlightenmet or salvation.

— So happiness actually is enlightenment.

— That is my point. Salvation or enlightenment is this happiness.

There is no externality to it. Your complete happiness in that all events are God's Will, is what constitutes true happiness. That is the doxa, the glory. As Boehme has it: you realize this with great trembling and joy ! Because this is what we shall be filled with,as St Paul writes to the Colossians: "Therefore we...beg that you may be filled with the knowledge of His Will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding..."

— And St. Paul means "faith" when he says "knowledge of..."?

— Yes, knowing here is the faith, the union. Knowing and uniting, not knowing as memory or pure concept. Union so that the Source, the Father, is within you as content of your vessel, or

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sound from your instrument. You are what He is in you, as your form. This can of course be distracted by sliding back into "me as a doer" and the instant judging that comes along. But soon enough you are back in connection with the Father.

— I get so distracted by tensions at work. The tension comes from trying to balance people in the team-work we have. I get exhausted and forget all about God's Will, I'm afraid.

— That is biological reaction in your organism. Too much strain takes a certain toll in your energy. The same with driving a car in a big city. It is complex and pressing on the organism. Don't mix it up with your being in the Will of God. Nothing can happen whithout God willing it. So when you rest from work, driving or whatever is pressing, you return to the being of Christ within, your true identity, full accepting everything as the Will of God. — Because self-will is the great problem, as St Paul elaborates in Romans 7.

— Exactly. The problem is not the mosaic moral law, it is the illusion that my self-will shall make me free from sin. Self-will refuses to accept everything as the Will of God. Self-will is the contradiciton of reality. Therefore, we become prisoners in the torturechamber of the mind, when we belive in self-will. We never become happy in this hypnosis of having a self-will with a task. That is the seduction that Paul talks about in Romans 7:11, a hypnosis that kills us after condemning us. Therefore Jesus shows us the Will of the Father, omnipresent, the only action in the universe.

— Makes me think of Revelation 12, where the big serpent seduces the whole world.

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— Indeed we can see that in the world. Seduced by the false assumtion that there is a separate doer that can produce good or evil. As Paul says, there is no such a thing in us. The presumed self-will does not produce neither good nor evil. God's Will abounds and count for everything, including your actions. My point is that when you rest in this faith, happiness and peace will be present.

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— But when we percieve God's Will in actual events, is that not only in time and limited to human perception?

— My point is that the Will of God in everything that takes place is itself outside of every point in horizontal time. It is timeless and it is Eternal Life and Light. It manifests in all particular events, but is in itself eternal love and light and life. So therefore, when we consider this in faith, we actually partake in eternal life in an immediate way. We can do nothing to change this or diminish this, only find deepest happiness in knowing it to be true.

— So happiness is involved with this too?

— That is my point. Mere intellectual propositions about time or the Will of God, is of a secondary value. That is not knowing the real nature of God's Will in our life. Only when we see the beauty and happiness in the Will of God, do we really appreciate it.

God's love and light manifests in everything that appear to us. But in itself it is Eternal Life and Light. However, these will be

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merely abstractions if not the peace and happiness comes with the perception of it.

— But in the active life, occupied as one is with many things, there is less opportunity to appreciate eternal life and light and find happiness in that. You have to choose an isolated contemplative life-style?

— No, no. My point is that everywhere and in every moment you can actually see the Will of God taking place, manifesting the divine Will and thereby giving you happiness and a peaceful mind. Actually as the cartusian Guigo says: "El amor de la paz temporal engendra, inevitablemente, inquietud. Quien posea, pues, esta paz y esté pegado a ella, carece necesariamente de paz." Moving to the desert or a mountain cell only means witnessing other events taking place, as manifestation of God's Will. In a monastery, for example, you will hear bells and choir singing and perhaps cows in the fields around the monastery. This is not different from hearing children, cars and people talking in the street around where you live. Same manifestation of God's Will and possibilities for you witnessing whithout getting involved. You may of course find more pleasure in the mountains or the desert and the stillness in a little cell. But that is actually not of any concern for the living in God's Will and being peacefully happy in a profound way.

— I think the traditional view is that the contemplative setting is better for enjoying God. — Try for yourself and you will see that it is actually more to the point to find the Will of God being manifested in a busy town.

Everyone you see is a body with a soul thirsty for union with the Father, and you will feel empathy with them. Many of them are confused and miserable by the hypnosis of self-pride and self-

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effort. But some of them have realized that we are not in control of anything and so they are open to considering accepting God's Will to be the reality of their life.

— Does God will things other than himself?

— No, no, not possible. There is no "other", only one single Person in the universe. All things are willed by this Person, who is the Source of everything that happen in us and outside of us. As St Augustine said, only when we see this Person as a "Thou" do we experience real happiness, whatever happens to us. He also said that were there but one soul to love God, this soul would be blessed, even though he did not have any fellow man to love.

— I know a man who lives completely alone, not apparently having one single friend, but he loves God and lives in prayer and isolation, apparently very happy. That would be an illustration of what Augustine said.

— Indeed. Whenever your see all things moving out of the Source by the abundance of God's loving Will, then there is happiness in us. Of course this is the Will of God manifesting as our happiness, which is what this loving God wants to happen in us. But from our point of view it is the giving up of the doer-ship and be a witness to His actions in everything that takes place, whatever it is.

— But then again many search for peace and quiet and buy expensive holiday trips to fancy beaches and hotels.

— My point is that all temporal forms of relaxation and peace will ultimately create more unhappiness and worry. Look at people who go to these resorts and beaches. Most of them bored and silently desperate. The same thing goes for the entertainment

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industry, a desperate chasing after illusory pleasures. The only thing that brings peace and happiness is realizing God's Will in all that is happening. Then beaches and music and art will be no problem at all. By witnessing this and not get involved with any form of self-effort, peace can come and Jesus words "My peace I leave with you" will be fulfilled in your own life by Another Will, not yours.

— Instead many, or most, live on half satisfied with the self-effort way of live.

— That is correct. Many seem satisfied somehow, like thinking: Ok this is not much of a life, but I settle with it. I won't complain.

This the tragedy of many men and women. If you ask them, they haven't a clue about the Will of God, nor happiness, nor peace.

Often, underneath, there is grief, sadness, bitterness. Life did not give much. The naturalist novelists depicted this quite good in some of their novels. One can very well understand the indian conception of reincarnation as a process of souls coming closer and closer to enlightenment, where we wake up to the present reality of God's Will in everything that takes place.

— And then?

— Helping others to find this happiness and peace, if necessary with words. This is the actual signification of "love your neighbour", not merely food and housing.

— But can you really recommend this spiritual path, is it not too difficult for most?

— No no, it is actually the easiest way of all, since what you do is loose more and more. You give away all your burdens of being "the doer" and accept Jesus as the Only doer, being the utmost

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Will of God in love. As N.P. Guido says: "Fácil es caminar hacia Dios, pues avanzamos vaciándonos. Cosa penosa sería si avanzásemos llenándonos. Vacíate, pues, de tal modo que, dejadas todas las cosas, te dejes a ti mismo". That is my point, you empty the "self-doer-ship". Then you can witness the Will of God take place, otherwise not. Remember the old hebrew word "Shem" really signifies "what is protrubing visible" according to Pavel Florensky, and also knowing this to be Shem, God or Jahve. So God is visible as the His Will being acted out only by Him.

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— So is there any spiritual law?

— Only one: happenings in life give pleasure or pain in various degrees. That is the rule of the game. As a human being you look for a more real happiness than you can find in the events giving pleasure or pain. That is God's Will in you. It operates through the magical activities of sight and sound, conscious expansion of your energy, thinking and emotion, like a rich divine instrument.

Find true salvation in witnessing this Will of God in operation.

You will not find it in judging the particular events in the flow of events in life.

— But not desiring and judging these events.

— That is my point. Getting involved means destroying the unity with the Father and misusing this instrument. Let the Will of the Fathers express itself through this body and enjoy the peace and joy in that expression. Remember how the apostle Phillip frased it: "Come and see !" The very reality of Jesus was to bee seen and

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heard, sensed and lived. That reality, the Source, is always present with us, not to be distracted.

— Could we say that the Source provides a perfect universe?

— Indeed it is, and we experience happiness by contemplating it.

Many people are impressed with the infinesimal small odds that this universe should be experienced by us, and the magic in that it does so. But we can also appreciate the very manifestation of consciousness, which is the direct Divine intervention in and through us. "Thy Will be done!" is the expression of being aware of this sacred manifesting operation by the Father.

— Reality is revelatory...

— That is right. It is like the situation where you just have got an incredible lookingglass and you can see birds in the air as if they were just a few centimeters from your eyes. You are amazed at this binocular process. At the same time people around you fuzz about the taste of the food or what teve program they will look at tonight on the TV. Your are aware of the reality of God's Will through seeing and magnifying what you see, while the others are entangled in trivial desires. You see the difference?

— Like one person deep into the realities of "Our Father" and another into the latest pop hit-song.

— That is my point. It's about what you see of reality. You will not be happy by the pop-song, nor eating good food. But in witnessing and praising the Will of God you can learn to accept everything that comes your way and have peace. God is manifesting his Perfection, if you will, in this reality right now.

Colossians 1:26 talks about it. God's Will is to manifest the great mystery. It is there, in us and everywhere, to be witnessed and

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praised. It is the hope of glory. But as soon as your self-effort ambition comes in the way, you will not see anything, just a materiality that has to be exploited for gain or fun.

— You often say "everything that takes place" is God's Will. But if I just sit at the ocean and look at it, not meeting anyone, just resting there, being idle and silent, nothing special seems to take place — The ocean moves, does it not? Clouds coming and going, maybe raining, maybe snowing, depending on where you are.

And sounds are taking place, maybe water birds running along the beach. The universe takes place in full force. All this existence with the body you have, that is taking place. Actually, in silence and stillness you can even more strongly percieve what is taking place and witness the Will of God as it manifests. That is why many contemplatives seek out deserts and mountains. Christ, the hope of glory in us, is evident to us in this wilderness and silence.

Not to avoid something in the world but meet God manifesting His Will of the mystery even clearer. You don't have to do anything. The witnessing function is divine and you will notice that through the peace and love accompanying it. If enough individuals would live this way we would have another society altogether.

— Yes indeed. I read in an essay on the Way of the Russian Pilgrim these words: "All the while God and His Providence govern our deeds and intentions, as it is written 'Both the willing and the doings are God's work'". This is a story about praying whithout ceasing. But basically it agrees with what you are saying, I presume?

— Most certainly. I could not have said it better. God, cosmic law, providence and the Father's Will is the motor and execution

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of all things happening. His Will manifests constantly, even in the attempt at praying whithout ceasing, and also in the failing to do it. Not many have the circumstances allowing for a solitary life, of course, but it is a lovely life of prayer depicted in that story from Russia, with its many versions and redactions, as I understand.

— So even the negative moments are according to the Will of God? — Oh yes ! And these negative experiences will come and go until the end of the physical life on earth. But the important thing is to know that God's Will is the only agent and also the only experiencer. A woman I knew said to me on her last day of life that all is tranquil, it is God who dies, nobody else. HE is the doer, the experiencer. We do nothing but witness and we can be peaceful in that witnessing.

— And even happy?

— As far as the biological reactions allow us to witness in peace we will be happy. "Thy Will be done!" we say in our spirit. That is all. I remember a prisoner some years ago, whom I visited together with a priest. He sat for life. But he said that the walls of the prison had fallen away since he found the Lord as the one active in all circumstances. He was not in a prison any more, he said, he was free in God's Will actually taking place. That is a testimony we could well consider. The only prison is your mind, the "Ich-sein" as Jacob Boehme called it, which by the way is the same as the devil !

— And prayer can let the prisonwalls fall away?

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— Yes, but only if the prayer life means trusting the Will of God. Not if you merely practise self-control with the prayer, that is just a continuation of the "Ich-sein". If you say the prayer or the mantra and realize "Thy Will be done", then confidence comes and happiness with it. Otherwise it is just a futile activity. That is why Jesus says that many have called on Him and said Lord Lord, but not with their hearts, only with their lips. How many millions of Christian believers hear and say Our Father and "Thy Will be done!" everyday, but do not take it to their hearts. Then you still are in the delusion of the self-doer hypnosis.

— But what if you have a body and mind full of tensions and reactions all day long? Do you have any chance of finding peace?

I think many people are in this situation.

— My point is that Jesus teaches the truth when he says that his yoke is easy. Just to witness the Will of God take place is easier than grappling with circumstances in order to control them or react to them. It is not our business to overly care for the world.

We are soon about to leave it, according to the Will of God. We turn our eyes heavenwards, to the Will of God in what is taking place before our eyes, now and always, on earth and i heaven. We never know what it is but we keep on witnessing the Will of God as it happen. Maybe on earth it is wartime with terror all around in the space of time when we live. Maybe, on a personal level, it is serious sickness and constant attention to the changes in the body. Maybe it is being poor, as we are striving to support a big family with several jobs all days in the week. For all situations there is the easy yoke of Jesus: to see the Will of God in everything that takes place within and whithout. That way you don't get involved in adding suffering to suffering.

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14.

— So is it wrong to seek happiness in the flow of happenings?

— Right or wrong, the mind keeps on doing it, since the hypnosis of ourselves as doers is behind it. When you realize that happiness has nothing to do with what is happening, you can simply witness the mind trying to control and catch some happiness in the flow. You relax and whatever comes you are peaceful. You have some compassion with the deluded mind instead of following it.

— Then the attitude is everything?

— Ask yourself: what does your attitude to life mean? Some have a pessimistic attitude: everything will certainly turn out bad.

Some have a positive one: everything will go allright! These are intellectual positions, more or less based on experience. The same goes for the popular wish that what you think will manifest. That is clearly not so, although people like to hear it. But the attitude we are talking about here is of another kind, it is faith in the Will of Another, taking place in front of our eyes. When you know for sure: this here is not produced by me !! Astonishing ! And then something interesting is happening. Your attitude to those you live with, and also people you meet will now change in the light of God's Will. To put it simply: all the other persons are there as the Will of God in your life. So now you treat them as the Will of God ! What a difference !

— That is a good basis for the marriage.

— It is. We are one. The two are one That is the original meaning of two people joining in matrimony. Some friends asked me many years ago: When you talk to God, what does He say to you? I had

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to answer: What my wife says ! Wrongly understood that would mean her opinions about many things. But rightly understood it is the attitude to life as the Will of God, especially manifested in the very persons I meet in life and live with.

— That would mean that God's Will is inside of all of us?

— That is my point. We are manifestations of the Will of God, on our way to realize this and relax. Being is the happy relaxation of the Will of God. Then you can witness the hypnotized mind instead of getting caught in its projections. You can also sing the line "Fiat voluntas Tua hoc modo!" as a latin prayer, saying that this event happening now is indeed the Father's Will in this very manner. Remember also the saying that "God is the DDD -- the Doer, the Doing and the Deed!" Your intention has nothing to do with it. If you have and strong intention and you really want something to happen, well God can see that and He does only what He wishes. So whatever your desire, God is the DDD. — So sin and condamnation is really the failure to relax into the flow of the Will of God? — Yes, the point is that sinning and walking after the flesh, as St Paul expresses it (Rom 8:1) always try to control things. That means condemnation since we can never succed in this. The only thing we produce is strain and suffering, to ourselves and others.

The Spirit that Jesus teaches us to live through is grace and reliance on the Fathers Will taking place before our eyes. My point is that this is happiness.

— I think Paul is calling the flesh mind an enemy against God. — That is certainly a way to put it. Flesh is trying to be the doer.

That is creating misery for us. Everything goes wrong, we are

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frustrated and we condemn ourselves in the end. It is a very false and destructive form of self.

— The enemy...

— Most certainly, but not generally seen as such in this world, because the world at large accepts it as our true identities. And then we get the world we have. Self-assertion becomes the general epidemic sickness. The false I becomes the norm.

— The enemy within !

— Yes but a false one. It is hypnosis, not reality. When we realize "Thy Will be done" as the truth in this very moment, then this enmity gives away and we can relax into the peace of appreciating and accepting the actual Will of God taking place in our lives.

— No past, no future for the private doership.

— Exactly. There is only the Will of the Father now. Of course, we do appear to contain in us detailed memories recording of all that we have experienced in the past. Such recordings are available to us for reference purposes. Who did what and when.

But they are ordinarily misused because of the illusion of private doership. For example, there is a recording of what you experienced yesterday. If you focuse on the Will of God, you would realise that the person you imagine you were yesterday does not exist as a private actor. Not understanding this, you are apt to cling to the pains and pleasures of the hypnosis. No happiness in sight.

— In this way I give the memory power over me.

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— That is my point. And then you lose your ability, at least momentarily, to live in peace and happiness in present time.

When circumstances resembling those you recorded confront you in present time, you will not face them intelligently — you will do what it is recorded that you did last time. Thus, as a result of identifying as if you were the actor, you operate as a mechanical recording instead of relaxing into the Will of the Father.

— A kind of headless actor, or a dead man walking.

— Indeed. We believe we have independent freedom of will from God. The freedom simply produce a sorry and sinful being. We think we should produce private pleasures apart from the Will of God in everything that happens. These are the lies that permeate us and pose as the truth. The truth is we have no ability in ourself to perform one single action. As Malebranche said, every movement of the body is God's Will in operation as a human body.

— Yet we who call ourselves Christians spend years trying to be good and please God by our self-effort. No wonder we are so powerless! (2 Cor 12:9) — Indeed. If only we could catch a glimpse of the truth of the Will of God in this life we would then see the real truth of our precious humanity as a miracle willed by Him. A Christian should realize what is the reality in being created in His very own image.

It is being a manifestation of the Father's Will. Because we have been hypnotized into a performer illusion, we cannot enjoy reality.

— So this hypnosis is believing that we, of ourselves, are, or should be, the content in the cup?

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— That is the case. We are, as the bible says, vessels. Therefore the vessel itself should not try to be good, but we shall contain the Will of God and therby come into peace. We should not presume to have the power to keep ourselves from sin, but rely on God's Will in everything that takes place. The private doer is simply either proud and self-righteous for doing good, or condemning and blaming ourselves for falling short. We are not the doers, we are done by the Will of God. The human being is neither evil nor good in himself, for like the temple and the vessel, the human is a being willed by the Will of God, and it has no independent nature of its own.

— But how can this be expressed in more specific Christian terms?

— If you need specific terms you can find them in Scripture, but the real thing in your life is the important reality. My point is that the Cross of Christ has set us free from the hypnosis of self doership. Instead we see God's Will, like Jesus taught us and therby replacing our effort and worry with Christ's own nature of perfect peace. That is the "my peace I give unto you". That is why Paul declares in Colossians 1:28, “We preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” To be peaceful and happy in the Will of the Father is this perfection.

— It isn't good enough to know that we go to Church and confess our faith in Christ?

— My point is that many do this and still are unhappy, still are not in peace with what happens in life. They do not in practise accept everything as the Will of God. We must tell ourselves not to be afraid of the truth, for the truth will give us peace.

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— We are not the Divine Creator himself or the content of the vessel?

— That is my point. In Christian terms God so greatly loves his human creation that it cannot be measured, for He declared it “very good.” This is not the experience of the majority. The majority condemn themselves and others, finding faults and imperfections. Only when we see the Will of God taking place can we accept His gift of peace. The we see that "all things are of God" as St Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:18. We enjoy the "apatía" that the Christian desert fathers talked about. That means rest from the emotions and sufferings of the false idea of the selfdoer.

— So the self-doer is the real sinner?

— Yes, the idea is no more than an alienation or enmity between God and myself. Seeing everything as God's Will is the reconciliation of this difference. It is one thing for God, we may perhaps say, to recollect all future things that shall come in all the several times of the world, into one thought of his own; and it is another thing for these things to come to pass in their several times, according to their own nature. In God's eternal thoughts, according to the infinite vastness of his own comprehension, he did sum up, from first to last, all the occurrences and passages which in succession of time should come to pass.

— Is this theology?

— Perhaps. As for example: — God had at once in his eye man in his innocency, in his fall, and in his restoration by Christ; he had in his eye man committing selfdoership against him from time to time; and, at the same instant, had in his eye Christ dying for these sins of men, and so satisfying his own

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justice for their transgressions. Now, because God had all things at once in his eye, which, in respect of their actual being, are in horizontal time; therefore, it comes to pass, that God, from all eternity, had everlasting love unto his own people, though in time they do those actions which, in their own nature, are enmity against God. — Which means the Will of God is the only reality.

— Yes. For example; let's say you and I are in this moment committing some sin though isolated selfdoership. This is enmity to the nature of Gods Will, if we use this sort of biblical terms.

Sin, simply considered in its own nature, has an alienating spirit in it, to separate between us and God's Will. Yet, at the same time, God knows from all eternity all the present sins we now commit, and at the same moment He has the satisfaction of His Own Will, being the only reality. There was not a time in which God actually had any enmity with our persons. Never. But, in respect of the unhappiness we experience, our condition may be considered as a condition of enmity towards God. That is however only an hypnosis on our part. As soon as you recognize the only acting Will, it is over. This is what Christ came into the world to prepare for us, and then He actually did bear our sins in this preparation. So we are reconciled already and now only have to see the Fathers Will in what is actually taking place.

— But the selfperformer must so to speak die?

— That is my point. That is the whole meaning of the Cross, the hypnotic selfdoership dies with Christ on the Cross and we become, as J. Böhme said, a new child instead of the old self.

This new child is a perfect witness to the Will of God, there is no trace of trying to control or perform anymore. But we have to avoid metaphysical theology here and keep it practical. The

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newborn child it simply witnessing God's Will in everything take actually takes place. And this is a fact already.

— I often meet religiously critical people, atheists, non-believers.

Often good people. My neighbor is a a young man, works hard, very critical to spirituality. Does he have this newborn child within?

— Of course ! In Christian terminology his spirit is already this new child. Each one of us are body, soul and spirit. If we want to, we just have to care about the body and the soul, our needs and what we want to do. The spirit is already perfect in Christ. The spirit is the life of the new Christ already in you and in me and in everyone.

— But I don't have to devote myself to it at all and be religious or think of the Bible or the name "Jesus" or something like that?

— That is only phantasies of the selfdoership, the self performer.

You can be an atheist all the time because your spirit is already perfect in God's loving Will. His love is his Will. That is my point.

— That is definitely very relieving. Is that the Christian essence?

— Absolutely. God makes no mistake and he cannot lie. He never said anything of you becoming religious or confessing this or that teaching. That's not how it works. You can see people praying to one thing for a period and then to something different another period. It is common in some parts of the cultural world.

A Shinto supporter in Japan can easily have four five religions at a time. It was a similar cultural situation in Rome contemporary to Jesus and the apostles, the time when the first Christians established themselves there.

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— But doesn't Jesus demand that we consciously devote ourselves to him exclusively?

— When he told people to follow him He meant follow this truth that your spirit is already saved by the Will of God, nothing else.

Think of Jesus according to the stories we have in the gospels.

He spends time with sinners in a comfortable way. How can he do that? Because he feels comfortable and at home with nonreligious. They do not practise the hypocrisy of religion or religious knowledge. They have a spirit like everyone else has, and that spirit is perfect in God's Will. Jesus knows this very well and therefore he is happy with them.

— But it seems so strange that my spirit would be something I do not notice at all. I don't notice anything perfect or spiritual at all in my existence.

— You don't need to notice anything, why would you? Your spirit is invisible according to the Will of God. God is invisible, also according to His Will. You can live your entire life only concerned with the visible world and your body, your job, friends and your family. And all the while, your spirit in God's perfect Will and love is completely blissful in itself. That is the reality.

— But if I want to experience that bliss? If I get a strong craving for such divine pleasure, can I immediately access it?

— My point is, you don't have to access it or experience it, really.

Only witness the Will of God taking place in everything that comes your way. Certainly it's nice to think about divine pleasure, but I don't think that is happiness. That is more of craving experiences for the self-perfomer idea. We can make ourselves high emotionally. But seriously - it's over. The Cross took care of that.

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— What then is the point of the whole thing? If it is not even possible to experience?

— No meaning at all from the point of view of the false selfperformer. The Will of God is the acting and the experiencing.

Your spirit is perfect in the love of God something else distracting. Any form of craving clearly distracts you. The way to remove the distractions is simply seeing the Will of God's love take place right now, then the spirit's own nature and bliss are obviously a fact.

15.

— Why do we forget that the Will of God is what is really taking place?

— Because of the self-doership illusion. This illusion loads up the energy or capacity for an action, and then the action or thing energized often comes along. Forgetting the Will of God means disconnection with the source, which is a sin. A sin actually committed is an example of the energized action, while some form of self-indulgence is activated only inwardly, not outwardly.

As Ilia the presbyter says in the Philocalia, someone dominated by self-will indulgence is like a person who, although not turned out of his own property, yet has to pay tribute to others who control what he holds dear. And the tribute is the unhappy state, day after day.

— When that illusion stops we see the Will of God?

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— That is my point. Because it is obvious that there can be nothing in external events or internal thoughts that is not in God's Will, the total being, since outside of it there is nothing and therefore no thought and no object of thought or external process or event. But it is also evident that the Will of God infinitely surpasses our thought or knowledge. God's Will can, so to speak, enrich itself without interruption. It always manifests in a limited character, and therefore it gains access to us by a personal approach in the totality of being, which consequently must never cease to overflow it.

— It is everywhere, at all instants of time.

— Yes. It is reality itself, moved by love unfathomable. Indeed a miracle in and of itself. But once you react to something and get involved, you loose the connection and promptly there is a feeling of uneasiness starting in your body and mind. Then you witness this and repent if you will, and very soon you can reconnect to the rest in God's Will.

— I really like that the Will of God infinitely surpasses our thoughts about it...

— Indeed, it is happiness merely to contemplate this. The source is endless and the love in it is unfathomable. But connecting to it and live life as it comes is our ultimate happiness and peace. That is abiding in Him. — Which few do, I suppose...I did not understand what you said about happiness. Is there really something to be called "my" happiness? I don't find much happiness in that "me".

— That is right. What we call "me" is almost always the false idea of me controlling reality, trying to make it come up with nice

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and pleasurable things. That brings misery, the situation of "I don't like this at all!". This is discomfort, darkness. Only lifting your eyes to see that the Will of God is taking place, will take you out of that discomfort. Whatever comes, just know it to be the God's Will, then peace will come instead of the pain of "me".

— Controlling reality, that means trying to make it behave nice to me, to meet my needs.

— Yes, and believing that happiness is to be found in what is happening in life. Having this, missing that, trying to get this, grieving over losing that. That is the great mistake. True happiness has nothing at all to do with what is happening. What is happening within and whithout is the production of God's Will. In this recognition lies happiness, even so the divine happiness. It is the recognition of what Malebranche called "premotion de Dieu".

But far from being a conceptual abstraction, it is the very reality of what happens in our lives.

— I guess this is almost impossible to understand when we are grieving the loss of a near and dear person.

— Yes the biological reaction is overwhelming when we lose somebody. But it passes and the more God's Will is in focus the easier we can get on appreciating the time we had together, all the happiness we had together. This has deep meaning when we realize the Will of God in love. What seems a meaningless catastrophe now turns into a part of the wonder in God. We don't overly turn to ourselves and our grief but recognize the Love of God in the Will of God. In that Love we simply die to the controlling self and realize the Will of God as our very life.

— Is that the Christian cross?

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— It certainly is. We died with the Saviour on the cross, and we accept thereby His new life, where only the Will of God is the main energy and light. People in the churches should not keep saying the formulas about the pascual mystery as if it was something distant from us. It takes place in our hearts. The old man dies on the cross and Christ lives as us, which is the new man. That is the Will of God already taking place. With it comes happiness, peace and joy, as inner qualities accompanying this insight. My point is, you have to look to the Will of God and realize the self performer is already dead.

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