Lesson Two: Getting Beyond Resistance to knowing who you really are

Your entire work is about lowering your resistance.
Abraham Hicks

To get to who we really are, we need to first get past the resistance we have set up in the thinking part of our minds. If we have any resistance barricades up, we will not only never discover who we are while we are alive, we will never discover just how amazing life can be when we fully embrace that beingness.

There are many, many quotes and teachings from Abraham and others on this thing called resistance. I do not care if you buy into the teacher or their teachings.  Accepting the source of this information may be a challenging thing for our physically focused minds to do...but I want you to listen to the words as you close your eyes and repeat them to yourself: Your entire work is about lowering your resistance. Concentrate on nothing else but those words.  How do they resonate inside you?  How do you feel when you hear them?  Do they seem like truth?

What the heck do they mean?

Understanding what this phrase means can be an amazingly freeing revelation. Let's look at the two major words we see in this simple line: work and resistance.  What do each of them mean?

What is work?

When you just say the  word "work" do you not get a sense of something you have to do, something that will require effort?  When we think of work we may picture Grumpy and Bashful trudging off to the diamond mines with their pick axes and shovels over their shoulders whistling away as Snow White busies herself in the tiny little cottage,  stooping over to avoid hitting her head on the very low rafters while she swifter-sweeps  and makes the tiny little beds and washes the tiny little dishes.  These guys are working! We may also know as we picture this that Workman's Comp will decline any claims related to work related accidents or repetitive strain injuries because the Dwarfs chose to wear  stocking caps instead of  safety helmets and did not provide the ergonomically correct environment for their unpaid employee. Okay...okay I digress.  I got a little carried away.

The quote is saying that your work...what you are here to "do"...your purpose...any focused action you take on should be directed solely to lowering your resistance. Your work is your function here.  Lowering resistance is your function.  So if you are going to put effort into anything...put it in to lowering resistance.

What is the Resistance we need to lower?

Resistance is a block, a barricade...something that slows down or prevents something from getting out or through. When we speak of finding out who we really are and allowing that true light of who we are to shine through/ God to shine in...we have a tendency to resist.  We often do that resisting through our thinking and more accurately through tapping into our tired old belief systems that spew nonsense about our limitations and gives us all the reasons we can't do something, instead of tapping into this inner knowing that exists beyond that.  The thinking becomes a barricade between these little limited beings we identify with and who we really are; between our  retraction and our expansion; between our petty little goals and God's goals for us; between us and our awareness of God.  Resistance prevents our inner Self from shining through, from guiding us, from healing the world.

A Course in Miracles states that we have only one function as a human being, that our work is simply in Salvation.  Salvation involves  opening ourselves and others up to who we really are. How do we open up?   We open up by lowering resistance through undoing all the thinking that ego has placed between us and God. (ACIM)

 

Relax!

 



How do we know we are resisting?

It might be easier to describe how you will know when you are not resisting and allowing your inner Self to shine through:

When you are appraising; when you are appreciating, when you are acknowledging value, when you are looking for positive aspects, when you are laughing, when you are applauding, when you are joyous,  when you are feeling that feeling of appreciation pulsing through you, in those times , there is NO Resistance within you. You are, in those moments, vibrationally up to speed with who you really are.
( Abraham:  http://theabeforum.com/forum2/8289.html)

Basically speaking, if you are happy you are not resisting...you are experiencing who you really are.  When you are anything but happy. You are resisting.

How do we lower resistance?

Lowering resistance, accepting our roles in salvation and finding happiness  is not this big 100 paged manual  process.  Ironically,  it does not involve a lot of doing, fixing, effort..."work".  It involves quieting , stilling and being open and willing to accept our true function and all that God has in store for us.  Who we really are is already at peace...it is already happy but our thinking and our compulsive doing is in the way of our knowing that.

We get so turned around by this notion of goals, purposes and work...that we mix up God's goals for us, God's purpose for us with our own petty goals.  We may put a great deal of energy, effort, mental concentration into achieving things...like status, money, reputation, success, perfect relationships and material things we neglect to simply be with God and what is meant for us....which is so easy because it already is!  When our extreme efforts do not yield the results we think they "should"...we allow ourselves to feel terrible, feel lack, feel loss and separation and blame it all on external events.   When we do that we just pull ourselves further and further away from who we are. We create even more resistance.

As long as we are feeling miserable, focusing on what we don't have and the fact that life isn't the way we think it should be...we are resisting.  The trick is not to attempt to do the impossible...change the external world to match our idea of should...but to change our inner dialogue by putting away the "should" to match a lack of resistance and an openness to what is.

A Course in Miracles speaks to the idea of releasing resistance. We need to commit to salvation.  We do that through :"....the recognition of salvation as your function, and the relinquishment of all the other goals you have invented for yourself."  (ACIM: Lesson 65: 1:5) All these other things we put so much time and effort in are not what is really important...they do not "make" us happy.  Knowing who we are will.


"It is your resistance to "what is" that causes you suffering..." The Buddha

It is so simple.  It is not about doing.  It is about being. Accept what is without resistance.


So let's get back to the teaching.


Your entire work is about lowering your resistance. We need to put away our suffering thoughts and accept who we are. Our only function is salvation. We find salvation when we simply remove the resistance to peace and open up to it.  Our function is not really work...it actually involves no work.  It isn't action or doing, it is simple being.  It doesn't mean going against the flow but going with it. It doesn't require effort and strain.  It simply requires ease.

All we need to do to be happy people is relax...stop ...be still and  open up to who we always were.

How cool is that?

All is well.

References/Recommended reads

Abraham Hicks. (2007) Quotes on Releasing Resistance. The Abe Forum. Retrieved from http://theabeforum.com/forum2/8289.html

Foundations For Inner Peace. (2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Text: Third Edition. Mill Valley: Foundations for Inner Peace.