Spiritual Awakening involves the sharpening of Awareness. The more attentive we become to the habits of thinking mind, the more Freedom we experience from ego-mind’s suffering. Ego-mind is a movie-maker, a usurper of Creation’s ability to out-picture believed thoughts as if “outer reality”. We might pay for a movie ticket to a horror show and enjoy the voluntary frights we experience while we munch popcorn in suspended disbelief. Daily life, however, is no fun when the ego-mind plays a horror show in our mind and we cannot shake the fear we innocently believe is “true”.

We may innocently fall for the ego’s dance of terror that flashes across the screen of our mind, yet we do not have to be its captive audience. We can walk out of this “movie” at any time. How might we know we’re being played by the ego’s shenanigans? Check for emotions which feel negative: resentment, bitterness, anger…is ego-mind playing a re-run of unresolved past situations where we experienced pain?

The argument that wasn’t peacefully resolved; the relationship that ended on poor terms; the “failure” or discontent held over from a “past”. Notice the movie running in the mind. Can you see the situation, the people involved, your “self”? This is the movie, a memory trace dancing on the screen of mind. This isn’t Now, this isn’t “you, them, him, her”; it’s an illusion, creative play of mind.

Is there a purpose for the replay or re-run of ego’s past episode? Meditate on this, ask within, go deeper than mind and thoughts to the core of your innermost Being. Allow Awareness to answer. Let Spaciousness reveal if this past situation needs any present action. If not, this is ego-mind attempting to avoid the Present Moment. Come back to your breathing, come back to peace. The journey into the pain of the past keeps the ego’s personal sense of a suffering “self” alive. It strengthens the attachment and identification with a “me”. To stay Present is to snip the film like a skillful editor. Return to Now.

The ego has 2 modes of “time”: Past and Future. Ego cannot “live” in the Present Moment. What if anxiety and fear arise? Ego-mind has skipped over the Present Moment to “build” a “future”. It’s not bad nor wrong for imagination to out-picture “future” as play. When “play” hurts, as anxiety and fear often do, it’s time to return to the Present. Presence, our power of Beingness beyond thought, is Here, Now, where thinking mind is still.

Fear is propped up by thought. Fear depends on thought, believed, out-pictured into a future; this is the imaginary space in which there is no control. Believed-thought is its “life source”, its vitality. Fear can't exist in the Present.

Watch the mind’s pictures: the scenario, the situation, the people who inhabit the future plot, the “me” that is at risk and struggling. This isn’t “you, me, us, them”; it’s an illusion. It’s ego’s movie, step out, come back, return to the Present Moment. Anxiety will decrease, for the future cannot “be”. Anything which seems to be “future” can only arrive in the Now. The Now is where all ability and resources are available to handle whatever arises. Control isn’t necessary Now, it’s a trick of “future”; what arises Now is handled by That Which Is, the Truth of Who We Are. There is no “problem”, just handling of a situation.

Creativity uses the mind’s out-picturing imagination to form something new. Mind is not an enemy, it is a mighty creator. Ego-mind, however, is a distortion of Creation’s impulse, centering its imaginatively negative movies around a vulnerable little “me”. If the movie isn’t fun, step out.

If the movie is enjoyable, play, create. “Hurting” can’t happen with Awareness, only during unconscious absorption. Our ability to voluntarily become Aware is our greatest strength. Catch the ego-mind’s imagination as it moves into “past” and “future”; bring attention to the Awareness of Now, Be Present, this is where Peace exists, where we discover the depth of That which is True, beyond imagination. Our Presence, Awareness of the Present Moment is the Certainty for which we've always searched for as safety, for fear is powerless, Here, Now.