Real is not solid. Real is energy.

What is real never crumbles away. What is real is, by definition, forever. If something fades away, I can know, it was not real.

Realness is not what we think it is. Realness is not what we think we see. When I pick a flower, I think it is real because I hold it in my hand and can smell its fragrance. But that flower wilts, browns, and eventually vanishes completely from all perception. The flower is not real. But what brought the flower? What causes the next flower to rise up?

It is that “rising up-ness” that is the real, and that is energy. The nature of Reality is energetic. What is real between you and me is our trust, our interest, our enjoyment of each others company. Trust, interest, and enjoyment are not solid, tangible things.

What is real comes from Reality- which exists eternally even while covered up by illusions. Illusions are pain. Reality is love. How do I release the one and find the other?

What has caused the pain I feel? No object out there has caused me pain, including other people. What causes me pain is a mistaken belief that I am the source of my existence.

My thoughts are my entire life experience. The contents of my thoughts are a series of beliefs which, like the flower, change and fade and vanish. My thoughts are not real. What is real is the energy facilitating the act of thinking. When I place my attention on that energy rather than on the contents of my thoughts, those thoughts are no longer able to hurt me.

That energy which enables all thought is my source, my origin. I am nothing without that source. When I function apart from the source of Reality, I make illusions. I make things that fade. I make things that hurt.

I have the ability to think separately from the Source that made me. The Source that made me – made me with that capacity- because that is the structure of true freedom. Choice. But when I think separately from the Source that made me, I believe myself to be the source and this is not ultimately true.

I have thoughts I have made up from my own creative powers and those thoughts result in pain, frustration, and anger. Those thoughts I’ve made, those conclusions, those descriptions and definitions of how I want the world to be (regardless of how it actually is) only churn with confusion and incompleteness.

But I also have thoughts that are connected to the source of the origins of my existence. Thoughts connected to this Reality always produce experiences of peace, love, joy, and awe.

Peace, love, joy, and awe is what actual Reality feels like and it is there forever. All other qualities of experience, pain, jealousy, injury- all come from the mistaken belief that I am alone in this universe, that I am in charge, that I make everything happen. I don’t.

In Reality, I am a part of the which makes everything happen. I am one part. And when I put aside my impulse to be in charge, the tremendous Source from which I come is able to put me in charge of my world with more grace, ease, and enjoyment that my small perspective could have ever conjured for myself.

In my head I have thoughts I have made, and thoughts that I share in connection with All Creation- because I am forever a part of all Creation. I can not ever be separate from that which I am from. I can only think I am. But eventually, whatever mistakes I have in my thinking WILL be revealed to what is actually true.

I am developing the ability to identify which thoughts are those I have made and which thoughts are connected in with the larger Source. Thoughts connected to the Source field of creation are sane. Thoughts that I have made up from a belief that I am in charge are insane. I am learning how to recognize which thoughts are Real and which thoughts are made-up by me.

Painful thoughts need not pondering. They need no attention. They are a waste of energy. When I go for a walk, I do not stop and ponder waste left by animals. I leave it where it is and continue on my way.

When I eat a banana, I peel it. I am never confused about which part is the banana and which part is the peel. I eat the banana and throw the peel away. I do not continue to think about the peel. I place my attention only on that which actually matters.

Negative painful thoughts need no focus.

If something valuable has found itself surrounded by a mess of garbage, I pull it out of the garbage. Like a diamond, anything real- any real thoughts I have in the clutter of fabricated thoughts will need no cleaning. Real, connected thoughts stand perfect and true in eternal connection with the Source of creation.

In my mind there are diamonds to be found among the garbage of violence, injury, and fear. To find them, I need only to place my attention on thoughts that feel good and refrain from scratching at the itch of negative thoughts.

Negative thoughts have a “life” of their “own” which is fueled only by my attention to them. My attention is given only when I believe (buy into) what the negative thought is trying to convince me of. If I believe it, I fuel it. I can fuel a negative thought for my entire life if I so choose. But in the end, I will have to let it go, because in reality, that which is not true, is let go.

I do not have to wait for the end of my life to disempower negative thoughts. I can unplug from thoughts that hurt me now by saying to each intrusive thought, “You are not real. You are not what I choose. I am the source of your existence. I choose to stop generating pain.” I then turn my attention to something that pleases me.

Even in the harshest of environments, there will be some level of observation that has peace and pleasure. It could be the color of rust on metal, it could be the movement of a fabric. The energy creating Reality is always here and findable.