From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(8 of 10) You are either acting as a magnet for your good and actively drawing it to you, or you are taking whatever mood or situation or circumstance that presents itself and accepting it as “just the way it is.” Those words ring true to you, don’t they? You were taught to be unquestioning in your acceptance of life’s “realities.” The core belief was that circumstances are out of your control—que será será. Those who accept this philosophy of life are destined to take the good with the bad—or the bad with the good.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(7 of 10) If you react emotionally to the barriers, you are aiding the process of slowing or stopping the flow of your good. The good will still be there, but you will be resisting it and impeding it, because you have given false power to situations that you have created. If you do not allow these situations to become barriers, they will become part of the stream, as well, and the good will also flow to and through and with them. If you do not allow them to impede the flow, they too will become part of the channel through which your good flows to you.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(6 of 10) If you are convinced that a “bad” economic condition can endanger your earning capacity, or that a negative comment by an associate can undermine others’ perceptions of you, your conviction is your way of assigning that power. If, on the other hand, you are convinced that there is a blessing for you in every circumstance, and if you refuse to allow yourself to become distressed by external influences, you will encounter the blessings you have expected.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(5 of 10) Seeing yourself as the source of the only true power in your life and your world is very difficult, for you have been taught for years that someone or something else has power over you. Any person or condition or situation that you believe can help or hurt you in and of itself has no power to do so other than that which you have ascribed to it through your belief and your consciousness.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(4 of 10) This self-deception concerning the power of outside forces or influences to affect you is one of the great obstacles to the realization of one’s good. While living in the physical world, souls can become obsessed with the illusionary powers of physical or social or emotional factors in their environment. The lesson, of course, is that each person is in control of whether or not this self-deception takes place. When you assign power to anything other than the God power within you (which is the only true power in the universe), you are creating the self-deception.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(3 of 10) Deception occurs when one human fools another by making him or her believe that one thing is going to happen, when in reality something very different is about to transpire. You commit deception on yourself when you try to make yourself believe that conditions in the physical world around you will have a certain impact (usually a negative one) on your life, when you have within you the power to have something much more positive occur.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(2 of 10) The conscious mind is a powerful instrument. If it is attuned with me, it can work wonders for good in your life.  If it falls out of attunement and gives power to one or more forms of negativity, it can be a powerful force for blocking your access to the good that is yours.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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How would you function in your life if you knew that every situation was going to work out perfectly?

That question came to my mind this morning immediately after learning that Lessons from the Source was not one of the books that had been selected to be among the top 25 finalists in the Next Top Author competition.

Not surprisingly, the first reaction from my conscious human mind was one of disappointment, because I had seen the competition as a way in which the teachings in the book might be made available to a much larger audience of people around the world.

Like many of you, I struggle to actually live some of the teachings in the book on a daily basis ― even though I understand them intellectually and believe them without reservation. My initial disappointment at the news about the competition was a good example of that. Things hadn’t worked out the way I had hoped and expected! Why not? Now what? Things certainly didn’t seem to me to be working out perfectly ― but that, of course, was based on my human mind’s limited interpretation of perfection.

Fortunately that reaction didn’t last long. Reaching for the book and reading the rest of that passage was helpful right away in centering me again in the truth of that lesson.

Here is the entire passage:

Your job is to accept the reality of divine order and allow it to guide your life. How would you function in your life if you knew that every situation was going to work out perfectly? Your first reaction would be to stop worrying about outcomes or how this person or that situation would affect a specific outcome. You could relax and enjoy the journey, knowing that the perfect outcome was assured.

This, of course, is exactly the case. Divine order and your unity with me assure it. Try looking at a specific situation as a thrill ride at an amusement park. The ride might be turbulent and scary, and it might even cause your physical body to become ill, but at the end, your safety would be assured. Once you became assured of your safety, you could ride again and again, and enjoy the thrills each time in the knowledge that they would not last and that you were being protected.

This is a very appropriate analogy. If you can accept that there is a perfect plan for your life, that there is good in every situation, and that the perfect outcome is assured because you are in divine order, then you can enjoy the turbulence and the surprises, for the uncertainty of it all is only an illusion.

Have fun with life. It is meant to be enjoyed. Accept the reality that all is well, and peacefully and joyously enjoy the ride.

What jumped out at me when I read the passage this time was that the word “enjoy” appears five times in those few paragraphs. One of the recurring themes in the book, and in the writings that I have continued to transcribe over the years, is a reminder to let go of our need to be in control, to open ourselves to the guidance that is always available, and then to allow life to unfold perfectly and effortlessly as part of the divine order of the Universe ― and to relax and enjoy the journey.

I just now found myself smiling at the old joke: “Do you know how to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

Many of you know that, in recent years, I have come to understand that my life’s work is to share the teachings I have been given with others who can benefit from them. But that certainly had not been part of my plans for this stage of my life.

Self publishing Lessons from the Source was the first step in sharing the teachings, and it is clear from the comments I’ve received from so many of you for whom the book has had a profound impact that doing so was extraordinarily important, but for most of my life I never would have imagined doing such a thing. It wasn’t in my plans.

My plans during the last few months have been to have the book advance in the competition to a point where a major publisher would find it irresistible and make it available in book stores around the world. And once again, God is laughing ― though gently and compassionately and reassuringly.

I already have let go of those plans and smiled at the fact that I had allowed them to become so all-consuming. What the next step, or steps, in sharing the lessons will be isn’t clear, but my commitment to myself and to the Universe is to allow the perfect plan to unfold effortlessly in my life and to enjoy the experience.

The passion and enthusiasm that so many of you have shown for the book, and the love, support and encouragement that you’ve given me during this little adventure have meant more than I will ever be able to express to you. It is an honor sharing the journey with you, and it will be fun to see where it leads from here.  I am sending much love and many blessings to each of you.

From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Four: Don’t give Power to Illusions

(1 of 10) What are the factors that disturb your peace of mind and heart? They are factors that you have given the power to do so. In and of themselves, these people or conditions or circumstances have no power over you—unless you grant it to them.

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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From Chapter Two: The Challenges of Earth Life

Section Three: A Higher Perspective

(12 of 12) Nothing can happen to you that is not for your highest good. Make this into an affirmation that works well for you and use it repeatedly. This is a particularly difficult concept to embrace, especially when you are faced with loss or grief or disappointment. But remember that you have chosen this lifetime for its lessons, and you cannot be aware of all of those lessons while you are learning them. Remember also that loss and grief and disappointment are concepts generated by human consciousness out of its lack of understanding of the “big picture.”

Jack Armstrong © 2010

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