Marshall, Gene, The Enigma of Consciousness, Realistic Living Press, Bonham, TX, 2012. Chapter 14
Effortless Letting Be (excerpts from Chapter 14 please read the original material for complete context)
1) Our homecoming to Reality requires nothing of us.
2) It is an Effortless Letting Be.
3) Effortless Letting Be is first of all a surrender to our forgiveness, which is also a surrender to our true being, which is also a surrender to what is actually going on in the whole round of our lives.
4) This surrender is our solitary act but it is also joining the community of those who are willing to be in the Real Cosmos and thereby be detached from the estranged world.
5) Most of humanity is clinging to the world of temporal things.
6) Those who Effortlessly Let Be need not be ascetics; they may be in love with the birds and the rabbits and the wolves and the tigers and the grasses and the trees and the blue sky and the even the hurricanes and volcanos.
7) Yes, death and destruction are also part of THAT to which Effortless Letting Be is surrendering.
8) Most of humanity is not letting all this be.
9) Most of humanity is clinging to something that is being or may be taken away.
10) Most of humanity is consumed with becoming more secure in wealth, possessions, knowledge, doctrine, love, friends, children, anything that can seem secure.
11) Who am I
12) I am not my body, my reputation in society, my parents child, my accomplishments, my place of residence, my culture, my race, my gender.
13) And I am not my personality, my set of well-established and well-rehearsed pattern of habits.
14) I am not my ego, my self-constructed image of who I think I am.
15) I am a mystery even to myself.
16) I am the enigmatic I Am that this chapter is dedicated to describe.
17) I may experience this mysterious I Am as a dreadful challenge or as a fascinating release or both.
18) If I have been a person habituated to be helpful to others, I may sense some dread in having to give that up.
19) I might be able to assist others to see their choices to be or not to be themselves, but I cannot make those choices for them.
20) In that sense, I am not actually needed by others.
21) I cannot help them be themselves.
22) I am not in control in that regard.
23) They are on their own where it matters most.
24) And they cannot help me.
25) I am on my own where it matters most.
26) This may be scary.
27) This may be releasing.
28) It may be both.
29) Being in my own being is where I Am when I enter into a quality of surrender I am calling Effortless Letting Be.
30) Furthermore, accepting forgiveness for myself means accepting it for everyone, even though most people choose to continue in their despairing attempts to be other than who they are.
31) Passionately judging others has to go, even though judging as a useful tool of living remains.
32) From time to time Effortless Letting Be may break through my busy, striving, helpful, judging, overactive, over-controlling personality and be present as a state of being that we enjoy for a while.
33) And I can also come to recognize Effortless Letting Be as a permanent station of the I Am that I never need to leave.
Read one of the lines from this reading that caught your attention.
What does our homecoming to Reality require of us (1)
What is the relationship between effortless letting be and forgiveness (2,3)
What is the estranged world described in the 10 sentences from 4 14 What is the picture we get of humanity and the world-in-general from encountering this section
Who am I not as described in sentences 10 13
If I am not these realities, then what is the Reality that I am (15, 16)
How do you experience this approach to the truth that I am (17) (26-28)
What other line or concept would you like to have the group explore with grounding experiences
What is a State of Being and how does this differ from a thought I might think or a feeling I might feel (30 31)
What question of this material would you like to discuss with the author for further clarification or guidance .(How would anyone else address this question)
How might I live my life differently because of the awareness provoked in this material
What personal practices might be indicted from the encounter with this material