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Principle 11: Because love is eternal, death need not be viewed as fearful

Part of our judgment is about death. So many people are afraid of it. We begin to let go of the fear of death when we truly believe that what is real never changes and that Love is always present.

Death is merely a transition from one state of being to another. The body is temporary and is an instrument that we have created for our learning, but life, our essence, being spirit, is eternal.

One of the main messages that Jesus came to teach us with his death and resurrection is that death does not exist, that we are eternal because we are extensions of pure Love.

I was honored to witness the moment my grandmother, my mom, and my dad passed away. In all three cases, it was the same. I could feel the precise moment when the soul left the body. Once it was separated, the body lay inert, lifeless, when the energy was felt inhabiting that body a few seconds before. My feeling was that my relative was no longer that body. It was much more, but no longer that body .

My grandmother died at 93 years old. She told me that sometimes when she slept, she felt my grandfather, who had died years before. I always told her to remember that Love eternally unites us and that it was possible that my grandfather would visit her some nights while she slept. The day she died, my watch stopped at the precise moment that I felt her spirit leave my body. I have always thought that she sent me a message so that I would not doubt that what I said was true. Death does not exist. We are eternal.

Those experiences led me to the certainty that death is not to be feared, as we are eternal. What dies is the body. Our essence of love never dies.

I invite you to make an evaluation of what you think about death. Write down all the scary thoughts that come up. Look at them one by one. Stick with each thought until you can identify where your fear is coming from. Practice feeling your oneness with everything. This is achieved through silent meditation. When you achieve that mental silence, the barriers that you have put with your ego thoughts are eliminated and you only feel the peace and eternal love that you are. If you’ve never done it, try little by little until you can do it for at least 20 minutes. Once you can feel the love that you are, whenever you want, the fear of death will dissipate and you can enjoy life much more.

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Principle 10: We can focus on the whole of our lives rather than the fragments.

Has it ever happened to you that you meet someone for the first time and you think, “I don’t like him”? After a while, you get to know him better, and he ends up being a great friend. When you look at a fragment of life, you miss the totality. At that moment, you forget that everything you see outside is your projection, and you judge. The above applies to judging yourself or other people. Many times, you talk or think about something without having all the elements.

Instead of judging a fragment of something, it would help to apply Principle 10 and focus on the whole instead of the fragments. This reminds me of an experience I had in my teens. I met a boy who I classified as ugly, and I focused on that. Without knowing him, I didn’t want to go out with him. As life leads us to where we have things to heal, we coincided in an activity months later. He was sitting next to me. I began to realize his intelligence, kindness, and many other qualities I was unaware he had. As the night went by, I saw him more and more handsome. I stopped focusing on a fragment and began to focus on the whole.

This principle applies to all areas of your life. For example, if you are diagnosed with a disease, do not identify with it as if that was all you are. If you are in a job and they fire you, do not identify yourself as a failure. If a relationship ends, do not identify yourself as someone who is not worthy of being loved.

Your Being is unlimited and eternal. It comprises everything. This truth is something you have to always keep in mind. We are all here to remind ourselves of that truth.

In this dimension of time and space that we call Earth, we think that we are made up of many separate parts, like the pieces of a puzzle. The number of fragments for each depends on their mental conditioning from birth. But that is an illusion that makes it difficult to see the whole. Decide to see differently and see the totality of who you are. See the puzzle complete. This decision will bring you a lot of peace.

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Principle 9: “We are students and teachers to each other.”

There is an interconnection between everything in the Universe. At that level, everything is one unit. There is no separation. What a person does has repercussions throughout the Universe. The Universal Laws govern this dimension.

Sometimes there are situations in your life, just like you were thinking about a friend and the phone rings and it’s her, and you say, what a coincidence. The psychologist Carl Jung called this synchronicity when events occur where something beyond the causal relationship is involved.

There are neither coincidences nor synchronicities. In reality, teachers and students come together when both are ready to begin healing. What you see outside is a projection of your thoughts. You are always looking at yourself in a mirror. All the people and situations that you have in your life are there because you have something to learn from them. Here the law of magnetism and the law of attraction is at stake. I have talked about them on other blogs.

As you understand the mirror theory and use it for your growth, you take advantage of these “teachers” to see which are your thoughts are projected outside. If you take responsibility for your projected thoughts, your relationships will become more and more harmonious.

That teacher helps you see things that you have within you that you have forgotten or that are so deep in the unconscious that you have not identified them. The best teachers are your family relationships because it is with whom you spend the most time. They can be adults or children. Age doesn’t matter. It’s your reaction to them.

But they don’t have to be people. They can be objects, animals, governments, entities, etc. So if you react to anything in any way other than love, you have to look inward and see what about you they are reflecting.

The same is true in reverse. For that teacher of yours, you are his teacher. There is a saying in Puerto Rico that says, “hunger and the desire to eat come together.”

When you manage to integrate this principle into your life, all your relationships will change. You come out of your role as a victim when you stop thinking that someone did something to you, and you become the primary role of your healing. Then, you recognize that you are only love, and you begin to extend it to all the people you meet. What a wonderful way to live!

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Principle 8: We can choose inner peace no matter what is happening around us.

Despite the apparent chaos in your life, you can choose to be at peace, knowing that you are always connected and sustained by the Source that is always loving and peaceful.

When something doesn’t work out in your life, the tendency is to put the blame on someone outside of yourself. However, what determines your peace are the thoughts you have about things or people.

When you think that you are a victim of circumstances, and to be at peace you have to wait for whatever is bothersome outside of you to change, you have no power.

Nothing outside of you affects you. What you think about it affects you. God’s best gift is the freedom to choose the thoughts you put into your mind. This means that every second you can choose peace over conflict. Once you realize that you choose what you think, you regain your power. You step out of the victim role.

I used this principle a lot when my husband passed away. When I thought about him and the pain became so intense that what I wanted was to cry and cry, I remembered this principle and immediately began to think about something else. I chose peace despite the fact that I no longer had him in my life.

It happened to me once when I was in the car. I began to think about how much I missed him. When I started to feel sadness, I immediately decided to look at the clouds and see what shape they had. I did not allow any other thought to enter my mind except the clouds. I totally focused on them until the pain passed.

You can do this with any situation or thought that takes away your peace. Emotions do not exist by themselves. They are always preceded by a thought. Sometimes that thought is so unconscious that we do not realize it, but you can be sure that it is there, before the emotion.

Exercise your freedom, always choose peace no matter what is happening in your life.

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Principle 7: We can become love-finders instead of faultfinders.

This principle helps you stay in peace and love. Every person or situation that comes to you brings something positive. Of course, it also has the potential to bring something negative. It depends on you where you focus your mind. If you focus on the positive, you will have peace, and in turn, satisfying relationships. If, on the other hand, you focus on the negative, you are going to have stress and stormy relationships. Whatever you put your mind on is increased. You can always use situations that appear to be negative by looking for the positive side. Ask yourself, what do I have to learn from them?

Dr. Jamposlky mentioned that, no matter what a person’s behavior is, you can choose to see only the light of love in them.

We all have an ego. The ego always leads us to judge, be angry, sad, and any other negative feeling. You will never be at peace as long as you act from the perspective of your ego.

If you are aware of this, you can begin to change your perception of people and situations and begin to see them from the love you are, and see only the love they are. When you achieve this, you feel immense peace and a sense of unity with everything around you.

Imagine a couple that all they do is look for faults in the other. I assure you that both are going to be upset and unhappy. If, on the contrary, they decide to start looking for the good in the other person and communicate it to them, the dynamics will immediately change, and they will be able to feel again the love that united them. Each one is going to be full of love.

The above example will repeat itself in any relationship, even with the people you come across. How often are you on a beach, and you start looking at people and judging them? That one is fat, that one is too thin. Those kids are very scandalous. When you do this, you are working from the ego, and you will not have peace.

I invite you to experiment for a week by just looking at the real and loving being of each person you encounter, no matter who they are or what they are doing. Look beyond appearances and feel love. Then in your mind, send love to them without a judgment crossing your mind. If a judgment appears, immediately change it for a thought of love. You will see how you begin to feel love more and more. That is your true nature. Enjoy it.

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Principle 6: We can learn to love ourselves and others by forgiving rather than judging.

Forgiving, in this sense, is not what you usually know as forgiving. It is not looking at someone who “did” something to you and saying, I forgive you, but I do not forget.

I have mentioned in other blogs that when you see something in another person, it is a projection of that something within you. Your thoughts make you vibrate to a certain level. If you have negative thoughts, you will have a denser vibration. If your thoughts are positive, you will have a higher vibration.

 By the law of attraction, you will attract people who have a similar vibration into your life. When that person you attract does things that you don’t like about yourself, and you don’t accept that you have them, it will make you very angry. You may think it is unforgivable. If you remove that person from your life because what they did to you is unforgivable and you don’t heal it in you, someone else with similar characteristics will come.

Those unforgivable acts, whether they come from someone else or you, come from the part of the mind that A Course in Miracles calls the ego. It is the part that believes that it is separate from God. The one that considers itself to be a sinner when in reality, our true being is still united to the Creator and is pure love.

Forgiveness in this principle means to see beyond the act to the true being who is perfect and always loving. It is seeing the other as our mirror and being able to look inside to be able to recognize what we have to heal. In other words, see the other as my teacher.

Forgiving does not mean that we accept the wrongdoing of another person. Forgiveness is an internal correction that makes our hearts feel lighter and frees us to live in the present, to live in love. It’s mostly for our peace of mind. By being in peace and love, we can extend them to others, which is the most valuable gift we can give.

Susan S. Trout, Ph.D., discusses these principles in her book To See Differently, where she tells the story of this lady and her family who spent years hating and wanting to take revenge on the person who murdered their 18 year old daughter. The anger and pain consumed them all.

After years she and her husband decided to confront the murderer in jail to ask him why he had murdered their daughter. When they faced him, the hatred that had consumed them suddenly disappeared, and they felt love for him. They were able to recognize his human condition and his pain. Seeing this, they felt compassion and love. They realized that he, too, was suffering from what he had done.

This is an example of what it means to see beyond the act to the person’s true essence of love. It is what the principle calls forgiveness.

When we choose to see everyone as teachers of forgiveness, each moment allows us to be happy and in peace and love.

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Principle 5: Now is the only time that exists and every moment is to give.

Pain, grief, depression, guilt, and other forms of fear go away when you focus the mind on the loving peace of this moment.

You can choose between love or fear only in the present moment. This choice is made instant by instant. In this holy instant, there are no worries or stress. There is only peace. Your peace is gone as soon as you allow any thoughts to enter your mind that are not exactly what you experiencing in this moment.

There is a quote from the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh that reflects this principle very well:

“If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.”

What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future, and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.”

Living in the present moment requires practice because you are used to living in the past or the future. Every time you realize you are doing it, bring your mind back to the present. Focus totally on what you are doing. When you do, you will see that the only thing you feel is peace.

To achieve this it is necessary that you forgive your past and this includes everyone, but mainly you. Ask your Higher Self, or whoever you turn to when you need higher help, to help you see what your participation was in what happened and what lesson you have to learn from the experience. I have no doubt that little by little you will achieve it and there will be fewer and fewer times that your mind will leave from the precious moment that you are living.

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Principle 4: We can let go of the past and the future

To give love freely, principle 4, which says that “we can let go of the past and the future,” helps us.  Imagine yourself living with anger or feelings of guilt about what happened to you, or what didn’t happen to you, what you did or didn’t do, or, on the contrary, fearing the future because you think it will be a repetition of our past. In that case, you’re not going to seize the only real moment you have, which is the present moment.

Your responsibility is to forgive the past, let go of it and not project it into the future so that you can freely give love and start each new day or each new relationship, enjoying how wonderful it can bring to our life.

 I once had lunch with a lawyer who began to tell me about her ex-husband. From the way she spoke, I thought that she had just divorced him because I saw her suffering and with a lot of anger. When I asked her, she told me that she had been divorced for ten years. I couldn’t believe it. She spent ten years living in the past, so she didn’t enjoy the present moment. She didn’t know how to live the previous principle.

When you judge someone or repeat in your mind things that happened in the past, not only do you continue living the same drama in your present, but you deprive yourself of having peace. The past lives in your mind. It no longer exists. But you relive it every time you think of it.

The same goes for the future. If you worry about what may happen in your future, you are projecting situations that have already happened. As your thinking is creative, you continue to recreate the same that’s in your mind. Did you know that about 90% of the things you worry about don’t happen? What a waste of time where you could have enjoyed your life.

Both recreating your past and worrying about the future deprive you of enjoying every moment with what life brings you. Let go of what happened, forgive whoever hurt you, and forgive yourself. Without forgiving, you will not be able to enjoy every moment. Have you heard the saying “the past is gone, the future has not arrived, the only thing that exists is the present”? Apply it to your life, and you will have a full and loving life.

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Principle 3: Giving and receiving are the same.

The vast majority of people think that if they give something, they have less because they think only of the world of forms. So if I have $10.00 and I give you $5.00, of course, I only have half left. I call this a scarcity mentality.

As I have mentioned in other blogs, there are spiritual or universal laws. These laws deal with a higher dimension where everything is energy. At this level, what I give comes back to me. Things that we perceive as materials are made up of energy. What I give is preceded by a thought of giving. Considering that energy is electromagnetic, that energy joins the energies that comprise creation and, by the law of magnetism, attract similar energies that return to me multiplied.

Let’s see this in action. I once read the story of a woman who had recently moved to New York and knew no one. To make matters worse, shortly after arriving, her husband left her. Christmas came, and she felt like the most lonely and miserable being. She couldn’t handle the depression. She began to think about others who were worse off than her and called a center that fed the homeless and asked if she could volunteer that night. After serving and giving love to these people, she felt so much peace and love that she thought that this was the best Christmas day she had ever spent in her life.

She managed to live the third principle of Attitude Healing that says that Giving and receiving are the same. When we focus on giving and bonding with others, fear goes away, and we accept mental healing for ourselves.

When we give, we are not thinking of anything other than extending love. There is no room in our minds for fear. When we feel that love, our natural inclination is to want to share it and, when we share it, everything else ceases to exist in our mind. So if we give love, we receive love. If we forgive, we receive forgiveness, and so on. I invite you to give only love.

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Principle 2: Health is inner peace. Healing is letting go of fear

When talking about healing, these principles don’t refer to the healing of the body but of the mind. That’s why the second principle states that Health is inner peace and that healing is letting go of fear.

When our goal is to change the body, we forget that our only goal is peace of mind. We will never know true peace as long as we think we are vulnerable. Our true being is eternal and doesn’t suffer from anything.

I know many people who are healthy in body but don’t have inner peace. They are disease-free but unhappy. That is because they are full of fear, fear of scarcity, fear of loneliness, fear of the future. In short, they have their minds set on things that take away their peace.

On the other hand, I had a friend who got cancer in his forties. He chose not to have any invasive treatment. Many people, blind to the reality of our being, began to judge him and say what he had to do because they understood that he had to undergo chemotherapy or radiotherapy, surgery, etc., to heal his body.

The rest of the people were hysterical, but he was at peace. He knew he wasn’t that body and chose to leave it alone. His body never healed, and he died, but he was healthy because he had peace of mind. He wasn’t afraid of death. That is true health.

A Course in Miracles tells us: I want the peace of God. The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide where I am not home. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (W-p1.205.rVI.1:6)  

We are pure love. The body is only a vehicle we have to experience and learn from a life in the physical world of matter. When we leave it because it no longer serves us, our essence or pure love continues to exist in another dimension and continues its evolution and learning at other levels. We are eternal. It depends on us, as we decide whether to focus on love or fear, if we will be at peace or if we are going to suffer on our journey on Earth. What are you going to choose?