Lesson 23 – Effortless Resting in Natural Perfection

One who is fully realized in his eternal manifest Self, in the Presence-Consciousness that he is, such a being can be facing a global catastrophe and remain inwardly at peace while he acts outwardly in alignment with his heart. He has immortalized his well-being by no longer believing it is dependent on circumstance. He can be confidently happy without making a single change to his environment. He has mastered his reality without enslaving a single soul.Bentinho Massaro

This lesson is the natural continuation of the previous lesson in which you recognized that, from the point of view of Existence, everything is already accepted as it is.

In this lesson, I’m going to assume that you’ve discovered this experientially through the previous lesson, and encourage you to further embody this seeing of eternal acceptance by letting it become a part of your automatic attitude toward life’s events.

Immortalize Your Well-Being

How can you immortalize your well-being? By reminding yourself that you do not need anything to change in order to know that all is well.

When you practice reminding yourself of this simple fact—when you start applying this way of seeing—you can be at ease and convinced of the natural perfection of things no matter what!

Not many of us are taught this simple truth: that we are already okay, regardless of the state of our circumstances, feelings, and thoughts—that everything is essentially perfect, causelessly perfect.

When everyone around you is freaking out, you can be the transcendent mothering energy that keeps her stability. The mother who has “seen it all” and can no longer be freaked out by appearances. As mothers ideally should be mothering their kids, so will you be able to mother/father everyone you meet with your stable love, in any circumstance.

You will be the reliable, stable anchor for those around you. You will stand in the immortality of your well-being by believing full-heartedly in the perfection of All-That-Is, exactly as it is, no matter what occurs on the screen of life.

“How can I see everything as already perfect?”

By seeing beyond the stories and labels of your mind, and staring directly into the Presence of God, the Presence of life, Presence-Energy—by emphasizing the unshakable, perfect, and all-pervasive “I-AM.”

Basically, it is a matter of choosing to emphasize the naturally perfect presence of an object, thought, emotion, person, circumstance, or other appearance over the stories and meanings you have developed about them over the years.

Note: Lesson #3 and Lesson #8 are excellent lessons to review when it comes to becoming more acquainted with shifting your focus from thoughts to noticing the effortless Presence of life itself, appearing in the form of that particular event, thing, thought, feeling, or person.

Eleven Ways to Rest into Life’s Effortless Perfection

Here are a few examples:

1. Remember that everything you see is created as part of the total expression of the Infinite One Creator. Infinity has shaped its unconditional Love-Presence-Energy into all the forms that it possibly can, including every single experience you will ever encounter, seemingly good or bad.

By remembering to emphasize the fact that what you see is a manifestation of The One Being that lies-beyond-all-form-yet-gives-birth-to-all-form (more on this in the Infinity Teaching) you will more effortlessly be able to “rest with what is” instead of contemplating what it should mean.

Seeing this truth, rest naturally.

2. Take a 2 to 5 second break from the thinking mind and recognize directly the perfect space that remains. Seeing this truth, rest easy.

3. Actually label whatever you see as “naturally perfect” or “essentially perfect” until you get a real feeling that it actually is timelessly perfect. Seeing this truth, rest effortlessly.

4. Emphasize the timelessness of Presence-Consciousness. Seeing this truth, rest naturally.

5. Emphasize that nothing can harm, touch, sway, or affect you without your consent to believe that it does. Seeing this truth, rest easy.

6. Emphasize the timeless space of this eternal now-moment, rather than being focused upon the objects that appear inside of the space. Seeing this truth, rest effortlessly.

7. Flip over the experience (from story-side to presence-side) and see that its very appearance confirms and proves perfect Presence-Consciousness. Seeing this truth, rest easy.

8. Notice that you—as Presence and Consciousness—have never actually been changed by any of your past experiences, and as such, perceive the threatless nature of your present appearance as it, too, shall pass and leave you unaffected. Seeing  this truth, rest naturally.

9. Remember that you are not afraid anymore. Seeing this truth, rest effortlessly.

10. Notice how appearances arise, appear, and disappear effortlessly, without any doing on your personal part. Seeing this truth, rest easy.

11. Remind yourself that whether or not you change anything in the appearance, it won’t change the fundamental Presence-Love-Energy that the appearance is made out of anyway. Hence, recognize that you can rest effortlessly because no change is required to fix your state of being. You are already perfect. And so is this moment, whatever it may contain.

Seeing this truth, rest naturally.

These are just some examples of how you can remind yourself to rest into the perfect presence of The One’s effortlessness. In this lesson’s homework, I will ask you to come up with at least five more ways of seeing life that can aid you in resting effortlessly

Effortlessly Resting, Abiding

What is “resting”?

Resting is very much like relaxing, but it carries with it the idea of abidance, of stability, of surrender, of shifting your allegiance to something new—something you just chose to recognize.

Basically, take any one of the recognitions that you have developed during your participation in this course, and know that you can continue to rest in these ways of seeing, in these moments of recognition.

In this way, “resting” simply means that you choose to make a certain recognition that feels deeply aligned with the truth of your being, your home. You decide to abide in, and by, that recognition for a period of time, and you do so effortlessly because you see that it makes total sense to rest in that recognition for a bit, or in a sense, forever.

So in a way, we can say that resting is the natural continuation of a 2 to 5 second moment of recognition. It is the act of deliberately, yet effortlessly, resting into the present moment, and abiding by a quality of Being that has just—or previously—been recognized.

Try it out! It’s not difficult at all.

In fact, resting is effortless, for it is the letting go into a certain conviction or recognition: like free falling. It takes no effort, yet it is highly exhilarating and enlivening. When one is in free fall, one essentially does nothing, yet the experience is very vivid and present. Resting is like free falling into a particular quality of Being, by recognizing its truth and in seeing its benefit; one chooses to “go by that quality of being” and lets go into it until one naturally becomes more of that frequency of being.

Motionless Meditation

As an additional help in making the experience of “Resting Effortlessly in the Presence of Existence’s Natural Perfection” more profoundly experiential and liberating, I recommend that you try the following Motionless Meditation.

Set your alarm for at least 30 minutes, up to, say, two or three hours—depending on how yogic you are feeling on the day that you practice this meditation.

1. Sit down as you normally would, or as you have found to be most conducive for you when you did Lesson #2’s homework (the Art of Meditation).

2. Sit as motionless as you possibly can for your set duration of time—not moving, or as absolutely little as possible, until your alarm rings.

3. While you’re keeping your body naturally relaxed yet as motionless (including your facial muscles) as you possibly can, now diligently observe the motionless state of your body. Feel and be aware of your body sitting there as motionless as it can, like a statue or lifeless corpse.

4. Quite naturally, as the minutes pass by, start observing a greater sense of freedom from the body-appearance. You will notice that you are no longer as much “I am this body” even if the body experiences physical discomfort. Your Consciousness is, by means of remaining aware of the motionlessness of the body, in a sense detaching itself from the body and recognizing its natural state that much more, by contrast. You are now more effortlessly resting in your truly changeless state—the state of “I AM” which pervades and IS all appearances.

5. Enjoy the new-found degree of experiential lightness and transcendence, and rest in this soothing sense of the now-so-obvious natural perfection of your soul, your presence, your beingness, as well as the perfection that is All-That-Is, which is ultimately inseparable from your I-AM presence. Notice how nothing needs to change in order for this natural perfection and complete well-being to be as it is already.

Note 1: Motionless does not necessarily mean completely tension-less. While you can do this meditation lying down, I recommend you try it in a straight up sitting posture if you can, even if that means you have to use a certain amount of muscle to a degree to keep your body upright. So motionless and relaxed does not mean slouchy or like a sack of potatoes. Be aligned, be straight, be attentive, be aware. Keep your body in a relaxed-yet-alert state or position, and don’t move once you lock it in.

If you have any physical disabilities or ailments that prevent you from doing this meditation as described, simply create your own version of it as close as you can to what I described above. If you truly have to, you can do it lying down as well, just make sure you’re in an awake and alert mental mode if you choose to do it lying down.

Note 2: By motionless I really mean motionless. Blinking is allowed if you choose to do this meditation with your eyes open, but try to not even swallow, as an example. Drool if you have to, but maintain your awareness of the statue-like appearance of the body. Notice every tiny movement that does happen with zero judgment, yet try to imagine that body part to then turn to stone, in a sense, and become lifeless, like a corpse. Stationary, motionless.

Note 3: Distracting thoughts will arise, but allow yourself and the presence of your motionless body, to remind you that you are here to pay attention to the motionless state of your corpse-like body. Many thoughts will come that will try to tempt you to quit early, before your alarm goes off; dismiss these thoughts instantaneously, or simply watch them, but don’t be interested in them or identified with them, and return attention to the motionless meditation.

When you try this meditation, you might start to feel more detached from your body and a very natural sense of ease and transcendence, or deathless-ness, may come over you. This is natural and awesome. Even when it doesn’t happen for you, it’s still happening for you on some level. Know this.

As a result of gaining a deeper, more directly experiential sense of your—and Life’s—natural perfection and ease-of being in this meditation, you will be able to carry this experiential “memory” with you into everyday life circumstances, as you apply the gateway tool of Recognition.

In this way, the next time some appearance triggers you, you can more easily and more powerfully bring back an experiential sense of the changelessness of Existence’s natural perfection, and the feeling of your well-being being beyond the body, as well as beyond all other appearances.

In other words: No matter what comes up in your life, you now have a more powerful direct memory of the experience of everything being okay exactly as it is. Your well-being is no longer identified with having to change certain things about what appears. You can now rest naturally, effortlessly, and easily into the clarity and spaciousness of Being, with whatever appears inside of the clarity and space of being.

As Lesson #2 suggested, the art of meditation aids and assists and deepens one’s moments of 2 to 5 second recognitions, and the consequent choice to “rest in them, abide by them.”

Homework

  1. Come up with at least five (can be more) ways that help you recognize and emphasize the natural perfection in any given event (see the 12 examples earlier on in this lesson) and thus allow you to effortlessly rest in the soothing okayness of life itself. Write them down. Consider sharing them in the study group!! The more ways we come up with together and offer each other in this community, the better.
  2. Try out the motionless meditation at least two times, with dedication, and see if it has any effect on you that you can then bring with you more effortlessly into everyday life situations. See if it allows you to feel a more profound sense of stability, changelessness, and natural perfection pervading all of existence and each of its appearances. See if it offers you greater freedom from the feeling that you need to change your body, mind, or circumstances in order to be able to rest in being okay. If it does, feel free to practice it a few more times to get even deeper effects of it, which will then, in turn, make your moments of effortless recognition/resting throughout the day more experiential.
  3. In a relaxed, joyful, and peacefully contemplative state of being, read this lesson’s text at least once more before continuing with the next lesson. Let it take you by the hand.

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