By Cathy Eck

Peace, The Ultimate State 

Lester Levinson was an American who found his way to a free mind about half a century ago.  His journey was my validation when I couldn’t find anyone to confirm my inner and outer research.  Lester said that three words defined his state of mind:  courage, acceptance, and peace.  As I let go of my own beliefs and misperceptions, I realized that Lester’s perception of those words wasn’t the norm.

Lester said that the final state of mind was imperturbability, peace.  Followers of Lester worked to release emotions since their emotions perturbed them.  They couldn’t see that Lester’s calmness and peace came from his True Self perspective of no beliefs.  When we have no beliefs, we have no emotions.

Many words that describe the path to freedom or the True Self have been hijacked by the false self.  We can’t just memorize the new definition of these words and use them to elevate our false self — that gets us really stuck.  But we can use these words as guideposts to let us know that we’re progressing.

Courage

The True Self is inwardly courageous.  The True Self lives from true and false.  If a belief arises that isn’t true and emotions erupt, it’s unstoppable in facing that emotion and finding and releasing the causal belief.  It can stand up to any person or situation without loss of power — not to fight them, but to free them.

Courage isn’t the same as bravery.  Brave people are filled with beliefs.  Brave people charge into battle to kill their projected enemies.  True courage is about realizing that the battle or enemy is illusory.  True courage allows us to admit that our perception was false.  True courage can let go of the label of victim and its false payoffs.  It takes courage to remember that the truth will set you free.  It takes tremendous courage to tell the truth to ourself and others when we fear we’ll be judged.

As we travel the path to freedom, our perspective improves each time we let go of a belief or misperception.  Things that used to appear true and powerful now look weak.  It upsets us when we realize we’ve been following a weak leader (false authority).  Often people try to shore the leader up instead of letting them fall.  Courage lets them fall if it leads to greater freedom.

Acceptance

In the illusion, people use the term acceptance when they mean apathy.  Apathy is when you let go of your desires instead of your beliefs because you don’t believe you can have them.

Acceptance to a True Self isn’t about accepting loss, disease, or problems.  It’s about accepting the flow of joy, health, and unconditional love that is natural.  The flow of life force is eternal once there are no beliefs damming up the stream.

People often say, “I’m accepting what is.”  That isn’t true acceptance — that’s giving up — apathy.  They’re protecting the false notion that God gives us problems, tempts us, and challenges us.  But that isn’t true.  God doesn’t give us problems or challenges, people do.  The people running our life are the people whose beliefs we still hold in OUR mind.  If we “accept what is” while marinating in their illusion, we’re letting their beliefs run our life.  Thus, acceptance is really apathy because we lack the courage to let go.  If you’re following a loving person, false acceptance might improve your situation temporarily.  But true freedom is being the master of your own life, not accepting another’s illusion.

If you have no desires and get nothing, you’ll die.  When people say that Buddhists are desireless, I remind them that the fundamentalist Buddhists would be up shit creek without a paddle without their begging bowls.  They want people to feed them — that’s desire.  People make them superior and then try to copy their illusion; then suddenly they’re stuck in lack.

Acceptance is natural when you’re living as your True Self because what you want is right for you; beliefs no longer stop your desire from flowing to you.  You seem desireless to others because your desires manifest so quickly that you never long for them.  That’s true acceptance.

Peace

Peace is another word that has been hijacked by the false self.  Peace is not the opposite of war.  Tolerance is the opposite of war.  You either fight with someone or you tolerate them at the bottom of the triangle.  Peace is the state where war and tolerance are viewed as false, illusory.

In the illusion, people pretend their enemy doesn’t exist with fake forgiveness.   They face their fears outwardly with bravery, or they stop fighting under the guise of pacifism.  But we’re not in peace if we’re still seeing the other as bad or wrong.

Peace is the effect when we remember our True Self’s unconditionally-loving perspective because we’re in the flow of our life.  What we think is what manifests; and we think nothing that would harm another or ourselves.  When we have no more inner wars, outer wars and outer warriors appear false and powerless.

Courage + Acceptance = Peace

Courage enables us to live from true and false in a world that is built on an illusion of good and evil or win and lose.  We’re fearless in facing our own emotions and following them until we find the causal belief.  We aren’t afraid to let go of beliefs.

Acceptance allows our desires to flow into our life effortlessly.  Acceptance can allow beliefs in others, but it doesn’t obey or follow people with beliefs.

Peace is the effect, our natural free state of mind when we live from our True Self.  We no longer have beliefs; therefore, we no longer have emotions.  Peace comes from knowing that we’re safe, we’re in control of our life experience, we can have what we need and want (what’s true for us), and we’re unconditionally loved.  Put these together and we know and live from our True Self.  We are free.