End Suffering on Resistance

by Gary Blatchford

     At first glance, resistance might not appear to be a form of suffering. However, resistance to Truth, to a healing power, can be looked upon as a negativity that can cripple our journey towards awakening.
     Resistance can take many forms. One form is laziness, just wanting to drift with life. A word that comes to mind is drifter. A drifter is one who travels or moves about aimlessly. We cannot afford to drift or wander, but we must remember our aim! Our aim is to wake up from our usual state of unawareness, of psychic sleep. At one of our recent classes in Strawberry, we were given an exercise. The exercise is: Shake your head awake right now! Don’t let anything keep you asleep, shake your head awake right now, and listen to your old nature scream its objections to your going against its tyranny over your current life.
     The phrase old nature refers to the self that has been acquired from the world. It is sometimes called the False Self, and it dominates our life and wants us to think that we are one with it. We all have a False Self and we also have something called the True Self. The False Self, which is really not us, contains all the negativities like anger, fear, worry and resistance. The True Self, the real self, has no negativities because it is connected to the Higher World. Through awareness, and with help from this Higher World, the True Self can grow to the point where it can replace the False Self.
     Resistance resides in the False Self. This artificial nature dimly senses that our aim to wake up is going to put it out of business, so as a defense mechanism, it will bring up one of its favorite weapons, which is resistance to Truth. Another form of resistance that the False Self employs is to make the outside world seem more important than the spiritual journey. Maybe you never thought of sporting events, the news or the ice cream bar in the fridge as being forms of resistance. If you are distracted from moving into awareness, then that is a type of resistance. Now there are times when we have to think practically, but during our day we should be alternating between practical thought and awareness. Actually, I can see the resistance I have in myself as I sit down and spend some time to write a few words about resistance.
     Sometimes resistance comes in the form of physical discomfort in the body. I remember going to my first Vernon Howard class. I was driving to a local library where the class was to be held. As I got closer to the library, my stomach started to hurt. I became aware of it and somehow something higher helped me and I made it there. By the end of the class I felt so much better. I later realized that the old nature was trying to use physical pain as a defense, as a form of resistance toward Truth.
     Try to see different ways that resistance comes up and tries to derail your upward journey. As an example, it might appear as voices inside of your psychic system as explained in Vernon Howard’s booklet Freedom From Harmful Voices. Remember that neither the harmful voices nor the resistance is the real you. And if you ever feel like you are straining with all of this, Vernon Howard reminds us that Truth has already won.