Whenever you start guiding yourself by caring about how you feel, you start guiding yourself back into your Stream of Source Energy and that’s where your clarity is; that’s where your joy is; that’s where your flexibility is; that’s where your balance is; that’s where your good ideas come from. That’s where all the good stuff is accessed from. You cannot get to the good stuff from the place of feeling bad, it defies Law. And you cannot get to bad stuff from the place of feeling good, it defies Law.

But you’ve got to decide first, that it is good to feel good. It is so screwy... how did you ever get crosswise of that? “Let’s see now, struggle is good; pain is good.” And we say, in what world? Oh, they promised you that it would be good after you die. Well, they lied. It will be good after you die, but not because you’ve paid the price of struggle.

It’s just good when you die because when you die, you quantum leap into Pure Positive Energy. When you die, you stop beating the drum of all of those things that have been keeping you from full Connection to Source.

But friends, as long as you’re here in these physical bodies, quantum leaps, rare as they are, never last. That’s not the route you’re wanting to go. You’re not wanting to jump right to bliss from despair. Just work your way up your emotional scale.

So here’s this Emotional Scale. On one end of it, it feels really good; on the other end it feels really bad. On the really good-feeling end there is your perception of freedom. On the really bad-feeling end, there is your perception of not freedom. (And we carefully ask Esther to find the word perception because freedom is perceptual.) You are free. You’re so free, you can choose bondage. You are so free, that no one can do anything to you. You are so free, that you are the only one who is causing anything to happen in your experience.

You say, “But wait. That person did such-and-such to me.” And we say, but it was your observation of it and the subsequent contradiction in vibration, that caused the vibrational meltdown within you that disallowed the Well-Being that would have been there if you hadn’t been observing it. And you say, “Well, I wouldn’t have been observing it if they weren’t doing it.” And we say, yes, but now you’re getting into that realm where you have to control the conditions. Now you’re saying, “If I observe things that feel bad, I feel bad. So, I need to find some way of controlling things so that everything that I observe will be good.” And we say, give it up! You don’t get to decide what other people put in their pie.

Nobody can put anything in your pie unless you observe what they’re putting in their pie. And when you observe what they’re putting in their pie, now you’re a vibrational match to what they’re putting in their pie and now you’re putting it in your pie. And now you’re blaming them because you’ve got it in your pie! But you are the one who put it in your pie. “No, I didn’t,” you say, “I didn’t put it in my pie. They put it in my pie. They put it in their pie first and then some of it got in my pie.” And we say, none of it could have gotten in your pie if you hadn’t had your nose in their pie. If you hadn’t been paying attention to somebody else’s pie, you wouldn’t have their stuff in your pie. You only get in your pie what you are giving your attention to.

And you say, “Well, it’s hard not to notice what other people are putting in their pie.” And we say, we know it can be hard, but maybe you could start making your own pie and getting interested in that. “Well, my pie isn’t as interesting as their pie. Their pie’s on CNN! Their pie is on the front page of the newspaper. Their pie is on my soap opera and on all the TV programs. The stuff that they’re putting in their pie seems to be everywhere. And because it’s everywhere, it keeps getting in my pie.” Only because you’re giving attention to it. Nothing can get in your pie that you’re not giving your attention to.

“Well, how can I not give my attention to the things that are everywhere? And we say, find something that feels good to you and give your attention to that. “Well, it’s hard,” you say. “It’s hard to focus.” And we say, but that’s what a creator does. A deliberate creator focuses. A deliberate creator decides what he wants in his pie, and puts in in his pie. “Well, how do I know for sure what I want in my pie?” Make some pies and eat them and see how they taste. We call that post-manifestational pie eating. We call that waiting until it has manifested in order to figure out what the vibrational content of it was... It works.

We call these teachings the Art of Allowing because it is the art of learning, by feeling your way, by releasing resistance little by little by little until you become up to speed or in vibrational alignment, with your own desires. And when you do that, the vibrational alignment, even though your object of desire has not yet been manifested, the alignment with the idea of it is truly heaven on earth.

Abraham – “a group of non-physical beings” – speak and teach through the physical apparatus of Esther Hicks. Esther and her mate, Jerry, present Abraham’s teachings worldwide, through seminars, books and video and audio recordings. (830) 755-2299, P.O. Box 690070, San Antonio, TX 78269, www.abraham-hicks.com.