Beyond Money Concerns to Lasting Peace

This blog was written as a stepping-stone pointing to the recognition of one’s true Self—the experience of Inner Peace beyond intellectual understanding!


Dylan: Whenever you seem to perceive an object of fear, you have to start to pull the projection of fear back to its false cause—false thoughts of fear and the false ego-belief in mind, along with one’s desire to misidentify with them.

The fear you seem to have with money is a wonderful opportunity for Peace right now, if seen correctly. Emotions are inroads into what is happening on the mental level—thoughts and beliefs—which lead to the core desire in mind of what you are desiring to experience in any moment of seeming upset.

Friend: So, emotions act as an indicator of what thoughts are happening?

Dylan: Yes, emotion is always an effect or result of what thoughts and beliefs are being misidentified with on a mental level. These thoughts and beliefs can then be worked back to, “What am I desiring to experience in this moment?” I will come back to this.

Friend: You said to start with perception and then trace the lack of peace inwards, since perception—the object of fear—is an inroad into emotion, which is an inroad into thought, then belief, and then the core desire on a mental level.

Dylan: Yes, so let us start with the perception. Walk me through it.

Friend: So the perception of my upset or lack of peace right now is money.

Dylan: Wonderful, this is great to observe this.

Friend: The emotions that are coming up are fear, anxiety, intensity, and I feel some kind of stuckness around what is happening. Yes, that is what is there.

Dylan: Wonderful, thank you. Since emotion is an inroad to thought and underlying beliefs, walk me through what is arising.

Friend: Okay. Some of the thoughts are, “You don’t have enough. You are worthless because you don’t have enough. Everyone else is successful and doing great, but I’m over here and am a pile of garbage because I don’t measure up.” Another thought is, “You need to hurry up and get more to be worthy of peace and love, to be worthy of approval.” Yeah.

Dylan: Great, thank you for sharing these thoughts! Seen correctly, being able to see them is a big step for you to return to peace.

Friend: Yeah, thank you. It feels like a total retreat or set back, but I do remember you saying that whenever anything comes up it is always a step forward. I find this helpful, as when I share the thoughts I know I am not being run by them anymore and can share them for a shift in perception.

Dylan: Yes, when you seem to go through this seeming shift, there comes a realisation that, “Ah, I have only been seemingly attached to and have been reacting to false ego thoughts all along.” As you begin to see that the seeming cause of lack of peace has always been on the level of mind, rather than the level of perception, you realise you are not an innocent victim and always have cause for peace and happiness right now.

When you are ready, take me through some of the underlying beliefs that you notice.

Friend: Well yeah, you just said one of them: that I believe I am an innocent victim. I believe my state of mind can be affected by something in the world. I believe I am lacking. I never really saw these during the upset, but now that we are here going through it I can see them.

Dylan: Yes, that is the sweetness of inquiry. We can put all of these onto paper or work it in mentally, and start to see how the mind is desiring to act out a belief of being a victim more than a single desire for present peace of mind.

Friend: Yes, desiring to attach onto, or misidentify with, as you say, these false beliefs and thoughts arising in the mind.

Dylan: Yes. There is a phrase in ACIM which says that the Holy Instant or present moment does not require that you have no thoughts, yet, what it does require is that you hold onto none of them. Just as if you were standing next to a highway and you are just letting the cars come and go, watching them all without clinging to any of them.

You also may use the analogy of being the sky, letting the temporal clouds arise and disappear. You just let them float on by, without a need to try and attach your vast identity of being the sky to a temporal cloud.

Friend: I suppose to add to the list, under beliefs, is that I believe something needs to be different for me to be happy.

Dylan: Yes, that is it, indeed. This is the trick of the false sense of self or ego. It seems to provide thoughts that suggest that if only something was different with that person, situation, place, climate, or even different with myself I would then be happy, peaceful, content, and joyful. “If only I had more money I would be happy and peaceful.”

It projects the Happiness and Peace of Being that You Already Are into a future goal, where it is never found. When money comes the mindset is still, “I want more to be happy and peaceful.” How much more is more enough? And then when there is money it shifts to, “How do I keep it, how do I invest it, and how do I protect it?”

Friend: If I am off chasing future happiness and peace I am distracted away from where the happiness and peace are, here in the present.

Dylan: Yes, the whole scheme is undone here. All it took was a little investigation or inquiry. And this is where desire comes in. It comes back to, “What is it that I am desiring to experience in this moment?” Am I desiring to misidentify with a false sense of self—the ego—and its unachievable goals of having a perfect situation or outcome to experience the Happiness and Peace You Already Are now, or am I desiring Peace singularly right now regardless of how the form looks?

If I desire Peace right now, that means that there is a desirelessness for a particular outcome, a particular situation to go a certain way, or for more of anything in this world.

As you see the falsity of the misidentification to ego and its unloving thoughts, a recognition happens that the Peace of Being—of Who You already Are now—is not circumstance dependent. If it is not circumstance dependent, then I’m not a victim of the world or a circumstance. Believing you need more money to be happy and peaceful is to claim that you are a victim of the world. Through inquiry, you can see that it is only you who is experiencing the effects of your desire to misidentify with a false sense of self or not.

Friend: I didn’t see it at first, but when you said, “For more of anything in the world,” this is what an idol is.

Dylan: Yes, certainly. In the Bible it states, “Hold no graven images before the Lord thy God.” These graven images are the split desires for more of anything in the world. Why is this? Because if you value the desire for more of something of the world, you will be left feeling a false sense of deprivation because you will experience the false effects of that desire: that you seem to not have what you do already have. That the Peace and Happiness You already Are will be experienced when a specific form outcome or situation happens in the future. From this misperception the way you go about trying to fill the deprivation will be through external means.

Yet, the sweetness behind, “Hold no graven images,” is because this is where the fulfilment of Being lies. Through the single desire of Self, or Peace, that is always available right now, you overlook the false ego-belief that you are lacking in some way. Here, the fruitless search of looking for peace, happiness and fulfilment in the intellect, emotion, or the world where it cannot be found, ends.

When Jesus said, “Let thine eye be single,” he meant it. Let your inner desire be solely for Present Peace, for Present unconditioned Love, for the Self, and you will experience only that.

Friend: This is very helpful, as the upset was not what I thought it was in the moment it arose.

Dylan: Yes. At first, the upset seemed to be because of the money in perception, but as we work the upset or lack of peace back to the level of mind it now becomes: “I seem to be experiencing upsetting emotions of fear and anxiety because I am misidentifying with fearful thoughts. These thoughts are suggesting that: something terrible is going to happen, and I am not worthy of peace because I don’t have a lot of money, so I’m a pile of garbage.

This is stemming from the misidentification with the false, fearful ego-belief that suggest, “I am an innocent victim that is lacking, and that something in perception has to be different to be happy and peaceful.”

This is stemming from the desire to misidentify with a false sense of self—that I have separated from God. The desire to misidentify with the false ego-belief and its unloving thoughts, emotions, and perceptions are the graven images that are valued more than remaining as the true Self or Present Peace.

Friend: Wow, this is so clear now. I have to see the unreality or falsity of this misidentification to experience a shift. I have to see the falsity of these limiting thoughts that arise and dictate things to me. When I don’t see the falsity, I believe them and act them out as if they are true.

Dylan: Yes, when the mind forgot to laugh at these arising thoughts one then seems to take them seriously, taking on false responsibility for them. I now become the judgemental one, and I now seem to become the fearful one. This is just a misperception of Who I Am.

Jesus’ statement that, “You but see through a glass, darkly” comes into play here. “Seeing through a glass, darkly,” refers to a misperception or an error in perceiving. I seem to forget about the true Self that I Am as the ever-present, unchanging sky, and now attach the vast identity I Am to temporal passing clouds that are floating through the sky.

Friend: All problems are then a perceptual problem.

Dylan: Indeed, every seeming experience of lack of peace or upset is just a misperception, a misidentification on the mental level extending out to emotion and then perception.

You can see that it is not really money that is the cause of upset, but what is being desired and then believed about the money. All of the made-up mental stories, conclusions and meanings that are being added on top of whatever seems to be presenting itself in the moment. Thoughts seem to arise and conclude, “Because of this, this must mean [fill in the blank].” For example, “Because of the amount of money, this means you are worthless, a piece of shit, less than others, and you will end up being a bum on the streets.”

Because these thoughts arise in mind, you assume they must be yours and the mind misidentifies with them. In doing so, you seem to experience the effects which seem to appear as fearful emotions and a fearful world. You then tend to have to find some external solution to a seeming problem that is really on the mental level.

Friend: We get jobs to fill the belief in lack.

Dylan: Exactly. Yet, as we all know by now, it doesn’t bring lasting happiness and peace because the false belief of lack on the mental level is still misidentified with.

As an analogy, let’s say we went to a movie theatre to watch a movie. The reason we go to a movie theatre is to forget we are watching a movie, to get lost in the roller coaster ride of emotions, otherwise, it would be no fun to pay to watch the movie.

Now, when we are watching a movie we tend to forget that the movie has already been acted out by actors in a controlled environment, it has already been shot, it has already been put onto film, and now it is just being projected out onto the white movie theatre screen.

Even though it has already been shot, you may still find yourself yelling at the actors, “Don’t go in that room! He’s right there! What are you doing, you fools?!” What would make you react that way unless you believed that what was already past, what was already shot, is still present and happening right now.

What would make you react in such a way unless you forgot it was just a movie. Remembering that it is just a movie allows you to remember that I’m not a character in that movie, and I don’t have to yell at the other characters to not go in the room, because I can’t change what is happening as the movie is over.

Using this analogy of watching a movie in a movie theatre, I can recognise I have no choice in what is playing out on the screen, but I can always choose how I am going to perceive the movie. Am I going to watch it unfold in peace, or am I going to get lost in the movie and experience the roller coaster of emotion that comes along with it?

This is a metaphor pointing to, “Are you going to seem to watch what unfolds with Spirit, as the true Self You Are, or are you going to watch what seems to unfold with the seeming ego, misidentifying with these false beliefs and thoughts and upsetting emotions?”

Friend: Yes, trying to fill or relieve the idea of lack by external means is like trying to change the movie. It is impossible and brings no real peace or lasting experience because how you are seeing the movie, through the filter of lack or a false sense of self, is still there on the mental level.

Dylan: Precisely, which is why there is no point of trying to change what is an effect of the mind. When I was working through the same experience as I began to question and inquire, I would open up to intuitive guidance. As I shifted from perceiving problems being solely perception-based to seeming problems being a misidentification on the level of mind.

This intuitive guidance initially looked like me asking, “How do I solve this in form, where am I to go, whom am I to meet, and what am I to say?” Then inspired ideas, inner nudges or feelings, inner images or thoughts were given, or at times even nothing was given as an answer.

Following these intuitive prompts and guidance were used to practically unwind from the misperception of being solely focused on perception to opening to the recognition of the level of mind, the level of misidentification with false beliefs and thoughts, and effectual emotions and perceptions.

As I began to follow intuitive guidance, my attention would be taken off of perception to watch or observe what was happening mentally. We can call this mind-watching. I would just observe the thoughts and beliefs that would arise during the day and see what was being misidentified with.

I realised the only purpose of perception was to use it to mind-watch and question all of the limiting beliefs and thoughts that were being misidentified with. As I focused on this, things in perception seemed to work out synchronistically by themselves.

Jesus says, “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and all else will be added onto you.” If you are willing to question and inquire into the root of what is being experienced, for the experience of recognising the true Self or Peace, everything else will be added onto you to fulfill this, without exception.

What I did not realise at that moment was that this is the only thing that works, without fail. Everything in the world is iffy, may or may not work, but this works 100% without fail. Why? Because you ultimately already Are what You Are seeking for, therefore, it cannot fail and must work; not only work but is inevitable.

Friend: Yes, I feel what you are saying, as it was just recently that I felt to call someone and as soon as I picked up the mobile they called. It all becomes a synchronistic dance. I was actually clueless and just followed through on an inspired thought.

Ah yes! The daily ideas, “Let me recognise my problems so they can be solved,” and then, “Let me recognise the problem has been solved.” The seeming problem was a perceptual problem, a misidentification, and I can see the misidentification as false.

Dylan: Every moment is filled with glee, as you start to come to that central desire of what is it that I truly desire. It was only the misidentification with false, limiting beliefs and thoughts that spoke against the one, true, loving nature of Self that seemed to make everything dark, make it seem you were seeing through the glass, darkly.

Whenever you get caught up into perception, you have to come back to recognise that it is how you are seeing what seems to be playing out, is where the true level of choice lies. Am I going to perceive what seems to be playing out in Peace, knowing I am not a victim, and that the Peace of Being is available right now if desired solely? Or am I going to misperceive what seems to be playing out through a darkened glass, misidentified with false, limiting beliefs and thoughts of a false sense of self, and its seeming goals of future happiness and peace?

The only purpose of perception is to raise these false, limiting beliefs and thoughts, and the misidentification with them into conscious awareness. Here, the misidentification with them can be seen as false. The idea of an other, or a choice between peace and something else, falls away. There is no need to try and get rid of any thought, emotion or perception, no need to try and fix anything, stop them or control them. Just a gentle observation of everything with non-judgement, in which the ego is seen as false.

Friend: “Forgiveness merely waits, watches, and judges not.”

Dylan: Yes, this is the true meaning of forgiveness! Seeing the falsity of the misidentification with ego thoughts, emotions, and perceptions and overlooking them to extend the true qualities of Being. Non-judgement, unconditional Love, and lasting Peace and Joy are left shining As It Is. “The Peace that surpasseth human understanding,” as stated by Jesus.

When what is false is seen as false, what is true is left shining As It Is available this very moment. Enlightenment is but a recognition and not a change at all. Enlightenment is not a becoming, and it’s not circumstance dependent to be What You Already Are. “Nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.”

You are safe in this moment, as you always have what you need now, and all that you need You Already Are. Perfection comes with non-judgement. Love comes with non-judgement. With non-judgement you are always where you need to be, without exception!

Bask in the glee of non-judgement, knowing all things work together for good in the cluelessness of Being. You truly can’t mess anything up, as all lack of joy rested on the false idea that you could. When the mind stops misdefining the problem, space can open up for the miracle to drop in. Spirit takes care of all perceived needs as long as they are needed.

Rest in this moment, relax as Presence, for this moment is all there is. You are the Safety that was sought for in the world. You Are the Divine Providence.

Recognising Your Invulnerability

This blog was written as a stepping-stone pointing to the recognition of one’s true Selfthe experience of Inner Peace beyond intellectual understanding!


Sweet Beloved,

Would you be willing to drop all psychological defenses if they were reinterpreted to be a defense against consistent Peace and the true Self; that all fear is really the fear of knowing you are loved and loving now as the true Self.

Would you gladly see that the fear of the future is really the fear of recognising that you are so unconditionally loved, 100% safe and supported right now and in every moment? Would you gladly see that all guilt is really the fear of recognising and extending your inherent Innocence, and how you are loved now? Would you gladly see that the fear of joining with others is really the fear of being vulnerable and recognising the unconditional Love that is there for all, towards all, right now?

Would these psychological defenses still hold value if you recognised they were defending what you really wanted now: the Joy, Happiness, Peace, and unconditional Love that is available right now as your true Self as Presence?

Who You Are, as the true Self, cannot be touched or harmed by any false ego thought, emotion, or perception that seems to arise within awareness. Just like the empty space in a room, as a symbolic metaphor, it cannot be touched or harmed by any of the contents of activity that seem to arise within it. What need does this space have to protect any area of itself in this recognition?

Take my hand and let the mind gently lower these unneeded defenses so that you may recognise your perfect safety. It is okay to laugh at every ounce of seriousness of the world. Remember to laugh, recognising that these false ideas of the false sense of self were all unreal appearances that needed one to remember not to laugh to have any sense of an effect.

One is forever safe. Nothing can touch one here, for what remnant of fear can enter into the unconditional Love? What a joy it is recognising that invulnerability is inherent in recognising the true Being underneath the false ego-self. Through your decision for Love, the mind’s singular desire for Self, you recognise the true Self, out of which your invulnerability is sourced.

In the gentle seeing that mind is the only causative level, you recognise that there are no causes in the world or perception that have the power to disturb your consistent peace of mind. Perception was only an effect, only a mirror of what is looked upon within, and the ego was the false cause of suffering. If a premise is false, everything that results from that premise must also be false.

In overlooking the ego on the level of mind you gracefully overlook all of its false effects. In this instant, you experience that nothing can affect your peace of mind, that nothing can touch the Self. You were only ever reacting to the false ego thoughts that crossed the mind. Perception was only the canvas in which the mind painted using these thoughts.

This is a cause for joy! If one is only ever reacting and responding to one’s state of mind, which is always under one’s direction, then the target of the ego’s projection is always wholly innocent and worthy of love. No one never did anything wrong, or right, for that matter!

Who would react at all to the images on the movie theatre screen when it’s recognised that you, who is like the screen in which the images appear on, are never touched by any of the projected images or events on the screen. Let the images on the cinema screen be as loving or as hateful as they may, in your power of decision, as a stepping-stone, you can accept the Love and Innocence of the true Self beyond the images.

The Peace that You Are is never disturbed.

Such is the joy of recognising no-one never did anything to anything. Everyone really loves each other very much, even if it is not entirely seen in awareness. The true Self is One, and Oneness is Love. All sense of an other, and of another choice to choose between, was but a dream to be awoken from.

The seeming problem and seeming solution to one’s experience has always resided with one’s Self.

Remember to laugh, Beloved. I love you!

❤ ❤ ❤

The Impossibility of Judgement

This blog was written as a stepping-stone pointing to the recognition of one’s true Self—the experience of Inner Peace beyond intellectual understanding!


Everything is expressing itself perfectly as it is in every moment because it is arising. Nothing could be any different than how it is appearing right now. Just as one listens to a song, dancing and singing to every note that is arising in perfection, so, too, can one witness the perfection of the unending moment.

Perfection comes with non-judgement. Love comes with non-judgement. Non-judgement means you see the sameness of everything, you, ultimately, see the oneness of everything making no differences where there is none.

Initially, the mind appears to misidentify with a false sense of self, and, therefore, claims to have judgemental thoughts. The unchanging true Self is seemingly shrunken down to these false ego thoughts that arise in mind, and this is where the misidentification comes in.

Through inquiry, one is able to begin to observe the ego with non-judgement, in which the falsity of the misidentification with the ego’s judgemental thoughts is realised. Realising that these thoughts were never mine, never part of the Self, yet, seemed to be experienced because of the misidentification with them. It is as if the sky thought it were solely the passing clouds.

When one seems to misidentify with this false sense of self and tries to place control and judgement onto anything of the world, it is essentially saying: 

“I, who see but through a keyhole, claim that I know the entire picture, therefore, what is best for all involved…
I, with my limited perceptions, know better than what is currently arising in its perfected state in each moment…
I, who know better than the movement of life, command the arrest of this perfect state of momentary arisings so I can mold it all into my limited image of how I want it to be.”

The arrogance of the ego can be clearly seen when put this way. Fear would be an appropriate effect from this distortion, as it is indeed fearful to try to make something into what it is not. Who One Is beyond the false sense of self does not have to worry about not judging, but through the above, joyfully recognise that it is impossible for one to judge anything.

Judgement must rest of duality, of two separate things. If the true Self is One Self what is there to judge between? Judgement must be the false experience of a false sense of selfan illusion.

Let’s say, as an example, that one has two children and one now has to choose to send one to hell eternally and the other to Heaven. Which would you choose to spend in hell? Now, this is not really a question at all, is it? Judgement is impossible here because both are worthy of love. One has deemed them worthy of love because one sees them as part of oneself. You see their oneness with you, and isn’t that what the experience of love is, experiencing the recognition of Oneness or unity.

One deems the children worthy of love and places no judgement on any of them. Not because they can, but because it is literally impossible to do so in Love or Oneness.

When one forgets about the true, One Self, taking on the misidentification with the ego, this false sense of self falsely projects onto God that some go to hell and some to Heaven, despite not even yourself being able to do something as such. You can see where the duality comes in again. The ego projects its false, dualistic opposites. “Well, it says, if there is Heaven then there must be an opposite to that. Ah, hell.” The mind that misidentifies with the ego fails to recognise that the experience of doing so is, indeed, hell itself.

The ego is the denial of the true Self, therefore, the mind misaligned with the ego is trying to go against itself. This is where all the apparent inner conflict seems to arise. This is Divine Logic. You can only get apples from apple trees. If you compromise on the true Self that is Happiness, the only result can be unhappiness.

I share with certainty that Love judges not, because Love sees only Love and expresses only Love. Source or God, being 100% pure, unconditional Love, has nothing to do with duality or opposites. The true Self, which is One with All, has nothing to judge, nothing to claim as a problem in any momentary arising, and nothing to condemn.

Judgement rests on separation or duality. By using this example, you can see that in recognition of the Oneness of Self, the impossibility of judgement is experienced without a doubt because the awareness of unconditional Love floods one’s awareness. Judgement only seemed to come from a false sense of self, the false ego-self, but what is false is only illusory in nature.

In recognising its falsity or illusory nature is when you recognise that you don’t even have to stop judging, but that you have never judged in the first place. You were never the ego, it never existed. This recognition entails the Being or Self that is the Self of non-judgement. There was only the illusion of judgement. Nothing from the illusion of this had any real effects. It is not the mind’s function to judge, for what is One cannot judge.

Relax into the ease of accepting the perfection of everything and everyOne, including your Self, As It truly Is and as it all arises. It all now becomes a dance to a giant Love song, with a problemless state of mind. There is nothing more to achieve. There are no more problems to solve. There is nothing more to attain or strive for. The Stillness of the Self is all that is present.

Remember to laugh, Loved One. I love you!

❤ ❤ ❤

Rest Comes From Waking

This blog was written as a stepping-stone pointing to the recognition of one’s true Self—the experience of Inner Peace beyond intellectual understanding!


Aware of the multitude of chitter-chatter arising in the mind, one can sit and watch, judging not. Watching just as the sky observes clouds passing by. The chitter-chatter of the mind and most resulting words are much to do about nothing.

The thoughts arising are but mist and the words spoken from this mist dissipate with the sun, meaning nothing. A substitute for Stillness. A substitute for the present moment. A desperate defense against the one thing the chitter-chatter fears the most: the stillness of Presence and the fountain of Love that is waiting to be accepted in this moment, if you were to see its falsity or illusory nature. The recognition of the true Self is here right now.

Resting as Presence, aware of all ego thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Silently aware. They all walk up to the House and knock. Yet, the true Self remains unchanged throughout all these ego thoughts, emotions, and perceptions.

What could all of these arisings be about? A light turns on. A realisation. The remembrance of Knowledge. One has only seemingly overlooked the true Self. Like the light from a flashlight it cannot be seen by itself, and then seemingly misidentifies with what it is aware of, with what the flashlight shines on which all can be seen as something separate from something else.

A desire to separate and claim a false, separate identity, to separate from the vastness and ever-flowing Love that is present this very moment.

“This need not be,” Self whispers.

This need not be! It was accepted and One recognised Itself as It is, resting as Itself. One doesn’t have to misidentify with a false sense of self. It can just as easily be overlooked, just as the Self can seemingly be overlooked for the false sense of self. The seeming amnesia of one’s true Self replaced with the acceptance of exuberant joy that this need not be!

Rest comes from waking. True rest in the true Self that never slept, that lets everything be as it is and judges not. Goals for separation laid aside, now at rest in the gentle and joyous flow that everything is.

Peace is inherent in the Self that One already Is. Rest as this. The thinking of the world is no more and is but seen as one and the sameillusion. Abiding quietly in Stillness as the Stillness of the present moment. Nothing but blankets of Love. The rivers have returned to the sea and one now joins with the Ocean. Two recognised as One having never appeared as two.

Remember to laugh, Loved One. I love you!

❤ ❤ ❤