We will now take a closer look at the epic struggle. This struggle is the single-most successful device created by the forces of anti-christ to keep human beings trapped in the mind of duality, thereby feeding their light to the forces of anti-christ. This light enables them to survive, even though they have long ago been cut off from receiving spiritual light directly.
The key to understanding the epic struggle is the teaching that higher awareness is undivided and indivisible. Higher awareness is the Infinite, and that which is infinite is everywhere, meaning that it cannot be divided into parts that are separated by distance.
Concepts such as division and distance simply have no meaning when you are talking about the ultimate reality. As a side note, this means that any God who favors one group of people over all others, such as the ancient Israelites, can only be a dualistic god.
Understanding the two basic choices
Co-creators have two spheres within which they can exercise their co-creative abilities. One is the Sphere of Oneness in which they co-create within the framework of God’s laws. This means that everything they create will raise up themselves and all life, bringing God’s overall plan closer to manifestation. By exercising your free will within this sphere, you do not give up any freedom. On the contrary, as illustrated in Jesus’ parable about the talents, your creative abilities are multiplied, and you actually gain greater creative freedom.
The other option is to exercise your creative abilities outside the Sphere of Oneness by acting as a separate individual. This is not possible in the spiritual realm because the vibration of the light that forms the spiritual realm is so high that the illusion of separateness cannot be maintained.
The material universe has pockets – earth being one of them – in which the vibration of the light is so low that the illusion of separation seems plausible. The illusion can be maintained only because of the density of matter that prevents your thoughts from being instantaneously manifest. This gives the illusion of a separation between consciousness and matter and makes possible the illusion that you are a separate individual who is not linked to others through the collective consciousness.
This illusion of separation gives rise to the further illusion that you can take physical actions and escape the consequences, meaning that you can do onto others without having others – or the universe – do onto you. This is, of course, a complete illusion, for no one can escape the consequences of his or her actions. When you exercise your creative abilities in a way that limits other parts of life – seeking to raise up the separate self – you will diminish your creative power and limit your freedom.
When people are blinded by the illusion of separation, they fail to see this. They can – for some time – maintain the illusion that they are raising the separate self in comparison to other separate selves. They can even maintain the illusion that they gain freedom only by going against God’s will—the will of the external god of their own making.
You can co-create in a way that raises up all life – including yourself – or you can de-create in a way that diminishes all life—again, yourself included. The first option should be the obvious choice, but once beings are blinded by the illusion of a separate self, it is not. The illusion that you can gain an advantage by raising up the separate self in comparison to others becomes the “obvious” choice. Out of this illusion, the epic struggle is born.
Why the epic struggle is pointless
Many myths portray the world as being locked in an epic struggle between two opposing forces. These myths range from ancient mythology, such as the Iliad and the Bhagavad Gita, to modern mythology, such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Throughout the ages, many people have looked at the world and concluded that this portrayal is true and that there is an epic struggle. Indeed, there is such a struggle—only it is not between the true God and some entity that opposes God.
When you begin to glimpse God as infinite and formless, you see that because that which is infinite cannot be divided, it can have no opposite. In higher awareness, there is only oneness so how can there be a struggle? The Infinite God does not see itself as opposed by anything, meaning that there is no struggle within God’s Sphere of Oneness.
How is the struggle born? You can leave oneness only by creating a sense of distance, which you do by defining two opposing polarities that will forever be separated. As soon as those two polarities are defined, the epic struggle between them is the inevitable result.
The struggle can have no reality in higher awareness. It can exist only in the minds of self-aware beings who have stepped outside the Sphere of Oneness—meaning that it is ultimately unreal. Why is it unreal?
The promise of the struggle is that there are two sides and that one represents ultimate good and the other ultimate evil. By aligning yourself with ultimate good and by fighting against the people who are aligned with evil, you – as a separate self – will gain a distinct advantage. Eventually, ultimate good will win the struggle and then all who helped destroy ultimate evil will be rewarded.
On a deeper level, this promise of a reward for a separate self is an illusion—since the separate self is an illusion. Of course, no one blinded by separation can see this. Yet even those blinded by separation can see that if the promise of a reward was false, it would be silly of them to fight for one side and against the other.
Consider how the promise could be fulfilled? It can happen only when good finally destroys evil. On a deeper level, what human beings call “good” was created in a polarity with what they call “evil.” The two are inseparable, meaning that one can never destroy the other. The only way for the epic struggle to end is if both are transcended! Good does not cancel out evil. The reality of higher awareness cancels out the illusion of the dualistic struggle.
No one blinded by separation can see this point, because such beings cannot see beyond the illusion of separation. Those who have started seeing beyond duality can see that the epic struggle is utterly pointless. It simply is not possible that good can win over evil, for “good” and “evil” are relative terms that cannot exist independently of each other. They were created together and can only be “erased” together.
You might say that ultimate good can win, but even that is an incorrect use of words. Ultimate good – the indivisible God – is not engaged in any struggle, for it recognizes no division—his eyes behold no iniquity. The ultimate God is not trying to defeat the devil, for God recognizes the unreality of the devil and thus sees no need to engage him in any way. The devil is not a threat to the Creator—the devil is simply irrelevant.
The epic struggle is a grand illusion that has the effect of sucking people into an activity that eats up their attention and energy without having the potential of giving them what they seek. Even spiritual seekers can be sucked into this struggle by thinking they are fighting for the ultimate cause, fighting for God’s cause.
Even the epic struggle can be used to promote spiritual progress. One of the greatest enemies of progress is that people become comfortable in a certain lifestyle and simply want to enjoy life in the material realm. Throughout the ages, the epic struggle has indeed had the effect of pulling people out of that comfortability and “forcing” them to increase their skills in order to “defeat” the enemy—as for example seen in martial arts.
Even though the struggle is an illusion, it can still be used to promote growth. The downside, of course, is that once people become warriors, they can become stuck in that role for many lifetimes before they finally move on to become sages, seeking peace through the mind rather than seeking it through victory in war.
It has always been the hope that those who are direct students of spiritual teachings would eventually rise above the struggle. Those who have not been willing to do this must intensify the sense of struggle until people finally have enough. How long can you be in the mindset of fighting a war? Even the second world war lasted only five years, but some people have been fighting their own private, spiritual war against evil for decades. Their selves are laughing all the way to the bank where they cash in the light that people misqualify through the struggle.
The illusion of a separate salvation
Once people engage in the epic struggle, they inevitably become more and more focused on themselves—as a distinct group set apart from all other people. An extreme example of this is the idea that a small tribe in the Middle East was – and is – God’s chosen people and will be favored above all others. There are many more examples of this, for example that the members of a small fundamentalist church are the only ones who will be saved by Jesus’ return.
What is wrong with this idea? The plan of higher awareness is for the raising up of all life until the entire sphere of the material universe ascends and becomes a part of the spiritual realm. This does entail that individual people raise their consciousness and thereby pull up the collective consciousness.
Raising your individual consciousness will eventually lead to Christ consciousness. When you do attain this consciousness, you rise above the illusions of the selves whereby you see the oneness of all life. Higher awareness is seeking to raise up all life because to higher awareness all life is part of the One Greater Self—the only self that exists.
When you attain Christ consciousness, you see that “inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my little ones, ye have done it unto me.” You see through the lie of a separate salvation for one group or even yourself. You see the reality of the oneness of life and your focus shifts from the – selves-based – drive to raise up yourself to the true desire to raise up yourself only as a way to raise the All. As Jesus said:
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
Those who think they are working for the salvation of a narrow group are still caught in the epic struggle. By the very mindset of separating people into those who will be saved and those who will not – based on outer characteristics and not individual choice – they are reinforcing the dualistic mindset that inevitably pits one group of people – as representatives of good – against another group that represents evil.
Millions of religious people are very sincere in their desire to save the world and save other people, but they are misguided in how this should be done. They think the only way is to convert everyone to their religion, based on the dualistic illusion that membership of an earthly religion will guarantee your salvation. The only key to salvation is to raise your consciousness, and that can be attained regardless of your membership or non-membership of any earthly institution.
The sense of urgency
Why is the epic struggle so captivating? Why does it have the ability to suck people in so they forget everything else and become unbalanced? It is because it automatically implies a sense of urgency.
If you study the techniques used in brainwashing – or even in sales techniques – you will see that in order to get people to make rash decisions, you have to create a sense of urgency that puts people under pressure. What greater urgency could there be than the imminent end of the world where Jesus will return and judge all those who are not members of your religion?
Consider some of the other myriad variations over the basic theme of the epic struggle. Look at how many times people have been sucked into thinking that they have to engage in violent actions in order to overcome some form of evil before an epic calamity takes place. What greater urgency can there be than thinking the future of the entire universe, or of God’s plan for that universe, depends on the actions of a small group of people on earth? Even thinking global warming will wipe out all life is a version of the epic struggle.
This makes the selves of such people feel an ultimate sense of importance—something the selves craves as part of their quest for security. Surely, those who respond to the need to save the universe will receive some ultimate reward when evil is finally conquered—or so the selves think.
This sense of urgency can have the effect of pulling people out of indifference and getting them to strive to excel. Even though this can have a positive effect of getting people to engage in the path of higher awareness, it is only meant to be a stage on the path. You are meant to grow out of the sense of urgency so that you naturally continue your growth but now do it with a sense of inner peace.
Higher awareness knows that as long as people are focused on enjoying material pleasures, or are otherwise indifferent to rising above the mass consciousness, they cannot grow spiritually. Once people are locked in to the path, higher awareness has no desire to see them continue in the sense of urgency, thinking the world will end in the near future.
Obviously, there are cycles in the journey of this planet. There are indeed times when an extraordinary effort is needed. Even in those times, higher awareness would much prefer that students lock in to the deeper reality that the world will not end but will continue to provide a platform for the growth of self-aware beings.
The further you go on the path to Christhood, the more the sense of urgency should diminish and give way to a deep inner peace, the peace that passes understanding because it is beyond this world. It is the peace of knowing who you are—an immortal spiritual being who is only temporarily participating in the drama called “Life on earth.” This does not cause you to become indifferent; it only causes you to act from peace rather than fear.