Abraham On "The Stream"
Imagine taking your canoe
down to the river's edge
a very nice fast moving stream
and your oars or paddles are
already attached to your boat
and you put it in the water
and you deliberately turn it upstream
and begin paddling very hard
against this fast moving current.
And we say
why not just turn and go with the flow?
And our human friends
invariably say
doesn't that seem lazy?
That seems lazy.
And then they will say
my mother would not approve of that.
Or my teachers.
They all had me pointing the other way.
In fact
every plaque on my wall
was based upon paddling upstream.
And I was measured against
the others who did it too
and the better we did it
the better we were able
to fight that current
then the more proud
our human friends were of us
and the bigger the trophies and monuments
and we hear that
when you die there are even more.
And we want you to know something
in fact it's worth writing this down.
Nothing that you want is upstream.
And the reason we know that is because
we've seen the cycle of life.
We know that Source
extended itself here
into that which is you
and we know that you are asking
as a result of your leading edge experience
- just like you knew you would -
for more
and we know that Source
is becoming that more
that you are asking for
and is calling you to it
and so we know the source of the Stream.
And we know that when you turn
and go with the Stream
you feel ever so good.
That's what positive emotion is.
Varying degrees of it
but it's what positive emotion is.
And we also know
that when you buck that current
it can beat up on you pretty good
and that's what negative emotion is.
We want you to understand
that there is only one Stream
that you might be going with or against
but there is only one Stream.
And when you learn from those around you
to go against the Stream
then you want to pronounce
that there are evil streams.
That there are streams of sickness
or streams of badness
or streams of poverty.
We say no
just one Stream.
You're just not going with it.
You say oh that can't be.
If it's a stream of goodness
why is it beating me up so?
And we say
because you're clinging to the bottom.
It's beating you up
because you're not going with
your self-created Stream.
Do you get this?
And that really is the strongest point
that we want to make with you.
This Stream of Well-Being
is a powerful stream
and it takes you downstream
whether you go easily or not.
In other words
when you look around at your environment
you've just got to aknowledge
that well-being abounds.
Your planet continues
to spin in its orbit.
And even beyond
the well-being that is obvious
- more obvious to
some of you than others granted -
but even beyond
the well-being that is obvious
we want to remind you that
even when you get farther downstream
and you have that
which you call your physical death
which there isn't any of.
We like to be disrespectful of death
since there isn't any
and call it 'croaking'.
When you - when you croak
you really move rapidly
with this Stream of Well-Being.
In other words The Stream of Well-Being
is not only dominant
it's all that there is.
So while you can be
in this physical body
and you can fume and fuss
and give yourself a lot of grief
and point in opposition of The Stream
to the point
that you beat yourself up pretty good
and then claim
that there can not possibly be
a Stream of Well-Being
because your life is going so badly.
We want to say to you
if you would let go
of your resistance
and start going with the flow
you will discover
how good this Stream can be to you.
The river guide said
to all of Jerry and Esther's friends
you know
that rock is not moving with the flow.
And because it isn't
and the water is rushing past it
if we get our raft
sideways up against one of those rocks
it will be big trouble for us.
It could turn us over
trap you in the rocks
and the stream will
beat you up.
So the idea
is not to get up against one of those
boulders that is not moving.
He made it very clear.
He said if you will listen to me
I will guide you around them
and if you don't listen to me
you may end up
up against one of those rocks.
And we say
the same thing applies in this Stream
that is flowing so rapidly.
When you let yourself go with it
you have a glorious ride
but when you paddle against it
or cling to the bottom -
when you don't let yourself go
that's what fear and depression -
that's what that feeling of
loss of control is.
That's what that feeling of
disempowerment is.
And we also want to remind you that
this Stream is not
being assigned to you by someone else.
Source or God or someone benevolent
or not benevolent is not saying
oh let's speed up their Stream
and see how well they do.
You are the one
that makes your Stream go
to the speed it does.
A mother on a recent seminar
took a break during segment of lunch
and had lunch with her child
who said to her
when you get back
if you get a chance
would you please ask
Abraham a question for me?
And she said, I will.
And he said
why are grown-ups so grumpy?
And we said
it is the best question we've heard
and it applies to
what we're talking about here
more than anything else
that we can think of.
Grow-ups are more grumpy
than children -
there are grumpy children
but grown-ups on the whole
are much more grumpy than children
because they've lived more life
and they've got a faster moving Stream.
And when your Stream is moving fast
and you're not flowing with it
it's beating you up
and it makes you grumpy.
In other words
it just comes down to one thing
and that is
if you are to be the joyful being
you want to be
and that you are meant to be
you've got to go with the flow.
And when you don't
you don't feel good.
It's just that simple.
of your own creation
is what makes you feel
unfulfilled.
It's what makes you feel dissatisfied
and worse.
It's what makes you feel overwhelmed.
It's what makes you feel frustrated.
It's what makes you feel angry.
It's what makes you feel fearful.
It's what makes you feel discouraged
and depressed.
Not going with the flow
is what is at the heart
of every negative emotion that you feel.
So when you think about that
break it down into the simple terms
that we want you to hear.
That means that your life
just like you knew it would
has caused you
to launch many rockets of desires
that if you're feeling negative emotion
you're not keeping up to speed with.
On the other hand
if you do keep up to speed
with the rockets of desires
you've launched
you feel wonderful.
You feel wonderful when you
launch the desire.
You feel wonderful
even before the desire manifests.
You feel wonderful even though
you don't see the evidence
of it manifesting yet.
You feel wonderful wonderful wonderful
all the way to manifestation.
And when you feel wonderful
manifestation of what you want
is assured.
And when you don't feel wonderful
manifestation is slowed
maybe even held apart
your entire lifetime from you
and most important
even more important
than you not manifesting what you want
is that you feel rotten all the time
while you're not letting it flow.
So we want you to get a sense
from this analogy that we're offering
- a very apt appropriate analogy -
that if you will just make a decision
that however you can make it happen
you're going to turn
and go with the flow.
Sometimes we think -
especially those of you
who've been listening to us for a while -
as we crow about the good-feeling emotions
being on this end 0:08:02.960,0:08:04.090 of the emotional scale
love and joy and
all of that wonderful energy
and on the other end of the scale
are things that feel like
depression and fear and anger -
and we know that we give you the impression
that your work is to
not only not be on this end of the scale
but get to this end of the scale
as quickly as possible.
And of course we'd rather that you felt
this way than this way
but what we really
want you to understand is that
since The Stream is moving
we really are not asking you
to turn your boat downstream
and put a motor on it
and get all the way down here
as quickly as you can
because we know the power of The Stream.
You don't have to do that.
In fact you don't even have to
turn your boat in The Stream.
Just stop paddling upstream.
Just stop paddling against the current.
The current will turn you.
And this is the thing
we most want you to hear.
As the current turns you
that's your point of relief.
And when you think about it
that is your only choice.
Upstream
or not.
Upstream or not.
Of course it's nice
when you're choosing downstream
and you're so good at it
that you can really choose it
but your choice in any moment is really
to feel worse
or better.
Worse
or better.
And when you make that decision
all day every day -
I could beat the drum
of this situation and make it worse
or I could just stop talking about it
and make it better.