Higher joy is not what human beings call joy, for human joy is always contrasted with the opposite of joy, whether it be sadness or depression or whatever words you may attach to it. Higher joy has no opposite, has no contrast to it. Some human beings would say that it is not joy, for they cannot fathom that there can be a positive feeling that is not in contrast to a negative feeling. They would think that a feeling that has no contrast has no intensity, has no validity, has no perspective, has no value to them. They are still not in the state of having had enough of what the duality consciousness offers, which is, of course, always that every feeling has an opposite.

There may be a certain intensity of joy if you have had a long period of sadness and now suddenly experience something that gives you joy. It may feel more intense on the background of the sadness. Your happiness may feel more intense on the background of unhappiness. There are many, many people who will say that you cannot be happy if you are never unhappy, so they will say, those who are still attached to the duality consciousness.

In a sense, you could say that they are right, for when you are in duality, you cannot experience a joy that has no contrast, a happiness that has no contrast. Your feelings will always be seen in contrast to their opposites, and what does this mean? It means that you cannot be truly joyful or truly happy.

You may think of so many people who have experienced conditions that should make them happy. You will know, if you take a look at this, that people everywhere have a tendency to define certain conditions and they think that: “If I have this situation, if I find the perfect love partner, if I have the perfect house, if I have children, if I have money, if I can travel, if I can do this, if I can do that, then I should be happy.”

Built into human happiness is fear for the future

There are, indeed, many people who, especially in the more affluent part of the world, do experience, in a period of their lives, that one of the main conditions that they feel they need in order to be happy has been fulfilled. There are many people who have actually felt happy in a human sense.

If you have not, then you have surely experienced in some part of your life that you had the conditions that you thought were necessary for you to feel happy. If you will go into the feeling of human happiness and take a closer look, you will see that there is always an element of unhappiness lying built-into the human happiness.

Why is this so? Because human happiness is in contrast to unhappiness. Most people have experienced being unhappy, maybe for the greater part of their lives, and then, now they are experiencing the conditions that should make them feel happy. They do feel happy, but their happiness is in contrast to unhappiness, and what does this mean? It means that built-into human happiness is always the fear that it cannot last, a fear for the future.

There may be brief intervals of time where you can be so almost intoxicated with human happiness that you are not consciously aware of your fear of the future. It is still there in the background, and once in a while, it will lift up its ugly head, and you will feel a twinge of this fear. “Can this happiness last? Could something happen that would take it away from me?”

Then, you can go into various spirals of worry or anxiety that can take away your ability to appreciate your situation, to appreciate what should be a happy time. You see many people who have the conditions that they need in order to be happy, yet after some time, the intoxication of their first happiness fades away, and now, there is this anxiety for the future.

Why do so many people feel that they live in difficult times? Well, it has a lot to do with the anxiety, the fear for the future. There is a segment of the human population (and it is a growing segment) that has become more and more absorbed in this anxiety for the future, even though the world is not truly going from bad to worse.

From the view of higher awareness, the earth is in an upward spiral and it is moving closer and closer to the manifestation of the Age of Higher Awareness. The earth is making progress every year that the collective consciousness is being raised. This is the reality, if you can talk about reality on earth.

Seeing reality from higher awareness

What is reality? One definition of reality would be that the reality for earth is what is perceived from higher awareness. In contrast to this is what human beings perceive from inside the energetic system of earth, from inside the collective consciousness.

Of course, most people think that what they perceive is reality, but from the perspective of higher awareness, there is no human being on earth who can see what you see from the highest awareness. You cannot be in embodiment (where you see life on earth through the perception filter of the four lower bodies) and, at the same time, see the perspective of highest awareness.

This cannot be done, regardless of your state of consciousness. Even a person at the highest level of consciousness possible on earth, even a person who has what many people call enlightenment, cannot see from the highest perspective.

What is the point of negative prophecies?

Many people around the world, who are either spiritual or religious, are using various means to come up with a dire prophecy about the future. It could be astrology. It could be some psychic medium. It could be spiritual teachings from the past. It could be this or that or the next thing.

What is the point of prophesying the negative events that might happen when they are only bumps in the road and will not truly delay the descent of the Age of Higher Awareness? The bumps in the road are only in order to intensify the experience people are having so that they can more quickly come to the point where they have had enough of the negative and can now embrace the descent of the Age of Higher Awareness. People who want the negative are wanting this because they have a drama in their consciousness that they have not tired of.

Prophecies as an excuse for postponing growth

Higher awareness sees the reality that the earth is in an upward spiral. Negative prophecies are for many an excuse for postponing their growth. They say (subconsciously) that they cannot focus on growth when there are so many negative portents for the Earth. What is the essence of higher awareness? Is it not that you attain mastery over the material realm?

How can you attain higher awareness if you are letting the material realm master your state of consciousness? How can you turn back the negative portents without manifesting higher awareness? How can you turn back anything, if you postpone your growth because you think negative events will happen?

There is a switch that can be made in the mind, and it can be made very easily when you come to that point of realizing that duality is contradictory. There is always a built-in contradiction, and when you come to the point where you are willing to look at yourself and see that you hold certain ideas, certain subtle beliefs and attitudes, that are actually contradicting themselves—that is when you can make the shift instantly and shift out of this.

That is when you can come to higher awareness, and you have no perception filter of what you want it to say. You are not coming with a preconceived view of life that you want higher awareness to validate. You are coming to the point where you are now open, and you are saying: “I just want to know the highest truth I can see, and then I am willing to raise my consciousness so I can see an even higher truth.”

How truth is sought to confirm preconceived ideas

Ninetynine percent of the people on this planet approach truth in this way: They have a preconceived idea of what truth is in their minds, and they are looking for validation of that truth. Some look to science. Some look to a political authority. Some look to a religious authority. A small but growing number are looking to higher awareness.

The more aware people need to make the switch where you realize that you do not want higher awareness to validate your preconceived idea of truth. You want higher awareness to give you a higher truth than what you can conceive of right now. This is growth. This is what the spiritual path is all about. For each of the 144 possible levels of consciousness on earth there is a certain perception?

When you are at a certain level, when you have a certain experience, then the experience you are having will seem completely real to you. This means that whatever level of consciousness you are at right now, you can grasp a certain aspect of truth, and this aspect of truth will seem completely true to you.

When you are looking at life through the perception filter of your four lower bodies, the truth you are capable of grasping at your present level of consciousness will seem completely true to you. You will think this is the ultimate truth. This is what you will experience.

You have a certain experience of reality. How will you ever grow beyond that level of consciousness? Only when you are willing to question your sense of reality, question the truth that you think is real, and ask higher awareness to give you a higher truth. If you are absolutely sure that what you know right now is the ultimate truth, how can you possibly open your mind to a higher truth? 

It cannot be done, and many have taken a teaching and used it to validate their preconceived truth. In some cases, they have used it to come up higher and grasp a higher truth, but they have still come to a point where they have used an outer teaching to validate their preconceived truth, the highest truth they are able to grasp with their present level of consciousness.

This is where many people have stopped their growth towards higher discernment because now they have no longer been open to having higher awareness give them a higher truth, a higher perception of truth. It is possible to still grow by studying spiritual teachings, but only if you come to the point where you stop seeking validation for your preconceived truth.

You are willing to question the truth you see. You are willing to question your sense of reality, and you are willing to open your mind and heart directly to higher awareness to give you something higher from within. If you can do this, it does not matter which outer teaching you are following. There are Christians who have studied the Bible. There are Buddhists who have studied the Dhammapada. They have been open to receiving progressively higher revelations of truth and understanding from within, and therefore, they grow.