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.

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.

Not going with the flow

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.