You are not your mind, and you have one. That is the way things are.

Joy and satisfaction is our natural state. It is our essence, the invariable nature of 'who we really are'. We need to work overtime to experience otherwise. The evidence for this assertion can be directly experienced, and what can be directly experienced can be trusted. The evidence for this assertion is in every child. Children are born with 'ways of being' that mirror their essence. These ways of being include courage, persistence, trust, love, self-esteem, honesty, acceptance, compassion, enthusiasm, and joy, to name a few. None of these qualities, or ways of being, need to be taught to children. They seem to come with the package of being a child.

Have you ever gone to the supermarket with a four-year-old for just a carton of milk? If you have, then you have had an opportunity to observe a human being operating from essence. Children operate from essence.

What are young children attracted to while in the supermarket? They are attracted to the cereal, toy, or candy isle. And, if by chance, they make it to any one of these isles you are likely in for a serious lesson in persistence (an expression of your essence). They just won't take no for an answer.

(If you haven't noticed it yet, the next time you are in the supermarket look where they put the sugared-out-cocoa-puffed cereal. They shelve those types of cereal at the eye-level of a four-year-old. It is a set-up. If you want bran or wheat germ you had better look on the top shelf! If you want sweet tasting cereals, and are over 10 years old, you are likely to have to bend at the waist to find them.)

And notice how they present the cereal to you. When a young child gets hold of a box of sugared-out-cocoa-puffed cereal, they present the cereal to you as though they had found the Holy Grail. This is merely an expression their natural enthusiasm, another example of their essence. You were just as enthusiastic about life when you were four years old. What happened? Where did all that enthusiasm go? The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek word 'enthousiasmos', meaning 'to be possessed by a god'. Enthusiasm works. It is divinely inspired. It is O.K. to be enthusiastic, no matter what others around you say. The adult world seems to be suspect of genuine excitement and enthusiasm. Children aren't. They are naturally attracted by enthusiasm, and aren't inhibited in expressing it.

"Look father. Look at what I found! I have wanted this my whole life. It is what I live for. Please, father get it for me!"

Taking a quick look at the list of ingredients of this sugared-out-cocoa-puffed cereal, you realize you might as well eat the box as eat the contents of the box. And with great love and caring you report this obvious fact to your child.

"No. We don't eat this kind of cereal. It is not that good for your growing and tender body. We will, instead, eat oatmeal. It is the smart move."

Now, I have been around a bunch of kids, including my own, and I have never seen any child buy that line. I have never seen a child respond with, "Oh, wise father, who knows all, thank you. If not for you I might have chosen the wrong cereal!"

What I have seen from children, though, is another example of essence. This essence being commitment. They usually demonstrate this by looking at you as if you were an uniformed, yet worthy opponent, and saying something loosely translated as, "Apparently, what we have here is a failure to communicate, father. You don't want to see what I am like if I do not get this box of cereal!" They don't give up without a duel. They will go for it. They might start by working on our common sense, usually by bargaining.

"I'll be a good boy. I'll do whatever else you want me to do, if you get this for me."

And if that doesn't get them what they want, they simply shift gears. Children don't have much attachment on how things should be done and are pretty freed up to be or do what it takes. They'll simply move on to other styles of motivation. They'll work on our guilt, or shame, or embarrassment, or plain old fear. I love children and their passion. Children come hardwired to succeed. I have coached and trained thousands of people who've said they wanted to be more persistent.

I always reply, "Go hang out with three-year-olds. Nobody can teach you something you already know, but they might remind you of how you used to be."

Young children still, for the most part, operate at essence. They are naturally persistent and committed. Children don't know about failure. They are not born with the concept of failure, and the myriad interpretations of what it means to fail. If that were the case, nobody would ever learn to walk on two feet. I watched my children as they were learning to walk. They fell down so much that it was frightening. Failure after failure and not once did they say, "I tried. I guess walking isn't for me. Maybe, you can walk, but I'm just not the right type." They kept at it until they mastered it. In spite of the pain of falling down, they kept getting up and doing it again until they succeeded. Children are the distinct embodiment of the Zen proverb about success.

"Fall down seven times, stand up eight."

Children don't know about failure. You have to teach them about failure. And many are taught precisely that. "Three strikes and you are out." "I tried." "Don't set your sights too high, son." "I don't want to see you disappointed." "Don't let them see you sweat." And so on, and so on, went the lessons.

You were a child. You knew no failure. You decided otherwise. It is time to reclaim your essence.

At your core is your essence. At your core is 'who you really are', your real and invariable nature.

While growing up we build and add the next layer as we experiment with life. The purpose of this construction is to survive. Survival is hardwired in. The way we survive is to learn how to dominate and manipulate our environment. The purpose of this layer is to manipulate and dominate our environment and thus more ensure survival. This layer includes the 'Content of the Mind'. The 'Content of the Mind' includes beliefs, judgments, opinions, and positions. This 'stuff' is constructed as needed to accomplish the mind/body's purpose, to keep you alive as long as possible. The content of the mind is built only to serve the purpose of survival and eventually becomes mostly unconscious and unquestioned. This 'stuff' soon goes unnoticed. There are three basic needs necessary for human survival at the physical level. They are air, nutriments (food, water), and love. Yes, without love babies die, even when supplied with the other two needs. Most of the 'stuff' of the mind was built to serve strategies to attain these needs.

"I'll hold my breath till I get what I want."
"Mommy won't love you, if you don't eat your cereal."
"If I'm a good boy, will you love me."

You want to keep in mind that these basic needs are so hardwired in that we don't think about them. We think and act from them.

Some of the content we created for attaining these needs now blocks the expression and experience of our essence in our daily life. We sold out our essence for the sake of survival. For example, trust is part of our essence, yet we learned to not trust, or withhold our love, or manipulate our parents, or just plain learned how to duck the blows. As children we went along, in order to get along, so to speak. "I'll be how you want me to be, if you love me, or at least not hurt me, or keep me safe (a form of love)." Being Right

Another aspect of our mind is that it places extreme amounts of survival value on the experience of simply being right. This isn't 'measurement right'. This is 'emotional right' or 'intellectual right'. Much of the content we built simply continues to serve to make us right, but does nothing to express our essence, that being joy and satisfaction. This is the auto-pilot, the programmed part of our mind. It functions much like a computer. It reacts to its environment from the context of survival. 'Being wrong' is soon experienced as a form of losing. And losing feels like being dominated. Being wrong means being dominated. Being dominated is one step short of being dead to the mind. 'Being right' to the mind has so much survival value that a human being will even sacrifice its physical survival in order to be right. We have a whole bunch of 'stuff' about being right. People can kill themselves in a final grand statement of their righteousness. The entire world is made wrong in the one final action of suicide. Or sometimes a slow 'make wrong' is chosen throughout life, not enough to kill the immediate biological aspect of life, but certainly the spiritual or emotional aspect. Loneliness is slow suicide.

"Being right" about your 'stuff' carried to its extreme could be referred to as being delusional. Most people simply carry 'being right' about their 'content of the mind" to a level that creates great deals of drama and conflict in their relationships. "Nobody loves me." "People can't be trusted." "I never get what I want." "Everybody should like me." "I'm too old for that." Because its not carried to an extreme and everyone has ''stuff', through careful, if unconscious filtering, it is possible for you to find people with similar 'stuff' and thus further insure that your 'stuff' is the right 'stuff'. Birds of a feather do tend to flock together.

The purpose of this transformation (I am not my 'stuff'.) is to begin to see what a terrific joke you play on yourself about your 'mind's stuff'. This would be a giant leap toward mastery. Having your 'stuff' (content of the mind) become less serious to you (the owner and builder) can be called enlightenment. Learning to lighten up about your 'stuff' is a quantum leap toward mastery. This won't happen if you operate from the belief that you are your mind. You will need to be serious and defensive about your 'stuff'. "If you question the validity or reality of my 'stuff', you are questioning me." People that know the untruth about their 'stuff' attract the most amazing results. People want to be around them, because they not only know that their 'stuff' is unreal, but also that other people's 'stuff' is also as unreal. They don't make up more 'stuff' about your 'stuff'. When you have done this, you are on your way to living from essence.

The opposite experience is to be owned by your 'stuff' and believe your 'stuff' is really important, and absolutely the 'right stuff'. How often has it been that you would rather 'be right' than have a relationship succeed? More than I am sure you want to acknowledge at this point.

The 'content of the mind' includes beliefs, judgments, opinions, and positions.

Beliefs are ideas that are perceived as reality. For example, "It can't be that the world could live in peace." Or, "It can't be that everyone can have intimate relationships." Or, "There isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want." Because we have a belief does not mean that we think about or even verbalize it. Most beliefs are so ingrained in our thinking that we merely think from them and not about them. Beliefs are the 'stuff' of untruth. If what you believed was true, you wouldn't need a belief about it. Truth does not require a belief about it. A truth stands alone outside of what you believe or not believe. Truth can be directly experienced, and what you can directly experience requires no belief. You don't need a belief in gravity for gravity to exist. Gravity is. Beliefs aren't. This is a consist quality of our 'stuff', it is based in nothing. Our daily thoughts and actions spring from these beliefs in what isn't.

Judgments are an artificial condition, in which, by conclusion of you, someone or something is seen as better or worse than you are. For example, "Rich people are mean." Or, "I'm a slow learner." The purpose of judgment is to make the mind right about what is believes.

Opinions are thoughts held as absolutes. "I have a right to my opinions." Yes you do. And opinions do nothing to affect a transformation in any condition that has persisted over time, or you have learned to put up with. Mostly, when someone is arguing for their right to have an opinion, they are dealing with some demons that have surfaced from beliefs about the unworthiness of themselves. Have some compassion for them instead of more opinions about them. That would be having your own 'stuff' being a bunch less serious to you and a stand for the relationship to work. If you want your relationships to work at the level of joy and satisfaction, and not just survival, then don't hold your opinions as the 'truth'. They are merely thoughts, and not absolutes. By all means speak your mind, or for that matter make it o.k. in your life to even yell out your opinions, just do it from context of validity and not the 'truth'. Remember, gravity is truth, your opinions are just 'stuff'. Powerful 'stuff', but still just 'stuff'. If you want to know how important your opinions are to the universe, wait for a clear night sky and go to the top of a hill and yell out your opinions to the stars. And then notice not one star moves for the sake of your opinion. "Stuff' is a great joke. It is great fun to have 'stuff'. It can only hurt us if we let it have us.

Positions are defensive posturing designed by you to uphold and perpetuate all of your 'stuff'. For example, "I'm right and you are wrong." That is a position about you and others. Just picture someone standing with his or her fists clenched, slightly leaning forward, and waiting to deflect a blow. Positions can be manifested physically, emotionally, or mentally. Over time people can get physically locked into a position. People mold their own bodies. I've seen people that are chronically hunched over from the 'position' of holding up the world suddenly and miraculously stand up straight when they mentally and emotionally give up their 'position'. It starts with awareness.

And all of this 'content of the mind', or 'stuff' conveniently makes the possessor of it right. If you think from the thought that all of this 'stuff' is somehow 'who you are', you are likely to be very unconscious about that fact that you have an insatiable need to be right. Thus, you will never have considered you are the thinker of the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. Things will always seem to happen to you. You will act as though you were the center of the universe. You will need to defend your 'stuff' and act as though your 'stuff' is the only real 'stuff'. This is called being stuck in your 'stuff'. "My 'stuff is more important than your 'stuff'." Your 'stuff' becomes heavy. My uncle once told me the greatest escape was our own escape from the center of the universe. You aren't any more your 'stuff' than you are your car. Lighten up about your 'stuff' before you make very real, as in a physical health problem. You are, on the other hand, responsible for your 'stuff'. You will explore that fact, in detail, in Chapter Two.

The 'content of the mind', the 'stuff' of unreality, generates corresponding emotions or attitudes. We tend to experience emotions that are in direct alignment with whatever belief, opinion, or position is activated in response to circumstances. So, just outside of the 'content of the mind' is the emotional layer. For example, if you were to be thinking and acting unconsciously from a belief that you can't really trust people, and then someone didn't return your phone call you might feel hurt. And this feeling of hurt can easily become evidence for the validity of the belief that you can't trust in the first place. That person violated our trust. The reason you can't trust is because people will 'hurt' you. Feelings further serve to make you right. Suffice it to say that emotions tend to confirm 'stuff'. Although, it is important in our spiritual growth to listen to and acknowledge our feelings, they are feedback as to the 'content of our mind' and not the 'truth'. Always valid, feelings tell us a great deal about the 'stuff' we carry. Learn to express your feelings, and remember that your aren't your feelings, you have them. If you don't you will be had by your feelings. Don't repress, express. When you learn that it is o.k. to have feelings, they stop having you. Ask your self often, "Is that a feeling I am having or is that feeling having me?" What you won't or can't express owns you.

Feelings generate behaviors. Our tendency is to behave automatically in direct alignment with our emotions. For example, it is hard to dance around the house when we feel depressed. And oppositely, it is hard to mope around when we feel enthusiastic about something. The next layer of experience is our outward behavior and the actions we take.

And finally the last layer of experience is results. We have results that are in alignment with how we behave, that are in alignment with how we are feeling, that are in alignment with our mind's content. Simply put, we will tend to unconsciously operate from unquestioned beliefs, positions, judgments, and opinions that we built solely for the purpose of survival. Much of the content of the mind is in contradiction with our essence. We had to learn how not to trust in order to survive. We thought. We learned how to be afraid. We learned how to lie, or at least hold back. We learned how to give up. We began to sell out our essence for the sake of survival.

From this model it is possible to see that results tend to confirm content of the mind. The content of the mind reconfirms the results we create. You become what your 'stuff'.

Results tend to confirm content, creating more results that tend confirm content. We end up being right about life. The content of our mind reconfirms the content of our life, and vice versa. Even if something outside of our beliefs show up, you simply explain it as the "exception that proves the rule." Around and around we go exclaiming, "I am doing the best I can." Have you noticed any patterns in your life? Well, hello!

But now you are to begin to remember that you are more than 'stuff'. You are the genius that builds 'stuff'. You are more than your mind. You are the genius that built it. You built it to survive. And survive you have, as evidenced by the fact you are here reading this. Once you have acknowledged that you have survived and survival is now a given, you can get on with what you are destined to do after survival. You are to thrive. You are on your way to living from essence.

The purpose of this first transformation is to operate directly from this essence and not just from content of the mind, to display more of our natural state of joy and satisfaction. This occurs first from the declaration to do so and from nothing else. You accomplish this alignment by doing the work, not just knowing about the work. Most people's lives atrophy not because they don't want to or don't know how to be alive, but rather they just don't want to pay the price of doing the work. They would rather be asleep. There are clear consequences from being asleep. One of the consequences is that you miss be fully alive. The only way to know you have been asleep is to wake up. So, wake up. If you have not experienced waking up in some part of your life, then you are simply asleep in that area.

Notice you aren't your mind, you have a mind. Once you have accomplished that, you will then be able to use your mind from that awareness. The mind is a tool, an incredible tool. You built this tool. Wake-up and learn about your mind. Learn to observe it. Learn to use it. Think for your Self. A carpenter knows he isn't his skill-saw. If he thought otherwise he wouldn't be able to use it effectively. He would end up cutting himself, or even worse. A good carpenter is very conscious when he uses a power-tool; otherwise he will pay the consequence, the possible loss of a limb! Your mind is the ultimate power-tool, and requires no less consciousness; otherwise there will be consequences in your life you might not want to pay.

An unobserved mind tends to go for being right about its 'stuff', rather than having life work at any other level, let alone joy and satisfaction. You can start now to operate more in alignment with natural essence and less from simple mind content. Stop being a simple recording of your beliefs and express your essence. Results that are sourced directly from essence are extraordinary and seemingly miraculous. Living your life from essence is mastery. You are the thinker of the thoughts and the dreamer of the dreams, and entitled to live that way.

Qualities of Human Essence (Comes with the package.)

Ø Perfect self-esteem
Ø Perfect self-image
Ø Acceptance
Ø Love
Ø Honesty
Ø Trust
Ø Persistence
Ø Commitment
Ø Integrity
Ø Courage
Ø Enthusiasm
Ø Inspiration
Ø Playfulness
Ø Passion
Ø Compassion
Ø Intuition
Ø Connection
Ø Liberty
Ø Unlimited
Ø Abundance
Ø Forgiveness

'Stuff" of the Mind That Blocks Expression of Essence*

Ø Something is wrong with me
Ø Something is wrong with how I look
Ø Need to manipulate
Ø Life is not safe
Ø Nobody cares
Ø I can't count on others or me
Ø I tried
Ø Must keep my options open
Ø I can get away with it
Ø Play it safe, never lose
Ø What will others think?
Ø I don't care.
Ø Don't look bad, life is serious
Ø What's the point?
Ø How am I doing?
Ø Distrust of self.
Ø Distrust of others.
Ø Needing to be right (Nobody is more unconscious than someone trying to be right is.)
Ø Needing to be in control
Ø Needing to be liked
Ø Having to 'look good'
Ø There isn't enough __________ to go around
Ø Illusion of separateness Ø Playing to not lose
Ø You can't count on others
Ø Not listening
Ø Rationalize
Ø Win/lose
Ø Get them first

*Note: None of this list is the truth, although you act as if it were. By acting this way you get to be right once more about how things are, when in fact they only appear that way. The 'way things are' is that you are essence and the rest you made up to survive. You went along to get along.

A simple and extremely effective way to operate from essence is to work from the outside in. Consciously behave in alignment with essence. For example, consciously display a behavior that is essence.

Did anyone ever tell you to change your attitude? I received that advice a great deal when I was growing up. My parents or teachers would often point out my 'bad attitude' and demand I change it. I was rarely in disagreement with them. I also often wanted to change my attitude. They gave me the advice and yet never told me how. How do I change my attitude? Well, here is how. Since content, attitude, and behavior tend to confirm each other quite naturally, when you change a behavior the attitude will follow. By working from the outside in you can alter an attitude and short circuit some 'content'. Maybe not right away, but with persistence and repetition it works. No matter how you are feeling right now, let's put it to the test.

Check in with your emotional state right now. How do you feel? Give your level of emotional excitement a rating, right now. On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you? A number 10 is a level where you can hardly contain yourself because you are soooooo excited. A number 1 is you are almost asleep and maybe cannot remember what you are rating right now. So what is your rating?

Now, get up from your reading and do the following. I double dare you. Jump and down three times in a row and each time you leave the ground yell out at the top of your lungs, "I'm excited!" It doesn't matter where you are or who is looking. And if that does matter to you, it is time to get over what you think others think about you and start being concerned with what works! Go ahead and do it now!

Did you do it? Now check in with your level of excitement. Did it shift? Did you raise it a few notches? With practice you can master any attitude. You can master your attitude by changing your behavior.

Reclaim your essence. Consciously live at essence by acting as though you have a mind, instead of your mind having you.

Repeat after me. "I have a mind. It is full of 'stuff'. I filled it up. I am not my mind"

It is that simple.

Mini-gods and a Well Hidden Secret

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when only the gods lived on the Earth, they played glorious games. Gods just love to play and gods just naturally create and the height of creation for a god was to invent a game more creative, fun, and entertaining than any before. They competed to see who was the most creative!

Zeus, the father of all gods, loved to watch his children create and often joined in the games. They played lightening to see who could throw the biggest and most accurate lightening bolt of all. Some of the gods got so good they could hit a specific tree all the way from atop of Mt. Olympus. Zeus rewarded the best and most creative gods with praise and love. But even gods apparently get bored, and when they became bored one of them would invent another game to play.

"Let's play tidal wave!"

"In this new and exciting game we will move the oceans at will, sending gigantic waves crashing over whole continents. We will mold the earth with water! In this game we will find out which god is the best artist with water!" Neptune obviously won.

When they became bored with that game, a god invented earthquake!

"The purpose of this game is to shake the earth with such power as to open cracks with precision and creativity. What shapes can we gods create with the earth?" They made mountains and valleys and canyons until there was no land left untouched by their hands. The earth became a glorious piece of art to the gods. And they played with passion and joy. Zeus, the father of all the gods, it is said, decided to go off and take a nap in the middle of a loud game of earthquake. Off behind a large oak, by himself, he leaned back and fell asleep. The other gods played earthquake for awhile, and then they became bored again.

"What now shall we play?" one of the asked.

"Let's play lightening."

"Naw, been there, done that."

"How about tidal wave?"

"Booooorrrrinnnnng."

"Well, what do you want to play?"

"Something new. Something daring."

"I got it!" one of the younger gods yelled.

He went on to explain, "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Let's create some imitation gods and play games with them!"

All the other gods thought this to be the most creative idea for a game they had ever heard, and heartily went about creating a perfect imitation of each of them.

From the heights of Mt. Olympus they taught the new imitation mini-gods to populate the earth. The more mini-gods, they thought, the more fun it would be. And soon the earth was filling with mini-gods. The gods taught the mini-gods all sorts of games to play, family, clan, community, nations, and war to name a few. War was one of the most favorite games of the gods to watch the mini-gods play. This is because the mini-gods would declare war on other mini-gods in the name of certain gods that had taken favor with certain mini-god. This was a great stroke to the god's ego! And they encouraged this by creating heroes. The mini-gods worshiped the gods on Mt. Olympus and prayed to them often. The gods felt neede, loved and very important. Certainly, they thought, this was the greatest game of all! We will never be bored again.

Zeus, while still sleeping, had no idea what the other gods had been up to. As he awoke from his sleep he heard the other gods cheering. Anxious to join in a game he hurried to see what they were playing.

"What is the game we are playing now? Hurricane? Earthquake? Tidal wave?" Zeus asked.

"No, Zeus. We have invented the greatest game of all! There is no end to the variations to this game. We will never be bored again. Come and look!"

Zeus walked over and looked down from Mt. Olympus to see the earth inhabited by thousands and thousands of the imitation mini-gods. This he knew was a terrible mistake.

"What have you done?" he groaned.

A younger god stepped forward and said, "We have created the most amazing game of all. That is what we have done. And we did it without your help. We expected your praise, and not your reprimand."

"You really don't know what you have done, do you?" Zeus asked with the compassion only a father can muster for a child he loves.

"Did you make them perfect imitations?" Zeus asked.

"Of course. Would a god create anything less than perfection?" a young god answered.

"Can they think, just like us?" Zeus continued.

"Yes. In order for them to play games for us to watch they would certainly have to think for themselves."

"Do they have feelings, just like us?" Zeus inquired.

"Yes. They can be amazingly passionate about playing."

"Can they create, just like us?" Zeus asked as he leaned forward and raised one eyebrow. He always raised an eyebrow when he was about to make a point, or deliver a lesson not to be forgotten.

There was a hush over all the gods on Mt. Olympus. The young god who was answering Zeus' questions stepped forward some more.

He asked, "What have we done father?"

"Don't you see? If they find out they are perfect imitations and that they can think, feel, and create just like us, we will be soon forgotten. What would they need with gods? They are a perfect likeness of us. When they find out, we are history. We will have to fade into the past. We will walk among them, no different than them. They will come up here and move into Mt. Olympus, and there goes the neighborhood!"

The gods on Mt. Olympus then created panic. They panicked. And panicking gods are not a pretty sight. They ran around yelling, "What are we to do? We will all be in unemployment lines! No more gods games! We will end up renting! We will be bored beyond belief! We must hide the truth from them."

Zeus allowed them to experience panic. Then he created clarity.

Zeus raised his hand and said, "Stop."

They stopped.

Zeus asked, "And where do you propose to hide the truth of there essence, that they are perfect imitations of us?"

Another young god stepped forward, and it was not the first young god who had come up with the idea of mini-gods in the first place. He was being very quiet and inventing a game called being invisible in a crowd.

Anyway, the young god suggested, "Perhaps we could hide the truth of their essence on top of the highest mountain on earth. Certainly, they will never find it there!"

Zeus replied, "That won't do. They will eventually find a way up there. And when they find the truth of their essence, we will be out of a job. Wherever we hide the truth, it must be a place they will never think to look."

Another young god stepped forward and excitedly offered, "Put the truth on the bottom of the ocean, in the deepest trench we have created from earthquake and tidal wave! They will never get to the bottom of the ocean!"

"Oh yes they will. Someday they will invent a way to breathe under water. They are very creative. Remember, they are just like us." Zeus added.

"Zeus, save us (our jobs). Where can we possibly hide the truth that they will never think to look?

With his voice he spoke, but with his heart he expressed, "I will tell you where to put the truth of their essence. The truth that they have the power to create, the passion of a god, and that the world is theirs. We will put in the one place they will never think to look. They will climb the highest mountain looking for the truth. They will swim to the bottom of the ocean looking for the truth. But they won't find it there, for it will always be where they aren't looking. We will put it inside of them. We will make as many copies of the truth as there are mini-gods, and I will send you all on the mission to hide a copy of the truth inside each one of them. This will work, for that is the last place they will ever look."

And it did work. People will look everywhere for the truth of their essence, except for the one place it is, inside of them.

You are the dreamer of the dream, and you are the thinker of the thought. Acknowledge the truth;

"What you are looking for is who is looking."
-- St Francis of Assissi