Question: Where do we look for the power we need to be happy and safe?

Answer: Look for this power not in a person, place, possession, idea, or belief, but through the new understanding that your higher, permanent nature needs no power outside of itself in order to be in charge of an inner or outer attacker. Its strength is what I call the Silent Force. It alone can do for you what you have been unable to do for yourself.

The Silent Force is the understanding that you need not answer to any disturbance within you. Any form of response to a negative state, other than to silently observe it, is always a form of resistance to it. And what we resist persists. You have been taught by wrong example and false traditions that negative thoughts and feelings such as fear, anger, and hatred are something you are responsible for; that they belong to you. Which brings us to a very important idea: you are indeed responsible for them, but not to them. Inner aches and dark feelings are not yours. They never have been and they never will be, no matter how much these inner impostors try to convince you otherwise.

It is unnatural for any human being to be dominated by anything. Your only true responsibility is to understand this higher fact. And your corrected understanding places you in the right relationship with all gloomy thoughts and defeated feelings, which is that you simply have nothing to do with them. I am not saying to act or pretend as though dark feelings don’t exist. This is very important to understand, because pretending as though a rampaging elephant isn’t there or that it’s a cute bunny may feel good temporarily, but it leaves you in danger. Seeing the elephant and recognizing it for what it is allows intelligence to take you where you need to be—which is out of the jungle.

No grief or disturbance of any kind is yours. These huge inner shadows with all their howling may be present, but where is it written that they belong to you? When we walk through a zoo, we don’t identify with the shrieks and whines of the animals, so why do we fall into the self-confining cage of trying to make what is dark into what is light? Ever tried yelling at a bunch of chattering chimps or squawking birds to quiet them down? Insisting that they settle down just disturbs them all the more. Inwardly, the same law holds true. Whenever we seek some power to make a fear go away, all we have done is empower the fear. There is no power that can make light out of darkness. Remember this lesson the next time you feel compelled to help yourself out of a dark inner thought or feeling. Remember the Silent Force. Go silent! This silence and inner light will do for you what you have not been able to do for yourself. It will turn the dark inner skies into pleasant blue ones. Go silent, and watch the dark clouds of thoughts and feelings pass through you. Behind them is the sun.