The wisdom of the diamond dome brings recognition that the inner hopelessness occurring at this point is objective, that the dilemma is due to this inner activity. The helplessness is due to the fact that such inner activity only entrenches the soul into being the separate individual. More important, the helplessness is objective because no action on the part of the soul can release her from this trap. What is needed is not activity, not a doing of any kind, but a giving up of the struggle. The soul needs to recognize that she actually can do nothing here; she needs to forget about trying to release herself. She needs to forget even about wanting or desiring the release. The resolution does not usually arise through an inner decision based on understanding. It cannot be a surrender based on a strategy. It is more that the understanding truly renders the soul helpless, and by finally accepting her helplessness she simply lets go and forgets her inner struggle. She accepts that she will accept whatever happens, for it is the will of the inner truth, not hers. It is at this point that the soul beings to realize, usually to her surprise, that she is feeling at ease. She may feel a delicate and light presence entering her head from the top, seeping into her body and consciousness. She tastes a delicate sweetness, sees a beautiful golden white light, and feels caressed and bathed by a soft and loving medium. The delicate and sweet light releases her inner tensions, softens her heart, and soothes her anguish. She cannot help but melt into the gentle hands of this loving and caring presence.

Many people see their situation from the perspective that they have problems and they have to get rid of the problems. But this is not the way we work here. There is something that needs to be done, and it can be done through a certain process. Part of that process is the struggle. You can see your struggle as a struggle with problems, or you can see the struggle itself as a problem (although it isn’t really that way). The process is about allowing your mind to accept conflicts and difficulties. In the end, the struggle with the personality will bring out Essence. It cannot be done in any other way. People sometimes complain, “How come it’s so difficult? Why do I have so much trouble, so much pain?” It’s because you’re not looking at things from the right perspective. It’s true that you have pain. You see it as bad. But it is bad only if you think the whole thing is a problem. If you look at it from the perspective that this is a situation to learn from, then it is simply a chemical reaction. . . . . . I would be cruel and uncompassionate to take your struggle away from you. And you would be doing a disservice to yourself to get rid of your struggle. You need to see this from the correct perspective and get involved in it, embrace it. In that way, you are making yourself. You are actually working to make yourself. And the deepest realizations, the most genuine satisfactions, the most lasting fulfillments are those which are personal to you, which are very intimate to your heart.

Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, “Look here! This way!” That part of you loves you so much that it doesn’t want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you don’t listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.

Struggle is a friction inside you. That friction will make certain parts of you get sweeter and sweeter. I’m not talking about indulging in suffering. I’m not talking about causing pain for yourself. I’m talking about genuinely grappling with whatever situation is at hand, taking responsibility and really confronting it, whatever it is, and being there for whatever issues, whatever problems, whatever conflicts, whatever situations you have in your life. Completely embrace them, wholeheartedly involve yourself with life, whatever the situation. Do your best to experience what is happening, to observe it, to understand it.

Every personal problem signals something about yourself and reality that you don't understand and that you have not integrated. Difficulties are invitations to investigate with curiosity and find out what is actually here. When you begin to investigate a problem, you realize that some part of you is not there. You encounter a hole in your beingness and consciousness that feels as if something is missing. If you go about investigating what is missing with sincerity and truthfulness and curiosity, you will start to find out about it.

So, a central value of the struggle is that it helps you know yourself. But it has other ramifications. One of them is that to struggle and grapple with an issue completely and wholeheartedly is the way to develop your belly center, your Kath. It is the way to ground your realization, your attainments.

And we spend the rest of our lives trying to make the world, ourselves, our reality conform to an idea, to a world that we created when we were very young. That activity consumes a tremendous amount of energy. You try to create an entire universe that doesn't exist. All the time, each one of us expends an enormous amount of energy, effort, and attention trying to create a reality that doesn't actually exist. Day and night we fight to keep reality in place. Even when we sleep the struggle continues in our dreams. Molding reality to fit an image in your head creates vast human suffering.

So the more we recognize that we are the source of what we need, the more we are relaxed and light about the inner path. Then it can stop being a path of struggle, a path of effort, where we try to make something happen as if inner work were a matter of accomplishment. If you realize that the source is within you, then you realize you just need to be relaxed, open, and open minded and to let things happen on their own. You don’t need to do anything about them. When we can recognize and allow that ease, then the unfoldment of our souls becomes a natural and spontaneous thing. And then inquiry becomes a lighthearted playful participation in the soul’s journey. So as you see, all of the elements we have discussed in this chapter interconnect. Love of the truth—which fuels the inquiry—will manifest itself as an openness, which will spontaneously give rise to a curiosity. The curiosity brings in a lighthearted playfulness, an ease and a flow, a purposeless engagement in life. This playful quality invites a sense of adventure and experimentation in the process of exploring and discovering the nature of reality. And all of these qualities are natural expressions of the Yellow aspect, the heart’s joy and delight in participating in the creative dynamism of the soul’s unfoldment.

Also, your struggle in the Work is a genuine, total response to the deepest longings and yearnings of your heart. It is an acknowledgment of those deepest longings. Without struggle, you have to dismiss those yearnings for the deepest aspects of you and of your reality, and you will lead a life that is superficial, a life without depth, without roots that reach deeply into your true being. The more you struggle with an issue, the deeper you will be as a human being. If your problems are taken from you or if you discharge them quickly without really exploring and understanding them, you will deny yourself the opportunity of reaching more deeply into your being. The same is true with essential states. You might experience a sense of your own value by working through a certain issue, but that is not the end of it. The experience of value, the value itself, can get deeper if you struggle with the issues even more. The effect becomes more concentrated. It’s like apricot juice—if you simmer it, it will begin to evaporate and get thicker. On the surface, where the juice is turning to steam, it seems lighter, but below the surface, it is getting thicker and denser. It is the same with Essence—lighter on the surface, denser underneath, and getting thicker and more concentrated the more it simmers, the more heat there is, the more you struggle.