True Rest

From ChannelingWiki

True Rest is a term associated with the Michael Teachings as one of the "four pillars", the others being True Play, True Work, and True Study, which support working on the Life Task.

Definition

The state of rest as it is experienced on the physical plane can be described thusly:

It is a temporary suspension of “normal” activity in which the typical processes of the mind, the body, and emotions, are allowed to revert to their actual, natural state.

All of you – and we say this without exception – spend the majority of your time in a state of constant contraction, in a state of constant tension. Without this conflict, both internal and external, there would be little growth. It is a function of the physical plane to provide you with a constant sense of imbalance so that you have something to move against. A state of rest, therefore, is a momentary setting aside of this perpetual process in order to touch again your actual natural state.

By identifying for you actions that allow you to reach a state of rest – in other words, by identifying your “true rest”, your one of several methods of accessing rest, we identify the touch points that you can use in a particular lifetime so as to remember the pathway to a momentary state of rest. They will be different in every lifetime, of course, for they depend largely upon body memory from earlier times or even from previous lifetimes You hold within your physical body, of course, all the memories of everything that has ever occurred to you. This reaches through time into other lifetimes, to some extent at least, and these elements of True Rest are doorways to again allow you access more easily to a state of rest.

There are those, of course, who have developed sufficient mind-body “control” that allows them to reach this state of rest, but this in itself is a state of control and not of the complete openness that is associated with real rest.

Question: My true rest was identified as watching clouds go by. I don't feel much of anything when watching clouds - if anything I get impatient.

Although rest is, as we said, your actual natural state, keep in mind that the degree with which you engage with the elements consistent with the physical plane affects your ability to easily achieve momentary true rest. In other words, if you have piled upon your plate a great many “issues” then they will of course be your energetic first priority in much of your day to day activities. It is as if you must sift through hundreds of layers of energetic activity in order to reach what is at core of you, your own inner self, which is where you find this state of rest. Those of you who tend to resist this process will not only have a lot of issues and challenges, but also will typically have

Question: Are the suggestions for what might help getting to a state of true rest?

It is within the power of each of you to reach the state of rest as we have described. That is not to say that you will take advantage of your ability to do so.

Let us expand a bit more on the nature of rest and what it does for you. Understand that as we said before, each of you incarnates with a set of keys, if you will, to the doors that allow you to reach this state. Again they are different in every lifetime, although some may follow you from life to life if they are particularly useful. All of you, as we said, have the ability to reach this state almost at any time and it is only what you pile up as a barricade between yourself and these doorways that prevents you from getting there whenever you wish. Many of you intentionally deny this experience because it would be terrifying to truly allow yourself to experience Who You Are without all the other sensations that arise from everything you have built around you as a protective device. It is ironic, is it not, that those who most need a sense of rest are usually the ones who erect the most walls between yourselves and getting it. When one is in that state of rest, a sense of time is suspended momentarily as you move into a state of being without any other distractions, thoughts, feelings, or sensations. It can be terrifying to give up all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that you feel define you, which is why many of you resist moving into an actual state of rest even momentarily. For doing so would require acknowledging who you really rather than who you have always thought you were.

Question: What’s the relationship between meditation and True Rest? They sound similar.

As you know, there are many forms of meditation, each with their own desired result. Meditation itself is an ambiguous term and many meanings have been ascribed to it that have changed the original intention. For some, it is possible to completely go inside the Self so as to achieve a state of a feeling of utter expansion, and this would be for some a way to achieve true rest. We would say that the original intent of the term “meditation” and what we describe as true rest are one and the same. In other words, it is a state of suspension, a state of acknowledging nothing more than being.

Question: What are some good practices of meditation that correspond to True Rest?

Again, it is up to the individual to create a sense of keys to the doorways that bring them to true rest. Meditation is not the pathway for everyone. For some, it is watching clouds pass. For others it is being with animals or cleaning. All of these activities, when taken at their heart are meditational in nature. A person may find true rest in almost any activity, depending on what has been chosen for that lifetime. Each of you will have more than one way to achieve way to achieve true rest, more than one type of doorway and this so as to allow you to achieve it under many different types of circumstances.