Long ago, beloved ones, you did journey into the unknown as explorers. In truth, you were delighted to go forth, and now, because of the cause and effect of your present life's journey, you have become somewhat hesitant to enter what you call the unknown. Of course, such hesitation is understandable and most natural! Yet herein resides the truth of your concept of the great unknown. Even in this lifetime, you have been journeying into the unknown. It has been as if you are sitting in a rowboat and rowing along, viewing where you have been, how the events have turned out, and what you could have done differently to create your own cause and effect—all the while journeying with your back to the great unknown.

What is different now? What has occurred? You have awakened! You have turned, so to speak, and are no longer facing the view of where you have been. You are now facing the great unknown! Initially, such awareness frightened you and, as you have the phrase, stopped you in your tracks. "What will I do now?" you asked yourself. "I don't know which way to turn or which decision to make," you whispered to yourself. You discovered that many were asking the same questions.

So what occurred then? You returned with fervor to your past practices, practices of meditation, of manifestation, of speaking positive truths—of course you did. Yet what were you actually doing? You were returning to the ways of survival. Why? Fear. Fear of anything, or more specifically, fear of the unknown, will always place you at the portal of survival. It is within the practices of survival, regardless of how beautiful those practices might be, that you begin to believe the illusion, the distortion. And the distortion says what? The distortion says that if you move the external world, if you give a little nudge here and a little pull there, it will manifest as you choose it to. The distortion says that you must strive to change your manner of residing within the cause and effect. And, most importantly, survival says—in one way or another, perhaps even as a subtle hint—that you are a victim to circumstances that are beyond your control. You might try—try very hard—to refuse that conclusion, that conclusion of being a victim, but for some reason it still resides, waiting for your participation.