Must you go from one extreme to another? Must you go from high excitement to low despair? Must you? It is like you let yourself be whipped from side to side by the winds of change. But you are not a ball to be batted back and forth. You are a Child of God, and I am your ballast.

You are not tossed from hand to hand. Why then are you so perturbed and disturbed by what someone says or what occurs? Why must every gust of wind or wave of the ocean shake you so? They must not. You are not so vulnerable as you make out.

Consider yourself a great Buddha who sits still. What rocks the Buddha? He sits and he smiles. He is his own peace. Mountains may erupt, and the Buddha sits and the Buddha smiles. What does he know that you do not? He knows he does not have to run from side to side. Do you really think you must?

Established in peace, the Buddha is not disrupted. Buddha is magnificent in his peace. His mind is calm. What can shatter his calmness of mind? What is he attuned to that you are not? What does he possess that you do not besides calm and deep awareness of his connectedness to Me? Why, you can have peace and love any time you decide. Decide once and for all.

You are not what happens around you. You are not what seems to happen to you. You are not your thoughts. You are not your actions. You are not your reactions. You are Child of God.

You are not a whim of the world.

You are not an interloper.

If life is a tent, you are one of the posts that hold it together. The canvas may blow in the breeze, but you are a stalwart post who keeps the tent together.

Know who you are and your position in the universe.

You are not a fluttermill.

You are My eyes on the world.

You look and you see on My behalf.

You are a witness to the world. You are like an objective reporter. You are present at events, and yet you know that events are independent of you. A reporter is not derailed. He observes. He notes down. He does not bear arms. What occurs occurs. Whatever may happen, it does not happen to him. He is there as an objective observer, and he writes it down. Even in the middle of the fray, he is not in it.

He watches the stream of life. He may be in the stream, but he knows he is an observer of the stream. He may get wet, but he knows he is not wetness. He knows he is the same observer in or out of the water or on a branch of a tree.

What is the merit of getting upset at what befalls? It is not your assignment nor instruction to get upset. It is your instruction to be settled whatever your circumstances are. You are not to get red-faced. In the midst, you are yet on the periphery. You are a neutral observer. You are like the United Nations. You observe and you report. You care but you are cool.

You are apart from agitation. A coconut can fall from a tree onto your head. You recognize that a coconut fell and it landed on your head. You rub your head. You do not take the event personally. You are not upset with the coconut. You do not rail against the coconut. You do not hold a grudge against coconuts.

Life occurs. All you know is that you were under a tree, and a coconut fell.