Posts Tagged ‘divine’
August 10th, 2009
Sometimes loved ones appear to leave us by choice, either ours or theirs; or they leave when it is time for them to leave.
They either leave to a place in this state of being called earth where it is possible to see them again, or they make a transition to a state of being where seeing them physically is now not possible.
Choice or time, physical or not, all forms of leaving have a few things in common and one Truth that underlies it all; although loved ones may leave Love does not, which means we are never alone, or abandoned, or lost, or unloved.
Our emotions may tell us otherwise. Besides missing them we often experience regrets. We think “I could have done more,” or we ask, “What did I do wrong?” These thoughts can be helpful, but only if we treat them as a learning experience and not as guilt producers.
Facing what we could have done better or differently is the same as becoming skilled at anything by observing what we have done and practicing doing it even better the next time. If an athlete stays in the pain and guilt of not doing well longer than necessary to correct the action, then the cycle of not doing well continues.
This is true in all the walks of our life. We are becoming skilled at living and loving, and as we learn from what we do and move towards a higher understanding of perfecting that skill we don’t allow guilt to reside within us. Instead we practice expanding our life more profoundly into love.
By applying wettable sulfur to the moss and the grass on our hill I was providing an environment where moss could thrive, and the grass and weeds would not. This same idea can be applied to our relationships.
When we provide the environment that we wish to live in, then others will find comfort there or they won’t. This doesn’t make one good, or one bad. Although the relationship may make a transition to a different form, Love remains and we will experience that higher Love if we don’t allow regret or guilt or fear or anger to take control within our thinking.
In 1 Corinthians 13 we read that charity never fails. What is this charity, or Love, that Paul is talking about? It can’t be human love because it does often fail. It must be the omnipotent Love that is ever present.
As we choose to practice a higher awareness of omnipresent Love and become more skilled at letting go of the small worldview of how things are and to yielding to the Divine’s direction, we are providing an environment for others to also experience the Love that never fails.
Those that are traveling that same road as us at this time may walk with us. Those that are traveling a different road at this time may not. But, Love has never left us or them.
The other, seemingly more permanent, form of leaving is the transition we call death. This can feel harder to deal with because we know we won’t bump into our loved ones somewhere in our life, and we can’t call them on the phone, visit them in person, or even send them an email.
And yet, we know there is no death. We know this because we know that the infinite intelligence that we know as the Divine or God is Life Itself. We know this Life to be omnipresent and omniscient. We know that there is no beginning and no ending.
Sometimes this is easy to forget because we are so used to celebrating the seeming beginning of life known as birth and mourning the seeming ending called death. But, neither is real. Both are a marking of time born within a perception that we have adopted as our own, but is not the Truth of Life.
Sometimes we are witnesses to that passage between the awareness of the life that we live in now, and a new awareness of life that those who are making a transition experience. This is always evidence for us that Life continues and Love remains, and we can rejoice and find comfort and peace in that awareness.
At the end of that same verse in Corinthians Paul says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
As we experience more of “knowing as we are known” we will experience less of the sense of loss at what only appears as a leaving and more of the joy of knowing that there is no loss, nor leaving, there is only omnipresent Love Loving Itself seen as Life.
July 2nd, 2009
Core values, family history, worldview agreements, and personal habits all entwine together to present a picture we call our life. Our lives are like a movie that goes on and on because we go on about it.
We stand in the middle of this movie, like characters on the screen, and try to change it or simply live well within it, using of course our core values, family history, worldview agreements, and personal habits to do so.
If these ideas all come together to form a pretty picture then life is good, when they don’t then life is not so good. When the worldview script of lack and discouragement appears as everyone in the movie suffering, then getting out of the movie called our life can seem impossible.
Standing in the middle of this life, or picture or movie, and trying to change it for the better or even survive will only have a temporary impact, because of one very key fact. The movie and the movie viewer are one.
This is not a whimsical idea. This is fact. From the book Biocentrism: “Moreover, if one accepts that the external world occurs only in Mind, in consciousness, and that it’s the interior of one’s brain that’s cognized “out there” at this moment, then of course everything is connected with everything else.” (Robert Lanza MD with Bob Berman)
This means it is absolutely possible to change our lives because our lives are the out-picturing of (but not the creation of ) what we believe and perceive to be true. It also means that there is only one way to both permanently make a change and that is to shift our perception from within.
But what if we want more than just a better life? What if we want to be what we really are, what if we want to experience ourselves as the outcome or idea of the infinite Mind, or omnipotent Light? What then?
To do this we must re-think reality and re-set our perception altogether. We must stop identifying ourselves as human, stop believing what the five senses tell us and listen instead to the quiet voice within; stop acting as if the movie and script are real, stop wanting the story to get better, and want instead to let go and live as the idea of God.
This is a radical thought and decision. It demands a root change. It demands that we reset our perception, or follow the biblical word “repent” which means turn around and walk the other way; turn away from the movie playing in our heads which results in what we call our lives.
Turn away from identifying ourselves as human and re-set our thinking and perception. It demands that we let go of how we want it to be, think it is, and then follow through with action and commitment to Truth.
This radical shift demands that we turn away from trying to fix things and people; turn away from our story and turn instead to the fact that what exists in our lives is and who we think we are is one and the same.
This is not a half way decision, it is a complete shift. Yes, it may appear to take time to reset habits and beliefs, but that too is only set within our agreement of what is true.
It may appear that others need to change first. Again, not true. What appears as they, or that, is really our own perception. There is no way to separate the thinker from what it is thinking.
Our responsibility then is not to create, control, or to make happen. Our responsibility is to stop separating ourselves from the ever present infinite intelligent flow or force we call God; it is to let go and be what we are, which in turn re-sets what we experience as our lives.
As we do this we should expect more beauty, peace, abundance, grace, happiness, love and all the other fruits of good to be more present in and as our lives.
Not because we worked at becoming good and wise humans, but because we gave up the story and returned home by turning within and consistently listening and following the still small voice, by paying attention to the symbols that prove the presence of God, and continually re-setting our perceptions to match our current, highest and best understanding of the Divine.
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February 23rd, 2009
Have you ever said to yourself, or had it said to you, or said to another, “Just snap out of it.” This statement supposes that we have the ability, knowledge, and desire at that moment to do so, and this is often not the case.
So this little article is dedicated to all of us for those times when “snapping out if it” sounds good, but feels impossible.
Of course we all know that the first step in “snapping out if it” is wanting to. When we are deep in joylessness or discouragement or despair or doubt the desire to leave this state of mind may have also abandoned us.
The Question Then Is: “How Do We Become Willing?”
Here are two quick ways to get over the “why bother feeling” and begin to be willing to “snap out of it” and be happy again.
1. Pause and remember a time you were happy. To remember might take some deep recalling and imagination.
Compare it to how you feel now. Really feel the difference. Where you more comfortable physically and mentally when you were happy?
Keep feeling the difference until you catch that glimmer of “willingness” and hold on to feeling. Think of it as a tiny flame you have to keep alive.
2. Do it for someone else. In everyone’s life there is someone else, or a cause, that we love enough to choose to do something for them, if not for ourselves. Albert Einstein said, “Only a life lived for others is worth living.” Be willing to snap out of it so you can “do” for someone or something else.
OK, I’m Willing Now What – What’s There To Be Happy About?
This next step is easier than discouragement would want us to believe. It’s the step of gratitude. Everyone knows that being grateful is the perfect “snap out of it remedy” but exactly how is that done?
Have you ever told yourself to be grateful and heard the answer, “No I don’t want to.”Of course you have! Why would discouragement want you to leave it?
We are going to be grateful in spite of it! Why? Repeat steps one and two again if necessary and focus on that willingness flame. We are going to get it to burn brighter by blowing gratitude on it; but how, and for what?
Most of the time when we have fallen into a “funk” it is not just one thing that has taken us there. Usually it is that one little extra thing that happens and our internal self finally says, “I can’t deal with it!”
Uncovering all that has taken us down might take forever, and often keeps us there as we ruminate over it like a cow chewing its cud.
Instead, let’s begin with a premise, a point of view, that happiness is something we can be, and have a right to be, and is actually the by-product of the Divine Order of Good running the universe.
Yes, in the funk we say, “Yea right,” and that’s ok. Let’s prove it to ourselves because remember, it is more comfortable for everyone when we allow ourselves to happy.
Here are a few examples of how to be grateful in a way that resets the internal system back to its original state of joy and happiness.
In today’s climate of uncertainly and change (which is always present just more promoted now then it has ever been) it may appear even more difficult to step away from it. Don’t believe it. Snapping out of it now is just the same as it was thousands of years ago and will be in the future because the lie is always the same just said in a variety of ways.
Let’s take one of the lie’s variations that pop into everyone’s mind when in a funk and see what we can do with it. How about the thought, “Nothing I ever do makes a difference, and no one really cares anyway.”
These thought, if true, would mean there is an aspect of the Divine Order that is not working right. This is impossible. Therefore our perception shift will be to prove this fact to ourselves so that we can once again experience happiness.
To do this we will need to notice those things that do make a difference. Notice that when you smile at someone it lights up their face. Notice the dew sitting on the grass makes it sparkle. Watch a baby smile, a bird sing in the tree, and the sun rise in the morning.
Avoid the thought that none of this is because of you, and instead translate what you are seeing back to qualities for which you can be grateful.
Perhaps it goes like this. “I am grateful that someone is happy, I am grateful for all those sparkles, I am grateful for the innocence of babies, I am grateful for birds singing, I am grateful that the sun always rises.”
Feel the Truth of this!
Keep going; the flame is starting to grow: “I am grateful for the order expressed in the stars moving smoothly in the night, I am grateful for the beauty of a flower, I am grateful for the ability to see all the evidence of Divine Order of which I am an integral part.”
Keep going; fan the flames with more gratitude for the power of Love, become immersed in the feeling of it. “I am grateful that trees send down roots, the bulbs that bloom in spring, and the clouds that scuttle across the sky. I am grateful for the presence of light in all its forms, for the laughter of children and the hugs of my friends.”
As we fan this flame of willingness with gratitude we will rise out any state of mind that hides happiness from us. Translating “things” back into thoughts, or qualities, we find the spiritual joy that opens our eyes to the infinite power of Good and Love that is the ground of our being.
We are not required to swing between joy and sorrow because within the Divine there is no “shadow of turning,” there is only the eternal now of ever present Joy. Happiness is a by-product of this awareness, and we can always choose to return to it.
Next time you hear “snap out of it” you can say, “Ok, I know how to do that!” And you know what? Sometimes that statement is all it takes!
